Changes in free and open source software licenses: managerial interventions and variations on project attractiveness

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Citation: Carlos Denner dos Santos Jr Changes in free and open source software licenses: managerial interventions and variations on project attractiveness.
Internet Archive Scholar (search for fulltext): Changes in free and open source software licenses: managerial interventions and variations on project attractiveness
Wikidata (metadata): Q59514690
Download: https://jisajournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s13174-017-0062-3
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Summary

RQ1: Do intellectual property interventions, license changes, occur in practice?

Yes. Based on a sample of more than 3500 active projects over 44 months obtained from the FLOSSmole repository of Sourceforge.net data, 756 projects that had changed their source code distribution allowances and restrictions a total of 1012 times were identified.

RQ2: Are the different licensing schemas chosen by project managers associated with FSP attractiveness?

Attractiveness of identified projects in each time period calculated based on website visits, downloads and membership numbers. 35 types of license changes (e.g., common permissive such as MIT to restrictive GPL is one type) observed in the sample, 13 were positive to attractiveness, 21 were negative, and only one neutral. Any change to no license was negative. However, there are asymmetries for every license, e.g. where changing between A and B is negative in either direction.