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

The golden rule, as always..

[jkrise]

If it's good, widely accepted, and works well - don't fix it. Open Source, GPL etc. should fit into this category.

The ultimate open-source organisation model:

[Anonymous Coward]

Goodwill.

Fourth big challenge

[aaronlev]

Removing the cobwebs. People almost never remove old stuff. For example: - old projects from sourceforge - old module owners from the mozilla.org list of module owners - old out of date documentation The older a project our the community gets, the more bloated it will get with incorrect information. Try to do some work, and find you wasted a day because of out of date stuff. Projects need a little, eek dare I say, management.

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.

Only one?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is titled The Organizational Model for Open Source, but is there really only one model? The Linux "benevolent dictator", Perl "pumpking"[1], FreeBSD "board" etc. are all different models (And there are more). Surely all these different models have different dynamics?

[1]: Fnur fnur

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.

Surprising?

[mikeophile]

A surprising entity has emerged to protect the interests of open source software developers: the non-profit foundation.

What's so surprising about that?

Most open source projects have been non-profitable so far.

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

Forgot SCO??

[jkrise]

The biggest challenge comes from those who lose when a particular model succeeds. Proprietary, closed-source, cash-strapped, IP wielding firms who employ (litigious bastards -to quote Slashdot) are bigger challenges.

Not to mention being branded communists, success haters, neo-terrorists, non-conformists, traitors etc.

The fact that Open Source succeeds despite all the above does indeed speak very highly of it's underlying strength of purpose and motivation.

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."

Good managers vs PHB stereotype

[seosamh]

According to the article,

"Much of what is funny about Dilbert cartoons is the disgust that technical workers have for managers who do not have intimate knowledge of the content of their work."

That doesn't match my experience. The best managers, those who can clear the way for/get out of the way of their technical staff, don't earn disgust, but respect, despite not having "intimate knowledge of the content" of the techies' work.

Generalizing to all managers who don't understand the technical content misses the point.

Dijkstra's Papers

[Hubert Q. Gruntley]

A short while ago, Dijkstra's papers were made available online. Slashdot article here.

A pervasive theme was that managers don't like exceptional people... he decried "the collectivist desire to play down the potential role of the individual." Managers always scorn rugged individualists because they mess up the well ordered meetings.

This may be the reason, and the only reason, why open source is successful: because we've invented a system where brilliant individuals can work together.