#121: Open Sourcing with Open_Sourcing

This week Dave and Gunnar talk with Maha Shaikh about open source, the nature of community, and life as an open source academic.

Maha says:

In a nutshell my work is, firstly, around making sense of how companies choose communities, what criteria they use and how they evaluate them.

Secondly, I look in great detail into how companies are learning to find new mechanisms of control to manage organizational forms like communities where traditional forms of obligation and redress inscribed into contracts are no longer possible. This also involves how companies have forced themselves to become comfortable with ‘less’ control.

Thirdly, how we can theorize and learn from online communities like open source ones to make sense of how ‘serious work’ is carried out in rather loud online settings where many voices create a cacophony somewhat unhelpful for creative work like coding.

• The New Hacker’s Dictionary, Third Edition and see also
• The Open Organization
• Dr. David A. Wheeler
• Maha’s website

We Give Thanks

Maha Shaikh for being our special guest star!