Open-Source Collaboration in the Public Sector: The Need for Leadership and Value

Charlie has been an outstanding mentor, helped to expand my interest in government technology, and is the reason I became involved with this project. I would also like to give a very special thanks to John Weathersby, Executive Director of the Open Source Software Institute and Andy Stein, Director of Information Technology for the City of Newport News, Virginia for their insights, support, candor, and help in coordinating the project. I would like to thank the following individuals for giving their time and insights, which were invaluable. This project would not have been possible without their help. For her guidance, wisdom, and genuine interest in her students, I would like to thank Professor Kathryn McDermott. I would also like to thank Professor William Gibson for his guidance throughout the project. Finally, I would like to thank Lisa Hilt for her help in editing the paper and for her support throughout the process. The content and opinions represented herein are those of the researcher and not necessarily those of the Center or University. Executive Summary The " open-source " movement in information technology is largely based on the innovative licensing schemes that encourage collaboration and sharing and promise reduced cost of ownership, customizable software and the ability to extract data in a usable format. Government organizations are becoming increasingly intolerant of the forced migrations (upgrades) and closed data standards (or incompatible data standards) that typically come with the use of proprietary software. To combat the problems of interoperability and cost, governments around the globe are beginning to consider, and in some cases, even require the use of open-source software (Hahn, 2002; Wong, 2004). While there are efforts to use pre-existing open-source software, and even develop new open-source software, it appears that there are very few efforts currently working to promote collaboration between organizations. To better understand how these collaborations get initiated and function, and to identify factors that contribute to their success or failure, I identified two such collaborations, the Government Open Code Collaborative (GOCC) and the Open Source Software Institute (OSSI), and performed a comparative case study analysis. The analysis was performed through interviews with four participants from each organization. The research centered around three major questions, (1) how and why do these collaborative efforts begin; (2) how are these collaborative efforts governed; (3) and what factors appear to help or hinder these collaborative efforts? The GOCC is a " …