Community Roles

“In considering the nature of open source communities that
gather around various Free software commons, I often find I need to
distinguish between the different roles people play. It’s common to
characterise community members as either ‘developers’ (the ‘open
source’ worldview emphasises this) or ‘users’ (the ‘Free software’
worldview does this). But it’s increasingly clear that neither
approach is sufficient.

“As I’ve watched various community engagements by various
companies and individuals, and discussed this with various people
(most recently Luis Villa), it seems to me that there are four
different roles…”

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