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London Review of Books, 18 August 2005
'Should make this extraordinary phenomenon understandable to a much wider audience.'

Synopsis
Much of the innovative programming that powers the Internet, creates operating systems, and produces software is the result of "open source" code, that is, code that is freely distributed - as opposed to being kept secret - by those who write it. Leaving source code open has generated some of the most sophisticated developments in computer technology, including, most notably, Linux and Apache, which pose a significant challenge to Microsoft in the marketplace. As Steven Weber discusses, open source's success in a highly competitive industry has subverted many assumptions about how businesses are run, and how intellectual products are created and protected. Traditionally, intellectual property law has allowed companies to control knowledge and has guarded the rights of the innovator, at the expense of industry-wide co-operation. In turn, engineers of new software code are richly rewarded; but, as Weber shows, in spite of the conventional wisdom that innovation is driven by the promise of individual and corporate wealth, ensuring the free distribution of code among computer programmers can empower a more effective process for building intellectual products.

In the case of open source, independent programmers - sometimes hundreds or thousands of them - make unpaid contributions to software that develops organically, through trial and error. Weber argues that the success of open source is not a freakish exception to economic principles. The open source community is guided by standards, rules, decisionmaking procedures, and sanctioning mechanisms. Weber explains the political and economic dynamics of this mysterious but important market development.

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The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom by Y Benkler  (1)  £11.39

Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman by Richard M. Stallman  (1)  £11.27

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews   2 of 2 people found the following review helpful: Very Enjoyable, 2 Aug 2007 By  Steve Riddett (Wexford, Ireland) - See all my reviews This review is from: The Success of Open Source (Paperback) A readable overview of why open source works. The book tackles the questions and doubts that those coming from a traditional closed sourced background typically have (myself included). For example: "Why would someone give away their work for free?" The book looks at open source culture rather than the programming itself. You don't need to be a programmer to understand or enjoy this, and in fact, open source has implications beyond programming anyway.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this) › See all customer reviews...		Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews