Evolution of open source communities

Abstract

The Open Source and Free Software movements have been part of the software industry since the 1950s. However, it is only recently that the interest in Open Source has increased, following the success of Linux commercially. With the Open Source movement focusing away from anti-commercialization of software and more towards the methodology to produce quality open source software, corporates, the general public and of course management thinkers have been interested in finding out how they work. The methodology of development and distribution disrupts the prevalent competition patterns in the software industry. Open Source software is developed by communities of individuals, who get together to collaborate - either to develop new releases of software, or to support and maintain existing software. Communities are ad-hoc and loosely organized, though a better term would be 'self- organized'. There is no command and control hierarchy; rather it appears that each individual in the community does out of his own interest, what is needed to keep the projects moving. The objective of this project was to study the workings of Open Source software communities, how they have evolved over time. Chapter 1 gives an introduction to the Open Source software communities, their history and some of the technological enablers for Open Source. Chapter 2 digs into the organization of the Open Source software community. Here, I cover some of the guiding principles of open source communities and the internal echelons of a community. The 2 main models of development -Cave and Community model are covered here. This chapter also brings out the four phase evolution framework of the Open Source community. Following the examination of the success factors of an open source community, this paper examines some of the prevalent social customs and taboos. Chapter 4 looks at the motivations of the individuals who participate in Open Source community activities, and lists out the expectations that the community has of its leadership. Chapter 5 covers the involvement of corporates in Open Source communities. Chapter 6 summarizes the key parameters that we can use in comparing the activities of different Open Source communities. Chapter 7 is a case study and the case study analysis on eKalavya, an Open Source initiative from IIT8, Mumbai aimed at providing students in the engineering disciplines with mentoring on their Open Source projects, and with a long-term objective of spreading the reach of IT in India using Open Source software as a vehicle. The case study has been prepared by conducting interviews with the different players in eKalavya