Participation in OSS Projects: Does It Support Release Early Release Often?

This research-in-progress paper explores the role participation in Open Source Software (OSS) projects has on the time between releases to begin to empirically test if “release early, release often” (Raymond, 1999) holds true in a practical sense. A model examining the effect that the number of project forum posts, as a proxy for participation, has on the average time between releases for that project. While the research question proposed expected a decrease in the average time as the number of post increases, in reality there is a significant, but small increase in the time. Further studies can build on this work by increasing the number of variables studied and working with project teams to qualitatively examine what factors drive participation.