Abstract
Despite the notable success of some Free Libre Open Source (FLOSS) projects, the overwhelming majority of FLOSS initiatives fail, mostly because of insufficient long-term participation of developers. In contrast to previous research which focuses on the individual perspective, we approach developer retention from an organizational perspective to help existing project members identify potential long-term contributors who are worth spending their time on. Methodically, we transfer two concepts from professional recruiting, Person-Job (P-J) and Person-Team (P-T) fit, to the FLOSS domain and evaluate their usage to predict FLOSS developer retention. An empirical analysis reveals that both fit concepts are appropriate to explain FLOSS retention behavior. Looking at contributor retention in Google Summer of Code (GSoC) projects, we find a moderate correlation with P-J fit and a weak correlation with P-T fit.
Recommended Citation
Schilling, Andreas; Laumer, Sven; and Weitzel, Tim, "Is the source strong with you? A fit perspective to predict sustained participation of FLOSS developers" (2011). ICIS 2011 Proceedings. 3.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2011/proceedings/humancapital/3
Is the source strong with you? A fit perspective to predict sustained participation of FLOSS developers
Despite the notable success of some Free Libre Open Source (FLOSS) projects, the overwhelming majority of FLOSS initiatives fail, mostly because of insufficient long-term participation of developers. In contrast to previous research which focuses on the individual perspective, we approach developer retention from an organizational perspective to help existing project members identify potential long-term contributors who are worth spending their time on. Methodically, we transfer two concepts from professional recruiting, Person-Job (P-J) and Person-Team (P-T) fit, to the FLOSS domain and evaluate their usage to predict FLOSS developer retention. An empirical analysis reveals that both fit concepts are appropriate to explain FLOSS retention behavior. Looking at contributor retention in Google Summer of Code (GSoC) projects, we find a moderate correlation with P-J fit and a weak correlation with P-T fit.