• alef
  • #! CrunchBanger
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  • Registered: 2009-02-05
  • Posts: 192

Topic: your experiences inside open-source development teams

Hi,

It is now about one year that I have started to discover linux OS (and use #!). One of the thing which impressed me the most in this world is the huge number of open-source project, and quality of some projects not driven by any corporation. Union makes strong, people in the open-source world are free and manage successfully to create great things.

Things are not perfect, sometimes the developed apps are not stable/cleanly developed, sometimes we can find great software but too few information about how to use it, ...

What I am curious about is the way how roles are spread in an open-source team, and how decisions are taken. Usually, is there one or few project managers taking decisions, or do we see more often some voting systems between members ?

What are the strengths/weaknesses you see in open-source communities ?

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  • omns
  • #! Die-hard
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  • Registered: 2008-11-25
  • Posts: 4,406

Re: your experiences inside open-source development teams

In my experience I have been drawn to smaller projects in open-source. In general the growth and development tends to be controlled by a small group of developers who come together to pursue a similar goal. As projects grow the views of the communities that grow around them are taken on board and become part of the growth process but the final decisions remain the domain of a few.

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  • benj1
  • Wiki Wizard
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  • From: Yorkshire, England
  • Registered: 2009-09-05
  • Posts: 1,084

Re: your experiences inside open-source development teams

omns wrote:

In my experience I have been drawn to smaller projects in open-source. In general the growth and development tends to be controlled by a small group of developers who come together to pursue a similar goal. As projects grow the views of the communities that grow around them are taken on board and become part of the growth process but the final decisions remain the domain of a few.

+1

i havent been involved directly in any projects except bug reports etc, but the vast majority are just one or two people, and generally self selecting, people volunteering themselves for bug reports, documentation, packaging etc.
i would probably go further than omns and say in the vast majority of cases, that the final decision remains the domain of one, especially in non corporate sponsored projects.

if youre interested in this kind of thing you should probably read the cathedral and the bazaar http://catb.org/~esr/writings/

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