Lost and Gained in Translation: Adoption of Open Source Software Development at Hewlett-Packard

Abstract

Abstract.What happens when an organization form that has emerged in one context is brought into a different context? In this paper, a longitudinal field study approach is used to explore how Hewlett-Packard (HP) molded open source software development (OSSD) into a proprietary software development approach called "Progressive Open Source" (POS). With the help of actornetwork theory, we understand this as a process of translation and find that some central characteristics of OSSD where lost in the translation into POS while other characteristics were gained.

Adoption of open source software in software-intensive organizations – A systematic literature review

“…providing MySQL, Qt, JBoss) [7,17,202] Using software development practices, often associated with OSS communities, within a company or consortium of companies (e.g. using practices like code sharing, peer reviewing, user contributions) [61,135,203] sively used. Second, there are large numbers of OSS CASE tools available 3 .…”

“…Nevertheless, practices such as user participation, short release cycles, and peer code reviews have frequently been associated with OSS projects and are often labeled "OSS practices" [72,166,215]. Lately, several organizations have tried to learn from the development practices in successful OSS projects, through applying these practices within their own organization [60,135,203].…”

A comparative study of challenges in integrating Open Source Software and Inner Source Software

“…Both CSI and CDP are infrastructure-based programs. The translation process of OSSD into practices within HP (within its POS program) and its partners has been further reported in [1,25].…”

“…Most notable are the studies of Inner Source at HP [1,6,25], AlcatelLucent [5,24], and Philips Healthcare [4,18]. These studies all report on how OSS principles have been applied within these organizations, and focus on what works and what does not work within a corporate environment.…”

'Letting go of Control' to Embrace Open Source: Implications for Company and Community

“…The literature on open source adoption by commercial enterprises (large, medium and small) [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] covers a range of issues, some of which include governance and the implications of open licenses, business model innovations, and value adding strategies. The increasingly significant scale of the use of open source code within corporate environments, and in particular in the technology and IT services sector was until recently a rather underresearched area [19] though, some focused studies have recently emerged [20][21][22][23].…”