[ox-en] Transition of Governance in a Mature Open Software Source Community
- From: Soenke Zehle <soenke.zehle web.de>
- Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2007 14:48:29 +0100
Transition of Governance in a Mature Open Software Source Community:
Evidence from the Debian Case
by B. Sadowski, G. Sadowski-Rasters & G. Duysters
[abstract]
As flourishing, productive open source software (OSS) communities
mature, they have to introduce a variety of governance mechanisms to
manage the participation of their members and to coordinate the launch
of new releases. In contrast to other modes of governance of OSS
communities, the Debian community introduced new mechanisms of informal
administrative control based on a constitution, elected leaders and new
functions attributed to interactive communication channels (like mailing
lists or IRC channels) that can provide for community effects (and
feedback). We show that these control mechanisms were introduced as a
response to emerging innovative opportunities due the usage of source
packages and heterogeneous learning processes by different groups within
the Debian community,
Keywords: Open Source Software community, Governance Mechanism, Debian
community
Jel codes: 030
UNU-MERIT Working Papers
ISSN 1871-9872
http://www.merit.unu.edu/publications/wppdf/2007/wp2[PHONE NUMBER REMOVED].pdf
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