(Self-)Regulation of a Natural Monopoly via Complementary Goods - the Case of F/OSS Business Models

The paper investigates the optimal regulation of a (software) firm which acts as a natural monopolist, who also offers a complementary good (IT services) on a competitive market. It is shown that a first-best-regulation accompanyied with an optimal taxation schedule in order to compensate the losses is equivalent to a cross-subsidisation of the software by the complementary good. This is the same result as in business models with Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS). Even if a price of zero for F/OSS does not reflect the use of resources for software development, the price system in F/OSS related markets leads to a welfare improving allocation. F/OSS license models can be seen as institutional arrangements which mimick a social planner.