Cyberconflict at the edge of chaos: Cryptohierarchies and self-organisation in the open-source movement

This paper differentiates between different levels of conflict in the open-source movement and discusses the role conflict and self-organisation play in the emergence of structures of leadership emergence and the bifurcation into core and peripheral groups and soft control by cryptohierarchies; in the different levels of group polarisation and conflict between communities negotiating their identity, strategy, coordination and complexity; and lastly, in the dynamic relationships between hierarchies and networks. These dynamics are forcing open-source communities to exist at the edge of chaos, and to constantly engage in lines of flight and resistance from the system of global control, while ignoring current capitalist practices and ‘growing their own’ models of self-organising knowledge creation and exchange.