A Survey on the Importance of Some Economic Factors in the Adoption of Open Source Software

Economic advantages have long been used as a key factor for promoting the adoption of Open Source Software. This paper reports on an investigation about the impact of economic factors when deciding on the adoption of Open Source Software, in the framework of a survey carried out in the QualiPSo project. The results seem to indicate that economic issues may have a remarkably lower impact than commonly believed, though people with roles more directly related to economic results and working in private companies seem to give economic factors more consideration than other Open Source Software stakeholders.