O'Reilly's Latest Report Shows Continued Open-Source Growth
by Reuven Lerner - Jul. 24, 2008Comments (0)- Related Blog Posts
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The term "open source" has been around for more than a decade, and open-source software has become a strategic tool for a very large number of companies. Yet, there are still those in the computer industry who wonder about the growth of open source -- how widespread it is, how fast it is growing, and whether jobs are available. Just this morning, I met with an IT outsourcing company that specializes in Microsoft products, who was ignorant (but quite curious) about the growth of open source, and whether it might be relevant to his business.
Open-source fans will thus be delighted to read a new survey published by O'Reilly Media, and announced at their annual Open Source Conference (OSCon), taking place this week in Portland, Oregon. Their report, called "Open Source in the Enterprise," details the ways in which open source is being adopted by large organizations.
Not surprisingly, O'Reilly indicates that overall usage of open source is growing, pointing to download statistics from Sourceforge along with usage trends inside of companies. Most striking was their claim that between 5 and 15 percent of IT hires are now recruited for their knowledge of open source software.
This increased interest in open source stems in part from budget concerns. O'Reilly claims that IT budgets are being cut by 3-5 percent each year, despite the fact that IT is an increasingly crucial part of a company's infrastructure. This means that companies are having to find ways to do more by spending less. Open-source software, which amortizes the cost of software development over many people in many organizations, is one way to handle this. After all, it's often cheaper to have a member of your IT staff contribute to an open-source project that you can use in your company, than to pay the licensing fees associated with an enterprise software package.
While there are certainly challenges associated with bringing open source into the enterprise, this report would seem to indicate that the trend is clearly in its favor. Organizations that fail to incorporate open source, and to do so carefully, will find themselves in an increasingly difficult position, as competitors use open source for strategic advantage.
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