A better understanding of the key to successful open-source software (OSS) development continues to motivate research. Aligned with work that builds on the notion that an OSS development is tightly interrelated with its social environment (i.e., the OSS community), this study examines the relationship between interproject structure and OSS project success. OSS project success is reflected in two forms: popularity and knowledge creation. Extending the extant OSS literature, we theorize a contingent role of interproject connectedness. In particular, we posit three points: (1) an OSS project with more structural holes achieves higher popularity; (2) an OSS project with fewer structural holes yields higher knowledge creation; and (3) these two relationships are enhanced by an increase in project maturity. Using a dataset longitudinally collected from SourceForge.net, we found that OSS projects with widespread connectedness are more popular. This is especially so for those OSS projects in the mid-mature stage. We also found that OSS projects with a cohesive network achieve higher knowledge creation, irrespective of their maturity. Findings from our study can contribute to OSS literature by identifying OSS projects that are more likely to be successful.

对成功开发开源软件（OSS）的关键的更好理解继续激发了研究的动力。与基于OSS开发与其社会环境（即OSS社区）紧密相关的概念的工作保持一致，本研究考察了项目间结构与OSS项目成功之间的关系。OSS项目的成功体现为两种形式：普及和知识创造。在扩展现有OSS文献的基础上，我们对项目间连接性的偶然作用进行了理论化。特别是，我们提出三点意见：（1）具有更多结构漏洞的OSS项目获得更高的知名度；（2）具有较少结构漏洞的OSS项目产生了更高的知识创造；（3）项目成熟度的提高增强了这两种关系。使用从SourceForge.net纵向收集的数据集，我们发现具有广泛联系的OSS项目更受欢迎。对于处于成熟阶段的OSS项目尤其如此。我们还发现，具有凝聚力网络的OSS项目，无论其成熟度如何，都可以创造更高的知识。通过确定更可能成功的OSS项目，我们的研究结果可以为OSS文献做出贡献。