A discussion of hybrid open source and proprietary licensing models.

[Marshall Van Alstyne <marshall AT MIT.EDU>]

At 05:30 AM 9/16/2004, Rob Myers wrote:
> >There is actually less and less of this kind of behavior because the
> >publishers as a group are becoming more aware of the concept of shared
> >utility.  There's an economic incentive for them to collaborate - they
> >all want to use each other's work.  This is a social impetus, not a
> >license-driven trend, and if someone proves a business model that shows
> >disregarding the value of the "cathedral" makes money, it could be lost.
> >But so far, the trend has been in a positive direction.
>
> One of the stated aims of this list is to come up with an economic model 
> for this sort of thing (I think, I'm not an economist). Do you think it's 
> possible to quantify the effects of the OGL on WotC's revenue stream, or 
> is that the wrong way of looking at the equation?

Let me echo Rob's observation here.  We're definitely interested in 
quantifying/modeling dimensions of this.