In this thesis we explore how knowledge management is performed in open source projects. Open source projects are often perceived as informal, even unmanaged. Still, they appear to manage knowledge acquisition and sharing sufficiently well to successfully develop software in such a distributed environment as the Internet. This thesis aims to explore that apparent contradiction, and thus complement the currently limited research in this field.

The thesis consists of a literature study of knowledge management theory and open source development, resulting in the analysis of open source practices from a knowledge management perspective.

Currently the field of knowledge management maintains several, partially opposing doctrines. Apart from the business aspect, two main schools of thought are present. The commodity school approaches knowledge as a universal truth, an object that can be separated from the knower. The community school emphasises knowledge as something
internal to the human mind, but which can be shared as experiences between people. In the analysis presented, we have applied an analysis method which considers both the commodity and the community
perspectives.

The analysis is based on previous research studies of open source, and open source practices, and is furthered by a cursory case study using examples from a selected set of open source projects.

Our conclusions are that knowledge management indeed is present in open source projects, and that it is supported by an ecology like interaction of project practices.