Out of Altruism or Because it Reads Well on the CV?: The Motivations for Participation in the Freifunk Community Compared to FLOSS

Motivation of free, libre and open source software developers has been widely studied over the years. The reasons people engage in this seemingly altruistic behavior have been elaborated and classified. The present work addresses a slightly different issue: what motivates individuals to participate in community network projects? Are the reasons similar to or quite distinct from these relevant to contributors to free software? Based on recently conducted interviews with community network activists from the Germany based project Freifunk and established FLOSS motivation research, we will analyse the specifics of the Freifunk project and the factors which spur its members to action. The obtained insights could then hopefully be used to understand the underlying group processes and help build sustainable communities.