License Choice and the Changing Structures of Work in Organization Owned Open Source Projects: [Best Paper Nominee]

Abstract

Digitally enabled transformations have allowed organizations and individuals to adopt open source as a viable mode of software development. In fact, organizations are increasingly moving away from traditional licenses in favor of open source licenses. However, extant literature reports conflicting findings regarding the impact of different open source licenses on the success of the project. Through this research, we attempt to reconcile the conflicting findings in literature by providing a more nuanced understanding of the mechanisms through which the type of license influences the success of the project. Using propensity score matching and ordinary least squares regression analysis on a sample of 2110 organization owned open source projects, we compare the structures of work across the two main types of licenses and study its relation to the success of the project. The results of our analysis indicate that different motivational mechanisms are at play under different licenses, which in turn has an influence on the optimal structures of work for a particular license. From these results we conclude that the success of the project depends on how well the structures of work are aligned to the motivational requirements created by the license. The findings provide significant insights for open source researchers and organizations as to how they can model the structures of work to facilitate the success of open source projects.