By admin on October 1, 2001 at 1:01 am
Open Source Software or Free Software appears contrary to conventional wisdom about intellectual property--free products challenge commercially-developed products in quality and market share. This talk explores the economics of Open Source, arguing that software complexity explains this result and overturns conventional thinking on property rights. Paper abstract: Open source software, developed by volunteers, appears counter to conventional wisdom about private provision of public goods. Standard theory holds that without property rights (or excludability), free-riding inhibits private investment in non-rival goods such as information and software. But complex open source products challenge commercially-developed software in quality and market share. I argue that the complexity of software changes the results. For complex goods under asymmetric information, open source developers self-select, offsetting free-riding losses. But commercial firms lack information necessary for
effective provision. I compare different forms of provision and different property rights. Strong property rights can limit provision of complex public goods.
Comments
Net Le, Queen Mary, University of London January 27, 2002 at 4:14 am
PermalinkI'm from Vietnam and I'm doing a Ph.D. re: software
protection and developing countries (partilyclary Vietnam)
Do you think an operation system, once it comes to monopoly
level (or become standard) should be free or at least its
price should be regulated? I think it's gona be my focal
point of my hypothesis, but I'm not sure if it's a worthwile
target to focus on.
Thank you in advance for your suggestion.
Sincerely yours,
Net Le
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