The Functioning of a Free Software Community

Entanglement of Three Regulation Modes - Control, Autonomous and Distributed

Abstract

The  ability  to  build  solid  and  coherent  software  from  spontaneous,  sudden  and evanescent  involvement  is  viewed  as  an  enigma  by  sociologists  and  economists. The internal   heterogeneity   of   project   contributors   questions   the   functioning   of  collective  action:  how  can  commitments  that  are  so  dissimilar  be  put  together?  Our objective  is  to  consider  FLOSS  communities  as going  concerns which  necessitate  a minimum of order and common, shared, social rules to function. Through an in-depth and diachronic  analysis  of  the  Spip  project,  we  present  two  classical  modes  of  social regulation: a control regulation centred on the product and an autonomous regulation reflecting  the differentiated  commitments.  Our  data  shows  that  the  meaning,  value  and  legitimacy  of  contributors’  involvements  are  defined  and  rated  more  collectively, through  exchanges,  judgments,  and  evaluations.  A  third  regulation  mode, called distributed community regulation and aimed at creating and transforming shared rules that produces recognition and stratification, is then presented.