Hi Oliver,

> Why does the loose development process of OS work?

I think you should distinguish between OSS on private time
and OS done by companies. I guess there's much more hierarchy
in the latter case.

My first answer to the question is a negative one:
no other process could work. Some people are willing to
contribute to OSS on their own time and schedule, but
hardly anyone would agree to fit into the lower levels
of a hierarchy for fun.

> Or more in detail: Why are almost all commercial projects organized as
> a strict hierarchy while most OS projects work with a loose
> organisation or even none at all.

Commercial projects are organized in strict hierarchies because
the job needs to get done in time, and somebody has to take
responsibility for that. OSS is ready "when it's ready", and
there you have the luxury of waiting until somebody is willing
to take the responsibility and drive things forward.

> Additionally, roles are always
> switched on demand. This is something that would never be done in a
> classically organized project.

Don't know what "roles" exactly you mean. I've switched from
developer to more architectural roles in professional development
projects. I wouldn't switch to a project manager role because
I don't like to track MS Project plans, but within my skills
I'm comfortable to do what I see needs to be done. If that's
development, or architecture, or mentoring, or teaching, or
writing documentation, I hardly care. As long as there's minimal
paper work ;-)

In a commercial environment it is of course easier to hide
behind your job description. Cover your ass, don't take
responsibility you don't have to so you won't get blamed if
things fail, don't be the messenger of bad news, and so on.
OSS on private time means you care about the project and want
it to succeed, so you're more likely to do what you feel
should be done, rather than see the project go down.
There may also be an issue with careers - in OSS you're less
likely to meet someone up the hierarchy who doesn't want to
let you pass. Or maybe I was just lucky so far.

cheers,
  Roland


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Reply via email to