Brian Fitzgerald

This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of Understanding Open Source Software Development by Joseph Feller and Brian Fitzgerald, published by Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0201734966. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. (c) 2002 Addison-Wesley Highly Talented, Highly Motivated Developers Many point to the high levels of ability and commitment demonstrated by OSS developers. Here, we focus on the issue of talent. Attracting appropriately skilled software developers is a worldwide problem, and several studies have revealed the radically different levels of developer productivity in the software profession (Boehm, 1981; Brooks, 1987; Vitalari and Dickson, 1983). Indeed, it is now accepted that some developers (as many as one in five) are actually negative producers, i.e., they slow the others do... (more)

The OSS Development Life Cycle

This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of Understanding Open Source Software Development by Joseph Feller and Brian Fitzgerald, published by Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0201734966. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. (c) 2002 Addison-Wesley The traditional software development life cycle (SDLC) is premised on a set of stages, which, in their most generic form, include: Planning Analysis Design Implementation However, the OSS development life cycle is quite different. First, the planning, analysis, and ... (more)

Transformation: How is the Open Source Process Organized and Managed?

This is an excerpt from Chapter 6 of Understanding Open Source Software Development by Joseph Feller and Brian Fitzgerald, published by Addison-Wesley. ISBN 0201734966. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. (c) 2002 Addison-Wesley In this book excerpt we address the Transformation category of our framework, asking the question, "How does OSS development take place?" We describe the most common methods and tools used in OSS development, examine the norms and taboos that govern OSS in the absen... (more)

Taboos and Norms in OSS Development

Formalized project management, in the conventional software engineering sense, does not typically apply in OSS development. Because the development pool spans great geographic and cultural space, face-to-face "meetings" are rare. Furthermore, in noncommercial OSS development (the majority) there's no organizational bottom-line to consider; nor are there any sanctions in terms of the possibility of firing developers. However, to avoid chaos, there are some cultural norms that govern how OSS projects are managed. Some of these are in the form of taboos. Chief among these is probabl... (more)