Network Perspectives on Open Source Sustainability and Novelty

Open-source software (OSS) has become increasingly important, permeating diverse sectors and delivering substantial economic advantages alongside notable societal influence. Within the realm of open-source software (OSS), two fundamental questions revolve around the sustainability of software development and the creation of innovative software projects. The sustainability of OSS projects heavily relies on the active participation of volunteer developers, necessitating a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms that allure and sustain their contributions. Similarly, the development of innovative software projects serves as a pivotal driver for developer engagement and organizational investment in the open-source domain. The emergence of innovative OSS projects attracts significant attention due to their potential to instigate transformative shifts in the current software landscape, resulting in substantial impact. 

A wealth of empirical research has been devoted to exploring these themes. However, prior studies have predominantly focused on associating outcome variables solely with the inherent characteristics of individual projects or the developers involved. This approach often neglects the intricate web of relationships that bind projects and developers, encompassing dependencies among projects and the social networks that connect developers. 

My thesis extends the existing body of research by employing a network-analysis framework to investigate the interplay between projects and developers. The first part of my thesis studies developers’ interactions within Twitter networks and their collaborative networks established through joint contributions to projects. Through this investigation, I ascertain the impact of developer engagements on social media and the code hosting platforms on the allocation of developer attention and efforts, subsequently influencing the sustainability of projects. 

In the second part, I introduce a novel metric for gauging project novelty in OSS, grounded in the analysis of projects’ dependency networks. Additionally, I evaluate the networks of interactions among developers on code hosting platforms, exploring the relationship between access to knowledge through these interactions and its impact on project novelty. 

In summary, my research contributes both theoretically to the OSS literature and practically to OSS practitioners. I offer actionable insights to developers on enhancing project sustainability and fostering innovation. Furthermore, by adopting a network perspective, I provide a nuanced understanding of project sustainability and novelty through an analysis of the intricate relationships and connections among projects and developers.