[wos] Re: Muenster Economics Studies on Open Source

[Volker Grassmuck]

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
> >
> >
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> 


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