Open Source - Complexity, Cooperation and Credits
Matthias Bärwolff (6/2006), Essay (en)
Part of the lecture notes for the summer 2006 course Information Rules 2, at department Informatik und Gesellschaft, Technische Universität Berlin
Abstract
Apart from the commonly cited reasons for the success of open source - namely the institutional framework comprising copyright based permissive licensing, the availability of source code, and some social norms that seem to guide much activity - there are two less often cited yet profound reasons for the viability of open source: first, the impossibility of drawing complete contracts over both open source development and licensing, and, second, the relative efficiency of a non-monetary accounting of credits in such circumstances.
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