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Who contributes voluntarily to OSS? An investigation among German IT employees

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  • Bitzer, Jürgen
  • Geishecker, Ingo

Abstract

Based on newly assembled survey data, we analyze which individual characteristics of IT employees are associated with the willingness to participate voluntarily in Open Source Software (OSS) projects. We find that, contrary to common expectations, formal educational attainment is not positively associated with the probability or level of OSS contributions. The group of university dropouts, however, does show a particularly high probability of working on such projects. Furthermore, we obtain the striking and novel finding that work-related OSS activities play an important role in determining voluntary OSS contributions during leisure time. Although one has to be cautious regarding the direction of causality, we interpret this as evidence of career-oriented motives in voluntary OSS contributors. The finding is also reinforced by our more specific analysis of the importance of such motives in determining the actual effort invested in OSS projects.

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  • Bitzer, Jürgen & Geishecker, Ingo, 2010. "Who contributes voluntarily to OSS? An investigation among German IT employees," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 165-172, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:39:y:2010:i:1:p:165-172
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. David Olson & Kirsten Rosacker, 2013. "Crowdsourcing and open source software participation," Service Business, Springer;Pan-Pacific Business Association, vol. 7(4), pages 499-511, December.
    2. Tomasello, Mario Vincenzo & Burkholz, Rebekka & Schweitzer, Frank, 2017. "Modeling the formation of R&D alliances: An agentbased model with empirical validation," Economics Discussion Papers 2017-107, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    3. Jürgen Bitzer & Ingo Geishecker & Philipp J. H. Schröder, 2017. "Is there a wage premium for volunteer OSS engagement? – signalling, learning and noise," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(14), pages 1379-1394, March.
    4. Lei Xu & Tingting Nian & Luís Cabral, 2020. "What Makes Geeks Tick? A Study of Stack Overflow Careers," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(2), pages 587-604, February.
    5. Noriaki Matsushima & Ryusuke Shinohara, 2012. "Private Provision of Public Goods that are Complements for Private Goods: Application to Open Source Software Developments," ISER Discussion Paper 0830, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.

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