Bridging the Digital Divide by Open Source the source code unless the software developers are contracted to do their job. Profit is rather made by third party selling services around the software, like training, support, distribution, hosting and consulting. GPLed software is typically geared towards sophisticated users. With more permis- sive licenses (see Table 2), products derived from the open source software can be redistributed in closed source fashion. This creates possibilities for income (Krishnamurthy, 2003). Economic considerations can help to form a support infrastructure for users and system main- tainers and provide other services that are useful for local communities. in open source projects: charismatic leader, voting committee and rotating leadership (Eilhard, 2009). To overcome reservations of contributors Shah (2006) suggests that leaders need to interact care- fully with the community: (1) involve contributors in the decision-making process, (2) use a restric- tive open source license that effectively prevents corporate code hijacking, or (3) hire renowned open source developers to show the commitment to the open source idea. FAVORABLE PROJECT CHARACTERISTICS Favorable characteristics for open source produc- tion include project modularity, existence of fun challenges and credible leadership that provides vision and keeps the project together, i.e. prevents forks. At the start of the open source project enough code shall be present so that a community can react as well as get convinced that the project has merit. The aspect of modularity is considered essential for the viability of open source software. Baldwin and Clark (2003) argue that the architecture, particularly modularity, is a critical factor that lies at the heart of the open source development process of open source projects. And Kogut and Metiu (2001) even declare that a product that is not modular is not considered appropriate for open source develop- ment. A modular structure facilitates decentralized development by independent groups of developers. GOVERNANCE Leadership in Open Source projects is an im- portant determent of project success. A common feature of many open source project leaders is that they are programmers who made important contributions early in the project's development, and moved on to broader project management tasks. The leader in an open source setting often has no formal authority over programmers, but her recommendations tend to be followed by the majority of programmers in the project. Leader- ship has an important role to play in accepting or rejecting modifications to the code in order to keep a required level of quality, especially because of the absence of liability as would be the case if sold by a commercial software firm. The key to successful leadership is the trust by the program- mers (Lerner & Tirole, 2002). The benefits of the open source production method are limited by the quality of the coordination process, by the level of redundancy of develop- ment and by versioning problems (Kala, 2008). Bad governance can result in delays, redundant production or the forking of the project. Effective governance prevents free-riding, coordinates the software development and ensures the quality of the outcome. There are three typical kinds of leadership OPEN SOURCE IN THE DEVELOPING COUNTRY CONTEXT There is considerable interest about using open source software in developing countries, but there are different opinions if and how it can be useful. Heeks (2005) states a lack of strong evidence of FOSS benefits and questions it to be a blind alley for developing countries. A more optimistic view is expressed by Lerner and Tirole (2002): "Users 161