Intellectual Property

Open Source

Open source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering accessibility to a software’s source code. It is a licensing model of intellectual property.

Back to main Open Source page

Research Articles

Title	Author	Year
How Open Source Software Works: "Free" User-to-User Assistance This paper studies how open source software provides help services for users.	Eric Von Hippel, Karim R. Lakhani	2003
Open-Source Software Poses Challenges for Legal and Public Policy This paper looks at whether governments should promote open source software.	David S. Evans	2003
Coase’s Penguin, or, Linux and The Nature of the Firm This paper looks at the economics of peer production.	Yochai Benkler	2002
Scope of Open Source Licensing, The This paper reviews the different types of open source software licensing.	Josh Lerner, Jean Tirole	2002
Open Source Projects as Horizontal Innovation Networks: By and For Users This paper studies how users can improve products such as software.	Eric Von Hippel	2002
Government Policy Toward Open Source Software In this book, four experts consider government policy toward open source software.	James Bessen, Lawrence Lessig, Robert W. Hahn, David S. Evans	2002
Government Preferences for Promoting Open-Source Software: A Solution in Search of a Problem This paper looks at whether governments should support open source software.	David S. Evans, Bernard Reddy	2002
The Simple Economics of Open Source This paper examines the history of open source software.	Josh Lerner, Jean Tirole	2000

Choose another Issue

Select an Issue

TAP Academics

Suzanne Scotchmer
University of California, Berkeley
Innovation and Economic Growth, Interoperability, Intellectual Property, Competition Policy and Antitrust, Open Source, Copyright and Trademark

James Bessen
Boston University
Innovation and Economic Growth, Intellectual Property, Open Source, Patents, Artificial Intelligence

View all academics with expertise in Open Source

TAP Blog

Google’s Fair Use Victory Is Good for Open Source

Professor Pamela Samuelson, University of California, Berkeley, explains why Google’s win in the Oracle v. Google case is valuable for all software developers as well as the general public.

Pamela Samuelson

June 13, 2016

View all blog posts about Open Source

Upcoming Events

There are currently no upcoming events for Open Source. Please see our events calendar for all upcoming events.

Fact Sheets

Government Procurement

“Procurement” is the process by which governments choose to obtain and buy goods and services from the private sector.

Quote

Google’s Fair Use Victory Is Good for Open Source

"Developers of software need some simple norms to live by. One such norm is that independent reimplementation of an API in one's own original code does not infringe copyright. That's the law as well as good public policy." — Pamela Samuelson, Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley

Pamela Samuelson
Ars Technica
June 2, 2016

View all academics' quotes on Open Source