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The License Choices of SMEs doing Business with Open Source Software: Empirical Evidence on Italian Firms

The License Choices of SMEs doing Business with Open Source Software: Empirical Evidence on Italian Firms

Evila Piva, Cristina Rossi-Lamastra
Copyright: © 2012 |Volume: 4 |Issue: 1 |Pages: 17
ISSN: 1942-3926|EISSN: 1942-3934|EISBN13: 9781466613775|DOI: 10.4018/jossp.2012010102
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MLA

Piva, Evila, and Cristina Rossi-Lamastra. "The License Choices of SMEs doing Business with Open Source Software: Empirical Evidence on Italian Firms." IJOSSP vol.4, no.1 2012: pp.20-36. http://doi.org/10.4018/jossp.2012010102

APA

Piva, E. & Rossi-Lamastra, C. (2012). The License Choices of SMEs doing Business with Open Source Software: Empirical Evidence on Italian Firms. International Journal of Open Source Software and Processes (IJOSSP), 4(1), 20-36. http://doi.org/10.4018/jossp.2012010102

Chicago

Piva, Evila, and Cristina Rossi-Lamastra. "The License Choices of SMEs doing Business with Open Source Software: Empirical Evidence on Italian Firms," International Journal of Open Source Software and Processes (IJOSSP) 4, no.1: 20-36. http://doi.org/10.4018/jossp.2012010102

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Abstract

In the past decade, Open Source (OS) licenses have attracted the interest of many scholars. However, there is still a limited understanding of the license choices made by small and medium enterprises doing business with OS (OS SMEs). The present paper aims at filling this gap. The authors argue that, because of firm specificities, OS SMEs tend to prefer copyleft licenses. Their arguments are corroborated by empirical evidence from a survey on 146 Italian OS SMEs. This evidence documents that OS SMEs are not plagued by the GPL fear theorized by the OS founding fathers. Conversely, these firms use copyleft licenses to more easily in-source knowledge from the community of OS users and developers. At the same time, license choices are influenced by the ideological motivations that OS SMEs inherit from their owner-managers.

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