Open source software: adoption is growing, but...

27/04/2015
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A new survey conducted by Black Duck shows a clear increase in the adoption of open source solutions at companies. However, it also revealed a lack of risk management and maintenance.

In this latest version, which reiterated the study of corporate behaviour toward open source solutions since 2010, the specialized supplier Black Duck Software and investment fund North Bridge confirmed the ramp-up of open source software in the business world. Companies have however been slow to formalize their open source strategies.

Adoption clearly on the rise

The study surveyed more than 1,300 professionals in the sector (professionals, ISDs and functional managers), with 78% of respondents reporting that their businesses run on open source software, while two thirds supply software to clients that is based on an open source platform. This marks a significant increase in the space of just five years, given that, in 2010, only 42% of respondents ran on such solutions. The surveyed professionals’ forecasts were broken down into several domains: cloud computing (for 39% of respondents), big data (35%), operating systems (33%) and the Internet of Things (31%).

A positive outlook for project participation

This latest version of the survey also highlighted clear progress in contributions to the open source community. In 2015, 64% of respondents reported that they participate in open source projects, up 14 points from five years ago. Participation forecasts are also on the rise, with 88% of respondents willing to increase their project contributions over the next three years.

Open source as the first choice for security

One important result yielded by the study related to behaviours in terms of choice of software. In fact, 66% of respondents consider open source solutions first, before evaluating other options. 55% of the respondents saw a clear security advantage in using open source software, compared to other proprietary solutions. That being said, nearly half of the surveyed people stated that their organizations had an insufficient understanding of the vulnerabilities of open source software.

Few formal policies and procedures

Through this survey, Black Duck also observed a clear shortage of formal policies and procedures for managing the use of and contributions to open source. 55% of respondents confirmed that they had no specific policy on the use of open source software. Worse yet, less than half of the companies using an open source platform maintain an inventory of the components they use. Employee contributions to projects are only supervised in 27% of cases.

The complete survey results are available on slideshare.net.

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