The Shape of Code

Recently, I have been reading rather a lot of papers that are ostensibly about the economics of markets where applications, licensed under an open source license, are readily available. I say ostensibly, because the authors have some very odd ideas about the activities of those involved in the production of open source.

Perhaps I am overly cynical, but I don’t think altruism is the primary motivation for developers writing open source. Yes, there is an altruistic component, but I would list enjoyment as the primary driver; developers enjoy solving problems that involve the production of software. On the commercial side, companies are involved with open source because of naked self-interest, e.g., commoditizing software that complements their products.

It may surprise you to learn that academic papers, written by economists, tend to be knee-deep in differential equations. As a physics/electronics undergraduate I got to spend lots of time studying various differential equations (each relating to some aspect of the workings of the Universe). Since graduating, I have rarely encountered them; that is, until I started reading economics papers (or at least trying to).

Using differential equations to model problems in economics sounds like a good idea, after all they have been used to do a really good job of modeling how the universe works. But the universe is governed by a few simple principles (or at least the bit we have access to is), and there is lots of experimental data about its behavior. Economic issues don’t appear to be governed by a few simple principles, and there is relatively little experimental data available.

Writing down a differential equation is easy, figuring out an analytic solution can be extremely difficult; the Navier-Stokes equations were written down 200-years ago, and we are still awaiting a general solution (solutions for a variety of special cases are known).

To keep their differential equations solvable, economists make lots of simplifying assumptions. Having obtained a solution to their equations, there is little or no evidence to compare it against. I cannot speak for economics in general, but those working on the economics of software are completely disconnected from reality.

What factors, other than altruism, do academic economists think are of major importance in open source? No, not constantly reinventing the wheel-barrow, but constantly innovating. Of course, everybody likes to think they are doing something new, but in practice it has probably been done before. Innovation is part of the business zeitgeist and academic economists are claiming to see it everywhere (and it does exist in their differential equations).

The economics of Linux vs. Microsoft Windows is a common comparison, i.e., open vs. close source; I have not seen any mention of other open source operating systems. How might an economic analysis of different open source operating systems be framed? How about: “An economic analysis of the relative enjoyment derived from writing an operating system, Linux vs BSD”? Or the joy of writing an editor, which must be lots of fun, given how many have text editors are available.

I have added the topics, altruism and innovation to my list of indicators of poor quality, used to judge whether its worth spending more than 10 seconds reading a paper.