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A qualitative study of open source software development: the OpenEMR project
Date
2011
Abstract
Open Source software is competing successfully in many areas. The commercial sector is recognizing the benefits offered by Open Source development methods that lead to high quality software. Can these benefits be realized in specialized domains where expertise is rare? This study examined discussion forums of an Open Source project in a particular specialized application domain – electronic medical records – to see how development roles are carried out, and by whom. We found through a qualitative analysis that the core developers in this system include doctors and clinicians who also use the product. We also found that the size of the community associated with the project is an order of magnitude smaller than predicted, yet still maintains a high degree of responsiveness to issues raised by users. The implication is that a few experts and a small core of dedicated programmers can achieve success using an Open Source approach in a specialized domain.
Supervisor
Description
peer-reviewed
Publisher
IEEE Computer Society
Citation
5th International Symposium of Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement;2011
Files
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2011_Noll%2CJ.pdf
Adobe PDF, 207.76 KB
ULRR Identifiers
Funding code
Funding Information
Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)
Sustainable Development Goals
External Link
Type
Meetings and Proceedings
Rights
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/