Simulating an Artificial Society: The Free/Open Source Software Community

We report the latest results from an ongoing study of Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) development at the community level. A computer simulation of the F/OSS community is developed using Java/Swarm and a relational database. Empirical data is used to parameterize the simulation, which in turn is used to investigate hypotheses about processes and mechanisms leading to F/OSS community formation. Successive Òcomputer experimentsÓ using the simulation have been conducted to test various hypothesis about mechanisms and processes at play in the F/OSS developer community. Publicly available data about F/OSS projects, developers, processes, and their relationships have been collected from F/OSS hosting sites, including SourceForge and others. Numerous descriptive statistics, including the existence of many power-law relationships, are presented. The F/OSS community is modeled as a collection of ad hoc, social networks consisting of heterogeneous agents, self-organizing into projects and clusters of projects. The quantitative data, the model, and the simulation offer insight into F/OSS project coordination and communication.

Greg Madey
Computer Science & Engineering
University of Notre Dame
address@hidden