Demand-side learning is a phrase coined by Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Pankaj Ghemawat

Pankaj Ghemawat

Pankaj Ghemawat is an economist, global strategist, speaker and author.-Early life and career:Pankaj Ghemawat received his Bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics and his Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University. Entering Harvard College at the age of 16, he was accepted to Harvard...

 of Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School

Harvard Business School is the graduate business school of Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts, United States and is widely recognized as one of the top business schools in the world. The school offers the world's largest full-time MBA program, doctoral programs, and many executive...

 in the article Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

 vs. Open Source

Open source

The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...

: Who Will Win? by Sean Silverthorne from June 6, 2005.

Demand-side learning refers to open source software's ability to be modified by the user community at large as needs and wants those who use the software at no charge, they have the incentive to modify the software and learn about how it works. Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Pankaj Ghemawat also suggest that regardless of the strength of Linux's demand-side learning this alone is not sufficient for Linux to win the competitive battle against Windows.