About Closed-Door Free/Libre/Open Source (FLOSS) Projects: Lessons From the Mozilla Firefox Developer Recruitment Approach

Overview

In this paper, the notion of a "Closed-door open source project" is introduced. In such projects, the most important development tasks are controlled by a tight group. The author presents five new arguments for why groups may wish to organize this way. The first argument is that developers simply do not have the disposable time to evaluate potential members. The next two arguments are based on self-selection-by setting tough entry requirements the project can ensure that it gets high quality and highly persistent programmers. The fourth argument is that expanding a group destroys the fun. The fifth argument is that projects requiring diverse inputs require a closed door approach.