Free and Open Source Software Technology Adoption in the Sri Lankan Banking Industry

Abstract

This research explores Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) adoption in the Sri Lankan banking sector. It produces two types of results, which are unique. One is an 8-level abstract model based on the criticality for the business, which represents all the software application usage in Sri Lankan banks. Then it presents the adoption of FOSS in banks, in terms of two quantified indices, namely General FOSS Adoption Index and Category Specific FOSS Adoption Index. The first index modeled so that it represents the ‘strategic nature of usage of FOSS’ as well as the ‘FOSS friendliness’ within the bank. The second index represents the FOSS adoption in the bank, in terms of extraction of the ‘best technological features out of them’ and the ‘level of adoption’. The results reveal that the Sri Lankan banks do not have good levels of FOSS adoption, though all the banks use FOSS applications for some purpose or another.  By further drill down into the model, it was discovered that the lack of government policy initiative towards FOSS has had a causal effect on the poor adoption ratings in the Sri Lankan banking context. Further it will greatly helpful to have FOSS supportive software business in the country, which will influence banks to get better service for FOSS products.