Packt Open Source Survey Results

For three years now, Packt has been organizing the Open Source CMS Award which is designed to encourage, support, recognize and reward Open Source Content Management Systems (CMS) that have been selected by a panel of judges and visitors to www.PacktPub.com. The Award distributes total prize money of $20,000 among the different winning projects. During the polls for the Award last year, Packt offered voters a chance to participate in a questionnaire about the role played by open source in their professional lives. 4,500 people participated in total.

Over 70% of the people that participated said they had donated time, money, or both to open source. This is encouraging news for most open source projects, especially given the uncertainty of the current economic climate.

These results support the current trend of adoption rates for open source where an increasing number of Governments and organizations over the world are switching to open source for their technology needs. Software such as the free and open productivity suite OpenOffice.org has already been adopted by Governments in countries like the United States, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

The future looks especially bright for open source giants like RedHat and Novell. In the last quarter that ended February 28, Red Hat’s revenue had jumped 18 per cent to $166m. In case of Novell, Red Hat’s best known competitor, its Linux-related sales rose 24 per cent in their most recent quarter.

However, not every project is as big and successful as RedHat. For such projects that don’t have a self-sustaining business model, individual donations still seem to be the prime source of support. For them, the results of our survey bear special significance.

The findings further prove that open source’s main principle of allowing all software users access to the source code is indeed one of the main reasons why people use it — of course, apart from the fact that it accounts for great savings.

The survey also highlights how widely open source solutions are available on the Internet. Nearly 84% of participants said they were able to find open source solutions directly through Google search.

These are some of the key findings from Packt’s questionnaire in more detail:

Q. What is your job title?

• Developer (26%)
• Designer (9%)
• Manager (9%)
• Programmer (8%)
• Student (8%)
• Consultant (8%)
• SysAdmin (8%)
• Project Manager (7%)
• Others (17%)

• Yes, I have donated money (23%)
• Yes, I have donated my time/code (29%)
• Yes, I have donated both money and time/code (21%)
• No (32%)
  
  

• Preferably, unless instructed otherwise (50%)
• Yes 13%
• No, I use the best tool for the job (32%)
• No, sometimes there isn't an option available (12%)
• Other (3%)

• I have access to the code base (58%)
• It’s free to download (64%)
• It’s easy to install (25%)
• I like to participate in technical communities (38%)
• It’s a point of principle (37%)
  
  

• Google Search (84%)
• Sourceforge.net (52%)
• Posts on mailing lists (19%)
• Colleagues/friends (47%)
  
  

• Yes (75%)
• No (26%)

Looking at the results, open source seems to have scored well in terms of its philosophy, ease of availability, and in making users aware of the importance of software licenses. With such strong support, it appears that Open Source is well positioned to survive the current recession.