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Dissertation-Political Motives of Developers for Collaboration on GNU/Linux submitted for the degree of MA (Globalization and Communications) 2003/2004
by
Tobias Escher
Centre for Mass Communication Research
University of Leicester

(plus 1266 words bibliography)
Abstract
This paper examines to what degree developers of the collaboratively producedcomputer operating system GNU/Linux are politically motivated for their contributions.
It first states that software is politically relevant. It then goes on to argue for the politicalsignificance ofFree Software/Open Source Software (FS/OSS) and discusses thedevelopers ambivalent attitude towards a politicisation of FS/OSS. Centrepiece is asurvey carried out with 85 GNU/Linux developers that showed that most of them areconscious of the social relevance of FS/OSS and that their engagement is of adeliberately political nature.
Notes
An online version of this document in the Portable Document Format (pdf) is
available at https://www.chronovault.net/websites/tobi/researchID/ together with the
questionnaire and the raw data of this survey. User name as well as password to access
the site is guest. For more information see Appendix A.6 Online Resources for this
Survey.
This work could not manage without the use of some specific vocabulary. For
those readers not familiar with the concepts of software programming and free software
there is an explanation of some important terms and concepts in the appendix to this
work.
i
Acknowledgements
I want to take the opportunity to express my gratefulness to all the persons who
gave me support during this project and provided valuable thoughts and discussions.
First of all I want to mention my supervisor Dr. Gillian Youngs at the Centre for Mass
Communication Research at the University of Leicester. Furthermore this survey would
not have been possible without the great responsiveness of the members of the Free
Software / Open Source Software community. Additionally I send a thank you to my pretesters,
namely Björn, Marc, Frank, Christian and Tobias for helping to improve the
questionnaire and to fix some bugs in the software. My proofreader Rita shall not be
left out of this list who managed the extraordinary task to provide precise advice even
in the most stressful situations. I would also like to mention the German Academic
Exchange Service (DAAD) without whose financial support this year at the University
of Leicester would have been impossible. Last, but by no means least, comes a special
word of gratitude to the ones whose support was and still is key to everything and who I
better do not name as I know that his would cause them embarrassment.
ii
Table of Contents
Abstract..............................................................................................................................i
Notes..................................................................................................................................i
Acknowledgements...........................................................................................................ii
Table of Contents.............................................................................................................iii
Table of Illustrations..........................................................................................................v
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