Open source communities: Who’s in charge?

In our knowledge-based society, communities of knowledge sharing and production are increasingly common. The communities typically bring together geographically dispersed members who depend upon the Internet for communication and coordination. While the members do not share a common employer or workplace, they integrate their individual contributions into a common pool. Though there are many communities out there, producing all kinds of scientific and general knowledge and even art, “open source communities” commonly refer to groups that band together to develop a source code of software, which is available to the general public and has not one source but many “open” sources. The community creates informal and formal social structures to manage membership.