Why profit-oriented companies enter the OS field?
Cristina Rossi, Andrea J. Bonaccorsi · ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes · 2005
This paper contributes to the literature on Open Source (OS) by providing empirical evidence on the incentives of firms that engage in the field. Data collected by a survey on 146 Italian companies supplying OS solutions (Open Source firms) show that (surprisingly) intrinsic, community-based incentives do play a role but are not, in general, put into practise. We investigate this discrepancy between attitudes and behaviours and single out groups of firms adopting a more consistent behaviour. Our results are in line with the literature on individual motivations in the OS movement.