OSS 2014 - Systematic Review on Barriers Faced by Newcomers to OSS
1. Barriers faced by newcomers to
open source projects:
a Systematic Review
Igor Steinmacher
Marco Aurélio Graciotto Silva
Marco Aurélio Gerosa
2. Context
... and need support on
their first steps
“Newcomers are explorers who
must orient themselves within an
unfamiliar landscape...”
[Degenais et al. 2010]
B. Dagenais, H. Ossher, R.K.E Bellamy, M.P. Robillard and J.P.
de Vries, Moving into a new software project landscape,
in ICSE 2010.
3. Context
• A group of PhD students received an assignment:
▫ Contribute significantly to an OSS project
• Result:
▫ All succeeded!!!
• But...
▫ Onboarding was very hard
emails not answered after a week
outdated information on the issue tracker
waste of time on an already existent feature
concurrent work on translation caused by an unread/
unanswered message sent to devs forum
undocumented code/architecture
4. Goal
Identifying the barriers that newcomers face when
contributing to an Open Source Software project
Aggregate the barriers evidenced by different
studies and organize them
6. Method
• Systematic Literature Review
▫ Aims to present a fair evaluation of a research
topic by using a trustworthy, rigorous, and
auditable methodology [Kitchenham, 2004]
• Analysis of papers using open coding + axial
coding (Grounded Theory)
Kitchenham, B.: Procedures for performing systematic reviews. Tech. rep., Keele
University and NICTA (2004)
7. Systematic Literature Review
• Research Question
▫ What are the barriers that hinder newcomers’
onboarding to OSS projects?
• Keywords based on research question:
8. Systematic Literature Review
• Selecting the studies
Query Digital
Libraries
Selection of
Primary Studies
Analysis of Primary
Studies using open
coding
Author
snowballing
Backward
snowballing
ACM, IEEE, Scopus
SpringerLink
(("OSS" OR "Open Source" OR "Free Software" OR FLOSS OR
FOSS)
AND
(newcomer OR "joining process" OR newbie OR "new
developer" OR "new member" OR "new contributor" OR "new
member" OR novice OR beginner OR "potential participant"
OR retention OR joiner OR onboarding OR "new committer"))
15. Conclusions
• 21 studies that evidence barriers that can hinder
newcomers’ onboarding in OSS projects
• Most evidenced barriers:
▫ newcomers’ previous technical experience
▫ receiving response from community
▫ social interactions with core members
16. Conclusions
• Social interaction issues is the most thoroughly
studied category: 71.42% (15 out of 21) papers
▫ High focus on interaction in mailing lists (MSR)
• Technical issues are under-investigated
▫ code issues are evidenced by only 6 studies
17. Conclusions
• High diversity of projects studied
• Growth of studies evidencing problems
• No studies aiming specifically at identifying the
barriers faced by newcomers to OSS
• Most part of the studies rely on results of
quantitative case studies
• Qualitative work is needed to reveal the barriers
and needs of the newcomers