Customization of Open Source Software in Companies

Most papers related to Open Source Software (OSS) discuss the development of OSS, licensing issues, and motivations of developers. Research in the area of customization of OSS is rare, however. The process after the deployment of an OSS within a company remains unknown. There is a danger that it is often unstructured and error-prone since OSS develops in a more complex way than proprietary software. Based on our literature study, modifications of open source code do occur also in organizations outside of the software industry. Customization of applications is more common than customization of infrastructure software in these organizations. Therefore, we examine the process of deployment and adaptation of an OSS application software over several update iterations in great detail. This examination shows that this process has similarities with the process of deployment of proprietary software but it also exhibits important differences. Based on this case study, we also suggest a process model for customization of OSS applications in user organizations.