Open Source, ICT Standards and Softwarisation: Hybridisation Dynamics and Competition Law Concerns

Abstract

Traditionally, SDO-based open standardisation and open source standards have been used in different sectors: the (mostly) hardware-based telecommunications industry and the software-based IT industry, respectively. However, the increasing interdependencies within the ICT sector - notably those derived from the Internet of Things and softwarisation - have provoked a technological convergence of both sectors. Consequently, different business models, understandings and standardisation models coexist nowadays. The aim of this paper is to analyse the underlying technological and business dynamics of standardisation platforms in the ICT sector, in order to assess potential pro and anticompetitive concerns derived from ongoing hybridisation trends in ICT standardisation settings.

Keywords: Standardisation, Open source, Patents, Copyright, Softwarisation

JEL Classification: K21, L15, L17