James Howison

Collaboration through Open Superposition: A theory of the open

source way

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Rutgers LIS Lecture Series

14 April 2015

Work supported by the NSF03-41475, 04–14468, 05-27457 and 07–08437

@jameshowison

“Let’s do this the open source way?”

Sounds great, right?Lots of people volunteering for the enjoyment of it,

working together, sharing stuff, meritocracy, contributing stuff, fighting the man, all without raising money or top-

down management.

Open innovation, open platforms, open hardware, open data, open government,

open NASA, citizen science …@jameshowison

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@jameshowison

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@jameshowison

What ought we learn from Open Source?

• Highly successful distributed work– In surprising circumstances: highly interdependent

work, many failures, at distance, while working with unreliable volunteers!

• Literature focuses on what Rousseau et al. 2006 call teamwork rather than taskwork

• e.g., Agerfalk and Fitzgerald 2008; von Krogh and von Hippel 2003; Scacchi et al. 2006; Stewart and Gosain 2006

• Less study of what they are working on, despite the importance of technology to Information Systems– Technology as “work in progress” Orlikowski and Iacono (2001)– Only small number of studies examining what is built (Zammuto

et al. 2007, Malhotra and Majchrzak 2012) @jameshowison

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Outsourcing to an unknown workforce?

(Agerfalk and Fitzgerald 2008)

@jameshowison

A research arc for theory development

• Participant Observation – one case– live participation and observation

• Replication– two cases chosen by replication logic– Archival study

• Theory development– Develop theory and demonstrate it’s

usefulness @jameshowison

Goal: An image of FLOSS production

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@jameshowison

Discovery through Participant Observation

@jameshowison

Task: The Container Column

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How it was built

@jameshowison

BibDesk 2.0?

@jameshowison

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@jameshowison

Task: “Web Groups”

https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=DF0FB757-56BA-45D7-A1EA-262EB7A5B3DC@mac.com

June 2003 (Email)

I really want to use this, but the conditions have never quite been right - either I was waiting for … RSS+RDF (now looks like it'll never happen) or … an XML bibliographic file format … (could happen now, but I ran out of free time).

@jameshowison

What didn’t happen

Image Credit:TreeGrid.com marketing materials

@jameshowison

Task: “Web Groups”

https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=DF0FB757-56BA-45D7-A1EA-262EB7A5B3DC@mac.comhttps://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_name=7394DD78-A02E-11D7-AFC1-0003931E45D0%40mac.com

June 2003 (Email)

I really want to use this, but the conditions have never quite been right - either I was waiting for … RSS+RDF (now looks like it'll never happen) or … an XML bibliographic file format … (could happen now, but I ran out of free time).

Jan 2007 (Email with patch):

It was much easier than I expected it to be because the existing groups code (and search groups code) was very easy to extend. Kudos - I wouldn't have tried it if so much hadn't already been solved well.Thanks!

@jameshowison

Discovery Findings

1. Individual work with personal motivations

2. Superposition of layers3. Productive Deferral

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@jameshowison

But that’s just one case!

(and what’s the point of theorizing

about idiosyncratic situations?)

@jameshowison

To the Archives!

The evidence is here, somewhere.

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@jameshowison

Replication: Fire and Gaim

• Specific RQs:– What proportion of work was individual?– Any evidence of “productive deferral”?

• Fire and Gaim– Multi-protocol instant messaging clients– Community-based open source– Similar task and collaboration infrastructure to

BibDesk

@jameshowison

Tasks: changes to shared outcomes

Version Number

Headings and Indenting

Bullet Points Developer Initials

Tracker Numbers

@jameshowison

Release Notes Dev Email Bug Tracker RFE TrackerUser Forum

TaskOutcome

Task

RelevantDocuments

TaskOutcome

Task

RelevantDocuments

TaskOutcome

Task

RelevantDocuments

CVS

Search and assign Relevant Documents

@jameshowison

Illustrative Co-work

@jameshowison

Illustrative Individual Work

30 (of 106) tasks consisted of a single Action: Core Production@jameshowison

Tasks were individual

@jameshowison

Evidence for Deferral

@jameshowison

Deferral• E.g. Fire Task 9:

– March 2003 • a user requests that the away message only be sent

when it changes. • one of the developers assigns the request to himself,

indicating acceptance of this as a desirable feature.

– October 2003 • Different developer re-assigns the feature to himself

and says,• This is possible now with the `once' option for how often to send away

messages. We just need to reset the message count when changing state.... I think I have a fix for this... probably will check it in the next week or so.

• Fix checked in@jameshowison

An image of FLOSS production:Open Superposition

• Work is done in Tasks that are– Individual– Short– Layered

• Complex work is often deferred– Until it is easier (doesn’t always happen!)

Other types of work build on this base@jameshowison

A model of software development

@jameshowison

Superposition

Reference Display

Time 1

Reference Display

Container Column

Time 3Dev Time

Container Column

@jameshowison

Missing step in Complex Work

RSS+RDF

Web GroupsXML or RSS+RDF

Web Groups

Time 1 Time 3Dev Time (one not both)�?

@jameshowison

Multi-person interdependent work ("Co-work")

Time 1

RSS+RDF

Time 3

RSS+RDF

Web Groups

Web Groups

Interpersonal dependency

Dev Time

Undermines self locus of control, autonomy and, since failure of one is failure of all, anticipation of payoffs.

@jameshowison

Productive Deferral

Dev TimeTime 1 Deferral Time (2 years)…… Reconsideration Time n

Groups SearchSearch Groups

Independent superposition continues,

resulting in:

Web Groups

Groups SearchSearch Groups

Web Groups

@jameshowison

Theorizing

1. Why are these patterns of work observed?

2. How can complex software result from this way of working?

3. Under what socio-technical contingencies is this likely to be successful?

@jameshowison

Motivation and Experience

• Ke and Zhang (2010) based on Ryan and Deci (2000). Highest effort from:1. Anticipated payoffs (extrinsic or intrinsic)

2. Locus of regulation (self over other)

3. Positive affect (autonomy, competence and relatedness)

Individual tasks in shared volunteer environment match extremely well

@jameshowison

Why these patterns of individual work and deferral?

• Fewest dependencies, lowest coordination challenges and costs

• Closest match to motivational situation of FLOSS participants.– Increases autonomy without eliminating

relatedness

@jameshowison

Ok, but can this really work?

• Software development is highly complex, interdependent, work

(e.g., Herbsleb et al. 2001))

• Can such simple steps really get the job done?

@jameshowison

Imagine trying to plan this

1. Identify desired outcomes (design)

2. Design a task sequence that reaches them

3. Find people who are:– Motivated to do each task– Able to do each task– At just the right time

Crippling search costs!

@jameshowison

Application-led search

• Openness and availability of application

• Task identification through situated use (e.g., Suchman 1987)

“Porches fill in by stages, not all at once, you know. ... it happens that way because [the family] can always visualize the next stage based on what’s already

there”

(Brand 1995, quoting an architect)@jameshowison

But why does deferral make things easier?

• Layered tasks makes deferral more likely to be productive

• Small layers can compose in different ways. They provide option value.

(e.g., Baldwin and Clark 2001)

• Small layers are easier to understand, especially over time.

(e.g., Dabbish, 2011; Boudreau at al 2011)

@jameshowison

@jameshowison

Contingencies for Open superposition

• Attributes of object of work– Layerability– Low instantiation costs– Low distribution costs

• Irrevocable openness

• Time

@jameshowison

Layers vs Steps

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@jameshowison

Irrevocable openness

Free and Open Source Licenses prevent this.

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@jameshowison

Time == MoneyCC Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/opacity/1600562651/

This guy hates to wait@jameshowison

What to learn from FLOSS?

• Much excitement about FLOSS about easing interdependent collaboration– Studies of leadership, governance,

technologies (e.g. CVS), culture,processes …

• What if the “something else” is simpler than that?

@jameshowison

Redesigning work for Superposition

• Irrevocable openness (licenses)– Ensure the “rug” can’t be pulled from under

• Open access for situated searching– How can we conduct the widest search to match

interests and motivations?

• Layerable artifact with independent payoffs – Can we build up small contributions?

• Time – the hardest aspect of all?– How long can we wait for success?

@jameshowison

New research:Open superposition in Scientific Software?

• Similarities:– Software and a culture of openness– Use-value motivation and open search

• Differences:– Limited userbase– Grant funding is a kind of investment– Academic reputation as motivation discourages integration

• New NSF CAREER grant to study transitions from grants to peer production– Six initial case studies, then panel study of SISI NSF

program

@jameshowison

Open Superposition

Howison, J., & Crowston, K. (2014). Collaboration through open superposition: A theory of the open source way. MIS Quarterly, 38(1), 29–50.

@jameshowison