Why contribute? “I did it for teh lulz” R. Stallman Most of Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) developers are not paid to contribute, so why do they work anyway? In this talk, we’ll investigate the motivations of individual contributors. We’ll put them in perspective with recent studies on motivations and communities of practice. In particular, we’ll see that distinguishing internal vs external incentives is a key to understand why FOSS communities are able to attract and keep contributors around the production of a software… Presented at http://fossa.inria.fr/fr/program/community Dec 6, 2012

1. Motivations in FLOSS
communities
(aka the Chocolate talk)
Sébastien Heymann - Gephi Consortium
http://sebastien.pro seb@gephi.org

2. Some words about me...
Community manager of the Gephi project.
I democratize network thinking.
PhD candidate in complex networks @LIP6.
I love chocolates too :)

3. Motivations in studying motivations
Who would be likely to contribute to my
project?
How to attract skilled developers?
Who is worth the time spent?
What win-win deals can we make?

4. "In many ways, I actually think the real idea of
open source is for it to allow everybody to be
'selfish', not about trying to get everybody to
contribute to some common good.
[...]
Now, those selfish reasons by no means need
to be about 'financial reward', though."
Interview of L. Torvalds for the BBC, June 2012

5. "When I started making a living writing add-
ons and other Mozilla software, I felt I needed
to give something back [...]. So there were
altruistic and selfish reasons mixed together."
Interview of B. King (Mozilla volunteer) by
Tristan Nitot, Dec 2012

6. Plan: beyond altruism vs selfishness
1. Why motivation matters?
2. Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation.
3. Why care about intrinsic motivation?
4. Open questions.

7. 3. Why motivation matters?
image: The Big Lebowski

8. Key issues in FLOSS communities
Fast evolution! need for creativity.
Contributors are not paid most of the time.
Contributions based on free will.
Willingness to cooperate.

9. Contributors?
People who:
● develop
● communicate
● manage
● use and spread the word
● ...

10. Why contribute for FREE?
for glory?
for White
Russians?
for t3h lulz? :)
What about you?

11. What about them?
R. Stallman L. Torvalds

12. For personal values
"I refuse to break solidarity with
other users. [...] So that I can
continue to use computers without
dishonor, I have decided to put
together a sufficient body of free
software..."
The GNU Manifesto [online], 1985
R. Stallman

13. For social status
"I have enough recognition that I
feel good about myself, that I
know that what I'm doing is
actually meaningful to people."
Linux Manifesto [online], 1998
L. Torvalds

14. dude, come
on
2. Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation
image: AllTheRageFaces.com

15. Motivation: what makes [a dude] engaged
for something. (Deci & Ryan, 1985)

16. Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation
Intrinsic motivation:
Something is "valued for its own sake and
appears to be self sustained".
(Calder & Straw, 1975)
Extrinsic motivation:
Something is perceived as an investment.
(Deci & Ryan, 1985)

17. Some intrinsic incentives
Feeling of being skilled and being proud of
something.
Joy to give and be useful.
Aesthetic/creative pleasure.
To satisfy some personal values, like freedom.

18. Some extrinsic (positive) incentives
Money, rewards.
Source code for personal needs.
Positive feedbacks.
Social status / reputation.

19. 3. Why care about intrinsic
motivation?

20. People with high intrinsic
motivations are great
contributors.

21. "People for whom [the pure artistic
satisfaction of designing beautiful software
and making it work] is not a significant
motivation never become hackers in the first
place, just as people who don't love music
never become composers."
- Homesteading the Noosphere, chap.7, 2000
E. Raymond

22. Benefits of intrinsic motivations
Better creativity.
Faster learning.
Increased autonomy of contributors.
Better code.

23. FLOSS communities: we may
not have oil, but we have
intrinsic motivation.

24. How to get intrinsic motivations high?
Take care of contributors':
● autonomy,
● emotional attachment (to the project),
● skills evolution.

25. How to get intrinsic motivations high?
Take care of contributors':
● autonomy,
● emotional attachment (to the project),
● skills evolution.
Intrinsic motivation increases when one:
● feels that he/she has the control,
● and receives positive, detailed feedback.

26. "Individuals join for various reasons,
and no one reason tends to dominate
the community." (Lakhani & Wolf, 2003)
Why not increasing both types of
motivation?

27. "Hidden costs of rewards"
Increase of extrinsic motivations
=>
Increase of the feeling of external control
=>
decrease of intrinsic motivations
Lepper & Greene, 1978

28. "Hidden costs of rewards"
Increase of extrinsic motivations
=>
Increase of the feeling of external control
=>
decrease of intrinsic motivations
Lepper & Greene, 1978
/! hybrid communities
If some people are paid to contribute, the motivation of
the other people may decrease.

29. Contributors come with various reasons.
Taking care of intrinsic incentives seems to be
a key to improve contributions.
A good balance may be hard to reach: critical
issue for open source business ecosystems.
Conclusion: good communities are
motivation dealers.

30. 3 open questions
How to better understand the motivations of
FLOSS contributors?
How motivations evolve
along the way?
Can we extract some
advices for FLOSS community
management?

31. Some references
Communautés de Logiciel Libre : écosystème des motivations, S. Heymann,
2009 [PDF].
The self perception of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, Calder B. & Straw B., in
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, n°31, pp.599-605, 1975.
Intrinsic motivation in a new light, Lindenberg S., in Kylos, n°54 pp.317-342,
2001.
Le logiciel libre et la communauté autorégulée, Meyer M. & Montagne F., in Les
carnets du centre de philosophie du Droit, n°113, 2005.
Intrinsic motivation and self-determination of behavior, Deci E. & Ryan R.,
Plenum Press, New York, 1985.
Linux Manifesto [online], 1998.
Les motivations des développeurs dans l’Open Source Une revue de la
littérature, Jean-Jacques Gauguier, 2005 [PDF].
Lakhani K. & Wolf R., Why hackers do what they do : Understanding motivation
effort in free/open source software projects, MIT Sloan School of Management
(2003), no. 4425-03.

32. Credits
Slide 1: Chocolates, by J. Paxon Reyes, under CC by-nc 2.0.
Slide 2: Screenshot of Gephi 0.7.
Slide 6: Image from The Big Lebowski, 1998.
Slide 9: Dude Vinci, by Colin Cotterill, from https://dudeism.com/.
Slide 10, 11: Richard Stallman gives a talk on Free Software and Copyright law
at The University of Pittsburgh, by Victor Powell, under CC by-sa 3.0.
Slide 10, 12: Linus Torvalds, Linuxmag.com, under CC by-sa 3.0.
Slide 13: AllTheRageFaces.com.
Slide 18: Focus Shift, 2008.
Slide 28: Chocolate mocha, by Debbie R, under CC by-nc-nd 2.0.