In this study we identify a process of “entrainment” around open source software (OSS) development release cycles to capture patterns of self-organized task allocation among developers. We conducted an abductive, computationally intensive study of eight OSS projects, using relational event modeling to analyze 1,169,489 actions covering 93 major software releases. The process of entrainment that we identify involves three task allocation mechanisms: (1) developer-issue inertia, (2) developer contribution frequency, and (3) issue popularity. Our analysis demonstrates that these mechanisms and the phases of the release cycle entrain each other. Before a major release, developers engage in a concentrated mobilization phase, whereby they democratize development activity and increasingly allocate community contributions to the set of issues related to the release. After a major release, the extended cleanup phase garners a greater share of development work from recently highly active developers and dilutes the activity of these developers across a wider range of issues. Our theorizing suggests that major releases constitute important events around which OSS communities self-organize and we characterize how this occurs. Our research contributes to theorizing on organizing in OSS communities by explaining how self-organizing task allocation interacts with release cycles through the mechanism of entrainment. We also contribute to the literature on entrainment by showing how it may unfold in the context of online peer production communities such as OSS.

中文翻译：

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开源软件开发中任务分配和发布周期的夹带

在这项研究中，我们确定了围绕开源软件（OSS）开发发布周期的“夹带”过程，以捕获开发人员之间自组织任务分配的模式。我们对 8 个 OSS 项目进行了溯因式计算密集型研究，使用关系事件模型分析了涵盖 93 个主要软件版本的 1,169,489 个操作。我们确定的夹带过程涉及三种任务分配机制：（1）开发人员问题惯性，（2）开发人员贡献频率，以及（3）问题流行度。我们的分析表明，这些机制和发布周期的各个阶段是相互关联的。在主要版本发布之前，开发人员会进入集中动员阶段，使开发活动民主化，并越来越多地将社区贡献分配给与发布相关的一系列问题。在主要版本发布后，延长的清理阶段从最近高度活跃的开发人员那里获得了更大份额的开发工作，并稀释了这些开发人员在更广泛的问题上的活动。我们的理论表明，主要版本构成重要事件，OSS 社区围绕这些事件进行自组织，并且我们描述了这种情况是如何发生的。我们的研究通过解释自组织任务分配如何通过夹带机制与发布周期相互作用，为 OSS 社区的组织理论做出了贡献。我们还通过展示夹带如何在 OSS 等在线同行生产社区的背景下展开，为有关夹带的文献做出贡献。