Meritocracy in FOSS

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One of the common traits that FOSS developers and the community in large identify with is a meritocracy. On Ubuntu's website, it mentions: "This is not a democracy, it's a meritocracy." I've only been involved with the FOSS community for about 4 months now but in this time, I have realized that for members of the FOSS community, the idea that hard work is rewarded with recognition and the opportunity for more responsibility is deeply rooted. It's the structure they are built on and hold this idea very near and dear to their hearts. By looking at other group projects in my class and the feeling i got from their presentations, In particular, project founders tend to hold influence regardless of the value of their recent contributions -- or whether they continue to contribute. If you have the money and reputation in the FOSS community, you could find yourself climbing the ranks of the developer community regardless of the scale of your contributions. 

Canonical's (The company behind the Linux Ubuntu systems) CEO Mark Shuttleworth holds a position of power and practically runs Canocial's day to day not because of his contributions to free software, but because he had the energy and money to create the position for himself. Few people in Ubuntu or Canonical begrudge him his position, but the fact remains that it was not obtained through merit (as the community defines it) so much as the exercise of existing power. It's obviously not the case with every FOSS project. Some projects like Fedora distribute power equally to the members based on performance and contributions. Their impact is well recognized.  For instance, seven out of ten of the current Fedora board members are Red Hat employees. That's 70% of your board members not only active contributors in the FOSS community, but also employees. 



It could be argued that contributions can range from actual code to funds. And if people with money and reputation are willing to spend in foss projects, no doubt they should be given some recognition. It is however, a blurred line since giving power to supporters can mean that active contributors goals' for the project might get sideline in the interest of supporters. 

As i discover and explore more about FOSS projects and work with the community more, I'll come back to this topic and reevaluate my stance. 


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