Open source software markets.

Open source software usage by both individuals and corporations has been increasing. This has resulted in increased competition within the software environment between the traditional commercial developers of software and the open source communities. These "free" sources of substitute products provide new challenges for commercial suppliers. This dissertation uses both diffusion models and agent-based models to explore competition between these two groups. The paper proposes that the adoption of software products is heavily impacted by the consumer valuation of the product with regards to its quality, price and technical support factors. A customized Bass diffusion model as well as an agent-based simulation model is developed to allow us to analyze these factors and to examine the conditions necessary for each group to increase its share of the products' market.