How to scare away participants and destroy your community – collapse of open source projects and community failure

Why do open communities fail? Open communities have gained tremendous momentum, in literature, managerial practice and global economy. However, a large number of open organizations are abandoned, no more active, or even death.... [ view full abstract ]

Why do open communities fail? Open communities have gained tremendous momentum, in literature, managerial practice and global economy. However, a large number of open organizations are abandoned, no more active, or even death. So far, literature has concentrated on success stories but neglected failures. Prior research has also concentrating on ramping up communities and attracting contributors, but it is unclear why even well integrated members leave and communities collapse, also in mature settings. This paper sheds light on the antecedents of failed open source projects. We explore sources that determine voting with feed, reveal where members move, and develop a framework for understanding failure. In ten in depth case studies of collapsed open source projects, we draw on netnographical and interview data to reveal patterns for failure. We shift the focus away from the dominant research logic on how to facilitating membership onboarding to the aspect of understanding de-boarding. Our results increase our understanding how open organizations collapse, and carries implications beyond open source organizations for greater productivity of workplaces, leadership, and collaboration.