|
|
|
Katsamakas E., Jamanaji B., Raghupathi W., Gao W. 2009. A classification analysis of the success of open source health information technology projects. International Journal of Healthcare Information Systems, 4(4) -- forthcoming. A classification analysis of the success of open source health information technology projects
Katsamakas E., Jamanaji B., Raghupathi W., Gao W.
Abstract: As the number of open source software (OSS) projects in health care grows rapidly, researchers are faced with the challenge of understanding and explaining the success of the open source phenomenon. This paper proposes a research framework that examines the roles of project sponsorship, license type, development status and technological complements in the success of open source health information technology (HIT) projects and it develops a systematic method for classifying projects based on their success potential. Drawing from economic theory, a novel proposition in our framework suggests that higher project-license restrictiveness will increase OSS adoption, because organizations will be more confident that the OSS project will remain open source in the future. We apply the framework to a sample of open source software projects in health care. Our findings suggest that although project sponsorship and license restrictiveness influence project metrics they are not significant predictors of project success categorization. On the other hand, development status, operating system and programming language are significant predictors of an OSS project’s success categorization. We discuss research and application implications and suggest future research directions. Insights: (a) We propose a classification method for the success of open source projects. We apply the method to open source in HIT, but it can be used in any open source domain. Given the thousands of open source projects available on the web, being able to rigorously classify those projects can provide useful insight into open source development. (b) Drawing from economic theory, a novel proposition in our framework suggests that higher project-license restrictiveness will increase OSS adoption in domains like HIT, because organizations will be more confident that the OSS project will remain open source in the future. Keywords: health care, health information technology (HIT), license restrictiveness, open source software (OSS), project sponsorship, IS success, classification analysis, open source project classification
|