An Exploration of Fedora’s Online Open Source Development Community (WSL 2013)

Authors

Diana Harrelson Hubbard (UNT)

Abstract

It is through the effort of a collaborative online community, almost entirely formed by volunteers, that the Fedora Project is able to develop their Linux Operating System. The intent of this ethnographic exploration was to gain a better understanding of what the needs, wants, and motivations of the development community were in order to help to maintain, sustain, and grow it. Research methods used included participant observation, interviews, and a survey. Almost all of this research was conducted entirely online. This paper will outline the results of this explorative study.

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