14 DAY TRIAL // It's not longer a secret that open-source solutions are implemented all over the world, but now we also have some numbers from a survey carried out by Black Duck Software revealing that they are actually much more than people might think.
Black Duck Software has been putting together a survey regarding the use of open-source software in all kinds of environments, like mobile, clouds, desktop, servers, and pretty much anything else that you can think of, and they reached an interesting conclusion. More than 78% of the companies in the world use open source, one way or the other.
We are used to seeing how governments or local administrations are trying to shake off their dependence on proprietary software, but we forget that businesses also have to use software and applications. And from the looks of it, they found out long before governments that open source is better and cheaper for their goals.
The Future of Open Source Survey reveals interesting numbers
The two companies that sponsored this survey are Black Duck and North Bridge. The survey is organized annually, and the latest trends reveal that we already see it all over the world. Open source is becoming not only more relevant, but an important pillar for businesses across the world.
"Seventy-eight percent of respondents said their companies run part or all of its operations on OSS, and 66 percent said their company creates software for customers built on open source. This is almost double the number of respondents – forty-two percent - which said in 2010 that they used open source in the running of their business or their IT environments. Ninety-three percent said their organization’s use of open source increased or remained the same in the past year" is noted on the Black Duck Software website.
These numbers do not lie, but there is also another side to this story. Many of these companies don't really know how to handle open-source applications and implementations, and they are going forward blindly. The level of open-source "literacy" is still low, but that's slowly changing.