Open Source Technical Support: A Look at Peer Help-Giving

Authors:
Vandana Singh;Michael B. Twidale;Dinesh Rathi
Affiliations:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign;University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign;University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Venue:
HICSS '06 Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - Volume 06
Year:
2006

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Abstract

We explore online technical support of open source software by a study of postings to discussion boards. Our results indicate that there are several types of detail that are required by the help-givers to be able to diagnose and remediate help-seekers' difficulties. As a result help interactions may iterate somewhat inefficiently. These findings are compared with studies of telephone technical help lines for commercial software, and library reference interviews. By considering certain rather problematic interactions we can identify ways to improve the process.