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  • 2018
  • Working Paper

The State of Open Source Server Software

By: Shane Greenstein and Klaus Ackermann
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
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Abstract

The study assembles new data to construct a census of worldwide web server use across the globe. We document a large concentration of investment in the United States, and a wide dispersion across scores of countries. We find tens of billions of dollars of unmeasured value in the open source servers. The statistical models show the quality of the country’s network and the country’s technical sophistication are associated with more web servers, and the innovative environment also plays a role. We find less of a role for economic development, property rights and the rule of law. The findings stress that policies for local supply of content depend on policies encouraging advanced networking and a technically sophisticated populace. While the findings highlight the danger for misattribution in growth accounting, the statistical model points towards the potential to proxy for unmeasured servers with statistical methods.

Keywords

Internet; Open Source; Internet and the Web; Policy; Open Source Distribution; Internet and the Web; Global Range

Citation

Greenstein, Shane, and Klaus Ackermann. "The State of Open Source Server Software." Working Paper, September 2018.
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About The Author

Shane M. Greenstein

Technology and Operations Management
→More Publications

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