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Open Source Software Acquisition

Author

Listed:
  • Holck,, Jesper

    (Department of Informatics, Copenhagen Business School)

  • Pedersen, Mogens Kühn

    (Department of Informatics, Copenhagen Business School)

  • Larsen, Michael Holm

    (Department of Informatics, Copenhagen Business School)

Abstract

Lately we have seen a growing interest from both public and private organisations to adopt Open Source Software (OSS), not only for a few, specific applications but also on a more general level throughout the organisation. As a consequence, the organisations’ decisions on adoption of OSS are becoming increasingly more important and complex. We present three perspectives organisations can employ in their decisions: seeing OSS acquisition as a business case, as COTS acquisition, and as architectural change within a governance framework. We present case studies of decisions on OSS adoption, and categorise the decision criteria we have found. Our results indicate that for large-scale adoption of OSS, focus will be on architectural considerations: enterprise-wide architectures will at first be a barrier, but in the long term OSS’s support of open standards can be a major enabler for OSS adoption. In contrast, in smaller organisations and in small-scale adoption of OSS, the cheap price of OSS is a major enabler, as it provides a good opportunity for experiments and short-term economic benefits. For small organisations these experiments can lead to development of a common IT-architecture, and in larger organisations OSS can be adopted in niche-areas, without significantly violating an existing IT-architecture.

Suggested Citation

  • Holck,, Jesper & Pedersen, Mogens Kühn & Larsen, Michael Holm, 2005. "Open Source Software Acquisition," Working Papers 2005-7, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Informatics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:cbsinf:2005_007
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    File URL: http://openarchive.cbs.dk/cbsweb/handle/10398/6471
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Holck, Jesper & Larsen, Michael Holm & Pedersen, Mogens Kühn, 2004. "Identifying Business Barriers and Enablers for the Adoption of Open Source Software," Working Papers 2004-10, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Informatics.
    2. Larsen, Michael Holm & Holck, Jesper & Pedersen, Mogens Kühn, 2004. "The Challenges of Open Source Software in IT Adoption," Working Papers 2004-11, Copenhagen Business School, Department of Informatics.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    open source; COTS; IT architecture; governance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H00 - Public Economics - - General - - - General

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