But what will it cost me? How do private costs of participation affect open source software projects?

We explore how the adoption of a decentralized version control system (DVCS) affects the number of participants and the level of contribution in open source software (OSS) projects. Based on a monthly panel data of 10,381 OSS projects between 2007 and 2011, we find that DVCS reduces the private costs for participants in an OSS project and thus increases the number of participants, but decreases the average level of contribution by individual participants. Our findings provide a complementary view based on the cost side of participants' decision and have implications to other contexts where the project development is contingent on voluntary individual participation.