Open Source Organization Models Discussed

blogologue writes "Harvard Business School has an article up discussing The Organizational Model for Open Source. It has some good points, and I think it sums up what many of us know, but haven't quite been able to put into words yet: 'People are intimately aware of the fact that too much structure will disenfranchise the very people who make the most successful open source projects possible.'"

Comments

Re:Fourth big challenge

[Anonymous Coward]

Cleaning out the cruft is the sort of thing that any project is bad at, and it isn't just Open Source. Until very recently the company I worked for was heaping more and more features into their software and they just wern't being used. They recently got a clue and have embarked on two major projects to strip it down and clean it up. Its taken years though. I don't think OSS suffers from this any more than anyone else.

By the way, in the last SourceForge newsletter they indicated that they will soon begin to remove dead projects from the database (Following a proper procedure to ensure the project really is dead). The primary candidates are those with 0% activity in the past six months, I believe.

Credit where credit is due

[tanguyr]

Not really all that much about the "Organizational Model for Open Source". No discussion of "incubator" sites like sourceforge. No mention of technologies like CVS that make distributed development possible, or at least a lot easier. No comparison with the trend in outsourcing development. No discussion about the differences between "true" open source and such no-fork aberrations as "community source" or whatnot.

well at least it renders correctly in Mozilla.

For some real insight into how/why/when the open source development model makes sense, read your classics:

• The Cathedral and the Bazaar
  
• Homesteading the Noosphere
  
• The Magic Cauldron
  

the widely quoted but maybe a bit less widely read work of Eric S. Raymond

/t

Re:Only one?

[Homology]

This is just the editors choice of headline. If you actually read the article you'll see the following outlined in red:

Q: Will the nonprofit foundation be an organizational model that will define future software development?

Moreover, you'll might notice that the second paragraph starts with :

HBS professor Siobhán O'Mahony discusses her research on foundations formed around three projects

So just read the article, it's quite good.

Harvard's interest in OpenSource

[stonebeat.org]

Harvard publishes a magazine called "Harvard Business Review (HBR)". Previously they did not cover Linux/OpenSource. But recently I recently I read an in HBR that says Enterprises should look into OpenSource as a viable alternative to propritary products (specifically OpenOffice).
HBR is read by presidents/directors/managers, so it is interesting to see how the thinking is changing.

Re:Fourth big challenge

[FooBarWidget]

Have you forgotten GNOME? In GNOME 2, they removed a lot of configuration options and deprecated APIs! They even got heavily flamed and critisized *because* they removed stuff.

Oh yes, let's claim that people almost never remove old stuff while ignoring one of the largest open source projects out there.

dead@sf.net

[aspargillus]

By the way, in the last SourceForge newsletter they indicated that they will soon begin to remove dead projects from the database (Following a proper procedure to ensure the project really is dead). The primary candidates are those with 0% activity in the past six months, I believe.

You believed almost right: "These are projects that haven't had any real activity in the past 6 months and have never released any files."