A Simulation Modelling Perspective on Motivation and Coordination in Libre Software Develop.pdfVIP

Abstract and Précis of a paper submitted for publication in Management Science _____________________________________________________________________ “It Takes All Kinds”: A Simulation Modelling Perspective on Motivation and Coordination in Libre Software Development Projects By Jean-Michel Dalle University Pierre et Marie Curie IMRI-Dauphine Jean-Michel.Dalle@upmc.fr Paul A. David Stanford University Oxford Internet Institute pad@ MS First draft: 27 December 2004 MS Second draft: 1 December 2005 This version: 5 May 2006 ABSTRACT This paper presents a stochastic simulation modeling tool used to study the implications of the mechanisms by which individual software developers’ efforts are allocated within large and complex open source software projects. It thus illuminates the role of different forms of “motivations-at-the-margin” in the micro-level resource allocation process of distributed and decentralized multi-agent engineering undertakings of this kind. We parameterize the model by isolating the parameter ranges in which it generates structures of code that share certain empirical regularities that are found to characterize actual projects. We find that, in this range, a variety of different motivations are necessarily represented within the community of developers. There is a correspondence between t