A study of application software open source projects

Abstract

Over the last few years of its existence, Open source has attracted widespread attention in the Information Technology industry and outside of it. Starting as a small movement by a bunch of programmers developing system software code which they shared openly, the Open source movement has come a long way - most software companies have taken cognizance of the movement and have adopted Open source in different ways - the spectrum ranging from their corporate strategy being critically hinged on open source to merely being users of open source software. Most of the research on open source software suggests that open source software development has largely occurred in the area of infrastructural software, development tools, utilities etc. (labeled as "platform" software) and lesser in the area of end-User/GUI or business oriented software (e.g. ERP, CRM). The more celebrated cases of open source software success have also been in the area of "platform" software space. This study attempts to study open source projects/software from the perspective of end-User/GUI or business oriented software and assess the success (or otherwise) of Open source in this space by literature survey and data analysis of these projects. The report concludes with inferences/conclusions and suggestions for further research.