IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ssa/lemwps/2002-15.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why open source software can succeed

Author

Listed:
  • Andrea Bonaccorsi
  • Cristina Rossi

Abstract

The paper discusses three key economic problems raised by the emergence and diffusion of Open source software: motivation, coordination, and diffusion under a dominant standard. First, the movement took off through the activity of a software development community that deliberately did not follow profit motivations. Second, a hierarchical coordination emerged without the support of an organization with proprietary rights. Third, Linux and other open source systems diffused in an environment dominated by established proprietary standards, which benefited from significant increasing returns. The paper shows that recent developments in the theory of critical mass in the diffusion of technologies with network externality may help to explain these phenomena.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrea Bonaccorsi & Cristina Rossi, 2002. "Why open source software can succeed," LEM Papers Series 2002/15, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2002/15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lem.sssup.it/WPLem/files/2002-15.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lerner, Josh & Tirole, Jean, 2001. "The open source movement: Key research questions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(4-6), pages 819-826, May.
    2. David, Paul A, 1985. "Clio and the Economics of QWERTY," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 332-337, May.
    3. Frank M. Bass, 1969. "A New Product Growth for Model Consumer Durables," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(5), pages 215-227, January.
    4. Liebowitz, S J & Margolis, Stephen E, 1990. "The Fable of the Keys," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 33(1), pages 1-25, April.
    5. Bass, Frank M, 1980. "The Relationship between Diffusion Rates, Experience Curves, and Demand Elasticities for Consumer Durable Technological Innovations," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(3), pages 51-67, July.
    6. Witt, Ulrich, 1997. ""Lock-in" vs. "critical masses" -- Industrial change under network externalities," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 753-773, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pénin, Julien & Wack, Jean-Pierre, 2008. "Research tool patents and free-libre biotechnology: A suggested unified framework," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(10), pages 1909-1921, December.
    2. Nicolas Jullien & Karine Roudaut, 2012. "Can Open Source projects succeed when the producers are not the users ? Lessons from the data processing field," Post-Print hal-01682500, HAL.
    3. Alper Duman, 2009. "Comparative Analysis of Organizational Forms in the Software Industry and Legal Services," Working Papers 0903, Izmir University of Economics.
    4. Deng, Feng, 2008. "What Is “Open”? An Economic Analysis of Open Institutions," MPRA Paper 8888, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Julien Pénin, 2007. "Open Knowledge Disclosure: An Overview Of The Evidence And Economic Motivations," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 326-347, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Delli Gatti,Domenico & Fagiolo,Giorgio & Gallegati,Mauro & Richiardi,Matteo & Russo,Alberto (ed.), 2018. "Agent-Based Models in Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108400046, September.
    2. Schoder, Detlef, 2000. "Forecasting the success of telecommunication services in the presence of network effects," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 12(2), pages 181-200, June.
    3. Elmar Kiesling & Markus Günther & Christian Stummer & Lea Wakolbinger, 2012. "Agent-based simulation of innovation diffusion: a review," Central European Journal of Operations Research, Springer;Slovak Society for Operations Research;Hungarian Operational Research Society;Czech Society for Operations Research;Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR);Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research;Croatian Operational Research Society, vol. 20(2), pages 183-230, June.
    4. Oscar Gutiérrez & Francisco Ruiz-Aliseda, 2011. "Real options with unknown-date events," Annals of Finance, Springer, vol. 7(2), pages 171-198, May.
    5. Wiebke Roß & Jens Weghake, 2018. "Wa(h)re Liebe: Was Online-Dating-Plattformen über zweiseitige Märkte lehren," TUC Working Papers in Economics 0017, Abteilung für Volkswirtschaftslehre, Technische Universität Clausthal (Department of Economics, Technical University Clausthal).
    6. Christian Dahl Winther, 2007. "Optimal research effort and product differentiation in network industries," Economics Working Papers 2007-19, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    7. Frank M. Bass, 2004. "Comments on "A New Product Growth for Model Consumer Durables The Bass Model"," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 50(12_supple), pages 1833-1840, December.
    8. Bernhard Ebbinghaus, 2009. "Can Path Dependence Explain Institutional Change? Two Approaches Applied to Welfare State Reform," Chapters, in: Lars Magnusson & Jan Ottosson (ed.), The Evolution of Path Dependence, chapter 8, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Vialle, Pierre & Song, Junjie & Zhang, Jian, 2012. "Competing with dominant global standards in a catching-up context. The case of mobile standards in China," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 832-846.
    10. Zhang, Xiaoqun, 2013. "Income disparity and digital divide: The Internet Consumption Model and cross-country empirical research," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 515-529.
    11. Marc Flandreau & Clemens Jobst, 2006. "The Empirics of International Currencies: Evidence from the 19th Century," Working Papers hal-01065631, HAL.
    12. Jaekwon Chung, 2020. "Effect of Quality Uncertainty, Regulatory Focus, and Promotional Strategies on Perceived Savings for Sustainable Marketing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-16, July.
    13. Hervé Dumez & Alain Jeunemaître, 2005. "La démarche narrative en économie," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 56(4), pages 983-1005.
    14. Trichy V. Krishnan & Frank M. Bass & Dipak C. Jain, 1999. "Optimal Pricing Strategy for New Products," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 45(12), pages 1650-1663, December.
    15. Wagner A. Kamakura & Siva K. Balasubramanian, 1987. "Long‐term forecasting with innovation diffusion models: The impact of replacement purchases," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(1), pages 1-19.
    16. Weiss, Avi & Etziony, Amir, 2015. "The role of critical mass in establishing a successful network market: An experimental investigationAuthor-Name: Ruffle, Bradley J," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 101-110.
    17. Peters, Kay & Albers, Sönke & Kumar, V., 2008. "Is there more to international Diffusion than Culture? An investigation on the Role of Marketing and Industry Variables," EconStor Preprints 27678, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    18. Knieps, Günter, 2011. "Wettbewerb und Pfadabhängigkeit in Netzen," Discussion Papers 140, University of Freiburg, Institute for Transport Economics and Regional Policy.
    19. Tanjim Hossain & Dylan Minor & John Morgan, 2011. "Competing Matchmakers: An Experimental Analysis," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 57(11), pages 1913-1925, November.
    20. Ulrich Witt, 2009. "Novelty and the bounds of unknowledge in economics," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(4), pages 361-375.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Open Source; Diffusion; Network Externality.;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2002/15. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/labssit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.