Case study “FOR NYAMAIMULE NO TEXT PLEASE”

Case Study  — Why Making Money from Free Software Matters

Resources
The Magic Cauldron Eric Raymond
Yochai Benkler on the new open-source economics at TED
Open Source Software: Stakeholder Perspectives” href=”http://dirkriehle.com/computer-science/research/2007/computer-2007-article.html”>The Economic Motivation of Open Source Software: Stakeholder Perspectives

Read the article by Glyn Moody. Note that there is a second page to the article. You should also keep in mind what we talk about in Lecture 10 about Free (Open Source) Software (sometimes called FOSS). Also keep in mind that when we talk about scarcity, we’re talking about it in the economics sense. What is scarce is what people are willing to pay for. What is not scarce (abundant) may be valuable, but no one is willing to pay much or anything for it, because it is so easy to come by. Think “air to breathe.” Scarcity or abundance refers to goods, products, etc, not customers or money. 
Answer the following questions:

1. “Free” Software is software that gives you the freedom to make copies, change your copies, etc. This has a side effect of making most Free Software free of charge, even though that’s not the point of FOSS. Moody says that money can be made from Free Software — how is this possible?
2. Economics has been called the study of scarcity. It is only possible to sell what is scarce, because what is not scarce (e.g., abundant) has no monetary value. What does Moody suggest is scarce in the Free Software world? 
3. He also suggests that in the world of digital music, rightly or wrongly, digital music recordings are not scarce. What isscarce in the world of music, and how can the music industry take advantage of this?
4. Moody suggests that Free Software has led in some cases to a reduction in price of non-Free software. Why would this happen? What example does he give?
5. Read Chris Anderson’s blog post on the business model for his Open Source hardware project. What part of his product is scarce and what part is abundant? Does this contradict or correlate with what Moody thinks is scarce in the Free Software and Music businesses?

Do 2 Same as last time.