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Special features of Free Software

Keyword: Excludability

Term to classify goods

  • Excludable: Others can be excluded from using a good

    • Matching legal concept: property

    • Can be cast onto everything

    • Can be hard to maintain though

      For instance: Information goods in Internet age

    • Necessary to create scarcity

  • Non-excludable: Others can not be excluded from using it

    • Anything which can not be private property?

    • Non-excludable goods are often public goods

      For instance: Roads

  • Each market is based on excludable goods

  • Free Software made non-excludable by the license

    • Chance of contributions rises when more people use it
    • Regardless of how many "free ride"

Conclusion

GPL society: Extending principles of Free Software to rival goods while dropping exclusion

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Oekonux/Introduction/SlideKeywordExcludability (last edited 2006-12-23 20:57:46 by StefanMerten)

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