Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

International Conference of Software Business

ICSOB 2017: Software Business pp 205–210Cite as

Should We Be Thanking Microsoft, Apple and Google for Their Contributions to Open Source Software?

The Case of Multinational Platform Leaders

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:

  • 1182 Accesses

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 304))

Abstract

Software producing organizations are contributing increasingly to open source software, by making their software open source or contributing to existing projects. Platform leaders contribute to open source software in different manners, but for whose interests are these companies contributing to open source software? Are contributions made by software developers as part of a software vendor or do these software producing organizations want to do what is right without benefits? So how do platform leaders contribute to open source software? By analyzing the data from GitHub repositories, the contributions to open source software by three platform leaders is researched in two dimensions, how are the developers connected and to which projects do these developers contribute. By analyzing their connectedness and analyzing the developed projects, the conclusion is drawn that contributions are made for the strategic advantage of the software producing organizations. The majority of the contributions made to open source software is to their own projects and by developers who contribute to these projects full-time.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    http://ghtorrent.org/.

References

  1. Andersen-Gott, G., Ghinea, G., Bygstad, B.: Why do commercial companies contribute to open source software? Elsevier 32(2), 106–117 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Kalliamvakou, E., Gousios, G., Blincoe, K., Singer, L., German, D., Damian, D.: The promises and perils of mining github. Mining Softw. Repositories Conf. 11(5), 92–101 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Hecker, F.: Setting up shop: the business of open source softwar. IEEE 16(1), 45–51 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Brown, A.W., Booch, G.: Reusing open-source software and practices: the impact of open-source on commercial vendors. In: Gacek, C. (ed.) ICSR 2002. LNCS, vol. 2319, pp. 123–136. Springer, Heidelberg (2002). doi:10.1007/3-540-46020-9_9

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  5. Lerner, J., Tirole, J.: The simple economics of open source. J. Ind. Econ. 50(2), 197–234 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Lerner, J., Tirole, J.: The economics of technology sharing: open source and beyond. J. Econ. Perspect. 19(2), 99–120 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Jansen, S., Finkelstein, A., Brinkkemper, S.: A sense of community: a research agenda for software ecosystems. Softw. Eng. 31 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Utrecht University, Princetonplein 5, 3584 CC, Utrecht, Netherlands

    Dominique Doorhof, Elizabeth A. Schermerhorn, Slinger Jansen & Sjaak Brinkkemper

Authors
  1. Dominique Doorhof
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Elizabeth A. Schermerhorn
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Slinger Jansen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Sjaak Brinkkemper
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Elizabeth A. Schermerhorn .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä, Finland

    Arto Ojala

  2. Malmö University, Malmö, Sweden

    Helena Holmström Olsson

  3. University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

    Karl Werder

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this paper

Cite this paper

Doorhof, D., Schermerhorn, E.A., Jansen, S., Brinkkemper, S. (2017). Should We Be Thanking Microsoft, Apple and Google for Their Contributions to Open Source Software?. In: Ojala, A., Holmström Olsson, H., Werder, K. (eds) Software Business. ICSOB 2017. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 304. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69191-6_16

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69191-6_16

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-69190-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-69191-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation