Not to profit from ppen source: The role of nonprofit organizations in open source software development

Abstract

The papers explores the role of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in free or open source software (F/OSS ) development process. Based on two dominant NPO theories and a series of in-depth interviews with officials from NPOs in the F/OSS discourse, this paper argues that NPOs have provided the social structure necessary to support the production of F/OSS. By illustrating the role of these NPOs, this paper not only serves as a lens to understand the nonproprietary production process but also examines the robustness of the aforementioned NPO theories.