Title
Open Source Software as Consumer Integration into Production
Author
Jennifer Kuan, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR)
Date
1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 2001)
(Original Publish Date: 2001)
Abstract
Open source software is emerging as a potentially important competitive force in the software industry. Open source software, which is created collectively by individual volunteers, has captured the attention of venture capitalists and has Fortune 500 companies as customers. Yet very little is known about how such software will compete with established software firms. In this paper, I propose a model for understanding this new business phenomenon, in terms of consumer integration into production. This model predicts greater productivity and thus higher quality of open source software compared to more traditional closed source software. I test this prediction empirically and find that the prediction holds significantly in two of three cases.