Linux Solutions

Open Source adoption is growing rapidly, but adopters in the US are falling behind European enthusiasm, according to software providers Open Logic, who announced on Tuesday that it has discovered over 300,000 open source package and project installations in use around the worked through its Open Source Census (OSC), which began collecting data in December.

A worldwide collaborative project, the OSC’s goal is to collect and share quantitative data on the use of open source software. User’s volunteered to have their machines remotely scanned to contribute to the census’ findings. Also, among survey participants, Windows users were found to be some of the biggest consumers of open source.

The survey found that OpenOffice, an alternative to Microsoft Office, was installed on 73 percent of all personal computers that were involved in the survey. However, just 8 percent of enterprise machines made available for scanning contained OpenOffice.

Kim Weins, senior vice president of marketing and products at OpenLogic said, “The survey will be ongoing. Starting in year two, we will have enough data to show trends of changing use patterns of open source adopters.”

The second phase of the census began six months ago and involves gathering data from system audits contributed by voluntary participants.

Weins said that the OSC continues to uncover interesting trends on the global use of open source software as more computers are scanned.

The results so far show on average, government agencies have 123 different open source packages installed per machine and financial service companies have 117 different packages per machine.

Details from government agencies showed that in the US there is an average of 51 open source packages on machines, and in Europe it averages 68.

Windows users were found to have around 39 open source packages on their system, with Linux users having around 87 packages on average – no real surprise there.

Ubuntu was found to be the most prevalent Linux OS distro with Hardy (24%) and Gutsy (22%). Suse Linux has 12%, Gentoo Linux has 7%, Fedora Core has 6% and Debian has 13%.

According to Weins the survey shows a solid movement in foreign governments toward open source software. Similarly, the financial services industry is involved in a lot of open source development.

“Governments are very welcoming of open source. The EU initiative is fostering best practices for which open source is very supportive,” she said.