Résumé
This research aims to explore the impacts of managerial decisions and community composition on the health of open source communities and ecosystems. Combining a longitudinal single case study to more than 46 interviews with open source community members (editors and contributors), we were able to identify key managerial changes that impact community activity and highlight how certain strategic parameters of the project determine the community composition and its health. In this study, by health we qualify a wide range of aspects going from the dynamisms of external contributions to the valuation of contributors, contributions and dissemination to end users. We firstly show that managerial decisions are as important as technical choices regarding the software health. Some purely managerial decisions regarding governance structures for example can impact the community willingness to contribute and therefore the available resources to develop the software. Secondly, we put forward the importance of having a coopetitive community (i.e. community with several competing firms) to stimulate and attract valuable users and contributors that highly participate to the software health according to our interviewees.