Study Reports On Debian Governance, Social Organization

andremachado writes "Two academic management researchers, Siobhán O'Mahony and Fabrizion Ferraro, performed a detailed scientific study about Debian Project governance and social organization from the management perspective. How did a big non-commercial non-paying community evolve to produce some of the most respectable Operating Systems and applications packages available? Organizations without a consensual basis of authority lack an important condition necessary for their survival. Those with directly democratic forms of participation do not tend to scale well and are noted for their difficulty managing complexity and decision-making — all of which can hasten their demise. The Debian Project community designed and evolved a solid governance system since 1993 able to establish shared conceptions of formal authority, leadership, and meritocracy, limited by defined democratic adaptive mechanisms."

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[antdude]

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"Scientific study about Debian Project governance and social organization

André Felipe Machado

Terça-Feira, 27 de Novembro de 2007

Two academic management researchers performed a detailed scientific study about Debian Project governance and social organization from the management perspective.

The study analyzed 13 years of Debian Project history, interviewed some Project participants and previous Leaders, and carefully observed patterns.

The open nature of history, registered at discussion lists archives and irc logs, meetings reports, helped a lot during the data collection phase.

The study is VERY interesting as scientific analyzed HOW an open source project survived, evolved and flourished during 13 years, overcoming many troubles only challenged by long term BIG communities, reaching a solid institutional foundations to resolve disputes.

The previously releasead version of the text can be found here.

The latest revised version, published at the Academy of Management Journal, Oct 2007, Vol. 50 Issue 5, p1079-1106, 28p; (AN 27169153), is copyrighted and can not be published here.

The authors are Siobhán O'Mahony , Assistant Professor at the University of California's Graduate School of Management, and Fabrizio Ferraro , General Management Professor at IESE..."

Bottom's PDF link in HTML: http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:R1NB3mNYlusJ:www.techforce.com.br/index.php/news/content/pdf/12895+http://www.techforce.com.br/index.php/news/content/pdf/12795&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=mozilla