An anthropologist's view of an open source community (Opensource.com)

[Posted February 1, 2011 by jake]

Opensource.com reports on a talk by anthropologist Diana Harrelson at FUDCon [Fedora Users and Developers Conference], which was held at the end of January in Tempe, Arizona. The talk focused on Harrelson's study on the Fedora community. "'My entire research was just to find out why you guys do it,' Diana said in her talk. Motivation may seem more obvious to those within communities, but from the outside, it looks more like doing a lot of hard work for no pay. [...] High on the list of reasons were learning for the joy of learning and collaborating with interesting and smart people. Motivations for personal gain, like networking or career benefits, were low on the list. Self motivation, however, is important, as seen in comments from multiple contributors who said things like, 'Mainly I contribute just to make it work for me.'"

Anthropology thesis on Ubuntu/Debian

Posted Feb 1, 2011 23:24 UTC (Tue) by sladen (guest, #27402) [Link]

People may be interested to read Andrea LLoyd's 120-page anthropological thesis on the Ubuntu community undertaken in 2007, alongside reading the above Fedora community analysis:

Lloyd, Andreas (2007). A system that works for me. University of Copenhagen (120 pages, 3.0MB PDF).

An anthropologist's view of an open source community (Opensource.com)

Posted Feb 2, 2011 18:31 UTC (Wed) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link] (6 responses)

Anthropologists studying software developers. This sounds really boring.

An anthropologist's view of an open source community (Opensource.com)

Posted Feb 2, 2011 23:44 UTC (Wed) by richo123 (guest, #24309) [Link]

Matter of opinion. I think it sounds potentially important. Why do people form social groups with no obvious self interest angle and produce valuable products? This is so different to the typical capitalist paradigm it clearly deserves very serious investigation.

An anthropologist's view of an open source community (Opensource.com)

Posted Feb 3, 2011 18:26 UTC (Thu) by markshuttle (guest, #22379) [Link] (2 responses)

Free software is a profoundly human story - it has much less to do with people being clever, than people being moved to devote their time and imagination to something bigger than themselves. Insight into that helps all of us. It's worth a read, alongside other pieces linked here.

An anthropologist's view of an open source community (Opensource.com)

Posted Feb 7, 2011 13:43 UTC (Mon) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link] (1 responses)

"Boring" as in we all know the outcome of this research.

Some do it because it proves that they are "kool". Some do it because it helps them. Some do it because it pays the bills. Nothing new will be discovered by having anthropologists study it (unless the anthropologists have an agenda). Just my prediction.

An anthropologist's view of an open source community (Opensource.com)

Posted Feb 7, 2011 22:07 UTC (Mon) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]

We might all know what the outcome will be, but different people know that the outcome will be different, which makes empirical observation useful :-).

For instance, ESR (among others) have the theory that the whole reason for participation is either money, or the getting and maintaining of reputation/social status (the "Noosphere" thing). I, on the other hand, know that he's wrong, so obviously the research will show that.

But ESR probably says the same thing...

An anthropologist's view of an open source community (Opensource.com)

Posted Feb 3, 2011 18:46 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

A few centuries from now, software developers will be studied by archaeologists. That would be exciting!

An anthropologist's view of an open source community (Opensource.com)

Posted Feb 4, 2011 1:16 UTC (Fri) by dmag (guest, #17775) [Link]

> Anthropologists studying software developers. This sounds really boring.

Oh, and sitting in front of a screen and manipulating text files all day is exciting? Only to us, which is exactly why anthropologists want to study us.

I, for one, welcome our new anthropologist over^H^H friends. Actually, catb started thinking along anthropological lines a while ago..

An anthropologist's view of an open source community (Opensource.com)

Posted Feb 3, 2011 8:10 UTC (Thu) by amacater (subscriber, #790) [Link] (1 responses)

The free software communities I participate in (principally Debian) are, in many ways, as close to me as my extended family. The community is very real and a worthy subject of study. Biella Coleman is also worth reading on all of this sort of thing. The fact that the communities are disparate, widely scattered but have a lot in common (Fedora and Ubuntu communities are sometimes Debian through a distorting mirror and vice-versa) and that we all tend to take similar approaches to similar problems is interesting. ]Analogy: Take 15 artisan silversmiths from fifteen countries - sit them in a room with interpreters, their tools and large amounts of silver. Allow them a week to get on and show each other what they can do. At the end of the week, they'll all have learned something, probably by then be using each others tools/techniques/experience, built friendships and appreciated each other's craft - and all they have in common is silver. How much richer are we ...)

An anthropologist's view of an open source community (Opensource.com)

Posted Feb 7, 2011 15:30 UTC (Mon) by teknohog (guest, #70891) [Link]

Your family analogy is interesting, as my initial reaction was something like "why do people choose to raise children, it seems like a lot of hard work for no pay". Or, on a more mundane level, "why do people build model airplanes, it seems like a lot of hard work for no pay".

I guess community work is viewed as a more challenging topic beyond simply doing what you enjoy, as there are social issues involved that not everyone enjoys. This is probably highlighted in this case where the participants are not particularly famous for their social skills.

Personally, I consider OSS as an economic choice, though I naturally have other interests in it. Not just because it is immediately cheaper, but because of the long-term benefits. OSS gives me certainty that I can keep using this software for decades, whereas everything that is commercial seems to be after short-term profit.

In the same way, I understand that maintaining family/community relationships are long-term investments. The pay-off is less immediate and obvious, but all the more important.

An anthropologist's view of an open source community (Opensource.com)

Posted Feb 3, 2011 18:19 UTC (Thu) by jmm82 (guest, #59425) [Link] (5 responses)

I guess anthropologists are running out of exotic Indigenous Tribes to study.

An anthropologist's view of an open source community (Opensource.com)

Posted Feb 3, 2011 22:16 UTC (Thu) by pr1268 (guest, #24648) [Link]

The Fedora Community is an exotic indigenous tribe (of sorts).

It's all about your perspective. Or, in this case, Ms. Harrelson's

An anthropologist's view of an open source community (Opensource.com)

Posted Feb 6, 2011 21:49 UTC (Sun) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (3 responses)

The word 'exotic' implies that the interesting thing about some group of people is the ways in which their culture is different or similar to ones own, and in particular the ways in which those differences and similarities allow one to feel titillated, smug, vindicated, etc. That might be a useful concept for imperialists, but it doesn't help anyone do good science. It's been a long time since anthropology has been driven by a fascination with the "exotic".

These days you'll find anthropologists studying pretty much any cultural group you can think of, from small bands of indigenous hunter-gatherers to american skateboarders to giant-city street vendors to wall street firms. Which is as it should be.

An anthropologist's view of an open source community (Opensource.com)

Posted Feb 7, 2011 21:25 UTC (Mon) by jmm82 (guest, #59425) [Link] (2 responses)

"The word 'exotic' implies that the interesting thing about some group of people is the ways in which their culture is different or similar to ones own, and in particular the ways in which those differences and similarities allow one to feel titillated, smug, vindicated, etc. That might be a useful concept for imperialists, but it doesn't help anyone do good science. "

Or maybe they just wanted to study a culture without influence from Western Civilization because it is unique. Yet, at least it gave you an excuse to use the words "titillated, smug, vindicated" in a post.

An anthropologist's view of an open source community (Opensource.com)

Posted Feb 7, 2011 22:03 UTC (Mon) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (1 responses)

> Yet, at least it gave you an excuse to use the words "titillated, smug, vindicated" in a post.

I'm not sure what you're hoping to accomplish by attacking my motives. It's certainly not going to change the history or current state of the field of anthropology. But I am sorry if my comment somehow read as a personal attack.

An anthropologist's view of an open source community (Opensource.com)

Posted Feb 8, 2011 6:21 UTC (Tue) by jmm82 (guest, #59425) [Link]

I guess I do not have a strong enough opinion on the subject to continue. I definetly do not want to change the history or current state of the field of anthropology. The only thing personal was we disagree.