Setting the scene

Outsourcing of the software development activity has been on the increase in recent years according to both US and European reports. However, in many cases outsourcing of software development, often referred to as global software engineering, has not delivered on its promise (e.g. Nakatsu and Iacovou 2009; Tiwana and Keil 2009; Ó Conchúir et al. 2009). The success of the open source software movement (Feller et al. 2005), which seems to overcome many of the challenges associated with global software engineering, has been an inspiration for a number of specific forms of software sourcing, including opensourcing (Ågerfalk and Fitzgerald 2008), innersourcing (Stol and Fitzgerald 2015) and crowdsourcing (Stol and Fitzgerald 2014a). By integrating the findings from these earlier studies, this book explores and compares these forms of open source-inspired sourcing. These novel approaches to software sourcing differ from traditional outsourcing in significant ways and little is known about how they can work in practice. Therefore, our goal is to provide research-based advice to managers and developers facing software sourcing decisions.