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Much of the innovative programming that
powers the Internet, creates operating systems, and produces
software is the result of "open 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 software, 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.
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.
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.
Steven Weber is professor of Political
Science, University of California, Berkeley.
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