The 2013 "Future of Open Source Survey" of more than 800 open-source-savvy business professionals revealed that the highest-ranking and overall important open-source trend in the next two to three years is growth of open-source knowledge and culture in academia. Not the desktop, the cloud, or even what's going on at Microsoft! Why?
Excerpted from an article by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, Contributing Editor ZDNet
Why? That's easy. Linux and open source needs people. As the recent Linux Jobs Survey found, managers from corporations, small and medium businesses (SMBs), government, and staffing agencies want Linux professionals — and they needed them yesterday. As Jon Corbet said in his Linux weather report at the Summit, only about 10 percent of Linux kernel developers are now working on their own, and the only reason they're not working for a company that supports their Linux programming is because they don't want to. "If you can get code in the Linux kernel, you can have a job anytime you want."
Another result of this trend is that companies are also becoming more supportive of actively working with the OSS community. Their first reason for doing this is to reduce their IT costs, but the second reason now is to attract good developers and IT staff. If a company actively supports OSS, the logic is that it will be easier to attract and keep top technology talent.
Other important trends were: The adoption of open-source software (OSS) into non-technical segments, 86.3 percent; OSS Development methods adopted inside businesses; increased awareness of OSS by consumers, 71.9 percent; and growth of industry specific communities, 63.3 percent.
As for which industry will be most impacted by OSS over the next 2-3 years, government was ranked No. 1 with 35 percent of respondents, followed by health/medical/life sciences in a distant No. 2 with 15 percent, Media in No. 3 with 13 percent, Financial No. 4 with 9 percent, and Automotive at No. 5 with 8 percent.
One interesting change from the last survey was how important people ranked the factors that matter to open source adoption in business:
- Better Quality
- Freedom from vendor lock-in
- Flexibility, access to libraries of software, extensions, add-ons
- Elasticity, ability to scale at little cost or penalty
- Superior security
- Pace of innovation
- Lower costs
- Access to source code
See the Open Source Survey results SLIDES
View the Video INTERVIEW: Watch Michael Skok (General Partner at North Bridge Venture Partners), Tim Yeaton (President and CEO at Black Duck) and Tom Erickson (CEO at Acquia) discuss the Open Source Survey results
Photos excerpted from this Black Duck Software INFOGRAPHIC
Full PRESS RELEASE: http://www.blackducksoftware.com/news/releases/seventh-annual-future-open-source-survey-results-show-culture-quality-and-growth
Missy Schmidt
Since early 2012, Missy has directed marketing for xTuple business management software, including the global user conference, inbound and outbound content marketing, lead generation, sales campaigns, website design and digital strategies. She has ties to the business and economic development, startup and entrepreneurial communities in Virginia and nationally. Prior to joining xTuple, Missy was VP of strategic communication and marketing for Hampton Roads Partnership, a public-private corporation that worked to improve the region's economy within the international marketplace. Before that, Missy spent 25+ in sales, including product development, within the industries of telecommunications, retail, industrial food service, government contracting, contract packaging and manufacturing. Missy holds a B.S. from James Madison University. She and her husband, Bert, who is president and CEO of WHRO Public Media, reside in the "innovation corridor" of downtown Norfolk.