Dirk Riehle's Industry and Research Publications

Tag: Evergreen

  • Why do episodic volunteers stay in FLOSS communities? [ICSE 2019]

    Why do episodic volunteers stay in FLOSS communities? [ICSE 2019]

    Abstract: Successful Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects incorporate both habitual and infrequent, or episodic, contributors. Using the concept of episodic volunteering (EV) from the general volunteering literature, we derive a model consisting of five key constructs that we hypothesize affect episodic volunteers’ retention in FLOSS communities. To evaluate the model we conducted a…

  • Should The Public Sector Use Open Source Software? 1/4

    Should The Public Sector Use Open Source Software? 1/4

    I was asked several questions by a journalist about open source and the public sector. I’m answering them here in sequence. This is the first of four blog posts and the first question was: Should the public sector use open source software? The public sector and public governments should use the software that lets them…

  • Happy new year, the second amendment, and private messaging

    Happy new year, the second amendment, and private messaging

    There is wisdom in the second amendment of the constitution of the United States of America. A key motivation was to allow people to defend themselves against an oppressive government. Back when it was formulated, self-defense meant bearing firearms, which seems quaint today given that a government could came after you with tanks and drones.…

  • What software vendors don’t seem to understand about university teaching

    What software vendors don’t seem to understand about university teaching

    I often get approached by software vendors with the suggestion that I teach a course using one of their product tutorials. There are plenty of open source databases, operating systems, and cloud computing solutions who want to make it into my curriculum. Of course, vendors don’t always call their product tutorials by that name, but…

  • Scrum’s product vision vs. project mission

    Scrum’s product vision vs. project mission

    As noted previously, Scrum uses the term product to mean artifact. This is fine, as long as the user of Scrum is a software vendor, developing a product for a market. It is confusing, however, if the user is a consulting firm, performing a custom project for a client. If you are a consulting firm,…

  • How project vs. product confuses agile methods terminology

    How project vs. product confuses agile methods terminology

    In a previous blog post I noted how the terms project and product are being confused in open source. However, it is agile methods, specifically Scrum, where it gets really bad. To recap: A project is a human undertaking to create an artifact. A project, by definition, has a start date and an end date.…