Trends in Free, Libre, Open Source Software Communities: From Volunteers to Companies / Aktuelle Trends in Free-, Libre-, und Open-Source-Software-Gemeinschaften: Von Freiwilligen zu Unternehmen

The first free/libre/open source software (FLOSS)
development communities were composed almost exclusively
of volunteers. They were individuals who, despite their
affiliation, contributed to the project on their own. They
decided which project to join, and their contributions were
personal in nature, even when in some cases they were
employees of companies with some interests in the project.
GNU, the first of such communities, and some others that
emerged during the late 1980s and 1990s, followed this
pattern. During the 1990s corporate interests started to
have a role in some FLOSS communities. Companies hired
people from those communities to gain influence, or tasked
their employees to contribute to them, again with the idea
of influencing their decisions. During the 2000s, corporate
communities, in which companies are first-class citizens,
have emerged, changing the rules and redefining the role of
volunteers and non-affiliated individuals. However, the role
of developers, with independence of the company for which
they work, is still important even in these communities.
This paper addresses this transition from volunteer-based
to company-based development communities, and explores
the structure and behavior of the latter.