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Who is forked on GitHub? Collaboration among Open Source developers

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  • Dorota Celińska

    (Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw)

Abstract

In this article we investigate which characteristics of the developers involved in the creation of Open Source software favor innovation in the Open Source community. We utilize a unique database, obtained by web-scrapping GitHub from January to March, 2016. The results of the analysis show that higher reputation in the community improves up to a certain degree the probability of gaining collaborators, but developers are also driven by reciprocity, which is consistent with the concept of gift economy. There exists also a statistically significant network effect emerging from the standarization -- developers using the most popular programming languages in the service are likely to have more collaborators. Providing additional contact information improves the chance of having coworkers. The obtained results can be generalized for the population of mature users of GitHub.

Suggested Citation

  • Dorota Celińska, 2016. "Who is forked on GitHub? Collaboration among Open Source developers," Working Papers 2016-15, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    • Handle: RePEc:war:wpaper:2016-15
    as

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    File URL: http://www.wne.uw.edu.pl/index.php/download_file/2733/
    File Function: First version, 2016
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Open Source; GitHub; fork; collaboration; innovations; reputation; gift economy; network externality; standarization; reciprocity;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L15 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Information and Product Quality
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software
    • L17 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Open Source Products and Markets
    • L14 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Transactional Relationships; Contracts and Reputation
    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation

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