UNDERSTANDING OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITIES An organizational perspective Ruben van Wendel de Joode UNDERSTANDING OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITIES An organizational perspective Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Technische Universiteit Delft, op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. dr. ir. J.T. Fokkema, voorzitter van het College voor Promoties, in het openbaar te verdedigen op maandag 26 september 2005 om 13:00 uur door Ruben VAN WENDEL DE JOODE doctorandus in de bedrijfseconomie geboren te Winterswijk. Dit proefschrift is goedgekeurd door de promotor: Prof. dr. mr. J.A. de Bruijn Samenstelling promotiecommissie: Rector Magnificus, voorzitter Prof. dr. mr. J. A. de Bruijn, Technische Universiteit Delft, promotor Prof. dr. V.J.J.M. Bekkers, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam Prof. dr. T.M. van Engers, Universiteit van Amsterdam Prof. dr. B. Nooteboom, Universiteit van Tilburg Prof. dr. R.W. Wagenaar, Technische Universiteit Delft. Dr. M.J.G. van Eeten, Technische Universiteit Delft ISBN: 9056381385 Printing and binding: Febodruk BV, Enschede © 2005, Ruben van Wendel de Joode All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the author. PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In 2001 my daily supervisor showed me an article about a special kind of Internet community. The name of the community was Linux. According to the article, a group of volunteers met on the Internet and held discussions online to create highly complex software. To my mind that was strange; why would people collaborate voluntarily? What is in it for them? After reading more articles, having numerous discussions with colleagues and monitoring some of the Internet communication between the volunteers, it struck me that a more fascinating aspect of Linux is the way the group is organized. How is it possible that volunteers from all over the world, who might never see each other in real life and who have different backgrounds and interests, are able to create complex software? This question remained in my mind throughout this research. It was also in my mind when I did my first interview. My first interviewee seemed the stereotypical Linux developer: long gray hair, a long beard and highly intelligent. Somewhat hesitantly, I explained to him (most open source developers are indeed men) that I was interested in the organization of communities like Linux. He believed this to be a simple question. It would hardly need detailed research. He said, “Linux is anarchy! Everybody does what he feels like doing.” Obviously, this answer raised even more questions: How can such behavior result in software? Who makes the decisions? How are conflicts resolved? Again, he explained, the answers were rather simple: Linus Torvalds is the project leader and he usually makes the right decisions. Perhaps without knowing it, my first respondent had introduced me to the two dominant scientific explanations as to how a community like Linux is organized. At the very least he convinced me that Linux and other ‘open source communities’, which is the more general term for Linux-like communities, would be both an interesting as well as a difficult object of analysis. My first interviewee explained to me one other thing about open source as well. He said I had to understand that people in open source communities like to share their knowledge, ideas and even their inventions. This, according to him, is one of the basic principles in the communities. And indeed, research shows that people who participate in open source communities frequently do so because they enjoy sharing their knowledge and they hope to learn from the knowledge they receive from others. Together participants are able to achieve great things: they develop software programs that are surprisingly reliable and used by many individuals, corporations and governmental organizations worldwide. One of the most important lessons I learned from talking to the many open source developers and enthusiasts is that you cannot write a complex software program without the help of others. These other people should not be confined to software programmers with similar skills and interests. On the contrary you need people who have different software development skills and even people who lack such skills altogether. Each performs a part in the quest to together improve the quality of the software. II Understanding open source communities To share information, ideas and knowledge is not only important in the creation of software. It is at least as important to openly share ideas and to use the ideas of others when writing a dissertation. In the process of writing this dissertation I have had the help of many people who had very different ideas about open source communities and about my work. In hindsight I can safely say that all of them had an important role in the completion of this work. Their information, comments, suggestions and ideas deserve a special word of thanks. In the course of the research I spoke with many people who in some way were actively involved in open source communities. I thank the people who spent time talking with me, provided me a look inside the communities and showed me why open source communities are truly fascinating and fun. Special thanks go to Andries Brouwer, Jo Lahaye, Dirk-Willem van Gulik, Ray Dassen, Guido van Rossum and John ‘Maddog’ Hall. Open source communities have attracted the attention of academic researchers. Some of them had valuable input in the making of this dissertation. Here thanks are due to Gaby Rasters, Bart Knubben, Biella Coleman, Karim Lakhani, Rob Peters, Yuwei Lin and Shay David. I especially thank Sebastian Spaeth and Walt Scacchi for their comments on a previous version of the concluding chapter. Many people played a part in transferring my findings into an actual dissertation. Here I thank my colleagues from the Department of Policy, Organization & Management. They created an inspiring and fun environment to work in. Martijn Kuit, thanks for advising me to do PhD research. Thank you Ellen for being a fun roommate. A special word of thanks also goes to fellow PhD student Mark for listening when I flooded him yet again with ideas and frustrations about the dissertation. And of course thanks for the many lively discussions about our favorite soccer club! Michel and Hans, I thank you for your patience in reading my texts, providing me with useful comments and suggestions, and most importantly for letting me make all the usual mistakes. Thanks to Charlotte Hess, Erik-Hans Klijn and Victor Bekkers who helped me with ideas and suggestions to improve my work. I thank my peers at the TPM faculty; Alexander, Heleen, Leon, Linda, Maura, Mirjam and Sonja for their many comments about previous versions of this work. Coaches Cees van Beers, Pieter Bots and Pieter Vermaas, thank you for your comments and good ideas. The people from the Betade group thank you for the lively discussions on a wide variety of topics. Thank you Tineke Egyedi for being such a pleasure to write together with. Michelle Luijben, thank you for your work editing previous versions of the manuscript. Finally, I am much indebted to my friends and family. Some deserve a special word of thanks. Thanks Alexander for assisting me in the formal ceremony and Rian for always listening to my tedious stories about the research, especially in the first years of my doctoral study. I thank Jeroen for always widening my horizon with new ideas and management concepts. Special thanks also go to Sander for doing such great work during and after the interviews we conducted in the United States. I thank both of my parents. You are the best teachers I have had. Thank you for helping me to understand what the important things in life are and what it means to have a home. Yeun Mee, thank you for believing in me and trusting me. You give me great confidence. Without you life would be much less exciting and fun! TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE IS SUCCESSFUL 3 RESEARCH QUESTION 5 RESEARCH ON OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITIES: THE STATE OF THE ART 6 STATE-OF-THE-ART RESEARCH LEAVES OUR RESEARCH QUESTION UNANSWERED 11 THE FRAMEWORK: RECONCILING DIFFERENCES IN STATE-OF-THE-ART RESEARCH 12 RELEVANCE OF THIS RESEARCH 14 STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK 15 CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 19 ON THE NATURE OF COMMON POOL RESOURCES 19 COLLECTIVE ACTION, THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS AND THE USUAL SOLUTIONS 21 A THIRD MODEL: SELF-ORGANIZED AND SELF-GOVERNED COMMUNITIES 23 EXPLAINING HOW COMMUNITIES SUSTAIN COMMON POOL RESOURCES 26 DEVELOPMENTS IN RESEARCH ON COMMON POOL RESOURCES 30 DISCUSSION: THE APPLICABILITY OF RESEARCH ON COMMON POOL RESOURCES 33 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY 37 RESEARCH STRATEGY: THE DESIGN PRINCIPLES AS A CONCEPTUAL ANSWER 37 SHORT INTRODUCTION OF THE SELECTED COMMUNITIES 40 METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION 42 DATA ANALYSIS 44 METHOD OF PRESENTATION: STRUCTURE ALONG THE DESIGN PRINCIPLES 46 CHAPTER FOUR: BOUNDARIES 49 THE FIRST DESIGN PRINCIPLE: CLEARLY DEFINED BOUNDARIES 49 WHY OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITIES NEED BOUNDARIES: APPROPRIATION 51 FEW ORGANIZATIONAL BOUNDARIES TO LIMIT THE SIZE OF COMMUNITIES 53 A TRADE-OFF: ATTRACTION VERSUS PROTECTION 54 OPEN SOURCE LICENSES: ENORMOUS VARIETY 55 LICENSES ARE DYNAMIC BOUNDARIES 62 SIGNS OF CONVERGENCE: WIDESPREAD ADOPTION OF THE GPL 64 NEWS SITES TO PROTECT BOUNDARIES AND EDUCATE DEVELOPERS 65 FOUNDATIONS TO