Transition of Governance in a Mature Open Software Source Community: Evidence from the Debian Case

Sadowski, Bert, Sadowski-Rasters, Gaby and Duysters, Geert (2007). Transition of Governance in a Mature Open Software Source Community: Evidence from the Debian Case. UNU-MERIT.

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UNU-MERIT Working Papers

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  • Author Sadowski, Bert
    Sadowski-Rasters, Gaby
    Duysters, Geert
    Title Transition of Governance in a Mature Open Software Source Community: Evidence from the Debian Case
    Publication Date 2007
    Publisher UNU-MERIT
    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,
    Keyword Open source software community
    Governance mechanism
    Debian community
    JEL 30
    Copyright Holder UNU-MERIT
    Copyright Year 2007
    ISSN 1871-9872
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