Effective work practices for software engineering: free/libre open source software development

Abstract

We review the literature on Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development and on software development, distributed work and teams more generally to develop a theoretical model to explain the performance of FLOSS teams. The proposed model is based on Hackman's [34] model of effectiveness of work teams, with coordination theory [52] and collective mind [79] to extend Hackman's model by elaborating team practices relevant to effectiveness in software development. We propose a set of propositions to guide further research.