Classroom Companion: Business

Partnership (ITU). 2016).
Unlike bank loans, peer-to-peer lending is usually not protected by government 
guarantees.
7.3.3 
 Free and Open-Source Software and Cloud Computing
Free and open-source software (FOSS) is an initiative for the collaborative devel-
opment of software. Free and open-source software is an important ingredient in 
commons-based peer production. The source code of the free and open-source 
1 
Some of these companies may also have banking licenses, for example, the UK company Zopa.
 
Chapter 7 · Production Models

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software is made available to other developers along with a license allowing them 
to use, modify, and redistribute the software. The license is issued by the copyright 
holder of the software and approved by, for example, the nonprofit organization 
Free Software Foundation. The GNU General Public License mentioned in 
7
Example 
7.1
is one such license.
The use of the software may be free or subject to a small fee. There are thou-
sands of licensed open-source software packages covering fields such as grid com-
puting, web browsing, file systems, 3D animation, and firewalls. Linux and Android 
are among the most successful open-source projects. In fact, most of the Internet 
runs on open-source software.
Cloud computing is also a major component in the production model of several 
small- and medium-size enterprises and startups. The main advantage for a pro-
vider of digital services to use cloud computing is that both investments in com-
puter infrastructure and running costs associated with operation and maintenance 
are reduced. There is also no need for the service provider to have deep insight in 
computer science in order to design, promote, and deliver the service.
Other advantages of cloud computing are that it is easier for the user to adjust 
resources to fluctuating needs, and the technology offers increased reliability 
because data may be mirrored on several redundant sites, more and better cyberse-
curity protection, access to high-speed computing resources with low latency, and 
state-of-the-art data speed, streaming capabilities, and protocols (What is cloud 
computing? A beginner’s guide. Microsoft Azure).