On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 8:26 AM, Massimo Menichinelli
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> About chaos and organization in open source...
>
> There was one thing that struck me when I first read about this month's
> theme "open source, open systems"...it was the word "systems", because I
> realized that the idea of open source as complex system is becoming accepted
> widely. People are now realizing how open source does not means just
> "releasing a code", but "building and mantaing a whole complex system".
>
> I drew this view of Open Source as an Open Systems from a Ko Kuwabara's
> paper; maybe you already know it, but as it has been so important to me, I'd
> like to suggest it to you. This paper establishes a context for the work of
> Eric Raymond and his description of the Linux phenomenon, by examining the
> emerging science of complex adaptive systems. Raymond's evolutionary view is
> given an extended and more formal treatment under the terms of chaos and
> complexity, and chaos and complexity under the terms of sociology.
This reference could be useful:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1111868
We find that network social capital is not equally accessible to or
appropriated by all projects. Our main results are (1) teams with
greater internal cohesion are more successful, (2) external cohesion
(cohesion among the external contacts of a team) has an inverse
U-shaped relationship with the project's success; moderate levels of
external cohesion are the best for a project's success, rather than
very low or very high levels of this variable, (3) the technological
diversity of a contact also has the greatest benefit when it is
neither too low nor too high, and (4) the number of direct and
indirect external contacts are positively correlated with a project's
success with the effect of the number of direct contacts being
moderated by the number of indirect contacts.
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