1. Barriers faced by newcomers to
open source projects:
a Systematic Review
Igor Steinmacher
Marco Aurélio Graciotto Silva
Marco Aurélio Gerosa

2. Context
... and need support on
their first steps
“Newcomers are explorers who
must orient themselves within an
unfamiliar landscape...”
[Degenais et al. 2010]
B. Dagenais, H. Ossher, R.K.E Bellamy, M.P. Robillard and J.P.
de Vries, Moving into a new software project landscape,
in ICSE 2010.

3. Context
• A group of PhD students received an assignment:
▫ Contribute significantly to an OSS project
• Result:
▫ All succeeded!!!
• But...
▫ Onboarding was very hard
 emails not answered after a week
 outdated information on the issue tracker
 waste of time on an already existent feature
 concurrent work on translation caused by an unread/
unanswered message sent to devs forum
 undocumented code/architecture

4. Goal
Identifying the barriers that newcomers face when
contributing to an Open Source Software project
Aggregate the barriers evidenced by different
studies and organize them

5. Scope and Definitions
• Community-based OSS projects
• Newcomer
• Onboarding
• Contribution = source code
Outsider
Onboarding Contributing
Newcomer Contributor Member
Motivation
Attractiveness Retention
Onboarding Barriers
Onboarding
Onboarding Barriers

6. Method
• Systematic Literature Review
▫ Aims to present a fair evaluation of a research
topic by using a trustworthy, rigorous, and
auditable methodology [Kitchenham, 2004]
• Analysis of papers using open coding + axial
coding (Grounded Theory)
Kitchenham, B.: Procedures for performing systematic reviews. Tech. rep., Keele
University and NICTA (2004)

7. Systematic Literature Review
• Research Question
▫ What are the barriers that hinder newcomers’
onboarding to OSS projects?
• Keywords based on research question:

8. Systematic Literature Review
• Selecting the studies
Query Digital
Libraries
Selection of
Primary Studies
Analysis of Primary
Studies using open
coding
Author
snowballing
Backward
snowballing
ACM, IEEE, Scopus
SpringerLink
(("OSS" OR "Open Source" OR "Free Software" OR FLOSS OR
FOSS)
AND
(newcomer OR "joining process" OR newbie OR "new
developer" OR "new member" OR "new contributor" OR "new
member" OR novice OR beginner OR "potential participant"
OR retention OR joiner OR onboarding OR "new committer"))

9. Systematic Literature Review
Studies found and selected

10. Systematic Literature Review
Resulting map of barriers

11. Systematic Literature Review
Stakeholder that needs to take action

12. Mapping
Projects Analyzed

13. Mapping
Types of Studies

14. Mapping
Forums

15. Conclusions
• 21 studies that evidence barriers that can hinder
newcomers’ onboarding in OSS projects
• Most evidenced barriers:
▫ newcomers’ previous technical experience
▫ receiving response from community
▫ social interactions with core members

16. Conclusions
• Social interaction issues is the most thoroughly
studied category: 71.42% (15 out of 21) papers
▫ High focus on interaction in mailing lists (MSR)
• Technical issues are under-investigated
▫ code issues are evidenced by only 6 studies

17. Conclusions
• High diversity of projects studied
• Growth of studies evidencing problems
• No studies aiming specifically at identifying the
barriers faced by newcomers to OSS
• Most part of the studies rely on results of
quantitative case studies
• Qualitative work is needed to reveal the barriers
and needs of the newcomers

18. Thank you!
Questions?
Igor Steinmacher
igorfs@utfpr.edu.br
Marco Aurélio Graciotto Silva
magsilva@utfpr.edu.br
Marco Aurélio Gerosa
gerosa@ime.usp.br