The DOI matches its Crossref record; 70 of the 71 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Sustainability of Open Source software communities beyond a fork: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?
Open accessAbstract
Many organisations are dependent upon long-term sustainable software systems and associated communities. In this paper we consider long-term sustainability of Open Source software communities in Open Source software projects involving a fork. There is currently a lack of studies in the literature that address how specific Open Source software communities are affected by a fork. We report from a study aiming to investigate the developer community around the LibreOffice project, which is a fork from the OpenOffice.org project. In so doing, our analysis also covers the OpenOffice.org project and the related Apache OpenOffice project. The results strongly suggest a long-term sustainable LibreOffice community and that there are no signs of stagnation in the LibreOffice project 33 months after the fork. Our analysis provides details on developer communities for the LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice projects and specifically concerning how they have evolved from the OpenOffice.org community with respect to project activity, developer commitment, and retention of committers over time. Further, we present results from an analysis of first hand experiences from contributors in the LibreOffice community. Findings from our analysis show that Open Source software communities can outlive Open Source software projects and that LibreOffice is perceived by its community as supportive, diversified, and independent. The study contributes new insights concerning challenges related to long-term sustainability of Open Source software communities.
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“They described how vendor dominance and 'conflicts in the origin project arose due to inadequate working processes, lack of congruence concerning project goals, and unclear (or in other ways inadequate) leadership' (p.129) resulted in the shuffling of some members staying with the original project and some leaving to the hard fork.”
From Freeriding and Rebellion: An Investigation of Open Source Vendor Relicensing and Member Hard Forking Events (2026) · cites this paper as Gamalielsson and Lundell 2014
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
In the citing paper
“Gamalielsson and Lundell (2014) explored the window in time when a hard fork provided a path towards sustainability of the OpenO ffice. org project.”
From Freeriding and Rebellion: An Investigation of Open Source Vendor Relicensing and Member Hard Forking Events (2026) · cites this paper as Gamalielsson and Lundell 2014
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredThe source backs part of the claim, not all of it — or backs it for a different population, condition or comparison.
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“Others yet see the survival of open source challenged by internal threats instead of external ones (Gamalielsson & Lundell, 2014).”
From The sustainability of open source commons (2023) · cites this paper as Gamalielsson & Lundell, 2014
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“The newly forked open source project, LibreOffice, enabled new forms of participation and the development of a new future in relation to prior experiences.”
From Freeriding and Rebellion: An Investigation of Open Source Vendor Relicensing and Member Hard Forking Events (2026) · cites this paper as Gamalielsson and Lundell 2014
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“In this, a hard fork created a branch to which members of the original project could join to help ensure the sustainability of open source artefacts.”
From Freeriding and Rebellion: An Investigation of Open Source Vendor Relicensing and Member Hard Forking Events (2026) · cites this paper as Gamalielsson and Lundell 2014
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Citations
Cites
Two case studies of open source software development: Apache and Mozilla
Mockus, A., Fielding, R. T., & Herbsleb, J. D. (2002) · ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology · doi:10.1145/567793.567795 · Cited by 1,685
Free/Libre open-source software development
Crowston, K., Wei, K., Howison, J., & Wiggins, A. (2008) · ACM Computing Surveys · doi:10.1145/2089125.2089127 · Cited by 482
Outsourcing to an Unknown Workforce: Exploring Opensourcing as a Global Sourcing Strategy1
Ågerfalk, P. J., & Fitzgerald (2008) · MIS Quarterly · doi:10.2307/25148845 · Cited by 455
Cave or Community? An Empirical Examination of 100 Mature Open Source Projects
Krishnamurthy, S. (2002) · First Monday · doi:10.5210/fm.v7i6.960 · Cited by 330
DEFINING OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE PROJECT SUCCESS
Crowston, K., Annabi, H., & Howison, J. (2003) · Syracuse University Libraries (Syracuse University) · Cited by 301
Information systems success in free and open source software development: theory and measures
Crowston, K., Howison, J., & Annabi, H. (2006) · Software Process Improvement and Practice · doi:10.1002/spip.259 · Cited by 301
Essence of distributed work: the case of the Linux kernel
Moon, J. Y., & Sproull, L. (2000) · First Monday · doi:10.5210/fm.v5i11.801 · Cited by 288
Determinants of open source software project success: A longitudinal study
Subramaniam, C., Sen, R., & Nelson, M. L. (2008) · Decision Support Systems · doi:10.1016/j.dss.2008.10.005 · Cited by 221
Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS, FLOSS, or FOSS)? Look at the Numbers!
Wheeler, D. A. (2005) · Cited by 220
Bonaccorsi, A. J., & Rossi, C. (2006) · Knowledge, technology & policy/Knowledge in society/Knowledge, technology, & policy · doi:10.1007/s12130-006-1003-9 · Cited by 211
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- Conlon, 2007, An examination of initiation, organization, participation, leadership, and control of successful Open Source software development projects, Information Systems Education Journal, 5, 1
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Karhu, K., Gustafsson, R., & Lyytinen, K. (2018) · Information Systems Research · doi:10.1287/isre.2018.0786 · Cited by 286
“Another, and smaller, stream of research views fork-ing as a means to create derivative works and portrays it positively because it improves the long-term sustainability of the codebase (Gamalielsson and Lundell 2014, Nyman et al. 2012, Nyman and Lindman 2013).”
BackgroundMontes, F. J. R., Bueno, S., & Gallego, M. D. (2020) · Applied Sciences · doi:10.3390/app10082711 · Cited by 106
“Therefore, OSS is considered a viable alternative to proprietary software for many institutions [19,20], becoming an innovative global movement where different social, economic, and public agents collaborate, united by the need to control the software design [21].”
BackgroundDiscovering community patterns in open-source: a systematic approach and its evaluation
Tamburri, D. A., Palomba, F., Serebrenik, A., & Zaidman, A. (2018) · Empirical Software Engineering · doi:10.1007/s10664-018-9659-9 · Cited by 76
“Currently, online applications such as OpenHub1 or Bitergia2 do allow to grasp several organisational and social aspects (Gamalielsson and Lundell 2013; Schweik 2013) behind open-source organisational structures (e.”
BackgroundWhy do blockchains split? An actor-network perspective on Bitcoin splits
Islam, A. K. M. N., Mäntymäki, M., & Turunen, M. (2019) · Technological Forecasting and Social Change · doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2019.119743 · Cited by 78
“While a few prior studies focus on splits in an open-source context, most of the research (e.g., Gamalielsson and Lundell, 2014; Rastogi and Nagappan, 2016; Viseur, 2012) on open-source project splits investigates the survival of the original and forked projects after the split.”
ResultThe Impact of Ideology Misfit on Open Source Software Communities and Companies1
Daniel, S. L., Maruping, L. M., Cataldo, M., & Herbsleb, J. (2018) · MIS Quarterly · doi:10.25300/misq/2018/14242 · Cited by 58
Metadata
- Authors
- Gamalielsson, J., & Lundell, B.
- Affiliations
- University of Skövde (SE)
- Corresponding author
- Gamalielsson, Jonas
- Venue
- Journal of Systems and Software
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2014-03
- Volume
- 89
- Pages
- 128-145
- ISSN
- 0164-1212 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2029743492
- Cited by
- 125
- References
- 71
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 11 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 17 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 6
- FWCI
- 6.09
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Systems and Software (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Open Source Software Innovations
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Techniques and Practices
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Research
- Keywords
- open source communities, software forks, LibreOffice, OpenOffice.org, community sustainability, developer communities, project activity, long-term sustainability
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