Michael Dolan Dot Com

Tuesday, November 13th, 2007

Eclipse users are driven by…. surprise, surprise… Economics

URL: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2213907,00.asp

I tend to bring up economics in conversations about Linux and open source. I completed my undergraduate work in Economics so the bridge between the two topics comes rather easy. Economics is a key driving force behind what makes “open source” (software) fundamentally “work”. The “invisible hand” makes course corrections and drives investment from multiple parties, each investing for their own gain. Many point to open source as some weird form of technical socialism, and to some extent perhaps the community aspect and personalities lend help to that portrayal. However, at the root of open source I see free market capitalism. Someday, if I ever have the time, I’d love to write a paper (or blog) about the economic principles that we can see playing out in the open source software and Linux ecosystem. If you know of an economist who has written on the subject, I’d love any pointers to their research.

The survey, conducted by The Eclipse Foundation and market research firm IDC, found that 75 percent of the IT solution providers polled said they are using Eclipse for economic reasons—either to make money or to save money. Of the organizations using Eclipse to make money, 47 percent said they are making at least 50 percent of their revenue from Eclipse-based products.