Reviewer: Maurizio Teli
1. Is the subject matter relevant?
Yes. The described case, Sesamath, and its evolution from a completely voluntary based project to a project with a commercial component is extremely interesting. The domain of application of peer production, the textbooks for math, is also extremely significant, as it investigates the transformations in peer production of content different from software.
2. Is the treatment of the subject matter intellectually interesting? Are there citations or bodies of literature you think are essential to which the author has not referred?
Unfortunately, the very interesting case does not correspond to a good paper. In particular, both the theoretical part and the discussion of the empirical results are particularly weak. The authors claim that their theoretical framework is based on the sociology of work but they are mainly working to contrast some results in economics, symbolized by the contribution of Lerner and Tirole. This choice is questionable, as other papers, like Lakhani and Wolf 2003, have discussed the career building argument in wider lenses, expanding on the motivations for contribution starting with similar individualistic approaches. Moreover, it seems that the other four theoretical approaches presented in the theoretical part disappear all along the paper. Finally, the authors seem to be unaware of recent contribution, published also in the Journal of Peer Production, on the relationship between open source production, commercial attitudes, and the transformation of the institutional settings. Two notable missing works are De Paoli et al., JOPP 1, and Murillo et al., JOPP 3. Therefore, the theoretical part needs to be thickened and framed more widely, affecting also the discussion.
3. Are there any noticeable problems with the author’s means of validating assumptions or making judgments?
The problems with theory reflect on the way the authors validate assumptions. Indeed, the authors do not explicit what is their research question. Moreover, the methodological explanations are underdeveloped, with a reference to the conduction of an ethnographic case study without any further details (how long has the case been studied, what kind of data have been collected, how they have been analyzed, etc…). Therefore, it is really difficult to understand the process through which the conclusions have been reached.
4. Is the article well written?
The article needs substantial re-writing and, also, professional proofreading.
5. Are there portions of the article that you recommend be shortened, excised or expanded?
Yes. In details:
1) theory should be expanded;
2) the description of the case study now in the theory should be moved to a specific section;
3) a methodology section should be added;
4) discussion need substantial rework.
Reviewer: Matthijs den Besten
1. Is the subject matter relevant?
It is nice to encounter a case study on Sésamath, which is an interesting project whose history deserves to be documented.
2. Is the treatment of the subject matter intellectually interesting? Are there citations or bodies of literature you think are essential to which the author has not referred?
I am not entirely convinced by the approach taken. While an attempt is made to give a broad brush overview of open source research, the paper does engage with, or even mention the many studies that have been carried out with respect to professional involvement. Consequently I took me a long time to understand what aspect of professional involvement the authors are interested in.
A body of literature that would seem particularly relevant is the user-innovation perspective (Von Hippel, Shah, Von Krogh, Henkel). Besides there exist a number of detailed studies of projects’ struggles with professional involvement, cf.
Cornford, T., Shaikh, M., & Ciborra, C. (2010). Hierarchy, laboratory and collective: Unveiling Linux as innovation, machination and constitution. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 11(12), 809.
De Paoli, S., D’Andrea, V., & Teli, M. (2012). Why free software is not the antonym of commercial software: Two case studies from corporate and volunteer based projects. Journal of Peer Production, 1(1).
Gaudeul, A. (2007). Do open source developers respond to competition? The LaTeX case study. Review of Network Economics, 6(2).
Mateos-Garcia, J., & Steinmueller, W. E. (2008). The institutions of open source software: Examining the Debian community. Information Economics and Policy, 20(4), 333-344.
I would welcome a short discussion of differences and similarities between Sésamath and projects like LaTeX, Linux, and Debian.
3. Are there any noticeable problems with the author’s means of validating assumptions or making judgments?
Table 1 tells us about the number of people in the core and the periphery of Sésamath who participate on the project mailing list. It does not qualify the participation. Is subscription sufficient or do these people send at least one message? What do the messages say? Without some sort of analysis of the message contents and impacts it is hard to make clear cut judgments about the relative importance of contributions of different groups.
4. Is the article well written?
The way things are put bring out the French origins of the paper. Its structure, turns of phrase, and, at times, choice of words, might be perplexing for an international audience.
5. Are there portions of the article that you recommend be shortened, excised or expanded?
Section 1.1: I did not get it. See comments above.
Reviewer: Patrícia Dias da Silva
The topic and the case study is very relevant, in particular in terms of the call. It has the potential to completely fit in a special issue on work and peer production. I believe it can provide valuable insight as an example other than open source software. However, it is so poorly written it makes it hard to follow and understand. It needs to be completely rewritten and proof-read. Some parts read as if they were translated by an automatic translator. The translation should be done by someone used to academic texts – it is important to find corresponding concepts and use the appropriate terms.
As a result, in some parts of the texts I am unsure whether it is a language problem or an argument problem, do the authors lack the vocabulary or knowledge of the field? For instance, on page 4 it is said that open source contents are intangible goods and therefore they are common goods – one does not imply the other, do the authors mean “non-rival goods”? On page 10, it is said “each contributor had developed its own hacking skills in the matter of online school contents” – why would they need hacking skills? What do the authors mean by it?
The article would benefit from recent references on open education. Overall, there are only three references published after 2010. Even though older academic work remains pertinent, there have been more and more experiences in open education and respective research (MOOCs have been a hot topic but other types of resources have also been studied, including open textbooks). In addition, references are incomplete: books and book chapters do not include place and journal articles have no number or volume.
Although it would be too much to ask the authors to do further research on the topic, it would be interesting to at least have a little bit of information regarding what is going on with Sésamath in 2016. Do they still exist? Are they still updating textbooks? Are they still in use in France?
