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on Information and Communication Technologies |
| By: | Alexia Gaudeul (School of Economics and Centre for Competition Policy, University of East Anglia) |
| Abstract: | The rivalry between developers of open source and proprietary software encourages open source developers to court users and respond to their needs. The open source developer who wants to promote her code (intrinsic motivations) may choose liberal license terms such as those of the Berkeley Software Distribution as they allow the proprietary developer to use her code in his product and thus broaden its appeal. If she wants to promote her own implementation of her software (extrinsic motivations), she may use more restrictive license terms such as the General Public License to discourage proprietary exploitation of her code. An open source developer who is a latecomer to the market will be less likely than an early entrant to make her product compatible with that of the proprietary developer, but she is also more likely to orient her software towards the end user. |
| Keywords: | open source, software, standards, compatibility, network effects, duopoly, mixed markets, production systems, non profits, volunteer organizations, information goods, intellectual property, copyright, licensing |
| JEL: | D23 H41 L13 L22 L31 L86 O34 O38 |
| Date: | 2008–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ccp:wpaper:wp08-02&r=ict |