Idealism and Commercialism – Developing Free/Libre and Open Source Software in Private Businesses

This paper presents a PhD research project undertaken as part of a larger project aimed at paying sociological attention to different forms of distribution of knowledge, including program code. We want to investigate empirically how the commons knows as free/open source software is actually made. In my PhD project I study the use and development of FLOSS in private businesses, focusing on professional developers working in private businesses and at the same time participating in the FLOSS community. The theoretical starting point is theories of power, dominance and legitimacy by Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu.