ABSTRACT

This chapter summarizes a set of studies that have addressed the question of what factors influence the success of smaller Open source software (OSS) projects across dimensions important to varied audiences. Open source software (OSS) development is a phenomenon that has experienced a great deal of growth over the past decade, garnering attention among software developers; individual, organizational and governmental software users; and academic researchers in many disciplines. The main thesis was that the tenets of the OSS ideology motivate behaviors that enhance cognitive trust and communication quality and encourage identification with the project team, which enhances affective trust. Building an understanding of the critical success factors in OSS is important both because the OSS phenomenon has become a large economic and social force, and because understanding success in the context may help us to make recommendations for other closely related work contexts such as proprietary software development work or open content creation.