The Technical, Non-technical Issues and the Challenges of Migration to Free and Open Source Software
Interest has been raised over software that has been developed not by dedicated software companies but by groups of independent programmers with different level of experience who collaborate over the Internet and offer the fruits of their labor free. Open source software communities have successfully developed many software pieces and suggest Free Open Source Software (FOSS) as a solution for a lot of computing problems, although most computer users only use proprietary applications. Many proprietary software users claim that open source software invites problems, such as, generating software codes that could be vulnerable to hackers and prone to errors. This paper presents an overview of the real issues and challenges for the migration to free and open source software (FOSS) and suggests some important criteria for assessing migration issues and challenges. Migratory problems may be divided into technical and non-technical issues and challenges. The technical issues and challenges include performance, technical infrastructure, usability, integrity, support availability, security, information flow control, data migration, flexibility and ease of use and management and maintenance of OSS, whereas the non-technical issues and challenges include organizational culture, human factors (staff skills) and legal issues.
Keywords: Free Open Source Software, FOSS, Performance, Usability, Integrity, Availability, Security, Flexibility and Ease of Use, human factors and legal issues
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Mohamed Sarrab
Dr. Mohamed Sarrab is currently working as a research associate at CIRC (Communication and Information Research Center), Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. Obtained Ph.D. degree in computer science from De Montfort university, UK. M.Sc. degree in computer science and information technology from VSB technical university of Ostrava, Czech Republic and B.Sc. degree in computer science from Al Zawia University, Libya. His research interests are in areas of computer security, in particular access control and policy-based system management, Runtime Verification and Information Flow Control. He is also interesting in computer forensic, mobile applications, open source software and Java byte code instrumentation for monitoring and security reasons
Mahmoud Elbasir
Mahmoud Elbasir has M.Sc. in information System from De Montfort University 2007. He received his B.Sc. in computer science from Tripoli University Libya a. His main research interests are Information System management, E-commerce, and Software Engineering and Free open Source Software.
Laila Elgamel
Eng. Laila Elgamel has M.Sc. in Software Engineering from De Montfort University 2011. She received her B.Sc. in computer science from 7th April University Libya a. Her main research interests are Mobile Applications, M-learning, Software Engineering and Software Engineering and Free open Source Software.
Mohamed Sarrab
Dr. Mohamed Sarrab is currently working as a research associate at CIRC (Communication and Information Research Center), Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. Obtained Ph.D. degree in computer science from De Montfort university, UK. M.Sc. degree in computer science and information technology from VSB technical university of Ostrava, Czech Republic and B.Sc. degree in computer science from Al Zawia University, Libya. His research interests are in areas of computer security, in particular access control and policy-based system management, Runtime Verification and Information Flow Control. He is also interesting in computer forensic, mobile applications, open source software and Java byte code instrumentation for monitoring and security reasons
Mahmoud Elbasir
Mahmoud Elbasir has M.Sc. in information System from De Montfort University 2007. He received his B.Sc. in computer science from Tripoli University Libya a. His main research interests are Information System management, E-commerce, and Software Engineering and Free open Source Software.
Laila Elgamel
Eng. Laila Elgamel has M.Sc. in Software Engineering from De Montfort University 2011. She received her B.Sc. in computer science from 7th April University Libya a. Her main research interests are Mobile Applications, M-learning, Software Engineering and Software Engineering and Free open Source Software.
