Linux Adoption in the Public Sector: An Economic Analysis

The Linux operating system offers information technology managers in both the private and public sectors an increasingly attractive option as a computing platform to run the powerful computer servers that are at the heart of computer networks, including the Internet itself. Platform software adoption decisions typically have lasting implications for subsequent adoption of application software as well as additional platform software itself. The significance of the Linux adoption decision is further magnified, and made more complex, by the fact that Linux is open source software, in contrast to commercial software. On top of all that, widespread publicsector adoption of open source platform software can greatly affect the economic development of a country’s entire software industry, a critically important consideration for public-sector decision makers.