Learning and knowledge in FLOSS - Situated learning and organizational knowledge-conversion in community-based free/libre open source software development

In free/libre open source software development (FLOSS), groups of developers and users working in geographically dispersed settings are supported by a dense network of interactions. The participants are highly skilled in the use of information- and communication technologies, and build the software by relying on extensive peer production and through skillful use of communication tools available on the Internet. In building the software, explicit, formal and structured knowledge in the form of documents, objects, machines and external sources are communicated and stored in ways that make it available for others in the present and future. This knowledge make up an important resource for the members and developers of the community. Another kind, or aspect, of knowledge, often called tacit or soft knowledge, is informal, unstructured, resides in people, and are difficult, or maybe impossible, to articulate. The questions guiding this research is how knowledge, both explicit and tacit, is shared, and how a new member is able take part in the practice and knowledge of the community. The theory of legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice describes an environment for people to develop knowledge through interaction with others in an environment where knowledge is created, nurtured and sustained. By taking part in the practice as a participant observer, through virtual ethnography, the author describes the practice and communication in this decentralized and knowledge-intensive process. Taking it a step further, the knowledge of the community, and how it is shared within the ???organization???, is explored with a model for managing dynamic aspects of organizational knowledge-creation. The central theme here is that knowledge is created through a continuous dialogue between tacit and explicit knowledge. Logs from Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and interviews with core developers are analyzed, and the author argues that the Plone community is able to share both kinds of knowledge in a complex web of resources and interaction. The analysis further suggest that the FLOSS development-model facilitates access, transparency and participation on premisses that are important for learning.