Internet Intermediaries' Editorial Content Quality

Information intermediaries deliver information about a supplier's product. They are paid by those same suppliers they certify. This introduces conflicts of interests as the intermediaries want to retain customers by delivering truthful information about suppliers, while suppliers would want the intermediary to provide them with more customers than their quality would otherwise entitle them to. The paper compares two options for information intermediaries: either propose a menu of contracts to the suppliers so that they reveal their type, or find out by themselves the type of the supplier. In the first case, a rent must be left to induce type revelation, in the other, the intermediary must incur a cost to determine the type of the supplier. The paper shows that competition leads to a more frequent use of direct revelation mechanisms at the expense of independent research by the intermediary. The paper contributes to the literature on certification intermediaries in two sided markets by introducing a choice between relying on soft information or acquiring hard information about the side of the market to be certified, and by studying the influence of competition on contract choices in such an extended setting.Search engines, two-sided markets, information services, CPM, click-through, internet, intermediation, intermediaries.

Competition between open-source and proprietary software: the (La)TeX case study

The paper examines competition between two development models, proprietary and open-source (``OS''). It first defines and compares those two models and then analyzes the influence the development of one type of software has on the development of the other. The paper is based on the (La)TeX case study. In that case study, the features, users, and patterns in the development of the (La)TeX software were compared to its proprietary equivalents. The models that are presented in this paper describe some aspects of the strategic interactions between proprietary and open-source software. The paper shows that they cannot be analyzed independently; the decisions of one class of agents (OSS developers) are affected by those of the other class of agents (private entrepreneurs).Open source, software, proprietary software, BSD, GPL, public domain, intellectual production, licensing, patents, TeX, LaTeX

Open Source Software Development Patterns and License Terms

This paper examines the choice of license terms along the development of a piece of software. Three licenses are compared, the proprietary one, the Berkeley Software Distribution, and the General Public License. The choice of one or the other license depends on the characteristics of the software's user base, the market conditions on the developers' job market and the costs involved in maintaining a proprietary software vs. the costs involved in coordinating a software project in a decentralized fashion. That choice influences the distribution of welfare between users, developers and the software's development leader. It also determines the software's pace of development and thus the level of welfare generated. The model explains why a software's license terms may change along its development. Several scenarii may arise, depending on the initial conditions and the chance events along the life of the project. In the context of this paper, open-source license terms are chosen even when they result in a reduction in global welfare. Welfare is increased by forbidding the use of the GPL license terms and going back to the alternative between proprietary and public domain licenses.Internet, open source, software, BSD, GPL, Public domain, intellectual property, licenses, LaTeX, TeX

Shareware competition: Selling an experience

A firm may allow customers to learn the value of its product prior to buying it. This increases their willingness to pay, even though it also leads some not to buy. That strategy may also be used as a competitive tool to increase its product's attractiveness. This paper examines competition between ex-ante identical firms that sell horizontally differentiated and mutually exclusive experience goods. Customers incur set-up costs when buying a good, but those set-up costs are partly recoverable if they then decide to buy the product of a competitor. The main conclusion from this paper is that while a firm that gives information about its product makes higher profits than a competing firm that chooses not to do so, a firm may however choose that last option in order to avoid being in direct competition with a firm that is more open about the value of its product.Experience goods, Transaction costs, Technical compatibility, Mechanism competition, information goods, sampling, switching costs

The LaTeX project: A case study of open-source software

This is a case study of TeX, a typesetting software that was developed by Donald E. Knuth in the late 70's. Released with an open source license, it has become a reference in scientific publishing. TeX is now used to typeset and publish much of the world's scientific literature in physics and mathematics. This case study is part of a wider effort by academics to understand the open-source phenomenon. That development model is similar to the organization of the production of knowledge in academia; there is no set organization with a hierarchy, but free collaboration that is coordinated spontaneously and winds up generating complex products that are the property of all who can understand its functioning. The case study was led by gathering qualitative data via interviews with TeX developers and quantitative data on the TeX community -- the program's code, the software that is part of the TeX distribution, the newsgroups dedicated to the software, and many other indicators of the evolution and activity in that open-source project. The case study is aimed at economists who want to develop models to understand and analyze the open-source phenomenon. It is also geared towards policy-makers who would like to encourage or regulate open- source, and towards open-source developers who wonder what are the efficient strategies to make an open-source project successful.TeX, LaTeX, case study, open source, software, innovation, organisational structure, economic history, knowledge production, knowledge diffusion.

E-commerce : Quelques éléments d'économie industrielle

L'exposé présente un certain nombre d'éléments expliquant pourquoi les activités se développant sur le Net ne peuvent pas être bien appréhendées dans un contexte de concurrence parfaite, et discute la nature des barrières à l'entrée. Nous verrons que l'essentiel des changements qu'Internet impose du point de vue économique peut être relié à la nature particulière des biens d'information en tant qu'objet d'échange, ainsi qu'à l'importance des effets de réseau. D'un point de vue concret, les problèmes essentiels dont nous parlerons sont liés à la mise sur le marché des biens d'information, et au fonctionnement des marchés vu au travers des agents qui les construisent, une catégorie regroupée sous le terme d'intermédiaires.Internet, intermediation, two-sided markets, advertising, information goods

Quelques éléments d'économie du logiciel libre

Le terme `logiciel libre' désigne à la fois un bien -- le logiciel -- indispensable au fonctionnement des sociétés modernes informatisées, et un mode de production et de distribution -- libre. Ce mode de production et de distribution est suffisamment original pour poser des problèmes nouveaux à la fois d'analyse et de politique économique. Le but de cet article est de présenter une introduction à quelques unes des analyses économiques du logiciel libre et de ses conséquences. Il ne s'agit pas de faire un tour d'horizon complet du sujet, mais de discuter quelques points qui nous semblent particulièrement intéressants. Il ne faut donc pas chercher ici une discussion complète du sujet, mais plutôt un point de vue subjectif consistant à mettre en valeur quelques aspects de la littérature. Une première partie de ce papier définira le concept de logiciel libre : le logiciel libre se définit par l'ensemble des règles régissant son utilisation et son développement. Ces règles sont exprimées dans la licence à laquelle son utilisation doit se conformer. Une deuxième partie s'attache à étudier les raisons qui poussent à développer et utiliser des logiciels libres, et montre comment programmeurs, entreprises et usagers forment un réseau aux intérêts parfois contradictoires dont les interactions seront décrites. La troisième partie explique comment un phénomène longtemps marginal est devenu un problème de politique économique, et exposera un certain nombre des décisions que la puissance publique doit prendre.Open-source software, licensing, BSD, GPL, intellectual property, network effects, software.