A listing of some useful readings from Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) culture/licensing/community/theory, as we attempt to apply some lessons towards our own community at PLOTS:
Richard Stallman on why the "free" in FOSS means "free as in freedom, not as in beer": http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html
The Apache Foundation is the nonprofit behind the Apache web server and over 100 other open source projects.
Mako Hill: "Open source advocates must defend their thesis that freely developed software should, or will with time, be better than proprietary software. Free software supporters can instead ask, 'How can we make free software better?' In a free software framing, high quality software exists as a means to an end rather than an end itself." - http://mako.cc/writing/hill-when_free_software_isnt_better.html
Different ethical perspectives on open source production, by Santa Clara University's Markkula Center: http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/submitted/open-source.html
Governance, decisionmaking in FOSS
OpenStreetMap Foundation and structure: http://blog.osmfoundation.org/about/ and
- Membership (which is paid and voting): http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Membership
- Working Groups: http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Groups
The Apache Foundation's How It Works page: http://www.apache.org/foundation/how-it-works.html#meritocracy
Mozilla on governance: http://www.mozilla.org/about/governance.html
Wikimedia Foundation: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Frequently_asked_questions
Open Source Hardware
An emerging field not nearly as well defined/developed as FOSS but with obvious overlap for the PLOTS community.
Phillip Torrone of Make Magazine on the ethics of sharing open source hardware designs: http://blog.makezine.com/2012/02/14/soapbox-the-unspoken-rules-of-open-source-hardware/