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Open Source

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The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management

Abstract

The term open source (OS) comprises all the practices (technological, organizational and legal) that ensure to anyone the rights to execute, copy, modify and distribute a piece of computer software, thanks to the availability of its source code. These practices have had profound effects on the software industry and have been a fertile ground for theoretical and empirical work on the part of strategic management scholars. We review some of the insights of strategic management research on OS, focusing on three main streams of studies: (1) OS as innovation, (2) OS communities’ governance and organization, and (3) OS competitive dynamics in the software industry.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. IESE Business School, Camino del Cerro del Águila, Madrid, Spain

    Fabrizio Ferraro

Authors
  1. Fabrizio Ferraro
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  2. Jordi Torrents
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Correspondence to Fabrizio Ferraro .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Stanford University , Stanford, California, USA

    Mie Augier

  2. Tusher Ctr Intellectual Capital, University of California Tusher Ctr Intellectual Capital, Berkeley, California, USA

    David J. Teece

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© 2016 The Author(s)

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Ferraro, F., Torrents, J. (2016). Open Source. In: Augier, M., Teece, D. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94848-2_360-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94848-2_360-1

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-349-94848-2

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