The economics of free/libre/open source software
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, UNU-Merit
About the speaker
Rishab Aiyer Ghosh first developed and sold free software in 1994. He switched from writing in C and assembly to English, and has been writing about the economics of free software and collaborative production since 1994. He is Founding International and Managing Editor of First Monday, the most widely read peer-reviewed online journal of the Internet, and Senior Researcher and Head of the Collaborative Creativity Group at UNU-MERIT, at the United Nations University in Maastricht, the Netherlands. In 1997, he co-authored tools to measure contributions by free software developers by analysing source code, pioneering now widely used research techniques. In 2000 he coordinated the European Union-funded FLOSS project, the most comprehensive early study of free/libre/open source users and developers. He is involved in government policy initiatives on free software and open standards, and conducts research funded by the European Union and the US National Science Foundation. In January 2007, the European Commission published a major study led by him on the impact of open source on the economy, competitiveness and innovation. Since 2005 Rishab has been a board member of the Open Source Initiative.
Venue: Conference Room, UNU-Merit, Keizer Karelplein 19, 6211 TC Maastricht
Date: 28 January 2010
Time: 16:00 CEST
