Patent and copyright law are stifling innovation and threatening the global economy according to two economists at Washington University in St. Louis in a new book, Against Intellectual Monopoly.

With any paradigm shift, it is difficult to see the new world from the old one, even though it is glaringly obvious once you’ve crossed over. Empirical evidence is one way to bridge the gap. To that end, I want to show some solid evidence for the “impossible” things that commons-based peer production (CBPP) has already accomplished—things that the old conventional wisdom would tell us “can’t be done”. This week, I’ll look at what is probably the most obvious case: free software.

I just read two really interesting articles (Giving proprietary vendors a run for their money & Could Linux become the dominant OS?).These articles and a discussion I had yesterday about budget constraints for the next calendar year makes me think that Open Source Software (OSS) is on the verge of becoming mainstream over the next few years.