Bringing Open Source Communication and Development Together: A Cross-Platform Study on Gitter and GitHub

Recently, a growing body of research has realized that live chat via modern communication platforms plays an increasingly important role in OSS (Open Source Software) collaborative development. Among these platforms, Gitter has emerged as a popular choice since it is directed toward GitHub projects by account sharing and activity subscribing. But little is known about how Gitter affects the OSS development on GitHub. Who are the developers being active in both social and technical platforms? How important are they? In this paper, we perform a comprehensive cross-platform study on Gitter and GitHub, two representative platforms for live communication and distributed development, to explore the characteristics of cross-platform contributors (CPCs) and whether live chat can provoke open source development. This study yields interesting findings: 1) Despite CPCs being small in quantity yet account for a much bigger amount of communication and development; 2) Gitter continually attracts new contributors; 3) Communication on Gitter has a positive impact on the contributions of OSS developers; and 4) Inactive developers on GitHub still participate in discussions on Gitter. Based on our findings, we provide recommendations for OSS communities and developers and shed light on future research directions. We believe that the findings and insights will inspire the OSS communities, enable a broader view of the interplay between Gitter and GitHub, and enhance the sustainability of the OSS ecosystem.