Open Source Software (OSS) is usually developed by geographically-distributed developers in a collaborative manner. Different developers exhibit different behaviors and make diversified contributions to OSS projects. Objective of this paper is to discover individualized characteristics and common patterns of how developers contribute to OSS projects. Continuity is used to delineate how a develo...

In pair programming, two software developers share a single computer monitor and keyboard. One of the developers, called the driver, controls the computer keyboard and mouse. The driver is responsible for entering software design, source code, and test cases. The second developer, called the navigator, examines the driver’s work, offering advice, suggesting corrections, and assisting with desig...

Developers of communication software must confront recurring design challenges involving robustness, efficiency, and extensibility. Many of these challenges are independent of the application-specific requirements. Successful developers resolve these challenges by applying appropriate design patterns. However, these patterns have traditionallybeen locked in the minds of expert developers or bur...

While performing a certain task software developers use multiple tools, read different artifacts and change others. As software developers are often interrupted during a task, they end up simultaneously using a vast set of tools and artifacts. They need to switch between those artifacts many times until a task is completed. In sum a lot of time gets wasted due to locating, reopening or selectin...

Developers of communication software must confront recurring design challenges involving robustness, efficiency, and extensibility. Many of these challenges are independent application-specific requirements. Successful developers resolve these challenges by applying appropriate design patterns. However, these patterns have traditionallybeen locked in the minds of expert developers or buried wit...

This paper examines to what degree developers of the collaboratively produced computer operating system GNU/Linux are politically motivated for their contributions. It first states that software is politically relevant. It then goes on to argue for the political significance of Free Software/Open Source Software (FS/OSS) and discusses the developers ambivalent attitude towards a politicisation ...

This report documents a case study in which the communication among software developers who are using design patterns to develop software is in focus. A conceptual framework describing our view on the software development process is presented and a set of research questions are posed in terms of this conceptual framework. The study is carried out as an observational study in which the developer...

Several successful projects (Linux, Free-BSD, BIND, Apache, etc.) showed that the collaborative and self-organizing process of developing open source software produces reliable, high quality software. Without doubt, the open source software development process differs in many ways from the traditional development process in a commercial environment. An interesting research question is how these...