Annals of Knowledge Sharing in Distributed Software Development Environments: Experience from Open Source Software Projects

Empirical research aimed at understanding how individuals interact and share their knowledge in a distributed software development environment has traditionally been very difficult because the source of knowledge, the code, has been a guarded secret and software developers and users were seldom in contact, thus making it difficult to study, in situ, all the individuals involved in the software development process. Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) projects presents renewed opportunities, as well as challenges, in understanding collaboration and knowledge sharing amongst software developers and users in distributed software development environments. In this paper, we discuss how developers and users share their knowledge and collaborate in the software development process. Knowledge sharing metrics, software repositories, and suitable methodologies for studying knowledge sharing are presented. The paper aims to stimulate discussion, present our current understanding, and empirical research opportunities and challenges in knowledge sharing in distributed collective practices ­ F/OSS projects.