Collective Action And Communal Resources in Open Source Software Development: The Case of Freenet

Building on resource mobilization theory, we explore three distinct rewards for individuals to engage in innovative collective action, namely open source Software development. The three benefits, we term communal resources, are reputation, control over technology, and learning opportunities. The collective action (the open source software development project) produces the communal resources in parallel with the actual product (software) and mobilizes programmers to spend time and effort, and contribute their knowledge to the project. Communal resources appear as a byproduct to the production process and represent a public good of second order. We show that they increase in value for the individual with involvement in the community. Empirical data from the Freenet project illustrates both the levels of involvement and the communal resources. We argue that open source software development gives rise to a new theoretical typology of collective action