Working in Public: The Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software

by Nadia Asparouhova

Social media is arguably supplanting the need for “breaking news” reporters. Like casual contributors to an open source project, eyewitnesses post about a breaking news event because they are intrinsically motivated to do so. The fact that local news outlets frequently appear in eyewitnesses’ comments, asking them for the right to use their images, tells us that average citizens are becoming a better breaking news source for major media outlets, rather than the other way around. Breaking news is the equivalent of casual contributions in open source: those who are closest to the problem have an intrinsic desire to “contribute” with no expectation of financial reward, but also have no desire to stick around after making their contribution. Most people who post about a breaking news event don’t want to become news reporters; they just want to share and move on. Similarly, most casual contributors have no desire to join a “contributor community” or become maintainers; they’re there to fix their own problem and move on.