Free software scholarly research materials

[3djake]

I am seeking advice for a research and report project for my Written Communications For Computer Science paper.

I was not happy with any of the client briefs provided so the University let me make up my own which is on the topic 'Free Software Development Models and Profiting from Free Software.'

The first thing that came to my mind was Richard Raymonds paper  'The Cathedral and the Bazaar'.

Do any of you know of any other materials of a scholarly source that I could use for my research?
If you could find the time to mention a few sources regarding the topic, I would be very grateful.

The assignment states that I require the following;

An annotated bibliography in APA format with at least four reliable sources.

•  At least one of these should be a peer-reviewed, scholarly source.
• An article is suggested at the end of each brief, but you should also find other credible readings.
• State why you believe each source is authoritative and credible; briefly summarise the key points of each source; and if appropriate, include a short, key quotation.
• Indicate why each source is relevant for your brief.
• Use correct APA formatting for your sources.

Thanks

Best Regards, Jake.

[Graeme Gellatly]

in general Raymond s essay is a seminal work in open source development not free software.  In any case do not confuse an ideology-free with a development model open source.  It is also just that an essay,  albeit widely cited in academic work. 

Dirk Riehle among many others publishes easily digestible stuff for IEEE on this. But honestly your university will have Web of science or just use Google scholar and just search for articles in respected journals with lots of citings. There are thousands of articles in all sorts of disciplines.  Even maths and game theory about how profit is generated.  Bonacorsi 2006 wouldn't be a bad place to start, easy read,  not top quality but well linked and on topic. 

Excuse spelling etc. Just off top of head not near pc.  My masters research was how governance impacts contributor motivations in open source projects.

If I was you I would go with
1 seminal article
1 highly respected journal article from early to mid 2000s.
1 industry press article such as Riehle
1 latest even if tier2 journal article.

Just speaking as someone who may have done something similar before

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[Graeme Gellatly]

Sorry scrap either the second or the last one and find a literature review,  there are some good ones on this topic.

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[3djake]

Thanks for the feedback Graeme

I do have access to google scholar and similar resources at Uni, I will have a look.

The client brief I created for myself now includes open-source as well as free software, sorry I should have mentioned that.

The brief I created for myself is as follows, my lecturer is happy with it but it is still pending approval.

Free Software Development Models and Profiting from Free Software

A proprietary software company Ultra Cloud Solutions is planning to make all of their software 'free software' or ‘open-source’ software under the GPL3 license in an effort to compete with other proprietary cloud based products and services in a competitive market.

Free Software is free meaning “Freedom” and not gratis(not free beer). Free software is software that gives you the user the freedom to share, study and modify it. We call this free software because the user is free.

Open-Source software in most cases uses the same license as ‘Free Software’ but follow a different philosophy.  

Before Ultra Cloud Solutions makes the change to Free Software they need to know;

• About different Free Software and Open Source Development Models; what are the pros and cons of each one

• What techniques can be used to make a profit off Free Software and open-source software.

• When is it appropriate to use the “Open Source” philosophy instead of the “Free Software” philosophy to make money on a product. Which of these is most applicable to the client?

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Yours sincerely Jacob Warren
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[Graeme Gellatly]

Hi,

I can't really comment too much.  If you are doing first year WritCom that is very different to masters level research.  I have read a few thousand articles on this and related topics and worked in Open Source for a long time. You just need to find 4 articles and 1st year grading on references goes pretty much C - used a reference, B - used a few references wasn't wikipedia or the textbook, A - multiple references, good quality, correctly formatted.

But first of all, there is not really an Open Source vs Free Software philosophy.  One is primarily a development methodology the other an ideology, indeed all Free Software is Open Source.  The underlying philosophy's are not mutually exclusive and every community will have a mix of both.  In any case, I wouldn't bother with the distinction 99% of all academics and academic literature doesn't bother or when they do it is only a line.  I don't know of any high quality research that specifically delineates the two although some do come close, Shah 2006 comes to mind. 

GPLv3 is a challenging license for business.  GPLv2 or GPLv2+ in the copyleft space makes a lot more sense but most free software advocates are resigned these days to the predominance of permissive licenses over copyleft with the rise of Openwashing and single sponsor open source projects.  But in any case for a cloud provider GPLv3 is not much different to closed source, hence the Affero GPL.

Given your brief then Dirk Riehle, The Economic Motivation of Open Source Software: Stakeholder Perspectives is a decent starting point.  It isn't academic research, but references a lot of it.  Or if you wanted to go really old school then von Bertanffy work in the 1930's on closed and open ecological systems which really formed the basis of modern systems theory of people, process and technology outputs, or Olson in 1965 on the provision of public goods and group theory.

Also go to the library and ask a librarian for a lesson on Web Of Science.  Google Scholar is a very poor substitute and eventually you will need it so you may as well start now.  And if you are going to keep this as a thread throughout your studies, use a bibliography manager like Zotero and keep notes, you will save yourself weeks of study time.