Via Harish - fascinating. It's on my list of "things to chew through
over winter break if I have time," but it sounds like something folks
here would be interested in (if they haven't already seen it).
(Btw, Don -- I think James is within a half hour or so of you, he's now
faculty at University of Texas at Austin.)
http://james.howison.name/pubs/dissertation.html
This dissertation presents evidence that the production of Free and Open
Source Software (FLOSS) is far more alone than together; it is far more
often individual work done “in company”, than it is teamwork. Even when
tasks appear too large for an individual they are more likely to be
deferred until they are easier, rather than be undertaken through
teamwork. This way of organizing is successful because it fits with the
motivations of the participants, the nature of software development as a
task, and the key technologies of FLOSS collaboration. The empirical
findings are important because they ground and motivate a theory that
enables a systematic approach to understanding the implications of FLOSS
development as a model for adaptation and the future of work. The
dissertation presents a process of discovery (participant observation),
replication (a systematic study of project archives), and generalization
to theory (a model of the rational choices of developers and an analysis
of the flexibility of software as a task). The dissertation concludes by
enumerating the conditions under which this theory of organizing is
likely to be successful, such as non-revokable and rewindable work with
incremental incentives. These are used as a framework to analyze efforts
to adapt the FLOSS model of organizing for self-organizing, virtual
teams in other domains of work.
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