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Coding together in a social network: collaboration among GitHub users

In this article we investigate developers involved in the creation of Open Source software to identify which characteristics favor innovation in the Open Source community. The results of the analysis show that higher reputation in the community improves the probability of gaining collaborators to a certain degree, but developers are also driven by reciprocity. This is consistent with the concept of gift economy. A significant network effect exists and emerges from standardization, showing that developers using the most popular programming languages in the service are likely to have more collaborators. Providing additional information (valid URL to developer's homepage) improves the chances of finding coworkers. The results can be generalized for the population of mature users of GitHub.