Abstract
<p> Much of the innovative programming that powers the Internet, creates
operating systems, and produces software is the result of öpen
source" code, that is, code that is freely distributed--as opposed
to being kept secret--by those who write it. Leaving source code
open has generated some of the most sophisticated developments in
computer technology, including, most notably, Linux and Apache,
which pose a significant challenge to Microsoft in the marketplace.
As Steven Weber discusses, open source's success in a highly competitive
industry has subverted many assumptions about how businesses are
run, and how intellectual products are created and protected. </p><p>
Traditionally, intellectual property law has allowed companies to
control knowledge and has guarded the rights of the innovator, at
the expense of industry-wide cooperation. In turn, engineers of
new software code are richly rewarded; but, as Weber shows, in spite
of the conventional wisdom that innovation is driven by the promise
of individual and corporate wealth, ensuring the free distribution
of code among computer programmers can empower a more effective
process for building intellectual products. In the case of Open
Source, independent programmers--sometimes hundreds or thousands
of them--make unpaid contributions to software that develops organically,
through trial and error. </p><p> Weber argues that the success of
open source is not a freakish exception to economic principles.
The open source community is guided by standards, rules, decisionmaking
procedures, and sanctioning mechanisms. Weber explains the political
and economic dynamics of this mysterious but important market development.
</p>
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