Reconciling an Activist Project and the Product’s Economic Success

Open-source software “communities” are a hybrid category consisting of militant collectives defending values and production teams developing efficient software. These two types of community are interdependent and inextricably linked, for a project’s future depends on the product’s success. The early stages of software development are characterized by project-product symbiosis. However, increasing diversification of the contributors creates the need to manage situations in which involvement in appropriating and developing the product put the militant project to the test. This study shows that these mechanisms are usually based, not on logics of eviction and exclusion, but rather on the production of collective judgements that contribute to a distributed socialization.