>> That does fit the definition of a public good? If you're sticking to the Paul Samuelson definition, it does. Its also the main case the author is arguing fo

>> That does fit the definition of a public good? If you're sticking to the Paul Samuelson definition, it does. Its also the main case the author is arguing for That said, what's the purpose of sticking to the definition? I mean, the whole concept basically exists to determine a class of things that should be publicly funded. Since then, many of the goods that were public goods were changed by technology into something else. A classic example was free-to-air radio and TV. Public good theories were used to justify TV licences. Since then, we found both ways of excluding (cable) and ways of making money that aren't related to exclusion (advertising). Did free-to-air TV stop being a public good once the ad business got lucrative enough. Maybe it stopped being a good altogether. The definition of a public good was never precise, but it's downright squishy these days. Quite a lot of goods these days, both capital and consumer are nonrivalrous (could also be described as non subtractable, abundant..). Anyway, the author's usage is pretty clear. FOSS like the worldwideweb is a public good for the purposes that he's using the term.