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Economics and Open Source Projects

Posted by michael on from the barn-raising dept.

david_christie writes "Dan Gillmor has a piece on the economist Yochai Benkler's paper "Coase's Penguin, or Linux and the Nature of the Firm" which examines open source projects asan example of an emerging general model of economic behavior that is neither market nor company based. A previous version of the paper was noted in slashdot back in October, but it's been revised for upcoming publication in the Yale Law Review and is well worth a second look. Benkler attempts to explain why open source projects succeed, without falling back on theories about the special nature of software projects or hacker culture. He suggests that more general economic principles are at work, which are displacing the traditional motivations (market prices and employee relationships) that economists use to quantify individual behavior. If he's right the open source model could spread to other forms of creative work where the output is information or culture (music production comes to mind). The author thinks deeply about the information flows characterizing collaborative projects like free software development ("commons-based peer production"). That distinguishes this paper from the usual economist mumbo-jumbo about price points and such. Like Larry Lessig on the legal side of things, this is a guy who gets it and has thought deeply about how his field relates to it."

12 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. DTABN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    DTABN

    Death to all black niggers.

    Thank you.

    -klerck

  2. this post is the one at the top by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    all the others are the ones at the bottom

    CLOT

  3. CLiT sux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    fp cocks.

  4. FP 2D AC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    FP2DAC bitches

  5. Bad news RE the notcha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic


    What is the notcha, you may ask? The notcha is the area "in between." Notcha balls, but notcha asshole either. The notcha!

    1. Re:Bad news RE the notcha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Also known as the taint.

      Taint your nuts and it taint your bunghole.

      Note that the actual name for the area is the perineum.

  6. Open Sores are expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    You could get ganggreen or stuff and lose an
    arm or leg from open sores.

    never mind

  7. So-called intellectual property by CommieLib · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    This article violates my filter to disregard the ideas of anyone who uses the term "so-called"...

    --
    If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
  8. Holy Fuck! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    LNUX loses over $7 per share! The onlt people making money from LNUX are the red ink manufacturers!

  9. Re:Sourceforge business plan by chrisseaton · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Yeah - what are all those ads actually for?

  10. CLAIMED by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    8============D
    Someone has to do this.

  11. TROLL! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    someone mod the parent down, please.

    massively huge troll