Quality Practices and Problems in Free Software Projects

Overview

Free software and open source projects are often perceived to be of high quality. It has been suggested that the high level of quality found in some free software projects is related to the open development model which promotes peer review. While the quality of some free software projects is comparable to, if not better than, that of closed source software, not all free software projects are successful and of high quality. In exploratory interviews performed with free software and open source developers and the results of these interviews are presented in this paper in order to take stock of the current status of quality in free software projects.