Abstract

Over the last decade, free and open source software (FOSS) has gradually become recognized by different actors in society outside the FOSS communities and increasingly incorporated in corporate software development contexts, challenging proprietary software practices. Most literature describing this transition is focusing on the value of using FOSS as an efficient alternative to established models for software development. This focus on efficiency and economic value of FOSS is not sufficient if we want to gain a deeper understanding of the many aspects of FOSS values in the intersection of corporations and movements In order to articulate these different values, we propose a theoretical framework of justificatory logics including a civic, domestic, inspirational, popular, market and industrial logic. First we make an analysis of the history of FOSS, identifying how these logics have developed over time. We argue that this development forms the backbone of an emerging configuration of these logics, manifesting a new spirit of FOSS in terms of the adoption of free and open source software, methods and practices in corporations today. This new spirit is then analyzed based on interviews with programmers employed by firms engaging in FOSS. By understanding how these justificatory logics come to play and interplay, corporations that want to adopt FOSS can gain strategic advantages beyond efficiency.

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