  The success of an open source software (OSS) project requires effective
communication among its members. Given that OSS projects often have established
social status systems, much communication may happen between individuals of
different statuses, particularly, elite developers who have project management
privileges and ordinary project contributors. Since sociolinguistics literature
and our prior work have found that groups in different status would be likely
develop different language styles, which may hinder critical cross status
communication, and hereby influence the outcomes of the project. We seek to
develop an understanding of cross status communication, as well as its impacts
on the outcomes of an OSS project in terms of productivity and quality. The
anticipated results describe the linguistic similarities and differences of
cross status communication and reveal the relationships between these
linguistic similarities and differences and project outcomes.
