On Jan 24, 2007, at 10:34 AM, sharif islam wrote:
> I would highly recommend reading, Steven Weber's "The Success of Open
> Source". Here's a detail review of the book by Stefan Merten of
> Project Oekonux.
> http://www.oekonux.org/list-en/archive/msg03547.html
At which we read:
"Operating systems like Linux in particular, and almost software in general, actually are subject to positive network externalities. Call it a network good, or an anti-rival good (an awkward, but nicely descriptive term). In simpler language, it means that the value of a piece of software to any user increases as more people use the software on their machines and in their particular settings."
Which makes me wonder...could something like FOSS happen in any other economic sector? How many things are like this? Works of art popped into my mind, but my enjoyment of Beethoven is unaffected by the number of other people enjoying Beethoven, and my enjoyment of an obscure indie band might be reduced if their number of fans gets too large. So regardless of what one thinks of FOSS itself, is there any way it could be generalized as an economic model? I kinda doubt it - esp if you're dealing with rival goods, which all goods and most services are. And software itself is actually a very small economic sector - well under 1% of gross output in the US.
Doug