From Proprietary to Open Source: Building a Network of Trust

When a corporation is about to release a product as open source a large network of trust must be built and maintained. Open source and commercial domains have radically different aspects of trust. Still, trust is vital in products survival in both settings. This paper focuses on building cognitive, or rational, trust in both commercial and open source domains. We set the view angle so that trust can be approached via the various relationships between the stakeholders involved in the community building process. Towards this goal, the paper focuses on the first steps of the process by proposing a set of best practices.