Barriers to Mission-Critical Open Source Software Adoption by Organizations: A Provider Perspective

While open source has long been increasing in the infrastructure software domain, few organizations have adopted open source for mission-critical software application. We use the Delphi method to investigate barriers to mission-critical OSS adoption as perceived by two panels of experienced providers in France (n= 18) and in Canada (Quebec) (n= 11). On average, panelists have 15 years of experience in the software industry including 9 years with open source software. By comparing the barriers selected by each group, zones of concordance and discordance are identified. We complement the open source adoption literature by adding new insights to the existing body of knowledge dominated by client perspective alone. We also anchor our findings in the extant literature by comparing our results with those of previous studies.