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Floss (Free/Libre Open Source Software): A Theme For Cultural Differences Study

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Author Info
Ramanujam, Padmanabha
Abstract

Geert Hofstede presented statistical evidence purporting to identify intercultural co-operation and its importance for survival in his scholarship work “cultures and organizations”. This article presents a study, which describes how differences in national culture can affect or influence the participation of programmers who produce open source software (OSS). The four important dimensions of national cultures considered by Hofstede model namely Power Distance Index (PDI), Individualism Index (IAV), Masculinity-Feminity Index (MAS) and Uncertainty Avoidance Index (UAI) are selected and correlated with the Geographical Distribution of Developers Index (GDD) for testing the above hypothesis. It is suggested that there exists some correlation between the cultural factors and the demographics of programmers who participate in the open source movement. Finally, the manner in which these cultural factors impinge on the incentives of the programmers who are engaged in open source movement by writing codes for free are also discussed.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 4182.

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Date of creation: 16 Jul 2007
Date of revision: 31 Oct 2007
Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:4182

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Related research
Keywords: Open Source Movement; FLOSS; Culture Difference and Hofstede Model;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
L10 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - General
K19 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Other
K10 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - General (Constitutional Law)
L19 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Other
L17 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Open Source Products and Markets

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This page was last updated on 2009-12-3.

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