Adoption of open source software: A study on the information technology sector in Minas Gerais

Although the use of open-source software (OSS) is a reality for information-technology companies, there has been little academic research on the factors impacting the process by which OSS is adopted, the way OSS is adopted, and the business models as employed. The TOE (Technology, Organization and Environment) framework has been used to study the influence of technological, organizational, and environmental factors considered by companies when adopting OSS. In this work, we collected data through online surveys answered by workers in IT companies in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The proposed model for determining the impact of each factor on the adoption of OSS and on the business model practiced by IT companies was evaluated by using structural equations. The results show that three groups of factors impact the way of OSS adoption. Organizational and technological factors are the most relevant, whereas for business models only environmental factors are relevant. The most relevant technological factor identified is “reduced hardware and software costs”; the most relevant organizational factor is “flexibility of IT structure”; and the most relevant environmental factor is “reports of successful use of OSS”. We verified that IT companies in Minas Gerais use OSS in software development, either by incorporating OSS components into their software products or by employing OSS tools for software development