“A number of essays and papers purporting to address The
Economics of free software recently. None have been particularly
satisfying to this cat. While trying to get to sleep one recent
night, some of the thoughts that have been percolating on this
subject seemed to gel. Insomniac writings or insightful analysis?
Read and decide.“
“Two of these showed up at Kuro5hin and Slashdot. Someone
pointed me to the works of Alan McAdams, whose interest actually
predates the whole “open source” hype wave. Do a web search, and
you’ll see quite a few more of these.”
“Most of these essays seem to address a very narrow question:
why do people work on free software projects? After all, you don’t
see people manufacturing widgets and giving them away free. Why
should software be any different?”