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This article looks at free software production communities and shows the persistence of three interconnected types of capital: communal, collective and private. Although free software was originally based on non-market cooperative production, its success led to the massive arrival of market producers. The communities would try to perpetuate their beliefs in cooperation and knowledge-sharing by developing rules supported by law and setting up nonprofit organizations. The social economy played a central role in the economic “regulation” of the sector because it operates according to both market and nonmarket rules. The authors observe that this regulating process not only enables preserving and extending the communal capital that free software represents, it also influences the whole software market including both free and paid software by forcing for-profit producers to reposition themselves and change their business strategies to incorporate a share of non-market activity.
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This article is the result of the analysis of various bibliographic reference management tools, especially those that are free. The use of editorial tools by bibliographic editors has evolved rapidly since 2007. But, until recently, free software has fallen short when it comes to ergonomics or use. The functional and technical panorama offered by free software is the result of the comparison of JabRef, Mendeley Desktop, BibDesk and Zotero software undertaken in January 2012 by two research professors affiliated with the Institut national français des techniques de la documentation (INTD).
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This article deals with the issue of the software patentability and the case law evolution in the United States in this area. From the beginning of the 80's, many key decisions have allowed software to be patented, whereas it has been traditionally protected by copyright. Through the new protection of mathematical algortihms, and the patentability of « business methods » in the field of finance or e-commerce, software protection has been strengthened. Patent protection for software is also possible in Europe but in a different way : whereas the American system lies on « utility » criterion, the European approach lies on « technical effect » criterion. At the end of this article, we underline several economic issues links to this tendency and particularly : the economic effect of software patentability on the innovative path of firms ; the analysis of the institutional mechanisms of patent offices and the examination failure ; the deposal strategies of firms and their licensing purpose.
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There are many diverse aspects in software economy, whether it be at the level of actual existing products, of their legal and economic status or of the variety of manufacturers and users. Going beyond this diversity, software production is subject to repeated criticism on three lines : the software produced lacks reliability, or it is in general poorly adapted to users needs and software production has shown a level of productivity which is generally thought to be insufficient. Solutions to these permanent problems concerning software have been sought through various attempts to rationalise software production. An approach in terms of production worlds, based on that of Salais and Storper, is used in order to analyse both the diverse nature of software and their production modes as well as the numerous rationalisation processes of such production. By joint-use of two criteria (dedicated products/generic products, absence/ existence of a standarised product and/or methods or components), it is possible to distinguish four production worlds (interpersonal world, creative world, Fordist world, flexible manufacturing world). Such a typology is used to analyse the dynamic evolutions of the economy of software, by identifying four main trajectories (industrialisation, flexibilisation, formalisation, and value-enhancement). The analytical framework proposed is then applied to the perspectives of development of free software.
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The question of intellectual property rights on software was raised as soon as the latter acquired a substantial degree of autonomy in relation to the hardware with which it was initially sold. Its protection was faced with a dilemma: on the one hand the need to stimulate innovation through a return on investments and, on the other, the importance of not blocking mechanisms of technology diffusion within an industrial activity characterized by the cumulative nature of technological progress and the effects of network externalities. Recourse to copyright laws, for want of an appropriate system of protection, has proved to be a more viable compromise than the patent system of which the effects of partitioning and lock-in have proved to be a cause for much concern. Moreover, the key question of revealing interfaces, required for the interoperability of programs, seems to find a solution in standardization that is both acceptable and compatible with intellectual property rights.
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In the study of the digital environment in which people live and evolve, methodological problems may arise for researchers in the humanities and social sciences. This article examines the compatibility of conventional tools in the social sciences for the study of screen-based digital practices, that of the computer. Indeed, the Internet and its screens do not allow the use of traditional interviews, questionnaires and observations to collect accurate data on this environment (practical and consumption of the Internet). We propose a complementary method to conventional tools.
Keywords: Technologies de l'information et de la communication, travail scolaire, méthodologie, expérimentation, Information and communication technology, methodology, schoolwork experimentation