Impact that Open-Source Products Might Have (Score 2)

Last year, I put together a model upon a more focused question which is "What is the impact that mature open-source products on an existing commercial market"?

This is a more technical question of market dynamics (where I think that I can contribute something) rather than an explanation of the motivating factors associated with the open-source development process.

Although this particular question sidesteps many of the interesting issues (of why folks would want to do this), it makes a mathematical model of the dynamics plausible.

Since the model is framed in the context of autonomous agents, I presented it at an AI conference workshop (GECCO-99). However, I wouldn't mind getting some thoughtful feedback from folks who are more interested in the open-source economics side of things, rather than in the autonomous agents.

A web-page on the paper is located here, and the paper itself can be found here (PDF format).