[ossig] Putting Open Source Development Under the Scope

[Molly Cheah]

*Putting Open Source Development Under the Scope**
** Linux Insider (10/02/06) Lyman, Jay*

Computer science researchers at the University of California Davis will 
use a $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to examine the 
development of open source systems such as the Apache Web server, 
PosterSQL, and the Python scripting language. The suspicion is that open 
source systems succeed where commercial proprietary programs fail 
because they avoid the developmental process where the speed of 
production is determined by the slowest contributor. The case of Mozilla 
suggests that the modularity implemented by open source systems increase 
volunteerism, because anyone can contribute at any time. UC Davis lead 
researcher and computer science professor Premkuma Devanbu says, "The 
belief in the open source software community is that open source turns 
on all the available brain power, full blast, on every problem, 
challenge, or opportunity." The purpose of the study is to put such 
ideas to the test, in order to get empirical evidence. Many stress that 
open source development benefits from the fact that contributors are not 
motivated by getting paid, and can choose what they work on. As no 
meetings and the lowest level of synchronization are necessary when 
using open source software, development can occur at parallel levels 
simultaneously, rather than requiring each step in the process to occur 
sequentially. The researchers will monitor emails, message boards, and 
bug reports for insights into what makes open source development 
projects successful. Devanbu says the case of Linux shows that 
modularity improves the quality of the software developed, and that 
"good design allows implementation to proceed with maximum parallelism 
and minimum synchronization and coordination."
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Molly