Peripheral Developer Participation in Open Source Projects: An Empirical Analysis
Abstract
The success of the Open Source model of software development depends on the voluntary participation of external developers (the peripheral developers), a group that can have distinct motivations from that of project founders (the core developers). In this study, we examine peripheral developer participation by empirically examining approximately 2,600 open source projects. In particular, we hypothesize that peripheral developer participation is higher when the potential for building reputation by gaining recognition from project stakeholders is higher. We consider recognition by internal stakeholders (such as core developers) and external stakeholders (such as end-users and peers). We find a positive association between peripheral developer participation and the potential of stakeholder recognition after controlling for bug reports, feature requests, and other key factors. Our findings provide important insights for OSS founders and corporate managers for open sourcing or OSS adoption decisions.
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Peripheral developers often participate intermittently in project activities.
“because peripheral developers often participate intermittently in project activities (Howison and Crowston 2014, Krishnamurthy et al. 2016)”
From The Impact of Generative AI on Collaborative Open-Source Software Development: Evidence from GitHub Copilot  (2024) · cites this paper as Krishnamurthy et al. 2016
Core developers are more embedded in focal projects and maintain sustained involvement, while peripheral developers contribute more sporadically, leading to limited project familiarity.
“In the OSS community, core developers are more embedded in focal projects and maintain sustained involvement (Setia et al. 2012), while peripheral developers contribute more sporadically (Howison and Crowston 2014, Krishnamurthy et al. 2016), which leads to their limited level of project familiarity.”
From The Impact of Generative AI on Collaborative Open-Source Software Development: Evidence from GitHub Copilot  (2024) · cites this paper as Krishnamurthy et al. 2016
Cites
Lakhani, K. R., & Wolf, R. G. (2003) · doi:10.2139/ssrn.443040 · Cited by 1,531 · see citing works
Community, joining, and specialization in open source software innovation: a case study
von Krogh, G., Spaeth, S., & Lakhani, K. R. (2003) · Research Policy · doi:10.1016/s0048-7333(03)00050-7 · Cited by 1,025 · cited 1× · see citing works
“In a related work, von Krogh et al. [2003] examine the decision of peripheral developers to join and contribute in OSS projects.”
BackgroundKelty, C. M. (2001) · First Monday · doi:10.5210/fm.v6i12.902 · Cited by 60 · cited 6× · see citing works
“As such, obtaining reputation by contributing good code would provide direct utility for peripheral developers [Kelty 2001].”
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Song, F., Agarwal, A., & Wen, W. (2024) · SSRN Electronic Journal (preprint) · doi:10.2139/ssrn.4856935 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
- Authors
- Krishnamurthy, R., Jacob, V., Radhakrishnan, S., & Dogan, K.
- Affiliations
- The University of Texas at Dallas (US)
- Ozyegin University, Çekmeköy/İstanbul, Turkey
- Venue
- ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems
- Published
- 2016-01-13
- Volume
- 6
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1-31
- ISSN
- 2158-656X (ISSN-L)
- 2158-6578
- OpenAlex
- W2234324187
- Cited by
- 17
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 1
- FWCI
- 0.89
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (publishedVersion)
- eResearch@Ozyegin (submittedVersion)
- 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 software, developer engagement, stakeholder identification, reputation, core developers, open-source models, OSS adoption
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