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Are There Any Academic Works On Open Source?

Posted by Cliff on from the open-source-in-education dept.

joschen asks: "I have just recently been given the provisional go ahead to do some research in the field of Open Source for a university I am associated with. My first task is to write an introductory paper on the subject. In doing so I have found a distinct lack of academic papers on the subject. I have read ESR's essays which are very interesting but have found that the majority of essays and articles are on Web sites and newsstand magazines rather than reputable academic journals. When writing papers we are always supposed to be building on research that has already been completed or is currently ongoing. Where are the background papers? I am sure a number of Slashdot reader reside in Academia, how have you resolved this problem?"

4 of 17 comments (clear)

  1. No papers, but a report by Hew · · Score: 2

    Papers on Open Source are definitely scarce. If it is of any help, I and two others prepared a report on Open Source as a software development method for a course in Project Management at the Univeristy of Karlskrona/Ronneby in Sweden. You can download it here in Word format.

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    /cj
  2. Research from what angle? by ConversantShogun · · Score: 2

    Psychology, business models, software quality, development process?

    Whatever your answer is, it's possible that whatever research you do will be 'original' in the field.

    After all, if academic research was always based on prior academic research, then we really wouldn't have a lot of academic research, would we?

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    --When you buy proprietary software, you don't get better software. What you get is the right to complain about it.
  3. A couple of possibilities by acoopersmith · · Score: 3
    Usenix has had several open source papers published in the proceedings of various conferences - I'd imagine various ACM & IEEE conferences also have had papers on the subject.

    For alternative views, there's also a couple of papers at:

  4. here's one by regexp · · Score: 2

    The Simple Economics of Open Source, a Harvard Business School / NBER working paper downloadable at http://www.people.hbs.edu/jlerner/publications.htm l