Let's Talk Open-Source - An Analysis of Conference Talks and Community Dynamics

Kimberly Truong

Abstract: Open-source software has integrated itself into our daily lives, impacting 78% of US companies in 2015 [11]. Past studies of open-source community dynamics have found motivations behind contributions [3, 14, 18, 19] and the significance of community engagement [8, 17], but there are still many aspects not well understood. There's a direct correlation between the success of an open-source project and the social interactions within its community [7, 9, 17]. Most projects depend on a small group. A study by Avelino et al. [4] on the 133 most popular GitHub projects found that 86% will fail if one or two of its core contributors leave. To sustain open-source, we need to better understand how contributors interact, what information is shared, and what concerns practitioners have. We study common topics, how these have changed over time (2011 - 2021), and what social issues have appeared within open-source communities. Our research is guided by the following questions: (1) How is open-source changing/evolving? (2) What changes do practitioners believe are necessary for open-source to be sustainable?