Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • 2010
  • Book

The Comingled Code: Open Source and Economic Development

By: Josh Lerner and Mark Schankerman
  • Format:Print
ShareBar

Abstract

Discussions of the economic impact of open source software often generate more heat than light. Advocates passionately assert the benefits of open source, while critics decry its effects. Missing from the debate is rigorous economic analysis and systematic microeconomic evidence of the impact of open source on consumers, firms, and economic growth in general. This book fills that gap. In The Comingled Code, Josh Lerner and Mark Schankerman, drawing on a new, large-scale database, show that open source and proprietary software interact in sometimes unexpected ways and discuss the policy implications of these findings. The new data (from a range of countries in varying stages of development) documents the mixing of open source and proprietary software: firms sell proprietary software while contributing to open source, and users extensively mix and match the two. Lerner and Schankerman examine the ways in which software differs from other technologies in promoting economic development, what motivates individuals and firms to contribute to open source projects, how developers and users view the tradeoffs between the two kinds of software, and how government policies can ensure that open source competes effectively with proprietary software and contributes to economic growth.

Keywords

Development Economics; Economic Growth; Policy; Government and Politics; Open Source Distribution; Software

Citation

Lerner, Josh, and Mark Schankerman. The Comingled Code: Open Source and Economic Development. MIT Press, 2010.
  • Find it at Harvard
  • Purchase

About The Author

Josh Lerner

Entrepreneurial Management
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • 2022
    • Faculty Research

    Financial Acquisitions

    By: Josh Lerner, Amit Seru and Jennifer Zou
    • 2022
    • Faculty Research

    The Globalization of Silicon Valley: The Dynamics of Start-Up Diffusion

    By: Josh Lerner, Jacob Moscona and David Yang
    • September 2022
    • Faculty Research

    Yinglan Tan: Scaling a Venture Capital Firm in Southeast Asia

    By: Josh Lerner
More from the Authors
  • Financial Acquisitions By: Josh Lerner, Amit Seru and Jennifer Zou
  • The Globalization of Silicon Valley: The Dynamics of Start-Up Diffusion By: Josh Lerner, Jacob Moscona and David Yang
  • Yinglan Tan: Scaling a Venture Capital Firm in Southeast Asia By: Josh Lerner
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College