Open source as a sourcing strategy for corporations
Stefan Koch · International Journal of Business Innovation and Research · 2010
Open source software has opened up a new possibility for corporations that are currently developing software, namely developing with open source software. This can be done either using existing components and projects and build upon their results or release own projects in an early stage with free code and hope for a community to form around this project. These strategies complement the traditional options of developing the solution in-house or buying it from external sources. In this paper we put this decision regarding open source in the framework of sourcing analyses, detailing a resource-based view on the corporation, complemented with production economics, transaction cost economics and knowledge management. This rephrasing will shed new light on this decision and will enable corporations to more accurately arrive at appropriate strategies.