This paper looks at stories and evidence set forth to explain programmer participation in open source projects, coordination of these projects, licensing of open source software, and on the public policy regarding open source software. The paper concentrates on economics and empirical evidence.

I analyze coordination of Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) projects. Costs of waiting for F/OSS program to be released are borne by all agents until enough modules have been produced. Trade-off between producing a F/OSS module and freeriding is analyzed as a game of war of attrition, in which...