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Cited by 45Open Source Software InnovationsSoftware Engineering ResearchSoftware Engineering Techniques and Practices

Perspectives on Code Forking and Sustainability in Open Source Software

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Nyman, Linus, Mikkonen, Tommi, Lindman, Juho, Fougère, Martin·2012·IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-33442-9_21
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  • A vendor can make unilateral governance changes, which can increase the chances of a vendor-determined licence change.

    “In this, a vendor can make unilateral governance changes, which can increase the chances of, for example, a vendor-determined licence change (Nyman et al. 2012;Osborne et al. 2024).”

    From Freeriding and Rebellion: An Investigation of Open Source Vendor Relicensing and Member Hard Forking Events (2026) · cites this paper as Nyman et al. 2012

    Section 3, “Code Forking,” describes a company shepherding a project making decisions against the community’s interests and gives a separate example of developers changing a project’s licence. It does not say that unilateral governance changes increase the likelihood of a vendor-determined licence change. No page number is available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.84)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Collective action threats and governance changes can contribute to an immediate need for departure from the original project for reasons of long-term sustainability of technical assets.

    “Collective action threats and governance changes can contribute to an immediate need for departure from the original project for reasons of long-term sustainability of technical assets (Nyman et al. 2012;Karhu et al. 2018Karhu et al. , 2020) )”

    From Freeriding and Rebellion: An Investigation of Open Source Vendor Relicensing and Member Hard Forking Events (2026) · cites this paper as Nyman et al. 2012

    Section 3 (Code Forking) says that decisions contrary to the community’s interests can lead developers to fork a project and continue development elsewhere. Section 4 (Code Forking and Sustainability) connects forking to the long-term sustainability of software. The paper does not establish that collective-action threats or governance changes create an immediate need to depart; it presents forking as an available response. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Hard forks can serve as the invisible hand of sustainability that ensures that code remains open and that the code that best serves the community lives on.

    “Hard forks can serve 'as the invisible hand of sustainability that ensures that code remains open and that the code that best serves the community lives on.The mere option to fork provides a mechanism for safeguarding against despotic decisions by the project lead' (Nyman et al. 2012, 1).”

    From Freeriding and Rebellion: An Investigation of Open Source Vendor Relicensing and Member Hard Forking Events (2026) · cites this paper as Nyman et al. 2012

  • Hard forks represent a significant shock to an open source project, yet provide a path towards sustainability through the continuance of the resources that were initially developed in the original project.

    “the multifacetedness of hard forks remains a bit of a paradox in open source as they represent a significant shock to an open source project, yet provide a path towards sustainability (Nyman et al. 2012;Acquatella et al. 2024) through the continuance of the resources that were initially developed in the original project (Karhu et al. 2018(Karhu et al. , 2020)).”

    From Freeriding and Rebellion: An Investigation of Open Source Vendor Relicensing and Member Hard Forking Events (2026) · cites this paper as Nyman et al. 2012

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Cites

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Research works printed but not linked: 20

  1. Murugesan (2008) Harnessing Green IT: Principles and Practices. IT Professional, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 24-33, Jan./Feb.
  2. Connelly (2007). Mapping Sustainable Development as a Contested Concept. Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 259-278.
  3. Davison (2001) Technology and the contested meanings of sustainability. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY.
  4. McManus (1996) Contested terrains: Politics, stories and discourses of sustainability. Environmental Politics, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 48-73.
  5. Fishman, Gandal and Shy (1993) Planned Obsolescence as an Engine of Technological Progress. Journal of Industrial Economics, Vol. 41, No. 4, pp. 361-370.
  6. Guiltinan (2009) Creative Destruction and Destructive Creations: Environmental Ethics and Planned Obsolescence. Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 89, pp.19-28.
  7. Brooks (1995) The mythical man-month. Addison-Wesley, Boston, MA.
  8. Shapiro and Varian (1998) Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.
  9. Fitzgerald (2006) The Transformation of Open Source Software. MIS Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 3, 2006, pp. 587-598.
  10. Smith (1776) The Wealth of Nations (Bantam Classic Edition March/2003). Bantam Dell, New York, NY.
  11. Raymond (2001) The Cathedral & the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary. O'Reilly, Sebastopol, CA.
  12. Fogel (2006) Producing Open Source Software. O'Reilly, Sebastopol, CA.
  13. Lehman (1980) Programs, Life Cycles, and Laws of Software Evolution. Proc. IEEE 68 (9): 1060-1076. available at: http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~a78khan/cs446/additional- material/scribe/27-refactoring/Lehman-LawsOfSoftwareEvolution.pdf.
  14. Nyman and Mikkonen (2011) To Fork or Not to Fork: Fork: Fork Motivations in SourceForge Projects. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS 2011), 259-268, Springer.
  15. Haefliger, von Krogh, and Spaeth (2008). Code Reuse in Open Source Software. Management Science, Vol. 54, No. 1, pp. 180-193.
  16. Darwin (1859) The Origin of Species (1985 Penguin Classics edition). Penguin Books, London, England.
  17. Meeker (2008) The Open Source Alternative: Understanding Risks and Leveraging Opportunities. Wiley, Hoboken, NY.
  18. Sinclair (2010) License Profile: BSD. International Free and Open Source Software Law Review, vol. 2, Issue 1. DOI: 10.5033/ifosslr.v2i1.28. · DOI
  19. Lindman, Rossi and Puustelli (2011) Matching Open Source Software Licenses with Corresponding Business Models. IEEE Software, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 31-35, July/Aug
  20. Hammouda, Mikkonen, Oksanen and Jaaksi (2010) Open Source Legality Patterns: Architectural Design Decisions Motivated by Legal Concerns. Published in the proceedings of the 14th International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments. ACM, New York, NY.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Nyman, L., Mikkonen, T., Lindman, J., & Fougère, M.
Affiliations
  • Hanken School of Economics (FI)
  • Tampere University of Technology (FI)
ORCID
Venue
IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology
Publisher
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published
2012
Volume
AICT-378
Pages
274-279
ISSN
  • 1571-5736 (ISSN-L)
  • 1868-4238
  • 1861-2288
DOI
10.1007/978-3-642-33442-9_21
OpenAlex
W2176580234
Cited by
45
References
0
Citations by year
2026: 10 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 2 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 2
FWCI
1.96
Type
conference paper
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • IFIP International Federation for Information Processing/IFIP (publishedVersion)
  • HAL (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Open Source Software Innovations
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Research
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Techniques and Practices
Keywords
open source software, software sustainability, planned obsolescence, project leadership, community governance, invisible hand

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