Resources contributing to gaining competitive advantage for open source software projects: An application of resource-based theory

• Management of an OSS project has a decisive role in ensuring the project success.
• This work investigated the resources affecting the competitiveness of OSS projects.
• A resource-based view of the firm is used to build the theoretical justifications.
• Developer interest, user contribution and frequent release are found effective.
• Project popularity and organizational communication are other effective resources.

Open Source Software (OSS) is an important asset in today's software-intensive society. The success of OSS projects is highly dependent on a number of factors. These factors must be understood and managed as an OSS project progresses. Thus, project management of an OSS project has a decisive role in ensuring the success of its software. The objective of the research is to increase the understanding of the resources affecting the competitiveness of OSS projects. Herewith, the responsiveness of OSS projects to users' needs is assessed via an investigation of the defect-fixing process. A Resource-Based View of the firm (RBV) is used to build theoretical justifications for a set of hypotheses proposed in this study. Data gathered from 427 OSS projects confirmed that developers' interest in and users' contribution to the project as well as frequently updating and releasing the software affect the project's ability to gain competitive advantage through effective defect-fixing. It is also shown that OSS projects that are more popular and have a higher level of organizational communication than others are more likely to gain competitive advantage through effective defect-fixing. Finally, implications of the results for practitioners and the research community are presented.