A tenet of open source software development is to accept contributions from users-developers (typically after appropriate vetting). But should this also include interventions done as part of research on open source development? Following an incident in which buggy code was submitted to the Linux kernel to see whether it would be caught, we conduct a survey among open source developers and empirical software engineering researchers to see what behaviors they think are acceptable. This covers two main issues: the use of publicly accessible information, and conducting active experimentation. The survey had 224 respondents. The results indicate that open-source developers are largely open to research, provided it is done transparently. In other words, many would agree to experiments on open-source projects if the subjects were notified and provided informed consent, and in special cases also if only the project leaders agree. While researchers generally hold similar opinions, they sometimes fail to appreciate certain nuances that are important to developers. Examples include observing license restrictions on publishing open-source code and safeguarding the code. Conversely, researchers seem to be more concerned than developers about privacy issues. Based on these results, it is recommended that open source repositories and projects address use for research in their access guidelines, and that researchers take care to ask permission also when not formally required to do so. We note too that the open source community wants to be heard, so professional societies and IRBs should consult with them when formulating ethics codes.

翻译：开源软件开发的一个准则是接受用户-开发者的贡献（通常在适当审查后）。但这是否也应包括作为开源开发研究一部分的干预措施？在发生一次向Linux内核提交错误代码以验证其是否会被发现的 incident 后，我们对开源开发者和实证软件工程研究者进行了调查，以了解他们认为哪些行为是可接受的。这涵盖了两个主要问题：使用公开可获取的信息，以及进行主动实验。该调查共有224名受访者。结果表明，开源开发者大体上对研究持开放态度，前提是研究以透明方式进行。换言之，许多人会同意在开源项目上进行实验，前提是受试者被告知并获得知情同意，在特殊情况下，也可仅由项目负责人同意。虽然研究者普遍持有类似观点，但他们有时未能理解开发者认为重要的某些细微差别。例如，遵守关于发布开源代码的许可限制以及保护代码安全。相反，研究者似乎比开发者更关心隐私问题。基于这些结果，建议开源代码库和项目在其访问指南中明确研究用途，并建议研究者在即使未正式要求时也注意征求许可。我们还注意到，开源社区希望其声音被听到，因此专业协会和机构审查委员会（IRB）在制定伦理准则时应征求他们的意见。