Preliminary Steps Toward a General Theory of Internet‐Based Collective‐Action in Digital Information Commons: Findings From a Study of Open Source Software Projects
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This paper presents some of the findings from a 5-year empirical study of FOSS (free/libre and open source software) commons, completed in 2011. FOSS projects are Internet-based common property regimes where the project source code is developed over the Internet. The resulting software is generally distributed with a license that provides users with the freedoms to access, use, read, modify and redistribute the software. In this study we used three different and very large datasets (approximately 107,000; 174,000 and 1400 cases respectively) with information on FOSS projects residing in Sourceforge.net, one of the largest, if not the largest, FOSS repository in the world. We employ various quantitative methods to uncover factors that lead some FOSS projects to ongoing collaborative success, while others become abandoned. After presenting some of our study’s results, we articulate the collaborative “story” of FOSS that emerged. We close the paper by discussing some key findings that can contribute to a general theory of Internet-based collective-action and FOSS-like forms of digital online commons.
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Open source projects carry the opportunity for open source project members to collectively respond to perceived challenges and problems within a project.
“Open source projects carry the opportunity for open source project members to collectively respond to perceived challenges and problems within a project (Benkler 2006;Schweik and English 2013).”
From Freeriding and Rebellion: An Investigation of Open Source Vendor Relicensing and Member Hard Forking Events (2026) · cites this paper as Schweik and English 2013
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References 38 · Cited by 18
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- Authors
- Schweik, C. M., & English, R.
- Affiliations
- University of Massachusetts Amherst (US)
- ORCID
- Schweik, Charles M.
- Venue
- International Journal of the Commons
- Publisher
- Ubiquity Press, Ltd.
- Published
- 2013-08-29
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 234
- ISSN
- 1875-0281 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1930249523
- Cited by
- 18
- References
- 38
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 2 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 1.01
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- International Journal of the Commons (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Digital Library Of The Commons Repository (Indiana University) (submittedVersion)
- Scholarworks (University of Massachusetts Amherst) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (0447623)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Science Applications › Open Source Software Innovations
- Social Sciences › Communication › Wikis in Education and Collaboration
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Strategy and Management › Digital Platforms and Economics
- Keywords
- free and open source software, open source projects, collective action, commons-based peer production, project abandonment, SourceForge, online collaboration
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