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The Role of the Free Software Movement in the Mobilization of Free Software Developers

The Role of the Free Software Movement in the Mobilization of Free Software Developers. Margaret S. Elliott Institute for Software Research School of Information and Computer Science University of California, Irvine Irvine, California 92697 CRTIO Hour January 21, 2004 melliott@ics.uci.edu

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The Role of the Free Software Movement in the Mobilization of Free Software Developers

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  1. The Role of the Free Software Movement in the Mobilization of Free Software Developers Margaret S. Elliott Institute for Software Research School of Information and Computer Science University of California, Irvine Irvine, California 92697 CRTIO Hour January 21, 2004 melliott@ics.uci.edu http://www.ics.uci.edu/~melliott

  2. Overview • Research Motivation • Research Methodology • Free Software Movement • Computerization Movements • Free versus Open Source Software • Occupational Communities • F/OSS Development Historical View • F/OSS Occupational Community/Subcultures Evolution • Free Software Business Model • Free Software Research Site – GNUe • Research Results • Future Work • Open Questions

  3. Research Motivation • Free/Open Source (F/OSS) software development projects rapidly growing: • 750,000 users with 750 new ones each day • 75,000 project with 70 new ones each day • Research focus mainly on quantitative studies (Mockus et al., 2002) • Need for more qualitative studies • Global teams work on F/OSS projects, work long hours often without pay • What motivates people do this? What social worlds exist that drive the persistence of these communities?

  4. Research Methodology • Virtual Ethnography • Grounded Theory • Study of data from Website documentation, kernel cousins (digests), IRC archives, mailing list archives, books on free and open source • Email and face-to-face interviews with free software developers (key GNUe contributors)

  5. Free Software Movement • One driving force behind F/OSS development is the Free Software Movement • FSM supported and directed by the Free Software Foundation • FSF – a non-profit charity whose purpose is to promote free software • FSM – a social movement with the purpose of promoting use of free software instead of proprietary software • FSM and FSF started by visionary, Richard M. Stallman

  6. Free Software Philosophy • “Computer users should be free to modify programs to fit their needs, and free to share software, because helping other people is the basis of society (Stallman, 1999).” (http://www.gnu.org/pilosophy/why-free.html) • “The free software philosophy rejects a specific widespread business practice, but it is not against business. When businesses respect the users’ freedom, we wish them success...” • “It is a relief and joy when I see a regiment of hackers digging in to hold the line...We can’t take the future of freedom for granted.. If you want to keep your freedom, you must be prepared to defend it.” (Stallman, 1999)

  7. Free Software Movement Ideology • Beliefs • Freedom (“Think free speech, not free beer”) • Free Software • Freedom of Choice • Values • Building Community • Norms • Copyleft with General Public License (GPL) • Informal Management • Open Disclosure on websites of source code, documentation, archives of mailing list, email, and IRC logs.

  8. Computerization Movements • Kling and Iacono (1988) • Characterized CM as a mobilization force for widespread computerization. • General movement and 5 specific ones (e.g. Artificial Intelligence). • Painted utopian picture of what companies and society will gain. • Iacono and Kling (2001) • CMs for internetworking and distant work. • FSM – new genre of CM • Assumes computerization and attempts to revolutionalize software development • Promotes production and use of “free” software only.

  9. Free Versus Open Source Software Philosophical Differences - Spectrum of beliefs • Free: Emphasis on exclusivelyfree. Open to anyone to copy, study, modify, redistribute as free software (GPL and others specific to FSF) • “Think free speech, not free beer.” • Open: Promoted by Open Source Initiative. • Recognition of businesses who wish to combine free with proprietary.

  10. F/OSS Occupational Community Occupational Community of Free/Open Source Developers Free Software Developers Subculture Open Source Software Developers Subculture GNUe

  11. Organizational Cultures and Occupational Communities Perspective • Organizational culture perspective (Martin, 2000; Schein, 1992) used to study socially established structures of meaning which are accepted by organizational members. • Occupational community (Van Maanen and Barley, 1984) – group with shared goals, work practices, beliefs, interests and value systems. • Occupational subcultures – form in organizational cultures from occupational community (e.g. engineers, programmers, lawyers). • Form in typical and virtual organizations. • Created partly for self-control of occupations.

  12. F/OSS Development Evolution 1984 – Emacs, C compiler (RMS) 1985 - Free Software Foundation GNU’s Not Unix Linux kernel GNU/Linux (1992) • Free Software Apps. • GNU projects • e.g.GNUenterprise • etc… • Open Source Apps. • Apache (IBM) • OpenOffice (SUN) • etc…

  13. F/OSS Occupational Community Evolution FSM Ideology Influences Evolution of F/OSS Occupational Community • Open Source Software Developers (Occupational Subculture) • - Projects use free combined with proprietary • Split from FSM in ideology (1997) • Weaker beliefs in free software, freedom of choice • Values in cooperative work, community • Formed Open Source Initiative to promote OS in business community • Free Software Developers (Occupational Subculture) • - Projects use free software ONLY • Strong beliefs in freedom, free software, freedom of choice • Values in community building, cooperative work • Free Software Business Model (e.g. www.dotgnu.org)

  14. F/OSS Occupational Community Occupational Community of Free/Open Source Developers Free Software Developers Subculture Open Source Software Developers Subculture GNUe

  15. Free Software Business Model Free Style Design Semi-structured Design Developers start a free software project (Need based) Version Control (CVS) Contributors join community Businesses Contribute Time and Money and Make Profits First Software Version Release Continuous (Re)design by Volunteer and Paid Contributors Artifacts Website Code Documentation

  16. GNUe Project • Metaproject of GNU • International virtual community • Developing free enterprise resource planning (ERP) system • 6 core maintainers, 18 active contributors, 18 inactive contributors, many lurkers • 6 firms paying contributors • 13 companies actively using free ERP system

  17. GNUe Occupational Subculture • Beliefs • Free Software • Freedom of Choice • Values • Community • Cooperative Work • Norms • Informal Management, Immediate Acceptance of Contributors, Open Disclosure

  18. Conceptual Diagram of GNUe Research Free Software Occupational Community Belief in Freedom Belief in Free Software Value in giving back to community Causal Conditions Phenomenon Action/Interaction Consequences Beliefs Free Software Freedom of Choice Informal/Formal Work Practices - Real-time Code and DesignReviews Builds GNUe Community Strengthens Occupational Subculture Conflicts and Debates over use of non-free Tools Norms Informal Management Acceptance of Outsiders Open Disclosure Strong Belief in Free Software Electronic Artifacts RC Real-time and Logs Mailing Lists Kernel Cousins Private Email Resolution of conflicts Reinforces Beliefs

  19. GNUe IRC and Mailing List Excerpts CASE ONE • <CyrilB> Hello. Several images on the GNUe website seems to be made with non-free Adobe softwares, I hope I’m wrong: it is quite shocking. Does anybody know more on the subject?... • <CyrilB> We should avoid using non-free software at all cost, am I wrong? CASE TWO • “I think it is extremely *()%^ that a GNU project would require me to install non-free software in order to read and modify the documentation. I mean if I cannot make vrms happy on my debian system then what good am I as a Free Software developer? (Chillywilly)” • “Using free software is NOT about making RMS happy or unhappy…For me, my motivation is a free future for my son (response to Chillywilly).”

  20. Research Conclusions • Persistence of rich culture of free software developers builds and perpetuates work community. • IRC important medium for debating and resolving conflicts. • Debates on IRC facilitate teamwork and reinforce beliefs, values and norms of FSM and GNUe

  21. Future Work • Comparison of GNUe with other free and open sites. • Data mining of mailing lists, IRC, summary digests. • Comparison of virtual occupational communities with typical occupational communities (e.g. lawyers).

  22. Open Questions • Are other free software projects strongly influenced by FSF and FSM? • To what extent is the Free Software Business Model in place? Can it compete with typical software business model? • Do strong cultural beliefs lead to more succesful F/OSS projects? • How different are free and open source projects in organizational structure?

  23. Free Software Business Model Free Style Design Semi-structured Design Developers start a free software project (Need based) Version Control (CVS) Contributors join community Businesses Contribute Time and Money and Make Profits First Software Version Release Continuous (Re)design by Volunteer and Paid Contributors Artifacts Website Code Documentation

  24. Acknowledgements • Supported by NSF grants: #IIS-0083075; #ITR-0205679 • In collaboration with Walt Scacchi, Institute for Software Research and Mark Ackerman, University of Michigan, and Les Gasser, University of Illinois, Urbana.

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