A Comprehensive Review and Synthesis of Open Source Research

Abstract

The open source movement has grown steadily and matured in recent years, and this growth has been mirrored by a rise in open source related research. The objective of this paper is to pause and reflect on the state of the field. We start by conducting a comprehensive literature review of open source research, and organize the resulting 618 peer-reviewed articles into a taxonomy. Elements of this taxonomy are defined and described. We then draw on a number of existing categorization schemes to develop a framework to situate open source research within a wider nomological network. Building on concepts from systems theory, we propose a holistic framework of open source research. This framework incorporates current research, as represented by the taxonomy, identifies gaps and areas of overlap, and charts a path for future work