• Open source

Open source

This work in progress looks at the political processes influencing the adoption of Free/Open Source software (F/OSS).

Techncially, it is presented in wiki format, with an invitation for readers to contribute their own experience.

The history looks at how open source is becoming embedded in political arenas and policy debates. The political success of open source reflects diverse practices of issue entrepreneurship and evangelisation: at a basic level by building awareness of open source options, by broadening understanding of the ways in which software choice embeds social and political values, and by framing discussions of cost or security in ways that take account complex hypotheticals about the future.

It reports on the social dimensions of this process as F/OSS advocacy develops within commercial, technical, and NGO communities; as it succeeds or fails in building workable alliances; as it founders on or overcomes internal differences; and ultimately as it bridges out to other communities with less stake in the technical values or development process of open source. The editor's argue that the limits of F/OSS adoption reflect (in part) a limited capacity within the F/OSS movement to document, compare, and draw lessons from these processes.

Articles already underway include:

• The European politics of F/OSS adoption
• Source vs. Force: Open Source meets intergovernmental politics
• FOSSFA in Africa: opening the door to State ICT development agendas: a Kenya case study
• F/OSS adoption in Brazil: the growth of a national strategy
• NGO’s in the developing worlds
• Legal uncertainty in Free and Open Source Software and the political response
• F/OSS ppportunities in the health care sector

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