An exploratory study of contribution barriers experienced by newcomers to open source software projects

ABSTRACT

Contributing to a Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) project is not a trivial task even for experienced developers: Beyond the effort required for understanding and editing a project's source code for one's own purposes, submitting the changes back to the community requires additional motivation, time, and social and technical effort. Although several surveys have examined the dynamics driving FLOSS contributors, most focus either on the motivations of core developers or indicators of potential long-term commitment, i.e. the small but quite involved and visible minority at the core of a project. Our survey in contrast examines the experiences of the much larger, but nearly invisible group of developers who are just making and submitting their first patch, and identifies barriers that hinder or even prevent them from making a valuable contribution.

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Index Terms

• Social and professional topics

  • Professional topics

    • Management of computing and information systems

      • Project and people management

• Software and its engineering

  • Software creation and management

    • Software development process management

  • Software notations and tools

    • Software configuration management and version control systems