Talk:Open-source economics/Archives/2013

Merger of "Business models for open-source software" into "Open-source economics?"

Although there is a good amount of literature that discribes open source economics as it applies to software development, there is little to discribe the reality of emerging industries that today are real economies that are in place and that function under the lable "open source economics". I can not discribe this article as original reaserch as institutions or companies are in place today that use this form of economics and that are not developing software. I am only describing a term that is now used to discribe a function or method of economics that is currently in place. It is unfortunate that there is little achedemic work on the subject at this time.

There is a suggestion that this page be combined with Business_models_for_open-source_software: I'd favour keeping them separate. This page takes a more philosophical approach, with the Business models page being more practical, with examples. My view is that they're both useful pages, but that they should remain separate, partly because I can see both pages being extended over time, and the additions would, I suspect, head in different directions, causing the need a branch. MikeCamel (talk) 14:46, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Hello, MC. My guess is that you're too busy doing good things elsewhere to have much time for WP editing.

Let me correct one point on the above. The proposal template at the top of Open-source economics reads:

It has been suggested that Business models for open source software be merged into [[[Open-source economics]]] article or section.

not vice versa. Nothing of value would be lost from this article. Any deficiencies of the other article could be ruthlessly edited out here. If the other article had a somwhat different focus, that's not problem: just give the merged article enough Categories at the bottom to correctly represent different aspects of the article. As it stands now, both articles have Category:Market structure and pricing listings, correctly IMO. But there is only one subcategory at the Journal of Economic Literature#Industrial organization JEL: L Subcategories for the 2 articles: under JEL: L1 Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance at JEL: L17 - Open Source Products and Markets. So there is a redundancy in the 2 articles so far as the JEL codes are concerned.

Anyone who links to http://www.aeaweb.org/jel/guide/jel.php, then clicks the buttons successively to JEL: L (Industrial Organization}, JEL: L1 (Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance), and JEL: L17 (Open Source Products and Markets) will encounter this explanatory explanatory Guideline:

Covers studies about issues related to open source products and markets, such as open source software and its implications for software markets.

I believe that most readers would conclude that both articles could reasonably classified under that JEL category. In that case, that's a good reason for merger. The JEL codes have no more finely-grained subcategory to include both article. So, IMO there is a better case for merging the 2 articles to avoid redundancy or incompleteness of the separate articles.

Thank you for your consideration. --Thomasmeeks (talk) 00:43, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Do not merge. Why merging is impractical and inappropriate: "Open_source_software" (OSS) is a large subtopic of "Open-source". "Open-source hardware" is largely defined by "Open hardware licensing" (OSH/OHL) and involves IP patent topics which are completely different from copyright topics associated with open-source software, documents, or other copyrightable arts. Merging a sofware business topic with a topic on open-source and economics would further convolude both pages and their topics.

Instead of merging, move/edit the content on both pages to bring in line with the overall phrase morphology. Open-source economics has components consistent with Open_source_ecology, Social_entrepreneurship, Open_business, and Sustainable_development#Economics etc. Similarly, Business_models_for_open_source_software should be expanded in context of Business_model (<-- seems bias against newer business paradigms; the filtering out of newer models is forcing a separate page on open-source-software business models), Business_plan#Open_business_plans, and Professional_open-source etc --User:tekbasse 2013 Jun 3 18:32:38 UTC —Preceding undated comment added 18:00, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

Do not merge, as open-source software is a subset of open-source products and services. I've removed the tag accordingly. Fgnievinski (talk) 01:43, 6 December 2013 (UTC)