CATEGORIES OF FLOSS USERS

F/LOSS adaptation and usage highly depends on the user’s satisfaction with technology as well as the user’s awareness about F/LOSS (Gwebu and Wang, 2010). Gwebu and Wang divided the users according to the professional background (developers and non-developers) and social affiliation (community members and non community members). According to their professional background and social affiliation, users have enormous perception about F/LOSS and use different software. But only professional background or social affiliation is not responsible for the end users perception of F/LOSS, the combination of these two; that is the professional background and social affiliation plays a major role on end user awareness of F/LOSS. 

The developers compose a reasonably small and specialist, but profitable market whereas the non-developers makes up for the mainstream market. This is because the developers have the technical knowledge needed for the efficient use of the F/LOSS software and the non developers are the vital group of the F/LOSS software users. The community members present the penetrated market because they are already using the F/LOSS software or learning how to use them. These members are either learning about the F/LOSS software or they are familiar with it and helping other people in the community about certain F/LOSS software. On the other hand the non community members represent the potential market. These members are yet to be attracted and captured by F/LOSS. The combination of developers, non developers, community members, non-community members provides the user segment for F/LOSS; namely Potential mainstream market, Potential niche market, Penetrated mainstream market and Penetrated niche market (Gwebu and Wang, 2010).














Figure F/LOSS users and market (Adopted from Gwebu and Wang, 2010).

The end users who are neither a developer nor a participant in the F/LOSS community (who are not a member in F/LOSS community) are the hardest market to capture for the F/LOSS applications. It is because of the fact that they neither have the technical knowledge nor are fluent in software usage. Typically they are the end users who just use typical software like messenger, internet explorer (which comes with windows operating system), office package etc to satisfy their basic needs and these needs are fulfilled by other proprietary software which is easily available in the market. These end users are categorised as the potential mainstream market. Potential niche market segment are the developers who do not join the F/LOSS community group and they don't clearly specify their interest or disinterest in F/LOSS packages. They are categorised as the potential niche market because some of the F/LOSS application satisfies their needs which the proprietary application doesn’t. F/LOSS application comes with the source code and as being a developer; they could easily modify the source code and rebuild the software to meet their specific need. The end users who are not a developer but are members in F/LOSS community are categorised as penetrated mainstream market. They use the F/LOSS application and communicate with the community with the help of forums. They seek help about the F/LOSS applications through the online discussion forum and or suggest and help the other community members regarding F/LOSS. The last segment consists of the end users who are both developers and are community members. They are categorised as penetrated niche market. Being a developer they have the capability to modify the source code and rebuild the application. These developers also modify the source code so that more functions are added and it meets the needs which no other proprietary software offers or what the current F/LOSS software doesn't offer (Gwebu and Wang, 2010). This is generally to meet the unique and diverse function needs in the application (Ousterhout, 1999; Hippel, 2001).

Developers having good technical skill and knowledge can easily get to familiarise themselves with the F/LOSS application, which results in higher satisfaction for this group with F/LOSS application (Downing, 1999). Recently large number of F/LOSS users has become the member of F/LOSS community. Some of the reasons are to get support regarding the usage of F/LOSS application, give support to those in need, get recommendation in applications to use and get opinion (for overall application and finding bugs) of the F/LOSS application they have made (Krogh et al., 2003). These users interaction with other members in the community may also shape their perception towards F/LOSS (Sowe et al., 2008). The end users who are members of the F/LOSS community have higher satisfaction with F/LOSS application (Gwebu and Wang, 2010).

REFERENCES
http://pravab.blogspot.com/2011/09/references.html

 

 

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