An Economic Theory of Free and Open Source Software: A Tour from Lighthouse to Chinese-Style Socialism (revised version)

The theory is that free and open source software is private property under the guise of common property. Such software is distributed mostly under the GNU General Public License. The intents in The GNU Manifesto suggest striking similarities between this license and communism. The resulting economic properties, however, are similar to those of Chinese-style socialism: both resulted from an increased separation of legal and economic ownership. The phenomenal growth of China in the last twenty five years and of such software in the past few years could be attributed to such separation.