Crafting a Systematic Literature Review on Open-Source Platforms

This working paper unveils the crafting of a systematic literature review on open-source platforms. The high-competitive mobile devices market, where several players such as Apple, Google, Nokia and Microsoft run a platforms-war with constant shifts in their technological strategies, is gaining increasing attention from scholars. It matters, then, to review previous literature on past platforms-wars, such as the ones from the PC and game-console industries, and assess its implications to the current mobile devices platforms-war. The paper starts by justifying the purpose and rationale behind this literature review on open-source platforms. The concepts of open-source software and computer-based platforms were then discussed both individually and in unison, in order to clarify the core-concept of “open-source platform” that guides this literature review. The detailed design of the employed methodological strategy is then presented as the central part of this paper. The paper concludes with preliminary findings organizing previous literature on open-source platforms for the purpose of guiding future research in this area.