OOSS (Organization for Open Source Software) Study
>From the PDF:
,----[ Executive Summary ]
| As the use of open source software (OSS) has taken off over the past
| decade, there has been increasing interest in the potential of open source
| to address longstanding concerns in the higher education community
| regarding the cost and performance of commercial software products. A
| common view is that existing proprietary options do not have the features
| required or allow for cost-effective customization. Many administrators are
| concerned that academic institutions are ceding too much control for
| mission-critical tasks to an increasingly concentrated field of commercial
| vendors. OSS advocates argue that open source software can address these
| issues, and moreover that higher education has proven it can produce high
| quality and innovative software. However, adoption of OSS may well be
| hindered by uncertainty about future support for and improvements in the
| software. Furthermore, without coordination, there is likely to be wasteful
| duplication both of development efforts and of governance structures, and
| suboptimal attention will be paid to issues of interoperability.
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http://www.ithaka.org/strategic/ooss.htm
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