Competition between Commercial Open Source Software Firms under the GNU General Public License

摘要

This study compares R&D incentives for commercial open source software (COSS) firms under the GNU General Public License (i.e., GPL). It is found that: (ⅰ) although the GPL requires firms open the codes of features, firms have incentives to invest in software features under private optimum; (ⅱ) the firm with high software usability has much higher incentive to invest in software features, sets higher price, obtains more market share and profit than the one with low software usability does; (ⅲ) firms invest too little in software features under GPL from a public policy perspective.