Economic Perspective on Open Source Middleware

I worked on a paper about economic aspects of open source middleware: "Due to its function as a key enabling technology for the information society and to its compliance with open standards, middleware is quickly commoditized. The middleware market therefore appears doomed to fail even more drastically than other software markets. The success of free/libre/open-source software, originally created for ethical reasons, may be explained by interpreting it as a new paradigm that provides effective answers to the structural flaws of the market. Now that mainstream industry players realize that this approach makes economical sense, we propose a new rationale for middleware development. A business-neutral meta-organization federating vendors, customers and governmental agencies shall target the sustainable development of a business ecosystem where stakeholders could develop beneficial middleware strategies in line with their business and societal requirements. Experiences accumulated within the framework of the ObjectWeb consortium confirm this vision and suggest some balanced principles for governance."

I made this paper available in PDF, although it's still a work-in-progress.