An Exploratory Study on the Two New Trends in Open Source Software: End-Users and Service

Many have been envisaging the emergence of Open Source Software (OSS) for general end-users and the enhancements in providing services and support, as the most critical factors for OSS success, and at the same time, the most critical issues which are holding back the OSS movement. While these two distinct waves in OSS evolution have become more observable, researchers have not yet explored the characteristics of these two distinct new waves. The current study found evidence for these two waves and further explored the two waves by empirically examining two hundred projects hosted in Sourceforge.net. We compared the characteristics of OSS projects that are intended for two disparate audiences: developers and end-users and found that projects for end-users supported more languages but also had more restrictive licenses as compared to projects for developers.