UC Irvine

It has been acknowledged that many open source software (OSS) projects are successful evenwhen compared with their commercial counterparts. Previous research has investigated the artifacts developed by OSS projects and the communities behind those OSS projects. The different roles that developers play have been studied to provide insights on developers’ behavior and their impact on the OSS projects. By presenting the composition of developers in a project and a community, these studies can provide guidance for the development of a successful OSS project and a flourishing community. As for the individual developers, they can also benefit from obtaining awareness of their roles and the possible role evolution paths. By reviewing the existing role classifications and transition patterns, I aim to provide insights as a basis for construction of a systematic and universal role classification model and role transition patterns of OSS developers. In this paper, I performed a systematic literature review of research on developers’ roles and role transition in the OSS community. I identified six role classification models, five major role identification methods, and role transition patterns that have been studied. I also provide a series of discussions about methods used by these studies and the roles studied.