ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the general nature of credits in commerce and the inevitable incompleteness of contracts over software due to the structural complexity of software. It leads peoples to the dilemma between private and public interests regarding the control over one's efforts in the development of software by means of restricting its use and withholding its source code. Informal contractual relationships involving credits consisting of little more than public notes about respective individual involvements play an important role in free software. It also illuminates the fact that there are differences and respective strengths of informal and more formal means of commerce in software development and dissemination. Lerner and Tirole have argued that the credits obtained from free software efforts may serve as a means of signalling one's professional skills to prospective employers. The importance of the institution of credit in general for the economic development of society cannot be overstated.
