Zusammenfassung
Currently there is intensive study of Free and Open Source software developers. There is much less focus on the adopters of these systems and programmes, in business, government and education. How do they justify their decisions, which might seem radical to their stakeholders? This presentation tries to answer the question by reporting on a close study of the verbal accounts that decision-makers give.
The talk introduces an interpretive, social-constructionist view of organisational change and innovation processes that explores how organisational reality is negotiated, enacted and constructed by its participants. In this view, we study their own sometimes surprising perceptions and meanings. Tools and methods for rigorous qualitative study of unstructured text data are introduced. Thomas Muhr's Atlas.ti is one such tool (www.atlasti.de). "Grounded theory" is the name of a methodology or approach used in social sciences and perhaps useful in software development for requirements analysis etc. It is noted that free software is not famous for well-developed requirements or documentation, but perhaps new interpretive approaches to these items can make them more meaningful and useful.
Results of a survey of actual software adoption decisions (SuSE Linux and/or other products) made recently, mainly in the UK, are presented and illustrated.There are well-known "objective" factors such as Total Cost of Ownership, copyleft licensing or software reliability. However, the connection between these and the stated justifications turns out to be quite indirect. Instead, there are patterns of rhetoric that reflect dynamic pressures in organisations and their context, and cultural influences on the individuals. It is concluded that fresh ways of promoting free/Open Source software, and new approaches to directing its development, are possible. The fast-changing cultural position of Linux is partly responsible for these opportunities.
ﾜber den Autor
Andrew Nicolson is a researcher studying alternately for higher degrees in Software Engineering and Business Administration, and affiliated to British Computer Society and UK Unix Users Group. He is working on open software development for a "fuzzy" client: a network of community groups (LETS or Tauschringen), which breaks the classical software engineering process; He is also researching structures of meanings created by organisational decision-makers justifying decisions to adopt (or reject) free/libre/Open Source software.
