From: Mustafa Akgul (akgul@Bilkent.EDU.TR)
Date: Tue 01 Jul 2003 - 14:31:26 EEST
Bilkent University
DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING
SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT
18 July 2003 Friday at 13:40
Room EA-409, Engineering Building, Bilkent University
Harvesting Altruism in Open Source Software Development: An Optimal
Control Approach
by
Prof. Dr. Suresh P. Sethi
School of Management, The University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX
75083-0688, USA
Firms have the choice of developing software as either open source or
closed source. The open source approach to software development has been
advocated as a new and better method for developing high quality
software than the traditional closed source approach. In open source,
volunteer programmers freely contribute code to develop and improve the
software. This paper describes the key non-pecuniary motivations for
these programmers. They are less motivated to contribute if they observe
commercial marketing of the open source software they helped create,
leading to a reduction in improvements to the software. A primary
concern for software firms seeking to develop and market open source
software is, thus, how the motivation of contributors should be managed.
We examine optimal pricing strategies for open source and closed source
software keeping in mind the distinct motivations of programmers in the
two cases. We compare profits and software qualities from the two
approaches and provide implications for firms in the software industry.
Keywords: Open source; Pricing; Altruism; Optimal control
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