Do penguins eat scallops?

摘要

Given that is in large part his words and ideas that this paper contains we include Claudio Ciborra as an author, located between us in the name order. In mid 2003 the journal Management Science announced a call for papers for a special issue on Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS). The deadline for submission was 1 September 2004. As the call proposed: Researchers in the social sciences have become aware of the very interesting characteristics of F/OSS and its development system, and a lively, interdisciplinary research community has sprung up to explore the phenomenon and its implications for management. We (Tony Cornford and Maha Shaikh) had a long standing interest in open source and in particular in the enduring debates over the use of version control software (VCS) within the Linux kernel community, a debate that was (and still is) the basis for Maha's PhD research. The call for papers provided both of us with a general tnotivation to prepare and submit a manuscript. However, motivation's in our case are fragile alignments that are often displaced, translated and diffused. For Claudio, then the Convenor (Chair) of our Department, our vague commitment was something to be worked on and reinforced. Indeed, as the department's Boss (a word he liked to use) Claudio exhibited a talent for an engaging (if at times enraging) form of Bossishness, and his at first gentle but increasingly insistent nagging about this putative paper disturbed us both through the early months of 2004. By the end of June 2004, just as he had departed from London for the start of his proposed Sabbatical year, he raised the heat a notch more.