The Knowledge Ecology of Open-Source Software Projects

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Seminar, 2 October 2003, 2.30-5pm in room D702

Giovan Francesco Lanzara
Dipartimento di Organizzazione e Sistema Politico
Università di Bologna
Via de' Bersaglieri 6
I - 40125 Bologna

Email: lanzara@spbo.unibo.it

Michèle Morner
Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät Ingolstadt an der Katholischen Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt
Auf der Schanz 49
D - 85049 Ingolstadt

Email: michele.morner@ku-eichstaett.de

Abstract

In this paper we characterise the processes of knowledge-making in open-source software projects as an ecology of agents, artefacts, rules, resources, activities, practices and interactions. In order to grasp its dynamic features we consider open-source software projects as interactive systems based on dense interactions between humans and technical artefacts within electronic media. Technology, rather than formal or informal organisation, embodies most of the conditions for governance in open-source software projects, hence becoming a critical pathway to the understanding of collective task accomplishment, coordination and knowledge-making processes.

Based on qualitative and quantitative analysis of two open-source software projects, we examine three kinds of artefacts, respectively inscribing technical, organisational, and institutional knowledge. The artefacts are 'dynamic vehicles' that make knowledge creation, accumulation and dissemination possible by circulating throughout the internet. For each of them we describe the different activities and the network dynamics in which they are embedded.

Our preliminary findings support the ecological view that the contradictory requirements of innovation and stability in project-based knowledge-making are balanced by mechanisms of variation, selection and stabilisation. Also, the findings have implications for a number of fields such as organisation theory, learning, and the understanding of design processes.

This seminar is part of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded ICTs in the contemporary world: work management and culture series and is open to the public. UK PhD students are particularly encouraged to participate and their travels costs are subsidised. For more information about support for doctoral students email e.s.keys@lse.ac.uk.