How might an independent thinker work on personal projects they share with others for free, while building relationships towards work for pay? We explore what the the command to “give everything away” can mean for an individual, a business, and an economy. We draw conclusions from six markets for open source software. We further illustrate the idea that wealth is relationships with anecdotal evidence from the Minciu Sodas laboratory. We conclude with a proposal for how a corporation might invest in business ecosystems to harness this wealth of relationships in high uncertainty.

The final report by e-Cology Corporation on its study of open source software (OSS) in Canada, which was contracted out by the Government of Canada, is now available. The main report includes five chapters. The Appendix contains detailed information from