[wos] Re: Muenster Economics Studies on Open Source
Volker Grassmuck
vgrass at rz.hu-berlin.de
Tue Dec 16 15:26:58 CET 2003
On 16 Dec 2003 at 14:39, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh wrote:
> discrediting this on the basis of investigative journalism to find out
> who's paid for it is the best in the short term.
as Armin has pointed out already: no investigative journalism needed.
MS activily promotes the fact that it paid for both studies:
http://www.microsoft.com/germany/ms/presseservice/meldungen.asp?ID=531
012
S.a. http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/tol-10.12.03-002/
and on a study by Soreon Research on the Total Cost of Operations of
office packages from Microsoft, OpenOffice 1.1 and JDS/StarOffice 7,
declaring the end of the monopoly:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/anw-16.12.03-001/
> [1] is amazingly political, has references to a very narrow literature and
yeah, I'm being quoted lots ,-)
> simply wrong in many cases (e.g. the argument that standards are better
> served by commercial entities ignores years of literature in various fields
> - legal, economic, policy, technology - on standards and the
> importance/utility of open standards). the entire first part - that prima
> facie, open source must be inefficient because it is not based on a priced
> market - is easily refuted - e.g .by benkler's "coases penguin".
>
> i did not see anything in this that was particularly different from, say,
> evans (NERA) as regards to competition, market failure and govt policy.
> with regards to the inherent (in)efficiency of the development model, this
> paper has only polemics with no empirical evidence either way, and there is
> much work theoretical and empirical available to counter that.
>
> [2] is a bit different, in that it is not necessarily wrong at all. but it
> implies that the IT industry which _happens_ to be based on Microsoft
> (since microsoft dominates it through a monopoly platform) would disappear
> without MS, rather than move on to other platforms. it has clearly been
> based on lots of information and cooperation from MS, presumably also their
> funding.
>
> i wonder how the people in munich, or the interior ministry (barbara held
> etc) are reacting to this, if at all.
interesting question. I'll ask.
best
Volker
> best,
> -rishab
>
> At 22:58 10/12/2003 +0100, Volker Grassmuck wrote:
> >Hi Rishab, hi Georg,
> >
> >two studies from the Muenster Institute for Computational Economics
> >(MICE !) are making waves these days that no doubt have already
> >reached you. One is what seems to me a quite refined version of the
> >"the monetized market is the most efficient mechanism for serving
> >'customer sovereignty'" rant. [1] The other poses Microsoft not a
> >monopoly but as an enabler for a wide variety of idependent economic
> >activity. [2]
> >
> >This is part of a major roll-back and has to be refuted with the
> >highest authority in economics that the free software can muster. And
> >a clear statement from the free software industries. And maybe some
> >investigative journalism unveiling that this stuff is paid for by MS.
> >
> >What can we do about that? Who could write a counter-study?
> >
> >best
> >Volker
> >
> >
> >[1] Open-Source Software: An Economic Assessment
> >http://mice.uni-muenster.de/mers/mers4-OpenSource_en.pdf
> >http://mice.uni-muenster.de/mers/mers4-OpenSource_de.pdf
> >
> >[2] The Impact of Microsoft Deutschland GmbH on the German IT Sector
> >http://mice.uni-muenster.de/mers/mers3-EconomicImpact_en.pdf
> >http://mice.uni-muenster.de/mers/mers3-EconomicImpact_de.pdf
> >
> >
> >--
> > act now: copy = right http://privatkopie.net
> > schon 45.000 Unterschriften!
> > home: http://waste.informatik.hu-berlin.de/Grassmuck
>
--
act now: copy = right http://privatkopie.net
schon 45.000 Unterschriften!
home: http://waste.informatik.hu-berlin.de/Grassmuck
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