Innovation and Organization in Open Source Communities

How are the open source commons organized and sustained? The first book to investigate open source communities from an organizational perspective, it introduces a useful framework based on research on community-managed common pool resources to understand the operation of open source communities and emphasizes the importance of licenses in the organization of open source communities. Examining the larger open source organizations, namely Linux, Apache, Python, PostgreSQL and Debian, this book addresses a range of questions, including: Who are allowed to make use of open source communities? Can we exclude particular types of usage? Who contributes to the maintenance of the software? Who makes the decisions in the community? and, How do we sanction people who display counterproductive or even destructive behaviour? Providing readers with a detailed understanding of the open source community, this volume is a key resource for all students of industrial economics, organizational analysis, new technology management and business information systems.