Regional FOSS Communities:

The View from Dhaka, Bangladesh

Research Question Recommendations

Studies of code repositories often suggest little open source The activities of regional community members can be activity originating in South Asia, yet regional communities conceptualized in several possible frameworks, each with continue to form around major projects. their own recommendations and goals:

What is the nature of participation in open source software in Framework Recommendation Outcome these regional communities? What drives their formation? How Encourage mentorship Evolve might we leverage and better support them to strengthen the and social ties with participants into open source ecosystem? Novice code central members; “central contributors highlight introductory contributors,” Methodology issues for newbies to writing and work on maintaining code This ethnographic study centers on two regional open source communities in Dhaka, Bangladesh, a major Asian city with a Encourage (localized) Establish an growing information-technology sector. Findings are based on 25 promotion of project; Brand expanded user offer benefits to individual interviews and two focus groups with community ambassadors base and ambassadors such as members in Dhaka and their interlocutors from adjacent projects increased loyalty and regions. Field notes from observation of online community swag, titles pages and a two-week field visit to Dhaka in August 2019 help situate the findings. Further modularize tasks; consider Expand the labor Gig-workers systematic force and reach or crowd Key findings compensation and/or of open source workers recognition for gig project Dhaka has a strong culture of forming communities around work technology projects, driven primarily by university students. Participants seek opportunities for socialization, leadership and technical skills-training, and reputation-building through travel and global communications. Calls to action

The earliest communities were formed in the 2000s around open Conduct additional close studies of socio-cultural source projects (Linux, Mozilla, Wikipedia), but now encompass a dynamics around open source projects in other locales range of open and proprietary technologies. Few students distinguish between open and closed source projects. Evaluate the impact of core community activities such as translation/localization on the success of projects Communities are organized to perform traditionally “peripheral” activities: translation & localization, user support, bug testing, Support open source curriculum development and evangelism. outreach to student populations

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Contact Anushah Hossain with comments, or to be notified of the release of a summary report: [email protected]