Governance in Collaborative Open Source Software Development Organizations: A Comparative Analysis of two Case Studies Master’s thesis Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences University of Bern submitted to Dr. Matthias Stürmer Research Center for Digital Sustainability Institute of Information Systems by Winkelmann, Rahel from Siselen 11th semester Matriculation nr.: 09-127-788 Study address: Huberstrasse 22 3008 Bern (Tel. 078 758 58 96) (e-Mail:
[email protected]) Bern, 20.01.2015 Abstract While loose cooperation among several actors is common in the open source sector, companies merging into a professionally governed collaborative open source software development organization across industries is an emerging phenomenon. The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on this new approach of software development by creating a framework for building a collaborative open source software development organization. A comparative analysis examines the governance models of two different collaborative open source software development organizations from the organizational, financial and legal perspective and reveals the autonomous and the affiliated organization type and their key characteristics. Based on these findings and by means of four expert interviews a framework consisting of eight criteria that need to be considered in order to build a collaborative open source software development organization is created. Zusammenfassung In der Open Source Branche ist es gängig, dass sich verschiedene Akteure zur Softwareentwicklung zu losen Konsortien zusammenschliessen. Unternehmen, welche sich im professionellen Rahmen zu einer Organisation zusammenschliessen um gemeinsam Open Source Software zu entwickeln, sind jedoch ein neues Phänomen. Der Zweck dieser Arbeit ist es Aufschluss über diesen neuen Ansatz von Softwareentwicklung zu geben.