The commons-based peer production - a pool of software assets that is held in common by a community which is enhanced and expanded over time. The community is comprised of peer experts of all kinds, each with a status reflecting only their abilities - age, previous achievements elsewhere, employer or external factors such as race or politics should be irrelevant. The community is focused on production of software - "code talks, talk doesn't code".

Also have a look at an analysis of open source on the software industry from Porter's 5 forces perspective.