Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP7012
Authors: Sharon Belenzon; Mark Schankerman
Abstract: This paper studies the role of intrinsic motivation, reputation and reciprocity in driving open source software innovation. We exploit the observed pattern of contributions - the 'revealed preference' of developers - to infer the underlying incentives. Using detailed information on code contributions and project membership, we classify developers into distinct groups and study how contributions from each developer type vary by license (contract) type and other project characteristics. The central empirical finding is that developers strongly sort by license type, project size and corporate sponsorship. This evidence confirms the importance of heterogeneous motivations, specifically a key role for motivated agents and reputation, but less for reciprocity.
Keywords: incentives; innovation; intrinsic motivation; motivated agents; open source software; reciprocity; reputation
JEL Codes: L14; L17; L41; O31; O32
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| developers sort themselves based on license type (L24) | characteristics of the projects they contribute to (O22) |
| developers sort themselves based on project size (C55) | characteristics of the projects they contribute to (O22) |
| developers sort themselves based on corporate sponsorship (O36) | characteristics of the projects they contribute to (O22) |
| intrinsic motivation (O31) | contributions to open source software projects (L17) |
| reputational concerns (M14) | contributions to open source software projects (L17) |
| reciprocity (Z13) | contributions to open source software projects (L17) |