Open Source Statistics

What's the Biggest Challenge to Using More Open Source?

Most enterprises are already using open source software, but in some cases it can be a challenge for developers and technical personnel to get approval to expand the number of open source packages used in their companies. Resistance to open source can come from many different individuals--legal staff, compliance personnel, and CTOs, to name a few. However, resistance usually falls into one of four main categories, and we wanted to find out which challenges are the most common.

Survey Summary

Date: May 7-11, 2007
Audience: JavaOne attendees
Number of Responses: 148
Source: To explore this question, we conducted a survey in the exhibit hall of the 2007 JavaOne conference in San Francisco. Respondents were asked to select from four possible answers, and multiple responses were not allowed--we wanted to find out which challenge represented the greatest challenge to using more open source software in today's enterprises.
Conclusion: While we weren't surprised to see a significant number of responses in all four categories, it was interesting to see a nearly even breakdown between all four challenges. This clearly indicates that different enterprises often face very different challenges when it comes to using more open source.

		Support & Updates - It can be hard to find commercial grade support, manage version updates, and avoid forked versions
		Legal & Compliance - It can be difficult to find and manage licenses, enforce corporate policies, and minimize potential risks
		Sourcing & Selection - There are over 100,000 packages to choose from, and for most there is no trusted commercial source
		Technical Overhead - Complex installation, configuration, integration, and testing procedures are time consuming