<p>This dissertation examines the role of governments in adopting Open Source Software (OSS) for their needs and tries to explain the variation in adoption and implmentation, among both developing and developed countries. The work argues that there are different logics guiding developing and developed countries OSS adoption. As developed countries follow a pattern based on the Varieties of Capitalism model, the difference in OSS adoption in developing countries is a combination of the relation between the state and market forces (especially how business and firms are organized) and state capacity to overcome collective action problems and to reap the benefits of technological upgrade. This dissertation also presents a structured and focused comparison of two cases (Brazil and Mexico) and define which are the factors that matter for the outcomes.</p> / Dissertation

Contemporary activists in the United States find it increasingly difficult to negotiate socio-political constraints to build a social movement. Those looking for relatively safe and effective venues for participation in and communication of dissent face oppression by the hegemonic power of the political right and, in the case of climate activism, anti-climate-science discourse. I use the case study of the climate action movement to explore how contemporary activists use new communication media technologies (hereafter new media) to establish and strengthen a movement. Even though climate change affects the daily lives of ordinary Americans, no U.S. policy exists to mitigate carbon emissions. New media offer the potential for new, safer venues for participation in and communication about social movements. I used empirical qualitative and critical methods to analyze the communication of climate change activism in Texas, USA. I examined how Step It Up! 2007 (SIU) used new media to facilitate or constrain public participation in climate action. I used critical discourse analysis to examine information provided to citizens on the SIU website, and I attended the SIU event in San Antonio, Texas. I found SIU organizers successfully used new media to increase agitation and to shift power away from the federal government to the local grassroots level. I recommend activists use new media as a unifying tool, to provide a fragmented and apathetic citizenry with a message that can be used to affect change. I conducted a critical rhetorical analysis of Working Film’s 2007 documentary on global warming, Everything’s Cool, as a means to suggest how, and in what ways, activists use new media to build a movement. I also hosted an activist screening. I examined how new media facilitate or constrain communication of movement messages. I found activists used the documentary and open source activism as a rhetorical exercise in agitation to refigure public understanding of climate science and attitudes toward U.S. climate change policy. Everything’s Cool positioned climate activism, and participating in the movement broadly, as accessible and acceptable, helping to rhetorically constitute a new kind of citizen activist, shifting power roles to a grassroots network of local leaders.

<p>Arguably, the Schumpeterian ideology of “creative destruction” saying that eventually even the most secure monopoly will be destroyed by a new technology, a new idea, or a shift in tastes could be applied to open source software. Currently, the proprietary software holds a strong position in the software market. Nevertheless, one could see a surge in articles and acceptance among organisations concerning open source software.</p><p>Proprietary software companies like Microsoft are still gaining ground within the Swedish municipalities. Although one get the impression that municipalities generally are positive toward open source software, the decision-making process often results in choosing a proprietary software alternative. However, one could question which are the underlying factors and to what extent are these factors affecting the decision-making process of municipalities integrating or migrating into open source software?</p><p>In order to study this phenomenon, we chose a quantitative approach using a questionnaire as the tool for data gathering. The sample consisted of 100 randomly selected municipalities. A pre study was made through an interview in order to strengthen the accuracy of the questionnaire which later on was sent out to the IT manager at each municipality in the sample.</p><p>The organisational-, environmental-, user- and system level are four main factors affecting the decision-making process concerning open source software. Among these, the organisational factor was the only one which had a significant negative impact on the decision-making process concerning open source software. The importance of being able to integrate different software increases the need for compatibility which, according to the IT managers, is facilitated using a standardized software environment offered by for example Microsoft.</p>

<p>Free and Open Source Software has not only increased researchers’ interest about community-driven software development, but lately, interest from commercial actors increased as well. In addition, some scientists have claimed that Open Source Software has entered a new phase: OSS 2.0. Even so, a coherent way of analyzing commercial Open Source ventures is still missing.</p><p>Commercial Open Source firms’ strategies are often described using the term “business models”. However, these models often lack stringent structures and have been used primarily to describe the firms’ offerings and methods to earn revenue.</p><p>Through the adaptation of an existing, firmly theoretically-based analytical business model framework, this thesis suggests a new analysis model for studying for-profit Open Source companies. In addition, the framework is generically constructed, ensuring its usability for other industries as well. The model consists of three elements: <em>market positions, operational platform</em> and <em>offering</em>.</p><p>This particular study concerned four software product vendors, all of which base their products on Open Source Software. When analyzing their business, insights were made about how these firms operated. The result show that there are certain key elements and factors that determine if a company has a sustainable business or not. From the analysis framework, three elements were refined. The main <em>Open Source Software project</em> connects the market positions and the operational platform; and from the offering, the <em>product and service</em> and the<em> revenue model</em> were very important.</p><p>The study identified eight key factors which influenced the elements: <em>brand</em> for the product, the company and the Open Source Software project; <em>community</em>, that is the sum of the non-paying users and developers connected to Open Source Software projects; <em>resources</em>, which are community-based resources such as development and testing; <em>legitimacy,</em> the perceived legitimacy regarding licenses and the revenue models; <em>control,</em> i.e. the control the firm has of the software; <em>ability to charge</em>, or how the company can charge for its services; <em>customers</em>, the paying users; and finally <em>volume</em>, which is the number of paying customers.</p><p>The findings also indicate that companies interested in working with the open-source community have to be able to balance the demands from both their customers and the community in order to benefit and gain competitive advantage.</p> / Report code: LiU-TEK-LIC 2008:26.

Die Folien skizzieren einen Projektantrag, der (2008 und überarbeitet 2009) bei der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG eingereicht wurde. Absicht der beiden Antragssteller, des Instituts der Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Angewandten Informationsforschung (IAI, http://www.iai.uni-sb.de/iaide/index.htm) und der Saarländischen Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek (SULB, http://www.sulb.uni-saarland.de), war es, die am IAI entwickelte Software AUTINDEX zur halbautomatischen Verschlagwortung in Open-Access-Repositories einzubinden. Da Autoren große Mühe mit der Verschlagwortung ihrer Dokumente nach der Schlagwortnormdatei (SWD) haben, sollten sie, ganz im Sinne des "Easy Submission"-Postulats, beim Enspielen der Dokumente unterstützt werden. Mit Hilfe einer linguistisch intelligenten Software sollten automatisch Schlagwörter aus der SWD zu einem eingereichten Dokument erzeugt und dem Autoren angeboten werden. Dieser hätte anschließend entschieden, welche der angebotenen Schlagwörter er dem Dokument zuweisen möchte. Der typische Workflow beim Einspielen von Dokumenten verlangt vom Autor das Ausfüllen eines Metadatenformulars, idealerweise inklusive der Beschreibung mit SWD-Schlagworten. Da die SWD den Autoren nicht vertraut ist, vergeben diese meist unexakte, zu grobe oder falsche Schlagworte - oder solche, die in der SWD nicht existieren. Daher wird ein aufwändiges Nachbearbeiten seitens des Serverbetreibers nötig, der zwar über Expertise in der SWD-Nutzung verfügt, allerdings das Dokument nicht so exakt beschreiben kann wie es dem Autoren möglich wäre. Für ein exaktes Retrieval wäre es sinnvoll, wenn die Wissenschaftler selbst eine exakte Verschlagwortung vornähmen. Die im mittlerweile leider abgelehnten Antrag geplante prototypische, offene und nachnutzbare Einbindung einer Software zur automatischen Vergabe von SWD-Schlagworten hätte eine erhebliche Erleichterung des Veröffentlichungs- und Bearbeitungsprozesses einerseits und eine Verbesserung der Metadatenqualität andererseits gesichert.

Bekanntlich gibt es für fast jede erdenkliche Aufgabe ein Open-Source-Programm. Bis auf einige Ausnahmen ist das Angebot an Software für Amateurastronomen allerdings recht unübersichtlich. Der Vortrag soll deshalb eine Übersicht über verschiedene Software-Projekte geben, die für Astrofotografie und astronomische Beobachtungen nützlich sind. Einfache Demonstrationen werden die Einsatzmöglichkeiten dieser Programme verdeutlichen und sollen dazu anregen, den Nachtimmel selbst mit Feldstecher und Kamera zu erkunden.

Thesis (Ph.D)--Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2010. / Committee Chair: Bruckman, Amy; Committee Member: Grinter, Rebecca; Committee Member: Grudin, Jonathan; Committee Member: Guzdial, Mark; Committee Member: Kolodner, Janet. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.

Thesis (MTech. degree in Computer Systems.)--Tshwane University of Technology, 2008 / Open source software (OSS) is becoming, increasingly, an alternative to proprietary software (PS), particularly in the global government sector. The main objective of this dissertation is to investigate the status of OSS implementation in the SA government by surveying 40 national departments and targeting Information Technology (IT) directors and managers. The contribution of this research study is an OSS implementation model (OSSI), which is proposed as a possible solution to improve the status of OSS usage in the SA government departments. In conclusion, the proposed model is evaluated against other available OSS models using the set criteria.

Η παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία εξερευνά την αξιοποίηση εκπαιδευτικού λογισμικού ανοικτού κώδικα για την υποστήριξη της διδασκαλίας των μαθημάτων της «Αρχιτεκτονικής υπολογιστή» και του «Μικροπρογραμματισμού». Μετά από μία προσεκτική έρευνα επιλέγεται το MythSim, το οποίο και προσαρμόζεται κατάλληλα στην ελληνική γλώσσα. Το λογισμικό αξιολογείται για την παιδαγωγική και εκπαιδευτική αξιοποίησή του, ενώ σχεδιάζεται και ένα πλήρες σύνολο δραστηριοτήτων με σκοπό να μυήσουν σταδιακά τον μαθητευόμενο στον προγραμματισμό σε χαμηλό επίπεδο. / This diploma exploits the benefits of an educational open source software in supporting the teaching of "Computer architecture" and "Microprogramming". After a careful search the MythSim software is selected and adapted to the modern greek language. The software is evaluated for its pedagogical and educational use and a complete set of activities is designed to gradually initiate the student in low-level programming.

Σε αυτήν τη διπλωματική εργασία θα ασχοληθούμε με την απομακρυσμένη διαχείριση συστημάτων και δικτύων, ως υπηρεσία σ’ ένα μεγάλο δίκτυο όπως το Πανελλήνιο Σχολικό Δίκτυο. Η εργασία αποτυπώνει τους παράγοντες που επηρεάζουν τη διαχείριση των συστημάτων ενός δικτύου και την ανάπτυξη μιας υπηρεσίας απομακρυσμένης κεντρικής διαχείρισης υπολογιστικών συστημάτων σε IP δίκτυα ευρείας περιοχής. Μελετήθηκε η υπάρχουσα αρχιτεκτονική μιας τέτοιας υπηρεσίας, έγινε επανασχεδιασμός και εφαρμογή της. Παράλληλα μελετήθηκαν οι δυνατότητες προσαρμοστικότητας ενός εμπορικού και ενός ανοικτού κώδικα εργαλείου. Στη συνέχεια παρουσιάστηκαν τα αποτελέσματα εφαρμογής και των δύο εργαλείων και έγινε μια συγκριτική μελέτη. Τέλος προτάθηκαν λύσεις ανάπτυξης λογισμικού(agile development) με βάση τις state of the art εξελίξεις της διαχείρισης τέτοιων ομάδων, και πως μπορούν να εφαρμοστούν στην υπηρεσία απομακρυσμένης διαχείρισης και να της δώσουν ένα μακροπρόθεσμο κύκλο ζωής και ανάπτυξης / The object of the thesis is the remote management of systems of a network, as a service at the Greek School Network (GSN). The thesis presents the factors that influence the management of the systems of a network and the development of the central remote system management service via IP networks of wide area. We studied the already status of such a service and then we preceded at the redesign and implementation. We also studied the adaptability of one commercial and one open source tool. The next step is to present the results of the implementation of the above two tools and the compare between them. At the end, we suggested processes of software development, according to the principles of agile development. We presented how these techniques can give long life and support at the service of remote system management.