  Understanding the complex dynamics of communities of software developers
requires a view of such organizations as a network of interacting agents
involving both goals and constraints. Beyond their special features, these
systems display some overall patterns of organization not far from the ones
seen in other types of organizations, including both natural and artificial
entities. By looking at both software developers and social insects as agents
interacting in a complex network, we found common statistical patterns of
organization. Here, simple self-organizing processes leading to the formation
of hierarchies in wasp colonies and open source communities are studied. Our
analysis further validates simple models of formation of wasp hierarchies based
on individual learning. In the open source community, a few members are clearly
distinguished from the rest of the community with different reinforcement
mechanisms.
