The Success of Open Source
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Why would computer programmers using Linux, Apache, and other open source applications simply give away the source code that is their work? Why would programmers devote time and talent to improving these programs only to share the code freely with anyone who wants to use it? And how is it that an increasing number of desktop PCs, corporate computing systems, and the majority of Internet servers—including those that run Google and Yahoo—operate on freely accessible open source programs? Economically, this seems bizarre. There is a huge amount of value being created here, but where is the money?
In The Success of Open Source (Harvard University Press, April 2004, $29.95), GBN's Steven Weber looks at how open source came about, why it has taken hold, where the phenomenon is going, and what it all means for our understanding of how property and economy work in the first place. Weber, a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, and a consultant with GBN, argues convincingly that open source is revolutionary. The open source community has built a mini-economy around the counterintuitive notion that the core property right in software code is the right to distribute, not to exclude. And it works! This is profound—and has much broader implications for the property rights regimes that underpin other industries, from music and film to pharmaceuticals.
The Success of Open Source is transforming how we think about “intellectual” products, creativity, cooperation, and ownership. These issues will, in turn, shape the kind of society, economy, and community we build in the digital era.
In The Success of Open Source (Harvard University Press, April 2004, $29.95), GBN's Steven Weber looks at how open source came about, why it has taken hold, where the phenomenon is going, and what it all means for our understanding of how property and economy work in the first place. Weber, a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, and a consultant with GBN, argues convincingly that open source is revolutionary. The open source community has built a mini-economy around the counterintuitive notion that the core property right in software code is the right to distribute, not to exclude. And it works! This is profound—and has much broader implications for the property rights regimes that underpin other industries, from music and film to pharmaceuticals.
The Success of Open Source is transforming how we think about “intellectual” products, creativity, cooperation, and ownership. These issues will, in turn, shape the kind of society, economy, and community we build in the digital era.
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