Changing developer-user relationships in hybrid open source

The claim that open source development erases the problem of the user-developer relationship in technology development (e.g. von Hippel, 2005;

Tapscott & Williams, 2007) is not so straightforward when considered in the light of the hybrid OpenOffice.org community and public sector end-user or-ganizations studied in this book. The contemporary open source discourses are indeed dynamic and contradictory. The analyses showed the multiple meanings of “developer” and “user” in hybrid open source communities, and in so doing illuminated the changing relations of technology production and use in the open development model. The assumption that the developer is simultaneously the user (e.g. Raymond, 1999; Weber, 2006) no longer seems valid.

Instead we seem to be witnessing a movement from hacker ethic and bazaar governance to more professionally and strategically regulated open source communities. This movement, however, does not mean that hacker projects are a thing of the past and that people do not engage passionately and for fun in their work. It is just that in reality the situation is far more complex and the open development model seems to have branched into multiple directions. Also, what needs to be emphasized on the basis of the Lingucomponent and the Groupware projects is the, often-neglected, issue that open development is not collaborative from the start. Collaboration starts only after an individual or small group of individuals have produced something that can be used and tested. As Raymond (1999) has stated, for the Delphi effect or principle of

154

localized variety to work properly, working code is needed for others to engage in the development process.

Indeed, even the core-periphery distinction associated with open source de-velopment seems too crude (Moon & Sproull, 2000). The core-periphery divi-sion tends to reinforce the assumption that power lies in the centre (Berdou, 2007). In light of Crowston & Howison’s (2005) four-layer structure of open source communities–core developers, co-developers, active users who contri-bute and a large pool of passive users who do not contricontri-bute–we see an even more complex and dynamic structure unfolding. On the basis of my empirical studies, I have distinguished between six different user categories: 1) the Groupware project’s idea-generating user, 2) the Lingucomponent’s indepen-dent plug-in and extensions tool provider, 3) the Community Manager, 4) the typical office software user, 5) the ideological researcher-user and 6) IT staff.

My analysis specifies and brings additional content to Crowston & Howison’s structure. The idea-generating user and the independent plug-in and extensions tool provider could be perhaps seen as co-developers. However, in Crowston &

Howison’s four-layered structure, users are divided into active and passive groups, and co-developers are not users. In contrast, in my study, Groupware idea-generating users can be regarded as co-developers. This raises the question of whether passive users can be seen as “community” members at all. Further-more, I would add IT staff and the Community Manager to the four-layer struc-ture. These new layers in the developer-user relationship could be described, following Stewart and Hyysalo (2008, p. 296), as new “innovation intermedia-ries categointermedia-ries of “producer” and “consumer” or “developer” and user””, and who mediate the use-supply axis, creating spaces and opportunities for technol-ogy adoption (p. 296).

Clearly, the idea-generating users were not users in the practical sense of be-ing able to test programs in practice. Their contribution was discursive in na-ture. Rather, they imagined themselves as needing certain features in the future and hence remained only potential users. One is tempted to ask when does a user actually become a user–before, while or after using the technology? The independent or plug-in tool providers were simultaneously volunteers and professionals, thus transcending the categories “developer”, “user” and “volun-teer”. The problematic IT staff–end-user relationship as well as the extended developer-user relationship was visible in the public sector. The IT staff me-diated the user-developer relationship by authoritatively positioning themselves in relation to both the (end) users–typical users (office workers) and ideological users (researchers in the meteorological institute). The problematic IT staff–

user relationship raises the question of skills and motivations. Are end-users really both interested in, and capable of, participating, and how should open source take this gap into account? The Community Manager’s community

155 membership categorization activity shows how central to the community the ambiguous and changing categories of developer and user were. The editorial

“I” of the Community Manager added yet another membership category which did not fit neatly into the core-periphery relation of the bazaar model since he was not a core-developer.

As the cases studied here have proven, the categories of “developer”, “user”

and “volunteer” in open source are internally changing, thus reflecting a change in the conceptual system of open source. One may even ask whether we are witnessing a return to the developer-user paradox, in which different interests collide. As Farr (1989, p. 28) has proposed, it is important to acknowledge, that when “practices are constituted by concepts, we remind ourselves how very much language is “in” the political world and how decisive this is for our un-derstanding of it”. Hence, it could be argued that the changing categories and related vocabularies–the conceptual system of hybrid open source–reflects the community that uses it, and simultaneously contributes to its re-construction and redefinition. I argue that the concept of “user” in open source is radically changing: it seems that “user” represents a kind of middle category between

“developer” and “end-user”, pointing to a technically capable, advanced user contributing by generating ideas and/or by providing translations in their native language. We can ask whether the concept of lead user (von Hippel, 2005)

“fits” these categories.

In sum, based on the empirical findings of my study, four kinds of dynamics in the discourse concerning open source communities can be distinguished:

1. A movement from communities characterized by hacker ethic principles to the professionalism of volunteers and the participation of firm’s representatives and developers,

2. a movement from community members characterized as user-developers and module maintainers to a variety of users such as idea-generating users, independent plug-in and extension tool providers, typical (end) users and ideological researcher-users, as well as mediating IT staff and management,

3. a movement from self-organizing bazaar governance to a combination of volunteer-based participation and self-selection of tasks, and the work of professional project leaders,

4. a movement from a community characterized by the values of user freedom, empowerment and transparency to: a) a compromise between openness and hierarchical decision making processes, such as became visible in the Groupware project, and to b) a tension between the user’s freedom to choose software on one hand and the striving for better

156

desktop control and maintenance by public sector IT staff and user advocates on the other.

10.3 Contribution to the methodological and theoretical