Managing Support Requests in Open Source Software Project: The Role of Online Forums

TL;DR

This paper empirically investigates how online forums serve as a crucial support mechanism for open source software projects, demonstrating their significant role in managing user support requests across diverse projects.

Contribution

It provides empirical evidence that online forums are a vital support resource in open source software, highlighting their impact on project maintenance and user assistance.

Findings

Online forums significantly aid support request management.

Support requests are effectively handled through online community interactions.

The study covers 616 diverse open source projects.

Abstract

The use of free and open source software is gaining momentum due to the ever increasing availability and use of the Internet. Organizations are also now adopting open source software, despite some reservations in particular regarding the provision and availability of support. One of the greatest concerns about free and open source software is the availability of post release support and the handling of for support. A common belief is that there is no appropriate support available for this class of software, while an alternative argument is that due to the active involvement of Internet users in online forums, there is in fact a large resource available that communicates and manages the management of support requests. The research model of this empirical investigation establishes and studies the relationship between open source software support requests and online public forums. The results of this empirical study provide evidence about the realities of support that is present in open source software projects. We used a dataset consisting of 616 open source software projects covering a broad range of categories in this investigation. The results show that online forums play a significant role in managing support requests in open source software, thus becoming a major source of assistance in maintenance of the open source projects.