Algorithmic Interactions in Open Source Work

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Shaikh, Maha; Vaast, Emmanuelle
• 署名单位: University of London; King's College London; McGill University
• 刊物名称: INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7047
• DOI: 10.1287/isre.2022.1153
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 744-765
• 关键词: OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE; artificial-intelligence; GROUNDED THEORY; automation; augmentation; COORDINATION; reliability; management; humans; DESIGN

摘要

This study focuses on algorithmic interactions in open source work. Algorithms are essential in open source because they remedy concerns incompletely addressed by parallel development or modularity. Following algorithmic interactions in open source allows us to map the performance of algorithms to understand the nature of work conducted by multiple algorithms functioning together. We zoom to the level of algorithmic interactions to show how residual interdependencies of modularity are worked around by algorithms. Moreover, the dependence on parallel development does not suffice to resolve all concerns related to the distributed work of open source. We examine the Linux Kernel case that reveals how algorithmic interactions facilitate open source work through the three processes of managing, organizing, and supervising development work. Our qualitative study theorizes how algorithmic interactions intensify through these processes that work together to facilitate development. We make a theoretical contribution to open source scholarship by explaining how algorithmic interactions navigate across module rigidity and enhance parallel development. Our work also reveals how, in open source, developers work to automatemost tasks and augmentation is a bidirectional relationship of algorithms augmenting the work of developers and of developers augmenting the work of algorithms.