Adoption and Economic Impact of Open-Source Software in Digital Libraries
Sanjay Kumar Jha · African Journal of Biomedical Research · 2024
This paper discusses the growing popularity and implementation of open-source software (OSS) in digital libraries worldwide. The adoption of OSS has significantly reduced initial setup costs and enhanced service flexibility, attracting interest from scholars and librarians. OSS enables users to access, modify, and utilize source code freely, contributing to its rapid expansion, evidenced by the multitude of projects and users on platforms like SourceForge. The OSS model produces high-quality, sustainable software with significant market penetration in web servers, browsers, and operating systems. The paper highlights the economic advantages of OSS, including reductions in licensing, maintenance, and training costs, leading to the development of OSS policies in libraries. This study affirms OSS's role as a socioeconomic driver and a viable alternative to proprietary software, emphasizing its potential to foster innovation within the modern economy. It emphasizes OSS's concrete and intangible advantages.