Peer Participation and Software
* Report: Peer Participation and Software: What Mozilla Has to Teach Government. by David R. Booth. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning, MIT Press 2010.
Description
"Firefox is a unique example of peer production both for its vast scale and for its combination of structured, hierarchical management with open, collaborative volunteer participation.
The purpose of this report is to address how and why the Mozilla Foundation is successful at organizing large-scale participation in the development of its software. What motivates Mozilla to solicit the expertise of anyone who wishes to provide her time and knowledge to the Mozilla enterprise? What motivates volunteers to participate?
In examining the answers to these questions, the goal is to explore what aspects of Mozilla’s open source approach to software development are transferable to government and civil society."
Summary
"This report is divided into five sections.
The first, Open Source, introduces the Mozilla Foundation, beginning with its inception as Netscape Communications and culminating with its present open-source business model. This brief history helps to define open source by explaining Mozilla’s place in the open source community.
The second section, Open Source at Mozilla, summarizes the
unique mix of hierarchical management with peer-produced,
volunteer labor that enables Mozilla to operate at scale in the
development of the Firefox browser. To understand how volunteer
contributions of code are evaluated and incorporated into
ongoing projects, open source participants are identified on the
basis of their roles in a system of distributed peer review.
The third section, Licensing, discusses the rules under which
open source developers maintain and improve the Firefox
browser. The role of licensing in open-source software development
and distribution is examined with an eye toward the freedom
and limitations granted the licensee: What protocols do
volunteer developers follow in participating in projects at
Mozilla? How does the Mozilla Foundation govern the redistribution
of its source code? What role does licensing play in helping
to bring about volunteer participation? How does an open
source license actually legislate the freedom that makes large-scale
participation possible? How does licensing create incentives
to form communities?
In section four, Beyond Software, we explain how Mozilla takes the modular nature of code writing and applies these same techniques to a range of nontechnical activities. The utilization of an international community of volunteers in the strategic marketing of software is unique to the Mozilla Foundation and suggests the most parallels with civic engagement.
We begin the last and longest section of the report, What
Software Has to Teach Government, with two questions:
(1) Why is Mozilla successful? and
(2) Is the Mozilla methodology repeatable?
We apply the answers to these questions to several contemporary examples of participatory governance in the United States. We then examine the Obama administration’s efforts to solicit public participation both during the election campaign and in the early days of the new presidency. In concluding this report with recommendations for further research on participatory governance, we address possible shortcomings in the Mozilla methodology as applied to the work of government."