If not for money for what? Digging into the OS/FS contributors’ motivations

Graziella Marzi

No 166, Working Papers from University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper analyses the data collected by two of the most significant surveys on the Open Source Software (OSS) contributors’ motivations with the aim of assessing if in the OSS products circulation we can recognise the characteristics of the modern way of giving, suggested by Godbout (2000). The analysis of the information collected seems to confirm that the intrinsic motivations (social/community and political) prevail over the extrinsic ones (monetary and signalling) when developers decide to join and stay in the OS community and that the feeling of reciprocity is shared by the majority of the community members. Therefore the OSS product circulation seems to fit into the characteristics of the gift circulation.

Keywords: open source software; reciprocity; gift economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L17 L23 L31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17 pages
Date: 2009-07, Revised 2009-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ipr and nep-pr~
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mib:wpaper:166

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