Five Facts on the Adoption of Open Source Software

Across the spectrum of software organizations-from traditional software houses to service providers, in both public and private sectors-open source software (OSS) is changing the way they develop, acquire, use, and commercialize software. However, con flicting views about exactly what the OSS phenomenon is remain common. Furthermore, the professional literature doesn't clarify as much as it could-not only because empirical studies are still sparse but also because the studies that do exist reflect different perspectives.