Table 1 Open source software development characteristics

Attracting participation

• Motivations are diverse; no one singular motivation dominates for individuals.

• Sustained participation of contributors is difficult to achieve but can be influenced by stressing the importance of the individual's contribution as well as fostering an atmosphere of learning.

• Firms are profit-seeking and, as to be expected, motivated by economics.

• Individual and corporate motives can co-exist harmoniously.

Management of volunteers

• Contributors are not assigned to tasks; they choose the tasks that suit them.

• Contributors complete tasks at their leisure and have freedom of design.

• Decision-making is consensual in large projects.

• Successful project leadership for large projects follows a motivational style.

Control mechanisms

• Large projects are controlled by small groups of core members.

• The quality of the changes is controlled through the peer-review process.

• Modular designs allow for incremental and expedient growth, as well as speedy retraction of faulty modules.

• To attempt to control the volume of information circulating in the community, rules and norms are communicated and expected to be followed.

• Newcomers to large projects tend to enter through an informal but controlled introduction.

Legal framework

• Large projects take measures similar to corporations to protect their work.

• Contributions are copyrighted with due credit given.

• Most contributors adopt a license that is known and trusted.

• The choice of license is not necessarily as important as the norms that contributors follow.

Physical constraints

• The end-product is intangible, non-rival with a marginal cost near zero.

• Contributors must have access to a minimum technical infrastructure.