Why do people contribute code for free?

The reasons why hackers contribute code are manifold—it could be altruism, or to meet a challenge. Some do it to develop new skills; others may do it in anticipation of an indirect reward, such as improving job opportunities, and you might find some who do it just for fun. There have been a series of global profile studies on this issue by South Asians—the first to work on Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) was Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, followed by Niranjan Rajani of Sindh, who headed a study in Finland on the significance of FLOSS for the developing world. FREDERICK NORONHA spoke to Seema Arora (sarora@stanford.edu), third South Asian researcher to be involved in a major study, FLOSS-US, on what it involves. Here are some excerpts:

What’s the study all about?
FLOSS-US is an online survey directed to open source developers who have contributed in the creation or dissemination of open source software. It is a global survey, intended to be complementary to the FLOSS survey that was carried out under a grant from the European Commission in 2002.

Our aim is to understand the open source way of organising software production with a special emphasis on understanding the motivations—monetary and non-monetary—that drive developers. Also, developers’ expectations from making these contributions, the methods of organisation of open source software that might suggest some comparisons in efficiency and quality with proprietary software, types of open source licenses, incentives for participation and tools used by the programmers.

This survey seeks additional information from developers that is new to the FLOSS-US survey. Like the relationships of developers with commercial enterprises based on FLOSS and the support of OS/FS projects by proprietary software firms.

When was the study undertaken?
The survey was launched on January 28, 2003 at SourceForge and since has been released on numerous other sites across United States, Europe and Asia.

What similar studies have been undertaken in the past?
This is a follow-up to the original FLOSS survey of Open Source/Free Software developer communities that was designed by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (MERIT and Infonomics, University of Maastricht) under a grant from the European Commission in 2002. [http://floss1.infonomics.nl]

Boston Consulting Group undertook a survey of a sample of developers from projects listed on SourceForge.

Both the FLOSS and the BCG surveys were dominated by responses from Western Europe and the US, reflecting the EC sponsorship of FLOSS and BCG’s use of names of developers listed on the larger projects on SourceForge.

Who is leading the study? Who are the people involved?
Paul David, professor of Economics and senior fellow at Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), is the principal investigator on the project. I am a co-investigator on the project and visiting research fellow at SIEPR. Andrew Waterman is a graduate student in Economics. Rishab Aiyer Ghosh of MERIT helped design the survey.

What are the means used to get the survey across?
In order to get a global response, the survey announcements have been translated into eight languages (other than English) including Dutch, German, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian and Chinese.

Postings have been made on prominent online discussion boards. Websites that are frequented by open source programmers have been requested to post links to the survey announcement. These sites are likely to be visited by developers in regions outside as well as within Western Europe and North America.

What’s your view of the South Asian contribution to GNU/Linux?
Though the South Asian contribution might be currently lagging behind contributions from the United States and Europe, we have reason to believe that this region will make important contributions.

While there has been an impetus to adopt the software through government initiatives, there is some evidence that developers in these countries are contributing and sustaining the success of the open source effort. Linux makes economic sense for South Asian countries because the hardware requirements are much less onerous than Windows, making it a very cost-effective option.

As an aside, one of the criticisms that we hope to disprove is that the developer effort would lag adoption in these countries, making this an unsustainable way of producing software.

How much would the study cost, and who’s funding it? What’s Stanford’s involvement?
Researchers are conducting this study at Stanford University’s Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR). It is a part of a broader study that is titled, Economic Organisation and Viability of Open Source Software undertaken by SIEPR’s Knowledge, Networks and Information for Innovation Program (KNIIP), which is being supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation through its programme on Digital Technology and Society.

How is India’s/South Asia’s contribution to GNU/Linux seen?
India has a large programmer base. With improvement in Internet access, we are likely to see more involvement from Indian programmers. It is our belief that open source adoption will precede development efforts. Though of course, these are complementary activities and adoption will fuel the demand for development efforts.

We are interested in collecting data that might shed light on the contention, found in Microsoft submissions, that free and Open Source software is not suitable for government procurement in developing economies, because there is a lack of human capital in those regions with the relevant skills to maintain and improve solutions.

By when will the study be ready? What are your expectations from the study? What would its utility be?
We are planning to release the study by winter of 2003. We are hopeful that we would be able to attract respondents from across the globe and hence test if there are cultural differences in organisation and contributions and motivations of Open Source developers. Furthermore, we want to explore the synergies between commercial and entrepreneurial activities that are based upon free and Open Source code, both in the West and in India.

See The Free/Libre/Open Source Software Survey for 2003 at www.stanford.edu /group/floss-us/survey.fft

What has been the response from South Asia till now?
The responses have been forthcoming. But we would like to see more responses to be able to make meaningful comparisons across different regions.