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| "Understanding the Motivations of Open Source Developers by their Participation" |
| Régis Meissonier, Isabelle Bourdon, Emmanuel Houzé, Serge Amabile, Stéphane Boudrandi |
| Systèmes d'Information et Management, 2010, vol. 15, n°2, pp. 71-97 |
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A large part of the existing literature on Open Source projects identified the motivation factors predicting the participation of members. However,
these incentives do not ensure a sustained participation level. Most of the members leave projects when their personal needs are satisfied and, as a
consequence, a lot of projects are aborted or abandoned before the beta version software has been distributed Indeed, most of open source projects are
aborted or abandoned because failing into keeping enough active members. So, the initial afore- mentioned research question worth to be reversed in order
to apprehend how the partici- pation level influences the way OS projects members make sense of their own motivations. The objective of this article is to
use the enactivist approach and to consider that motiva- tions are not simple antecedents to actions but are shaped by actions as well (here the
participation). The quantitative analysis delivers the results of a survey administrated to par- ticipants of business OS projects. The results reveal that
reputation, reciprocity and professional opportunities expected are the most influenced variables by the participation. However, learning motivations and
ideology toward OS beliefs and values are the less in- fluenced ones. This results counterbalance prior empirical researches which had observed a strong
predicting power of both variables on expected participation level of participants. This is tends to show participation as making sense to motivations whom
members have practical indicators for their self-assessment.
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