Brian Fitzgerald – författare

A rich case-study analysis of open source software adoption by public organizations in different countries and settings.

Government agencies and public organizations often consider adopting open source software (OSS) for reasons of transparency, cost, citizen access, and greater efficiency in communication and delivering services. Adopting Open Source Software offers five richly detailed real-world case studies of OSS adoption by public organizations. The authors analyze the cases and develop an overarching, conceptual framework to clarify the various enablers and inhibitors of OSS adoption in the public sector. The book provides a useful resource for policymakers, practitioners, and academics.The five cases of OSS adoption include a hospital in Ireland; an IT consortium serving all the municipalities of the province of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy; schools and public offices in the Extremadura region of Spain; the Massachusetts state government''s open standards policy in the United States; and the ICT department of the Italian Chamber of Deputies. The book provides a comparative analysis of these cases around the issues of motivation, strategies, technologies, economic and social aspects, and the implications for theory and practice.

Early research studies on open source software development often betrayed a mild surprise that loosely coordinated networks of volunteers could manage the design and implementation of highly comple software products. In the past few years, a wider research community has become increasingly aware of the tremendous contribution that open source development is making to the software industry, business and society in general. Software engineering researchers are exploring OSS specifically with respect to development tools and methodologies, while organizational scientists and economists are keen on understanding how open sources have brought large communities of people to help each other effectively.

This book is an important step in the direction of a fuller understanding of the OSS phenomenon. It collects the proceedings of the Second International Conference on Open Software held in Como, Italy, from June 8th to June 10th, 2006. OSS 2006 was the foundation conference of the IFIP TC 2 WG 2.13 on Open Source Software, and attracted many researchers from all over the world interested in how OSS is produced, in its huge innovation potential in many different application fields and in OSS innovative business models. The 20 full papers of this volume were selected via a rigourous refereeing process among more than 100 submissions; 12 additional submissions, in view of their interest, were selected for publication in a more concise form.

Changes in society resulting from the pervasiveness of information technology have produced positive and negative, intended and unintended consequences. Key among them is the exclusion of individuals—who lack access to technological resources—from various societal processes and services. The theme of this book, social inclusion, explores the many dimensions of this exclusion. This issue has been the focus of much debate within the social sciences, yet has largely been underresearched in the Information Systems field, despite our concerns with the social and organizational aspects of technology. To the extent that contemporary debates have identified access to information as a key component of poverty, digital exclusion is seen as the problem. Thus, ICTs are portrayed as either exacerbating exclusion or are presented as the solution for greater inclusion. This conference will provide us with the opportunity to build upon our strong tradition of studying technology design and use in organizations, and expand our field of enquiry to consider the processes that engender social exclusion and the issues that derive from it.

This theme invites consideration of social and organizational constraints that result in the underrepresentation of certain groups and, by implication, certain issues. Likewise, it invites consideration of emerging technologies that have the potential to alter social, political, and economic relations. Much is being written about the ubiquitous nature of ICTs to change society, for example, open source software has recently emerged as a concept with implications far beyond the technology domain. This suggests that the role of ICTs in addressing social exclusion is far more complex than often thought. For this reason it is timely to expand our focus and progress the study of IS beyond the organizational level of analysis so that we may consider wider concerns affecting all citizens.

This book contains the proceedings of theWorking Conference on the societal and organizational implications for information systems of social inclusion. This conference, sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing Working Group 8.2, was held in Limerick, Ireland, July 12-15, 2006.

Open source software (free software) has emerged as a major field of scientific inquiry across a number of disciplines. When the concept of open source began to gain mindshare in the global business community, decision makers faced a challenge: to convert hype and potential into sustainable profit and viable business models.

This volume addresses this challenge through presenting some of the newest, extensively peer-reviewed research in the area.

IT Innovation for Adaptability and Competitiveness addresses the topic of IT innovations that can further an organization''s ability to adapt and be competitive. Thus we address the problem at an earlier starting point, that is, the emergence of something innovative in an organization, applied to that organization, and its process of being diffused and accepted internally. Topics covered in the book include: -The role of IT in organizational innovation, -Innovating systems development & process, -Assessing innovation drivers, -Innovation adoption, -New environments, new innovation practices.

This volume contains the edited proceedings of the Seventh Working Conference on IT Innovation for Adaptability and Competitiveness, which was sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 8.6 and held at Intel Corporation, Leixlip, Ireland in May-June 2004.