Software ecosystem
Encyclopedia
Software Ecosystem is a book written by David G. Messerschmitt and Clemens Szyperski that explains the essence and effects of a "Software Ecosystem", defined as a set of businesses functioning as a unit and interacting with a shared market for software and services, together with relationships among them. These relationships are frequently underpinned by a common technological platform and operate through the exchange of information, resources, and artifacts.

Objection to the use of the term Ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....

 to describe software

Richard Stallman argues that software has nothing in common with an Ecosystem
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a biological environment consisting of all the organisms living in a particular area, as well as all the nonliving , physical components of the environment with which the organisms interact, such as air, soil, water and sunlight....

which is a natural system of combined physical and biological components of a natural environment. "It is a mistake to describe the free software community, or any human community, as an "ecosystem", because that word implies the absence of (1) intention and (2) ethics." Software is always the result of both intentions and ethics.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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