Understanding Contributor Behavior within Large Free/Open Source Software Projects: A Socialization Perspective

Attracting new contributors is a necessary but not a sufficient condition, to ensure the survival and long-term success of Free/ Open Source Software (FOSS) projects. The well-being of a FOSS project also depends on contributors performing behaviors that nurture the project and its associated community. This study is a quantitative investigation of the socialization factors that influence contributor performance in large FOSS projects. A conceptual model was developed and empirically examined with 367 contributors from 12 large FOSS projects. The model hypothesizes the mediating effect of two proximal socialization variables, social identification and social integration, between newcomer socialization and contributor performance (conceptualized as task performance and community citizenship behaviors). The results demonstrate the influence of social identification and social integration in predicting contributor performance, as well as the importance of key socialization factors that are: task segregation, task purposefulness, interaction intensity and supportiveness. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.