I came across a summary of a paper by Siobahn O’Mahony and Fabrizio Ferraro, “Open Source Communities: Who’s in Charge” on the governance of open source communities derived from their research paper The Emergence of Governance in an Open Source Community. In their research they analyzed the leadership of the Debian community.
The paper’s findings provide insight on how open source communities develop both a shared basis of authority and a governance model, which is a fundamental question for organizational theory. Thanks to democratic mechanisms, members can adapt the community’s governance system as they learn how to interpret leadership and authority in a community context. When members settled on a shared conception of authority, it was more expansive than their original design.
One of the most interesting tidbits noted that open source leadership was not necessarily determined by the quality of technical contributions.
The researchers find that the sheer amount of a person’s technical contribution does not necessarily guarantee a position for him or her on the leadership team as project leader, project secretary, or developer account manager. Despite espoused preferences for “hands-off leaders,” skill in building the organization becomes increasingly important over time. Contrary to a simplistic meritocratic explanation, developers who try to build the organization are more likely to become its leaders. In the Debian community, the informal work of coordinating individual efforts and linking them to community goals plays a vital leadership role, especially as the project matures.
I wonder how that dynamic changes in open source projects sponsored by companies with commercial interests. I suspect that when there isn’t a great deal of overlap between corporate and community goals that level of participation is lower and with a single entity controlling the project the same level of self-rule doesn’t evolve. That’s just my theory though.
I am working to see if the authors are willing to make the complete paper available.
(via IESE Insight)
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