There's a new MacArthur Foundation/MIT Press book out called "Peer
Participation and Software: What Mozilla Has to Teach Government" that
I think many people here might find relevant & interesting. It
describes Mozilla's processes, heavily focusing on the roles of
volunteer developers and evangelists in the Mozilla community, and
discussing whether these processes are transferable to government and
civil society.
From the forward:
"The purpose of this report is to address how and why the Mozilla
Foundation is successful at organizing large-scale participation in
the development of its software. What motivates Mozilla to solicit the
expertise of anyone who wishes to provide her time and knowledge to
the Mozilla enterprise? What motivates volunteers to participate? ....
Mozilla’s success at engendering part-time, volunteer participation
that produces successful marketplace innovation suggests strategies
for how to
organize civic participation in communities and government.
Specifically, the Mozilla approach might demonstrate how to galvanize
participation by those in the technical community. More generally,
Mozilla’s open source model may have something to teach us about how
to create successful participatory democracy."
I haven't read it all yet (it's quite short, less than 100 pages) but
it looks very interesting.
pdf here:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/full_pdfs/Peer_Participation_and_Software.pdf
-- phoebe
--
* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers
<at>
gmail.com *