The Competitive Advantages of Free Software¹

Alexandre Oliva <aoliva@redhat.com>
http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/

$Revision: 1.14$ $Date: 2002/07/19 08:49:07$

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Abstract:

This article proposes an analogy between organic life forms and software packages. It uses Charles Darwin's arguments of natural selection, such as increased variability and ease of reproduction, to support the claim that Free Software enjoys important competitive advantages over proprietary software.