Open Source Software Use Rises – However Less Than 1/3rd Willing To Contribute
An Accenture survey found that 69% of organizations anticipate increased investment in open source software in 2010, with 38 % expecting to migrate mission-critical software to open source in the next twelve months.
The survey found that half of the respondents (50 percent) are fully committed to open source in their business while almost a third (28 percent) say they are experimenting with open source and keeping an open mind to using it. When it comes to the benefits of open source, the cost was no longer viewed as the primary benefit. 76 percent of respondents in the UK and US cited quality as a key benefit of open source. Two-thirds overall (70 percent) cited improved reliability. Better security/bug fixing was cited by nearly as many (69 percent) across both countries.
Open source software development on the rise but companies still not so open to sharing. One notable finding, of the survey was that less than a third (29 percent) are willing to contribute their own solutions back to the community.
The biggest challenge to open source adoption, as mentioned by 35 percent of all companies, is still around training developers on how to use open source. Furthermore, lack of senior management support appears to be a key reason given for not using open source software among organizations that have looked at it but ultimately chosen not to use it.
Nice article.Dilemma with Open Source promotors is , they preach entire world about Open source but these giants when back home, don’t share the information. Google is touted as promotor of open source:they use apache,Linux etc.But what about their Search engine algorithms? What about thei Map Reduce implementation? Same is the case with Red Hat/HP.
In that sense, mentality of Open Source promotors is not much different than that of Evil-Microsoft!!.Get the ideas from rest of the world, implement the way you want and the sell it as a secret.