Online communities such as FLOSS create freely available products in a social process. At this year’s QtCon, Mirko Boehm will review the governance norms applied in FSFE and KDE, and how these have developed over time.

Communities with a small number of participants typically organise informally. As the community grows, the need for coordination grows as well and at some point formal organisation is required. Where structure and processes emerge, the principles and norms applied typically reflect voluntary participation and meritocratic peer status. The main interest of the community is to attract and retain contributors and to collect contributions.

The presentation will review the governance norms applied by the KDE Community and FSFE as the organisations developed, how the constitutions of the communities reflect the convictions and expectations of their contributors, and how current debates reflect their evolution, and how the need to evolve governance norms is at the heart of recent conflicts in both communities

On the 3rd of September 2016, Mirko Boehm, CEO, Endocode, will present his topic “The emergence of governance norms in FLOSS communities” at the bcc in Berlin.

Mirko Boehm is a Free Software and Open Source advocate, primarily as a speaker and author. He has been a contributor to the KDE Desktop since 1997, including several years on the KDE e.V. Board. He is a visiting lecturer and researcher on Free Software and Open Source at the Technical University of Berlin, a fellowship representative in the FSFE GA and a Qt-certified specialist and trainer. Mirko Boehm has a wide range of experience as an entrepreneur, a corporate manager, a software developer and a German Air Force officer.

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Mirko Boehm