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Crowdsourcing and open source software participation

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Abstract

Crowdsourcing is a phenomenon involving the use of volunteers to accomplish a goal or objective (often work). Individuals, businesses, and government agencies find it possible to harness the participation of volunteers to design products and complete project work. Simply stated, Open Source Software (OSS) is crowdsourcing applied to software development. OSS-based systems have become an important source of computing products, through operating systems such as Linux, Web services through Apache, or desktop environments such as Gnome. This study affords a through literature review developed within a discussion of the common motivations and relationships between crowdsourcing and OSS. It contributes to the literature by providing useful insights which researchers and organizations can utilize to leverage crowdsourcing and OSS concepts in addressing their efforts.

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Notes

  1. The term OSS as used in this paper refers to voluntary OSS development.

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Correspondence to Kirsten Rosacker.

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Olson, D.L., Rosacker, K. Crowdsourcing and open source software participation. Serv Bus 7, 499–511 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11628-012-0176-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11628-012-0176-4

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