Titolo Open source without free-riding Periodico Economia politica Anno: 2012 - Fascicolo: 2 - Pagina iniziale: 247 - Pagina finale: 260
Considerable investments in Open Source software projects have been made in the last years by competing firms who could have free-ridden on the others' efforts. We identify two properties, one of decreasing returns to knowledge production and the other of preference for differentiated products in a monopolistically competitive market, which explain the phenomenon.