In the ICT sector, product-software is an important factor for the quality of the products (e.g. cell phones). In this context, open source software enables firms to avoid quality competition as they can cooperate on quality without an explicit contract. The economics of open source (OS) versus...

Over the course of this chapter three crucial aspects of the law's relationship with FOSS licenses are reviewed. Firstly, a comparison of the licenses themselves is outlined with particular regard to copyright provisions. In this respect, it is noted that while there is a great diversity of FOSS...