Article ID: | iaor20115314 |
Volume: | 51 |
Issue: | 3 |
Start Page Number: | 597 |
End Page Number: | 608 |
Publication Date: | Jun 2011 |
Journal: | Decision Support Systems |
Authors: | Zaffar Muhammad Adeel, Kumar Ram L, Zhao Kexin |
Keywords: | commerce, economics, social |
The rising popularity of open source software (OSS) calls for a better understanding of the drivers of its adoption and diffusion. In this research, we propose an integrated framework that simultaneously investigates a broad range of social and economic factors on the diffusion dynamics of OSS using an Agent Based Computational Economics (ACE) approach. We find that interoperability costs, variability of OSS support costs, and duration of PS upgrade cycle are major determinants of OSS diffusion. Furthermore, there are interaction effects between network topology, network density and interoperability costs, which strongly influence the diffusion dynamics of OSS. The proposed model can be used as a building block to further investigate complex competitive dynamics in software markets.