Using Roles for OSS Adoption Strategy Models

Increasing adoption of Open Source Software (OSS) in information system engineering has led to the emergence of different OSS adoption strategies that affect and shape organizations’ business models. OSS adoption strategies can be operationalized by i* models describing the consequences of choosing each strategy. When an organization decides to adopt an OSS component, it becomes a part of the OSS ecosystem around this component. Therefore, OSS adoption strategy models need to be structured in the way to explicitly describe the role of the adopter organization within the OSS ecosystem, which may be quite different depending on the level of compromise that the organization prefers. Making visible the roles played by the different agents involved in the OSS ecosystem, the involvement of the organization in the OSS community arises naturally. This paper includes a set of roles that emerge in an OSS ecosystem and their responsibilities, and describes the issues behind the fact of using the i* role and plays constructs.