Analysis of the core team role in open source communities

Abstract

Open source software represents a new paradigm of software development based on a subjacent community. It is widely accepted in the literature the layered structure of open source communities, being the core group the most active contributors usually located at the center of the community. The tasks of this group include not only an intense activity in terms of contributions but also to promote participation among the rest of the community members. In this paper, the general role of this group is analyzed by modeling communities as Social Networks and applying Social Network Analysis techniques. Findings related their brokerage activity with open source software success