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Uncovering the Periphery: A Qualitative Survey of Episodic Volunteering in Free/Libre and Open Source Software Communities

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Barcomb, Ann, Kaufmann, Andreas, Riehle, Dirk, Stol, Klaas-Jan, Fitzgerald, Brian·2020·IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
DOI 10.1109/tse.2018.2872713
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Abstract

Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) communities are composed, in part, of volunteers, many of whom contribute infrequently. However, these infrequent volunteers contribute to the sustainability of FLOSS projects, and should ideally be encouraged to continue participating, even if they cannot be persuaded to contribute regularly. Infrequent contributions are part of a trend which has been widely observed in other sectors of volunteering, where it has been termed “episodic volunteering” (EV). Previous FLOSS research has focused on the Onion model, differentiating core and peripheral developers, with the latter considered as a homogeneous group. We argue this is too simplistic, given the size of the periphery group and the myriad of valuable activities they perform beyond coding. Our exploratory qualitative survey of 13 FLOSS communities investigated what episodic volunteering looks like in a FLOSS context. EV is widespread in FLOSS communities, although not specifically managed. We suggest several recommendations for managing EV based on a framework drawn from the volunteering literature. Also, episodic volunteers make a wide range of value-added contributions other than code, and they should neither be expected nor coerced into becoming habitual volunteers.

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  • Contributors' trajectories are shaped not only by technical expertise but also by social and communicative engagement.

    “These trajectories are shaped not only by technical expertise, but also by social and communicative engagement, as contributors' progress depends on their ability to build relationships, exchange feedback, and gain recognition within the community [3, 49, 53, 58].”

    From Governance in Practice: How Open Source Projects Define and Document Roles (2026) · cites this paper as [3]

    Section 6.1 (Contributor Motivation; page not provided) links technical barriers and opportunities for interaction and relationship-building to whether episodic volunteers join or remain. Section 6.4 (Satisfaction; page not provided) discusses appreciation and recognition. The paper does not establish that contributors’ progress depends on exchanging feedback or gaining recognition, so the broader claim about trajectories goes beyond its findings. (LLM, conf=0.84)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Little is known about how roles such as maintainers, committers, or core contributors are formally defined in writing, including their privileges, responsibilities, and decision rights.

    “Although multiple studies discuss roles such as maintainers, committers, or core contributors [3, 53], little is known about how such roles (e.g., associated privileges, responsibilities, and decision rights) are formally defined in writing.”

    From Governance in Practice: How Open Source Projects Define and Document Roles (2026) · cites this paper as [3]

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  127. Dirk Riehle is a Professor of computer science at Friedrich-Alexander University. Riehle once led the Open Source Research Group at SAP Labs, Silicon Valley, and founded the Open Symposium (OpenSym). He was the lead archi- tect of the first UML virtual machine. Prof. Riehle holds a Ph.D. in computer science from ETH Z€ urich, and blogs at http://dirkriehle.com. Klaas-Jan Stol is a lecturer with the Department of Computer Science, University College Cork, an SFI principal investigator and a funded investi- gator with Lero-the Irish Software Research Centre. His research interests include research methodology, and contemporary software devel- opment approaches.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Barcomb, A., Kaufmann, A., Riehle, D., Stol, K.-J., & Fitzgerald, B.
Affiliations
  • Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (DE)
  • University College Cork (IE)
  • University of Limerick (IE)
ORCID
Venue
IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Published
2020-09-01
Volume
46
Issue
9
Pages
962-980
ISSN
  • 0098-5589 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-3520
  • 2326-3881
DOI
10.1109/tse.2018.2872713
OpenAlex
W2897239292
Cited by
44
References
6
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1
FWCI
5.61
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Arrow@dit (Dublin Institute of Technology) (acceptedVersion)
  • University of Limerick Institutional Repository (University of Limerick) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
  • University of Limerick Institutional Repository (University of Limerick) (acceptedVersion)
  • Arrow@dit (Dublin Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
  • Cork Open Research Archive (University College Cork, Ireland) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
  • University of Limerick Institutional Repository (University of Limerick)
Funders
Science Foundation Ireland (13/RC/2094, 15/SIRG/3293)
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Open Source Software Innovations
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Software Engineering Techniques and Practices
Keywords
episodic volunteering, free and open source software, FLOSS communities, onion model, volunteer management, community sustainability, developer engagement

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

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