مدل قبول واقعیت کاربر از نرم افزار منبع باز

Abstract The development and implementation of open source software (OSS) is one of the most current topics within the academic, business and political environments. Traditionally, research in OSS has focused on identifying individual personal motives for participating in the development of an OSS project, analyzing specific OSS solutions, or the OSS movement, itself. Nevertheless, user acceptance towards this type of technology has received very little attention. For this reason, the main purpose of the current study is to identify the variables and factors that have a direct effect on individual attitude towards OSS adoption. Therefore, we have developed a technological acceptance model on behalf of the users towards a solution based on OSS. For this development, we have considered the technology acceptance model. Findings show that OSS is a viable solution for information management for organizations.

Introduction From a professional, academic, business and political standpoint, few topics are as current as the development and implementation of open source software (OSS). The changes introduced by OSS in the software industry have been surprising, and represent a radical change of perspective in developmental business models and software distribution. In that sense, OSS is use for example as a commercial weapon to attack competitors, as a commercial strategy to acquire new market shares, or as a powerful means to disseminate innovation and research results (Fuggetta, 2003). This change has turned OSS into one of the most debated topics among software users and analysts. In recent years, OSS use has rapidly grown among organizations and users, thanks to the advantages that it offers when compared to proprietary software (Ruffin & Ebert, 2004). One of the first perceived advantages of OSS is the cost reduction, not just licensing revenues but for the increasingly available skill set of OS techies in the workforce. Another set of important advantage are the more reliable and secure OSS solutions than their commercial counterpart, and the increasing adoption of OSS as a business strategy (Carbone & Stoddard, 2001). As a consequence of its evolution, a great amount of research has been done on OSS. Traditionally, this research has focused on, either the identification of the personal motives of the people who participate in the development of an OSS project (Bonaccorsi and Rossi, 2003b, Hars and Ou, 2002, Hertel et al., 2003, Lakhani and Wolf, 2003, Ye and Kishida, 2003 and Ryan and Deci, 2000), or the analysis of specific solutions that are developed by the OSS movement (Carbone and Stoddard, 2001, Federman, 2006, Fink, 2003, Franke and Von Hippel, 2003 and Mustonen, 2003), or on the OSS movement, itself (Bonaccorsi and Rossi, 2003a, Dwan, 2004, Fuggetta, 2003, Johnson, 2002, Krishnamurthy, 2003, Lakhani and Von Hippel, 2003, Lerner and Tirole, 2002, Sandred, 2001, Scacchi, 2002, Shen, 2005, Van Wendel and Egyedi, 2005 and West, 2003). However, user acceptance towards this type of technology has received very little attention. For this reason, we have researched and developed an acceptance model for what users feel to be a solution based on OSS. For this development, we have considered Davis’ Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989) which provides the theoretical and methodological framework capable of explaining OSS acceptance among users. Also, we want to develop and validate a questionnaire for measuring the acceptance of OSS on future studies. With these objective in mind, we have carried out a study on users of the Linux operating system.

6. Conclusions Even though research on OSS has proliferated in recent years, the acceptance of this type of technological solution on behalf of the users had not been tackled. Thus, the main objective that we pose with this research is twofold; one, identify those factors which directly influence user behavior, and two, determine user acceptance towards OSS. With the aim of developing a technological acceptance model on the part of the OSS users, the technology acceptance model has allowed to learn about and identify the main factors that influence in this acceptance. In this way, the development of an acceptance model on behalf of the OSS users has allowed us to learn about and identify the main factors that influence in such acceptance. Findings show that OSS developers should consider the future acceptance of potential users. This type of studies can offer some indications about the demanded characteristics by OSS users. Based on our study, users demand OSS with high quality, wide capabilities and flexibility, because users perceive that these OSS are easier to use and more useful. It is foregone that OSS with these properties will have a wide diffusion. Likewise, we must not forget to emphasize the findings related to the social influence that the OSS user environment has on the acceptance of this technology. Thus, the independence of this construct on the perceived usefulness and the perceived ease of software use have been confirmed. Users do not adopt this technology due to any influence or pressure from the environment in which they find themselves. Their use, however, depends on other motives, such as the search for reputation within the OSS movement, which is completely independent of social influence. On the other hand, these findings offer two fundamental practical implications for users and organizations. First, in order to stimulate an adequate use of OSS, organizations and users would have to select OSS which is useful and easy to use. Second, organizations and users should consider criteria as software quality, systems capability and software flexibility for selecting the most adequate OSS. In general, these properties make OSS solutions easier for users to accept them. Furthermore, these findings show that we have developed and validated a questionnaire for measuring the OSS acceptance which could be used on future studies. However, for applying this questionnaire, it would be advisable to identify other factors that influence on OSS acceptance of any OSS user. In particular, from the point of view of the usability, we think that it would be interesting to develop a study for analyzing the application of OSS for information management in organizations. In this manner, based on our findings, OSS solutions for organizations seem to be a viable alternative front to proprietary software. Moreover, we must not overlook the existence of the constructs that have not been included in the study given that the proposed model does not explain 100% of the behavior towards OSS use on behalf of the users. Aside from this limitation, we have managed to obtain satisfactory results.