Blue Oxen: An Introduction to Open Source Communities

“Open source software communities are one of the most
successful-and least understood-examples of high-performance
collaboration and community-building on the Internet today. Other
types of communities could benefit enormously from understanding
how open source communities work.

“This report describes what open source communities are and how
they work. In particular, it addresses the following questions:

• “What is the open source landscape as a whole? How many
  projects exist, what kinds of software do these projects develop,
  and how many people are involved with these projects?
• “What are the demographics of those who participate in these
  communities? Why do they join, and how long do they stay? How do
  they interact with each other?
• “How do open source communities work? What are the patterns of
  collaboration within successful open source communities…?”

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