Examining success factors of open source software repositories: The case of OSOR.eu portal

Abstract

The EC decided in 2007 to develop the Open Source Observatory and Repository in the European Union (OSOR.eu) portal. The OSOR.eu portal was developed based on the paradigm of open source software and e-government initiatives for sharing news, ideas and solutions among public administrations of the European Union. Through the OSOR.eu portal, sharing solutions for public administration can be effective way how to reduce expenses to ICT projects for public administration, because basic public administration issues are similar in different countries. For citizens and business, OSOR.eu portal also have indirect benefits that can be achieved through faster and more effective development of e-Government services. However, there has been no research to examine what the portal OSOR.eu portal should consider for its success while various benefits of the OSOR.eu portal are expected. The contributions of the OSOR.eu portal to the development process of e-Government services in the EU also need to be addressed to demonstrate the impact of OSOR.eu portal to the e-Government services. This study examined the success factors of open source software repositories designed for e-Government by employing the revised DeLone & McLean information systems success model to the OSOR.eu portal and the key success factors of the OSOR.eu portal and identified the main net benefits for the OSOR.eu users. One hundred and seventeen users of the OSOR.eu portal participated in the survey and the method of partial least squares was employed to analysis the data. The results indicate that information quality is the strongest factor to affect the net benefits of OSOR.eu. Service quality plays a significant role in the success of the open source software repository. This study also shows that organization type and job relevance are moderators for the success of the OSOR.eu portal. This study has implications for how governments can improve the development of public services using open source softwa...