A critical review of software engineering research on open source software development

Abstract

This paper asserts that the software engineering (SE) research literature describes open source software development (OSSD) as a homogenous phenomenon. Through a discourse analysis of the SE research literature on OSSD, it is argued that the view of OSSD as a homogenous phenomenon is not grounded in empirical evidence. Rather, it emerges from key assumptions held within the SE research discipline about its identity and how to do SE research. As such, it is argued that the view of OSSD as a homogenous phenomenon may constitute a systematic bias in the SE research literature. Implications of this are drawn for future SE research to avoid reproducing this bias.