What is Increasing return to information

Whatever its name, Free/Libre or Open Source Software (FLOSS), diffusion represents one of the main evolutions of the Information Technology (IT) industry in recent years. Operating System Linux, or Web server Apache (more than 60% market share on its market), database MySQL or PHP languages are some examples of broadly-used FLOSS programs. One of the most original characteristics of this movement is its collective, cooperative software development organization in which a growing number of firms is involved (some figures in Lakhani & Wolf (2005)). Of course, programs, because they are codified information, are quite easy to exchange, and make the cooperation easier than in other industries. But, as pointed out by Stallman (1998), if sharing pieces of software within firms was a dominant practice in the 1950’s, it declined in the 1970’s, and almost disappeared in the 1980’s, before regaining and booming today. This article aims at explaining the evolution (and the comeback) of a cooperative, non-market production. In the first part, we explain the decrease of cooperation as a consequence of the evolution of the computer users, of their demand, and of the industrial organization constructed to meet this demand. This theoretical and historical framework is used in the second part to understand the renewal of a cooperative organization, the FLOSS phenomenon, first among computer-literate users, and then within the industry.