Information Systems Science
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(Hanken School of Economics, 2015)Economics and Society – 287Open source software is everywhere. From phones, tablets, TVs, and game consoles to less self-evident examples like cars, washing machines, and the International Space Station. However, what makes open source software remarkable is not where it can be found, but rather what can be done with it. One of the most astounding rights guaranteed by all open source software licenses is the right to fork the source code. In other words, the right to copy any program, either in part or in its entirety, and use that program to create a new, modified version of it. The right to fork has an enormous impact on both the development and governance of open source software. Despite its significance, code forking has seen little academic study. This dissertation examines the right to fork, its impact and significance, and how it is viewed and practiced by developers. The study draws on data consisting of hundreds of forks, interviews with open source software programmers, and an in-depth analysis of the birth of the MariaDB fork. This dissertation is relevant to anyone seeking a greater general understanding of how open source works and why it is considered a superior software development model. It may also serve as a useful resource for firms seeking to harness the power of open source software. Furthermore, it offers important insights to those who want to better understand how code forking is practiced and viewed by developers. This study finds that forks are primarily started for non-competitive reasons, with unique features or goals that distinguish them from their parent projects. Competitive forks are rare but do exist, with some motivating factors being to ensure the freedom of the code and the community’s ability to contribute to it. Furthermore, though developers may not always agree with the forking of a project, they nonetheless consider the right to fork to be of vital importance, and a cornerstone of free and open source software. In many ways, open source can be thought of as a return to how software was developed before the emergence of proprietary licensing. The same freedoms of development and sharing that thrived back then can be found today in the open source community. Indeed, in many ways the right to fork is synonymous with freedom: the freedom to explore and experiment, the freedom to benefit from the work done by others, and the freedom to keep any project relevant and vibrant even when faced with leadership decisions that are deemed unsupportable. In short, the right to fork is open source software’s guardian of freedom and watchdog of meritocracy.
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(Svenska handelshögskolan, 2014)Economics and Society – 268Scientific journal publishing as a practice was established almost 350 years ago, having since become the main mechanism for publishing advances in academic research. As time has passed the practices of peer-review and journal publishing have become increasingly established and professional. The financial circumstances for operating a scientific journal were long dictated by the necessity of distributing paper issues to subscribers. Like in other media industries the shift from physical to digital opened up radically new possibilities for business and content delivery. Open Access (OA), i.e. free online access to articles published in scientific journals, has been a disruptive innovation enabled by the web. OA has emerged through a mix of ideology, behavior, technology, policy, and business. Journal articles can be made free for readers to access through two main mechanisms 1) by being published in a journal which makes the content free for anyone to access (gold OA), or 2) by authors themselves making the manuscripts available to an unrestricted audience by uploading them to a location openly on the web (green OA). The purpose of this thesis is to explore, measure, and analyze the uptake of OA in scientific journal publishing. The historical development, the current situation, and the future potential are analyzed through quantitative publication data covering both journal-mediated (gold OA) and indirect author-side mechanisms (green OA). Since this is an area where hardly any systematic research has previously been done the development of OA measurement methods that are both accurate enough and cost-effective in terms of resources needed to implement them has been an integral part of the research. The thesis consists of five articles each contributing a complementary perspective on OA uptake. Through the research process the initial broad snapshot measurement has been complemented with longitudinal and in-depth studies focusing more intensively on specific sub-areas of OA. For gold OA the results demonstrate that the number of articles published in OA journals has been steadily increasing annually since the early 1990s, with recent OA growth being strongly supported by journals utilizing the author-pays business model. For green OA the results prominently highlight the unused potential there is for authors to provide article manuscripts openly on the web through self-archiving. OA has lately been brought up to the front and center of both public policy discourse and journal publishing as a modern business area. The results of the thesis demonstrate that journal publishing is in a state of transformation to better meet the needs of scientific communication today and tomorrow.
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(Svenska handelshögskolan, 2005)Economics and SocietySeveral researchers are of the opinion that there are many benefits in using the object-oriented paradigm in information systems development. If the object-oriented paradigm is used, the development of information systems may, for example, be faster and more efficient. On the other hand, there are also several problems with the paradigm. For example, it is often considered complex, it is often difficult to make use of the reuse concept and it is still immature in some areas. Although there are several interesting features in the object-oriented paradigm, there is still little comprehensive knowledge of the benefits and problems associated with it. The objective of the following study was to investigate and to gain more understanding of the benefits and problems of the object-oriented paradigm. A review of previous studies was made and twelve benefits and twelve problems were established. These benefits and problems were then analysed, studied and discussed. Further a survey and some case studies were made in order to get some knowledge on what benefits and problems with the object-oriented paradigm Finnish software companies had experienced. One hundred and four companies answered the survey that was sent to all Finnish software companies with five or more employees. The case studies were made with six large Finnish software companies. The major finding was that Finnish software companies were exceptionally positive towards the object-oriented information systems development and had experienced very few of the proposed problems. Finally two models for further research were developed. The first model presents connections between benefits and the second between problems.
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(Svenska handelshögskolan, 2010)Economics and SocietyUtvecklingen inom informationsteknologin (IT) har under de senaste decennierna bidragit till stora förändringar i vårt samhälle och i våra industrier. Tillgången till bland annat persondatorer, mobiltelefoner och Internet har förändrat vårt sätt att hantera information och att kommunicera. Att IT också ökat företags och industriers produktivitet och effektivitet har kunnat mätas. Detta har utgjort bakgrunden till avhandlingens frågeställning, nämligen hur IT har påverkat bygg- och fastighetssektorn. Syftet har varit att undersöka hur och i vilken utsträckning IT används inom sektorn, samt varför användningen inom sektorn sker på det sättet och i den utsträckningen. Fem datainsamlingar har utförts för att uppfylla forskningens syfte. Tre har utförts kvantitativt genom enkätundersökningar och två kvalitativt genom intervjustudier. Den kvantitativa delen inleddes med att skapa enkätverktyget, vilket sedan använts tre gånger. Datainsamlingarna har skett under perioden 1998 till 2009 och de skapar därmed, förutom ögonblicksbilder, ett longitudinellt perspektiv på utvecklingen. Tre fokusområden har identifierats som särskilt intressanta ur ett sektorsperspektiv: elektroniska affärer (EDI), elektronisk dokumenthantering (EDM) samt byggnadsinformationsmodeller (BIM). Dessa har studerats både kvantitativt och kvalitativt. Undersökningarna visar att tillgången till IT-infrastruktur inom sektorn är god, men att IT huvudsakligen används för att effektivisera befintliga arbetssätt och processer med fokus på administration. IT har också bidragit starkt till bättre kommunikationer. Dock används IT i liten omfattning för att skapa nya produkter, processer eller affärsmodeller. Entreprenörerna är de som använder IT i lägst utsträckning. Bygg- och fastighetssektorns starkt projektbaserade organisation medför svårigheter för innovationsspridning, särskilt när innovationerna kräver engagemang från flera aktörer. Tre sådana innovationer, EDM, EDI och BIM har under de senaste åren börjat spridas inom sektorn där EDM hittills nått högst användning och BIM lägst. Olika modeller för införande och implementering av IT i företagen inom sektorn har använts för att studera vilka faktorer som påverkar beslut på olika nivåer. Den praktiska nyttan eller det förväntade resultatet av varje innovation är en starkt pådrivande faktor för beslut. Initiala beslut för införande har visat sig ske på olika nivåer. För EDM sker detta i projekt, för EDI i de enskilda företagen och för BIM hos individer. EDM har tydligast fullföljt implementeringsmodellens steg, följt av EDI och därefter BIM. Fokusområdet BIM har störst potential att skapa positiva effekter samt påverkar processer och metoder i störst utsträckning. Tidiga tillämpare bland företagen har börjat tillsätta resurser för dessa förändringar, men det har ännu inte skett i samma omfattning som för de två andra områdena.
