The understanding that there are two distinct regimes for the production of software is increasingly common in literature. What is not so common, and is therefore the most original contribution of this paper is, on the one hand, the historical approach to the configuration of those regimes and, on the other hand, the analysis of the factors determining the technical and commercial success of one regime over the other. Furthermore, we have worked with two additional hypotheses: first, that the development of free software historically belongs to the public/scientific knowledge production regime - i.e., free software mimicking the organization of the scientific community because it has its historical roots in it; and secondly, that in a "market competition" environment the public and scientific regime has proven more efficient and has therefore forced companies working in the private/business regime to adopt free or open source software.
Innovation; Intellectual property; Free software; Knowledge production regimes
