# Do software firms collaborate or compete? A model of coopetition in community-initiated OSS projects

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1808.06489 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1808.06489/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 16 Aug 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [The AI Community Building the Future? A Quantitative Analysis of Development Activity on Hugging Face Hub](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.13058/) (2024)
- [Public-private funding models in open source software development: A case study on scikit-learn](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.06484/) (2024)
- [Why Companies "Democratise" Artificial Intelligence: The Case of Open Source Software Donations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.17876/) (2024)
- [Characterising Open Source Co-opetition in Company-hosted Open Source Software Projects: The Cases of PyTorch, TensorFlow, and Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.18241/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

[Background] An increasing number of commercial firms are participating in Open Source Software (OSS) projects to reduce their development cost and increase technical innovativeness. When collaborating with other firms whose sought values are conflicts of interests, firms may behave uncooperatively leading to harmful impacts on the common goal. [Aim] This study explores how software firms both collaborate and compete in OSS projects. [Method] We adopted a mixed research method on three OSS projects. [Result] We found that commercial firms participating in community-initiated OSS projects collaborate in various ways across the organizational boundaries. While most of firms contribute little, a small number of firms that are very active and account for large proportions of contributions. We proposed a conceptual model to explain for coopetition among software firms in OSS projects. The model shows two aspects of coopetition can be managed at the same time based on firm gatekeepers. [Conclusion] Firms need to operationalize their coopetition strategies to maximize value gained from participating in OSS projects.