When I first read about the open source concept, I thought it was really a democratic (yet somehow anti-free market) idea. After reading the two Economist articles, I realize that it can be used as a tool to spur free market competition. This is explained well in the open source wiki page: "Instead of seeing intellectual property law as an expression of instrumental rules intended to uphold either natural rights or desirable outcomes, an argument for OSC takes into account diverse goods (as in "the Good life") and ends."
Plus, it's a great slap in the face to monopolistic companies like Microsoft to make competing applications open source.
Open source plays an interesting role in the emerging legal issues (mainly involving copyright and fair use laws) that the World Wide Web has conceived. The wiki page says that OSC is supportive of some intellectual property laws "to protect cultural producers." But open sourcing, linking, and anything involving the spreading of copyrighted information have not yet been properly deal with in terms of legislation. It will be interesting to see what comes of these issues. As far as open sources goes, as long as it can help spur the free market, I only see it becoming more widespread.
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You asked a GREAT question: "Is the open-source movement anti-market or pro-competition?"
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