Open source software is developed by voluntary developers who use publicly
available source codes and distributed freely with licenses. Open source
software can be regarded as a new way of production in terms that: it exploits
intellectual property rights not for exclusive benefits but for public usage; it
limits direct private profits but opens possibilities for indirect ones; and it takes
advantage of dispersed production networks. This paper has two main
objectives: we try to explain that open source way has started from the
beginning of computers and survey related researches in economics after the
renowned work of Lerner and Tirole (2002). In this paper, mainly we deal
with developers’ motivations, development processes and managements,
market competition, licenses, policies and implications to other industries.