Collective Action and Communal Resources in Open Source Software Development: The Case of Freenet1

Building on resource mobilization theory, we explor e three distinct rewards for individuals to engage in innovative collective action, namely open source so ftware development. The three rewards, which we ter m communal resources, are reputation, control over te chnology, and learning opportunities. The collectiv e action (the open source software development project) produces the communal resources in parallel with the actual product (software) and mobilizes programmers to spe nd time and effort, and contribute their knowledge to the project. Communal resources appear as a byproduct t o the production process and represent a public goo d of second order. We show that they increase in value f or individuals along with their involvement in the community. Empirical data from Freenet, an open sou rce software project for peer-to-peer software, ill ustrates both the levels of involvement and the communal res ources.