Research (Economics, Demographics, Quality Metrics, etc.)

This page provides a catalogue of links to what we consider to be the best primary research on topics related to open source software development, usage, and results. It is not a place to link to news stories (that would be our Media page), but a place to reference research about which reporters do their reporting.

A vast collection of open source research papers can be found at http://opensource.mit.edu/.

In addition, these papers are ones we found interesting and/or frequently reference.

The Economic impact of FLOSS on innovation and competitiveness of the EU ICT sector study, published 20 November 2006 by UNU-Merit.

Use of Game Theory to explain why free riders do not destroy open source software projects.

Open Source Software Projects as Virtual Organizations:
Competency Rallying for Software Development, published 2002 in the IEE Proceedings Software, Volume 149(1), pages 3–17, which uses the framework of Katzy's Design and Implementation of Virtual Organizations.