Title
New Perspectives on Public Goods Production: Policy Implications of Open Source Software
Author
Jyh-An Lee, J.S.D. candidate and John M. Olin Fellow in Law and Economics, Stanford Law School
Date
6/20/2008
(Original Publish Date: 2/1/2006)
(Original Publish Date: 2/1/2006)
Abstract
Globally, the rapid rise of Open Source Software (“OSS”) development has drawn the intense attention of the public sector as well as the private sector. For a variety of policy reasons, governments throughout the world are now adopting various legislative and administrative strategies that support the development of OSS. For example, Singapore offers tax credits for companies that develop Linux, the principal OSS computer system platform. Peru has a pending bill favoring OSS in the public sector. Brazil’s parliament and Germany’s Bundestag are both migrating from proprietary software to OSS. Even in the United States, consumer rights activists have called upon the federal government to use its procurement power to favor OSS in order to promote market competition.
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