A framework to analyze e-government OSS adoption benefits

Abstract

Open source software (OSS) previously regarded as a fad by many academics has been rapidly adopted by both public and private sector organizations. The challenge facing most organizations is how to evaluate OSS adoption benefits. OSS adoption is a complex phenomenon which requires an interdisciplinary approach to understand the socio-technical, political, economic and legal benefits. The complexity of the OSS phenomenon has resulted in fiercely contested, contradictory rhetorical discussions among divided parties with no conclusive general agreement. The one size fits all approach is fundamentally flawed for evaluating OSS benefits in organizations as they are both subjective and contextual. In this paper we propose a framework to balance the needs of hard (objective) benefits and soft (subjective) benefits of OSS adoption in public sector organizations. This paper proposes a framework to evaluate benefits of OSS adoption in public-sector organizations, since one-size-fits-all approaches have shortcomings to complex phenomena.