OSCON: Open Source Gains Ground In The Enterprise

Published 2008-07-23    Printer-friendly version

An O'Reilly Radar report released today estimates that 10% of all new IT jobs involve at least some open source software. The report cites explosive growth in open source projects, draws on analysis of job posting data and considers a number of case studies.

Open source adoption data isn't easily obtained; traditionally analysts look to vendor reports but that data isn't available where software can be freely downloaded. Open source itself has experienced rapid growth, however: SourceForge, the largest repository of open source code, has grown from 12,500 projects in 2000 to almost 200,000 projects by the end of 2007, an annually compounded growth rate of 55%. SourceForge anticipates reaching one billion annual downloads by next year.

In partnership with SimplyHired, O'Reilly analyzed job posting data from about half of the Fortune 1000. One in 52 enterprise job postings were classified as "open source", a high number given that 2.3% of all jobs are IT jobs. On further investigation this was found to be due to the presence of some large technology companies (such as Google, Yahoo!, Sun) in the sample set. For typical non-technology companies open source positions represented .2%, or approximately 10% of IT jobs.

Hiring requirements can only suggest software adoption, but recruitment data also indicates the rate of acceptance of individual products. The LAMP stack is still experiencing solid growth as is Ruby on Rails, and Linux remains the most in-demand open source product based on job postings. Content management frameworks such as Django, Drupal and Alfresco are prominent among the products showing fastest growth although overall numbers are still very small.

Factors influencing the adoption of open source by enterprise include adaptability to new requirements, code quality and security, and cost. In many parts of the world, the absence of contractual obligations to foreign software companies is an important factor. The O'Reilly report illustrates the interplay of these factors with a variety of case studies and provides guidance for creating an open source action plan.

The report is available in PDF only from O'Reilly for US$399.

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