Bitzer, Jürgen (Free University Berlin) Schrettl, Wolfram (Free University Berlin) Schröder, Philipp J.H. () (Department of Economics, Aarhus School of Business)
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This papers sheds light on the puzzling fact that even though open
source software (OSS) is a public good, it is developed for free by
highly qualified, young, motivated individuals, and evolves at a rapid
pace. We show that when OSS development is understood as the private
provision of a public good, these features emerge quite naturally.
We adapt a dynamic private-provision-of-public-goods model to reflect
key aspects of the OSS phenomenon. Apart from extrinsic motives
(namely signaling), the present model also contains intrinsic motives
of OSS programmers, such as play value or homo ludens payoff, userprogrammers’
and gift culture benefits. Such intrinsic motives feature
extensively in the wider OSS literature and contribute new insights to
the economic analysis
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Paper provided by University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number
06-7.
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