Social capital as a factor of motivation for free/libre/open source software development

This paper provides an overview of the main principles governing free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) movement, and places its theory and practice into the context of Manuel Castells’s network society. Itanalyses various motivators for FLOSS development, and shows that individual motivation for FLOSS development is dialectically intertwined with organizational structures and ethical values. On such basis, it arrives to the conclusion that motivation for participation in FLOSS development is simultaneously individual and social, economic and political. People have multiple and diverse motives for FLOSS development and their combinations may create radically different kinds of social capital. Consequently, social capital within the FLOSS movement is far from homogenous, and it is more accurate to talk of multiplicity of social capitals and various cross-sections between them. Based on such conclusion, the paper identifies the main methodological restrictions and proposes directions for future research.

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