The Practices of Unpaid Third-Party Developers : Implications for API Design

• To draw on the innovation capabilities of third-party developers many organizations are currently deploying open application programming interfaces (API’s). While third-party services may offer commercial opportunities for independent software firms, a large portion of existing third-party software are undertaken without any financial compensation. Although unpaid developers offers a potential source for innovation of end-user services, the current literature has largely overlooked how these unpaid actors use and appropriate the technology provided by organizations. To this end, this research pays specific attention to the specific practices of unpaid developers. The data used for analysis were collected through a programming contest – a hackathon – where unpaid developers gather to craft end-user services. Through an ethnographic lens we present a number of recurrent activities and patterns of action employed by developers and from this analysis we present implications for API designers seeking to attract unpaid developers.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Information Systems (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Informatik

Handel och IT

Bussiness and IT

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)