Flexible Involvement

Flexible involvement

"an often overlooked characteristic of open source collaboration is the flexible degree of involvement in and responsibility for the process that can be accommodated. The hurdle to participating in a project is extremely low. Valuable contributions can be as small as a single, one-time effort - a bug report, a penetrating comment in a discussion. Equally important, though, is the fact that contributions are not limited to just that. Many projects also have dedicated, full-time, often paid contributors who maintain core aspects of the system - such as maintainers of the kernel, editors of a slash site. Between these two extremes - one-time contribution and full-time dedication - all degrees of involvement are possible and useful. It is also easy to slide up or down the scale of commitment. Consequently, dedicated people assume responsibility when they invest time in the project, and lose it when they cease to be fully immersed. Hierarchies are fluid and merit-based, whatever merit means to the peers. This also makes it difficult for established members to continue to hold onto their positions when they stop making valuable contributions." (http://news.openflows.org/article.pl?sid=02/04/23/1518208 )