Commercializing Open Source Software: Do Property Rights Still Matter?

Overview

A major shift toward open source software is underway as companies are more critically evaluating the cost effectiveness of their IT investments, seeing the benefits of collaborative development, and looking for ways to avoid vendor lock-in. At the same time, academics and industry visionaries are criticizing the use of a traditional appropriation mechanism for innovation - the patent - by bemoaning the decisions of U.S. and foreign governments to permit software patents. This paper responds to those trends by analyzing the role of property rights in the open source development model, with a particular focus on the effectiveness of the appropriation mechanisms that the open source model uses in lieu of intellectual property rights.