Other researchers have likened software production to craft production

Here F/LOSSers are drawing on the masculinity of the eighteenth century blacksmith or woodworker, an image that evokes a self‐sufficient individualist without posing a threat to male dominance.

(Coleman, 2001) or pleasurable play (Klief and Faulkner, 2002). In our study this is indeed part of coders’ imagination. Members often describe their work as ‘scratching an itch’ by producing something tangible and craft‐like. Scratching an itch is a common reason why people become involved with communities and why they stay. Yet tradition and repetition, key elements of other forms of craft production, have no place other than as building blocks upon which to take one’s own work further. Re‐doing work similar to that of other coders does not scratch the itch satisfactorily, whereas it generally does among craftspeople. In this way, the craft system looks suspiciously like a system of science.