The role of trust in OSS communities - Case Linux Kernel community

Abstract

Open source software development has been the subject of interest among businesses as well as in the academic world. OSS enables many possibilities for companies but also sets new kinds of challenges. Because of the characteristics of the OSS phenomenon we propose that trust in OSS communities plays a key role in facilitating their success. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the factors that affect trust in OSS communities. The data is gathered by a survey aimed to Linux Kernel developers. Among other results it may be concluded that the most important factors affecting trust seem to be other developers' skills, reputation as well as the formal and informal practices. © 2007 International Federation for Information Processing.