The Economics of Technology Sharing: Open Source and Beyond

Overview

The open source process of production and innovation seems very unlike what most economists expect. Private firms usually pay their workers, direct and manage their efforts, and control the output and intellectual property thus created. In an open source project, however, a body of original material is made publicly available for others to use, under certain conditions. In many cases, anyone who makes use of the material must agree to make all enhancements to the original material available under these same conditions.