Critical factors affecting the adoption of open source software in public organizations

Abstract

Context: The way public organizations produce, acquire, use, and commercialize software is changing as a result of open source software (OSS). Because of the numerous benefits provided by open source software, public organizations began to use it to meet their demands. As a result, governments implement various measures to encourage and facilitate OSS use. A variety of factors continue to influence the choice to implement OSS, which can have a positive or negative impact on the adoption process. Objective: The study’s purpose is to explore the most critical factors that may influence the open source software adoption process, which are drawn from chosen case studies from various domains in public organizations. Based on their findings, the authors produced a guideline to tell prospective adopters about the most crucial factors that they may confront during the adoption process. Method: Authors chose a handful of publications that address three public domains: healthcare, municipal government, and higher learning institutions. We looked for articles based on various criteria, beginning with their relevance to open source software adoption in general and, more specifically, in the public sector. We also screened the papers based on whether they were written in simple English or if they were written in another language. Results: According to the findings, government and top management support, reliability, security, availability, and cost ownership are the most influential elements that contributed to the adoption process’s success. Lacking of in-house development, connectivity, quality, computing resources, and expertise were identified as barriers to the adoption of open source software in specific sectors.