How Firms Adapt and Interact in Open Source Ecosystems: Analyzing Stakeholder Influence and Collaboration Patterns

TL;DR

This study analyzes the Apache Hadoop ecosystem to understand how stakeholder influence and collaboration patterns evolve over time and impact innovation and time-to-market in open source ecosystems.

Contribution

It provides a longitudinal, quantitative analysis of stakeholder influence, collaboration, and their effects on innovation and development speed in an open source ecosystem.

Findings

Stakeholder influence shifts among rival firms over time.

Collaboration patterns significantly affect innovation and time-to-market.

Network analysis helps understand ecosystem power structures.

Abstract

[Context and motivation] Ecosystems developed as Open Source Software (OSS) are considered to be highly innovative and reactive to new market trends due to their openness and wide-ranging contributor base. Participation in OSS often implies opening up of the software development process and exposure towards new stakeholders. [Question/Problem] Firms considering to engage in such an environment should carefully consider potential opportunities and challenges upfront. The openness may lead to higher innovation potential but also to frictional losses for engaged firms. Further, as an ecosystem progresses, power structures and influence on feature selection may fluctuate accordingly. [Principal ideas/results] We analyze the Apache Hadoop ecosystem in a quantitative longitudinal case study to investigate changing stakeholder influence and collaboration patterns. Further, we investigate how its innovation and time-to-market evolve at the same time. [Contribution] Findings show collaborations between and influence shifting among rivaling and non-competing firms. Network analysis proves valuable on how an awareness of past, present and emerging stakeholders, in regards to power structure and collaborations may be created. Furthermore, the ecosystem's innovation and time-to-market show strong variations among the release history. Indications were also found that these characteristics are influenced by the way how stakeholders collaborate with each other.