Open source and software industry, the economics of win-win

by Josh Lerner

Open source and software industry, the economics of win-winOpen source led by voluntary personal developers? Open source and proprietary The software world is a different world? Since open source helps economic development, should the government support open source policy? Based on the results of a large number of software users and developers surveyed by Harvard experts in 15 countries, we discover the truth about the myths of open source. It also provides insights and suggestions on how to achieve a balanced development of the software industry through coexistence and coexistence of open source software and proprietary software.

First published September 24, 2010

Reviews

[Jory Carson-burson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a very full economic analysis of different approaches to software development. At this point it’s a bit dated so the study should be conducted again, but I think this really contributes to how people should be thinking about total cost of ownership of different kinds of software, as well as the role of standards.

[Stephen Walton]

I've wanted to read a good analysis of the affects of open source for years. This was that, and the author made some really interesting discoveries, some that were very surprising. It reads like a research paper though. Expect most of it to be analyzing how he got the data, the statistical methods used, and the graphs, and the raw data summaries. Most of what he concludes is probably common sense for a software developer, but still, it's a worthwhile read if software is your profession.