Benefits and Drawbacks of Open Source Software: An Exploratory Study of Secondary Software Firms

Much of the assessment of OSS benefits and drawbacks has been based on anecdotal evidence appearing in practitioner publications, white papers, web articles etc. To a greater extent this research has tended to concentrate more on the technical benefits and drawbacks of OSS rather than their business counterparts. Furthermore, public administrations and companies operating within the primary software sector have traditionally been the focus for research on OSS benefits and drawbacks. Taking the viewpoint of IS/IT managers in 13 companies operating in the secondary software sector in Europe, this paper examines their experiences of the benefits/drawbacks of OSS.