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Institutional innovation, the birth of free software commons
[Una innovación institucional, la constitución de los communs de programas libres]

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre-André Mangolte

    (CEPN - Centre d'Economie de l'Université Paris Nord - UP13 - Université Paris 13 - USPC - Université Sorbonne Paris Cité - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

Today, free software has become a benchmark for resistance to the "tragedy of the anti-commons". The sharing and reuse of source code are indeed principles opposed to the exclusive control of technical objects by individual owners. Inventing licenses which diverts copyright and rules of "intellectual property", free software programmers were able to create a commons (a stock of software) to which anyone may add but from which no one may subtract which everyone can add something. One can speak of a true institutional innovation and an authentic common. The article traces the history of the formation of free software by highlighting the original features of this common understanding as a set of resources, more or less perennial, to which access and use are shared in a group, and here, this group is formally all mankind. It discusses the constitutional basis of the common, the free software (or open source software) licenses and their rules, founding of a particular economy. It sets limits and draws a map of this common.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre-André Mangolte, 2013. "Institutional innovation, the birth of free software commons [Una innovación institucional, la constitución de los communs de programas libres]," Post-Print hal-01122641, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01122641
    as

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