The software research community has devoted a lot of attention to the open source world, as can be deduced for example from the series of open source workshops in the ICSE context. Many are the questions which are of interest of the software community when looking at the open source world.
Which are the successful projects and how do we define this notion of success in a not profit world?
Is success a function of project vitality?
Is success a function of the impact the open source software has on the commercial market, such as for example the Linux operating system?