In Hybrid Open Source Software projects, independent and commercially oriented stakeholders collaborate using freely accessible tools and development processes. Here, contributors can enter and leave the community flexibly, which poses a challenge for community managers in ensuring the sustainability of the community. This short paper reports initial results from an industrial case study of the ''Qt'' Open Source Software project. We present a visual stakeholder analysis approach, building on data from the three systems that provide for the Qt project's complete software development workflow.

1. Who's there?
A stakeholder analysis approach
...for a Hybrid OSS developer ecosystem
Hanna Mäenpää, Terhi Kilamo
Mikko Nurminen
Myriam Munezero
Fabian Fagerholm
Tomi Männistö

2. Open Source Software
• Community driven development
– Freely accessible source code
– Self-organized developers
– Meritocratic
– Consensus
– Open communication

3. A hybrid OSS project
Commercial
stakeholders
business goals,
needs of customers
Independent
developers
own problems,
intrinsic reasons,
ideology
Software product

4. Hybrid OSS projects
Commercial
stakeholders
business goals,
needs of customers
Independent
developers
own problems,
intrinsic reasons,
ideology
Software product
Host

6. The research gap
RQ a1: How to identify new and
stay aware of present stakeholders
in an open environment?
Linåker et al. (2015):

7. The case

8. Multi-platform application
development framework
– 20 years of development
– 1.1 million downloads (2014-)
– 5 000 customers
– Active developer community
– Stable, business driven
stakeholder ecosystem
– Influential independent
developers

9. The hybrid organization
Open community
Workflow coordination
Software development
Quality assurance

10. Open community
Workflow coordination
Software development
Quality assurance
Qt Company's teams
Release engineering
Software development
Quality assurance
Customer service
The hybrid organization

11. Open community
Workflow coordination
Software development
Quality assurance
The hybrid organization
Qt Company's teams
Release engineering
Software development
Quality assurance
Customer service

12. Management challenges
Sustainability
●
Acquiring new contributors from outside the company
●
Increasing involvement of existing
Conflict of motivations
●
Release authority
●
Development priorities – whose say gets through?

13. Reserach Questions
RQ1: How to provide a visual overview of the
active developers of the Qt software?
RQ2: What value does this visualization provide
for community management?

14. Single case study, empirical and descriptive
1 Interviews with the community manager.
2 Logs from openly available development tools:
Qt 5.0 development during Jan-March 2015
3 ..and more interviews with the community manager.
Methods and data

15. Results:
Who's there?
Qt 5.0
Jan-March 2015

16. 284 active developers
Four tasks:
(A) Submitting work issues
(B) Being assigned for work
(C) Performing code reviews
(D) Delivering software source code
Qt 5.0
Jan-March 2015

17. Experimentation → two visualizations

18. Developers of the Qt software (1-2 roles)
(A) created a work task
(B) was assigned to one
(C) performed a code review
(D) authored a code increment

19. The core developers (3-4 roles)
(A) created a work task
(B) was assigned to one
(C) performed a code review
(D) authored a code increment

20. External influence
- a balance -

21. 139 affiliations
- Employees of The Qt Company
- Members of partner organizations
- Independent individuals
- Commercial organizations
Qt 5.0
Jan-March 2015

23. Requirements engineering and code authorship
A = Created a work task
D = Committed code
Large groups that provide
input for product
development.

24. A = Created a work task
D = Committed code
Large groups that provide
input for product
development.
Stakeholders from versatile
organizations is desired.
Requirements engineering and code authorship

25. Core developers: External influence
ABCD, ABD, ACD, BCD
Developers who actively run the
Project.
Mostly (but not solely!) employees
of the host company.

26. Potential for growth

27. Sizes of certain groups:
Following the developer's entry paths
Size of group can reflect
effectiveness of community
management activities:
Acquiring new members (A,B,D)

28. Sizes of certain groups:
Following the developer's entry paths
Size of group can reflect
effectiveness of community
management activities:
Acquiring new members (A,B,D)
Increasing involvement of existing
members (AB, AD, BD)

29. Sizes of certain groups:
Following the developer's entry paths
Size of group can reflect
effectiveness of community
management activities:
Acquiring new members (A,B,D)
Increasing involvement of existing
members (AB, AD, BD)
Names of individuals: John Doe, Intel

30. Powerful individuals

31. Code reviewers
Deeply knowledgable.
Long path of personal learning.
Work independently.
55% The Qt Company's employees.
→ High level of external involvement
is desired.

32. Warning signs

33. Warning sign:
Losing the support of external stakeholders
ABCD, ABD, ACD, BCD
Loss of external contributors in any
group signals a threath for
sustainability of the community.
Is the company influencing
development too much?

34. AC
BC
A warning sign:
Organization of the SWD process

35. Summary of findings:
Measuring external influence:
●
Versatility is foundational for hybrids
● Community drivenness can be measured
Balancing acts:
● Quantity and quality of involvement
● Which tasks require more work power?
● Are we attracting new developers?
●
Are the community building activities
successful?
Warning signals:
Conflict of motivations?
Are workflow
coordination tools fit for
purpose?

36. Promising, yet limited approach
●
Single case study, no generalizability
●
Limited set of data, representative of only a short moment in time
●
No automation, temporal analysis impossible
●
However: case is representative, visualization method simple
●
FUTURE: Governance is configurational - what is relevant and for whom?

37. Questions?

38. Thank you.
Hanna.maenpaa@cs.helsinki.fi