Introducing innovations into open source projects [Elektronische Ressource] / von Sinan Christopher Özbek

Introducing Innovations intoOpen Source ProjectsDissertation zur Erlangung des Gradeseines Doktors der Naturwissenschaften (Dr. rer. nat.)am Fachbereich Mathematik und Informatikder Freien Universität BerlinvonSinan Christopher ÖzbekBerlinAugust 20102Gutachter:Professor Dr. Lutz Prechelt, Freie Universität Berlinr Kevin Crowston, Syracuse UniversityDatum der Disputation: 17.12.20104AbstractThis thesis presents a qualitative study using Grounded Theory Methodology on the question of how tochange development processes in Open Source projects. The mailing list communication of thirteenmedium-sized Open Source projects over the year 2007 was analyzed to answer this question. It resultedin eight main concepts revolving around the introduction of innovation, i.e. new processes, services,and tools, into the projects including topics such as the migration to new systems, the question onwhere to host services, how radical Open Source projects can change their ways, and how complianceto processes and conventions is enforced. These are complemented with (1) the result of five casestudies in which innovation introductions were conducted with Open Source projects, and with (2) atheoretical comparison of the results of this thesis to four theories and scientific perspectives from theorganizational and social sciences such as Path Dependence, the Garbage Can model, Social-Networkanalysis, and Actor-Network theory.