Open Source Software Communities

Abstract

Open source software (OSS) development has continued to appear as a puzzling and enigmatic phenomenon and has drawn increasing attention as its importance has grown. Relying upon an alternative way to develop and to distribute software, open source communities have been able to challenge and often outperform proprietary software by enabling better reliability, lower costs, shorter development times, and a higher quality of code (Raymond, 2004). Behind the software is a mass of people working together in loose coordination, even portrayed as a rowdy marketplace (Raymond, 2001, p. 1): No quiet, reverent cathedral-building here— rather, the Linux community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches … out of which a coherent and stable system seemingly emerges only by a succession of miracles.