In the Knowledge economy the welfare function is such that you benifit most by giving most. When trust matters and you get credit for your contribution it becomes most benificial to give freely. Delhart Bendidict worked on this in 1998 in a paper titled Consumer as Producers in the value creation on the internet. He lays out a framework for determining under what conditions people will choose to participate. Great read.
Sharing accelerates discovery.
Sir John Sulston, one the co-winners of this year's Nobel Prize for medicine, attributes his scientific success to a spirit of open sharing of knowledge and information. Quoting Sir John: The nematode worms on which he experimented "worked so well because the community held an ethos of sharing --just as the public genome projects have-- from the beginning. We gave all our results to others as soon as we had them. From sharing, discovery is accelerated in the community. Research is hastened when people share results freely." (Thanks to James Meek in The Guardian.) [FOS News]
To a certain extent this is obvious. The big issue is how to cultivate the spirit of open sharing. [Seb's Open Research]
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