Promoting the penguin: Who is advocating open source software in commercial settings?

Today, all firms using or developing software are facing the question if and how to engage in open source software (OSS). Yet, little is known about the process of OSS adoption and diffusion within corporations. We address this issue. In light of qualitative evidence on the role of programmers in promoting OSS, we focus on the attitudes of employed IT professionals towards corporate OSS engagement. Our analysis is based on 25 interviews and a large-scale survey with 404 participants, performed at the telecommunications department of a multinational company and guided by the theoretical frameworks of Rogers (innovation diffusion) and Davis (Technology Acceptance Model). Our main findings concern the impact of the respondent's job function. They are consistent with theoretical considerations - and still rather surprising. Distinguishing between developers, testers, architects, project managers, and managers, we find that software testers are generally most favorable towards heightening OSS activities, followed by software architects and managers. Apart from project managers, developers are actually least favorable towards increased corporate OSS engagement, despite their large experience in working on OSS. Since developers constitute both the basic level of software development and the largest of the named groups, this finding leads us to question that OSS is a generally supported grassroots movement. Introducing OSS and open innovation processes to a corporation thus requires taking each individual's incentives based on her job function into account, and a close look at organizational aspects.