Exploring the effects of SourceForge.net coordination and communication tools on the efficiency of open source projects using data envelopment analysis

  • Authors:

  • Stefan Koch

  • Affiliations:

  • Institute for Information Business, Vienna University of Economics and BA, Vienna, Austria 1090

  • Venue:
  • Empirical Software Engineering
  • Year:
  • 2009

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Abstract

In this paper we explore possible benefits of communication and coordination tools in open source projects using an efficiency score derived from data envelopment analysis (DEA) as dependent variable. DEA is a general non-parametric method for efficiency comparisons without asking the user to define any relations between different factors or a production function. The method can account for economies or diseconomies of scale, and is able to deal with multi-input, multi-output systems in which the factors have different scales. Using two different data sets, successful and random open source projects, retrieved from SourceForge.net, we analyze impacts on their efficiency from the usage of communication and coordination tools. The results were mixed with no clear positive effects being proven consistently: In the data set of successful projects, mostly negative influences were found. On the contrary, tool adoption showed positive relationships to efficiency in the random data set. This stresses the importance of development status as a moderating variable and might also hint at threshold values for tool benefits. In addition, adoption of tools outside the hosting platform may be more likely for successful projects.