From an IT perspective, it is interesting to compare and contrast the growth in complimentary currencies in the world with the growth in open source. Open Source has been called a gift economy in which no point-to-point value exchange takes place. The entire community benefits, however, from the rising tide of quality technology that results from an uncountable number of donations (gifts) made by community members.

Computerworld | Complimentary currencies in the future of the software business