The document summarizes research on emerging peer-production communities like hackerspaces. Annual surveys from 2010-2012 find that the average member is a highly educated 26-31 year old male from Europe or North America who is interested in building objects, software, and social aspects. Members are motivated by altruism, community, and fun. Most communities are small with 20-50 members and are funded through peer sources like membership fees and donations. The study suggests these communities represent a new "peer-production generation."
1. OSS 2012
The Eighth International Conference on Open Source Systems
Emerging hackerspaces –
Peer-production generation
Jarkko Moilanen
jarkko.moilanen@uta.fi
University of Tampere
School of Information Sciences
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2. Research motivation
● Personal history in hackerspaces and in hacker culture
● Started as pure 'hackerspaces' study, expanded to
cover other forms as well.
● To provide missing accurate longitudinal statistical
research data and results about commons-based peer
production community such as:
● Common characteristics of the community
● Member motivation and
● Community values
● To put DIY communities on the larger context of hacker
generations as 'Peer-production' generation
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3. Observation and surveys
● Methods used
● Empirical observation (helped in defining survey
questions)
● Annual surveys (main data collection method)
● Surveys are part of P2P Foundation supported
Statistical Studies of Peer Production studies
established by author.
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4. Peer-production surveys
● Conducted 2010 and 2011 (also 2012)
● Conducted among DIY communities such as
● Hackerspaces
● Makerspaces
● DIYbio
● Fablabs
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6. Middle-aged western men
● 'Average' member of DIY community is a highly
educated 26 - 31 years old male from Europe
(2011: 39%) or North America (2011:48%)
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7. Bachelors and Masters of 'hacking'
● 2011: 56% at least Bachelor Degree (2010:
49%)
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8. Committed to one local community
● Nearly 91% are members of just one
community
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9. Building objects in crowd
● Top 3 interests:building objects (82%), social
aspects (67%) and software hacking (65%)
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10. Fun loving altruistic community
● Altruism, community commitment, meeting
other hackers in real world and having fun
● having fun (98%)
● meeting other hackers and hacker-minded
people (95%)
● contributing to community without
expecting something in return (80%)
● commitment to community (75%)
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12. Small-ish local communities
● Over 40% of spaces have 20-50 members
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13. Peer funded
● Question 'From which sources funding and
resources can/should be obtained?' was added
to 2011 survey.
● Membership fees: over 92%
● Donations from individuals: 88%
● Governmental sources: 60%
● Company donations: around 57%
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14. Peer-production generation
Suggested view to Hacker
generations. Source: Modified
from Taylor (2005). Peer-
production added by the author.
Beginning of peer-production
generation is debatable.
Hackerspaces emerged in small
scale around 1995, but
breakthrough happened around
2001-2002 and after that other
forms of peer-production
emerged.
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15. Peer-production generation
● Motivation: altruism, community commitment,
meeting other hackers in real world and
having fun
● Small-ish local communities (with own space)
● While members value social events, they
value doing/'making' more
● Peer funding (over company or goverment)
● Hackerspaces resemble 'third places' defined
by Oldenburg
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16. Motivation model
● hackerspace communities have a strong ‘social motivation factor’.
Not found significant in other research on open source development
Modified from Martine Aalbers, 2004. “Motivation for participation in an open source software community,”
at http://download.blender.org/documentation/bc2004/Martine_Aalbers/results-summary.pdf
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17. Future research
● Continue annual surveys
● Future (separate) surveys will focus on three
communities to enable more profound results:
● General DIY community (general features of Peer-
production generation)
● DIYbio community ('revolutionary activity')
● 3D Manufacturing community ('revolutionary activity')
● Compare the general Peer production generation to
the two 'revolutionary' communities.
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18. Questions?
● For more information, read
http://surveys.peerproduction.net/
● Email: jarkko.moilanen@uta.fi
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