Open Source Statistics

What Percentage of Enterprises Have an Open Source Policy?

While most enterprises today use at least a few open source packages, many of these organizations have not yet formulated an open source policy--either formal or informal. This lack of policy development is often due to the fact that many enterprises simply don't know how much open source is being used and where it's deployed. Enterprises that are actively managing open source and encouraging its use are more likely to have an open source policy, so we wanted to gain a better understanding of the percentage of enterprises that have a policy.

Survey Summary

Date: October 2006
Audience: IT and business professionals
Number of Responses: 800
Source: To explore this question we conducted a survey in conjunction with InfoWorld, and respondents were selected from the InfoWorld subscriber list. Respondents were asked to select from one of five possible answers, and all answers were grouped based on the number of open source packages used in respondents' enterprises.
Conclusion: As expected, the survey indicated that the number of open source products used at an organization has a direct impact on the likelihood of formalizing open source policies. Although only 35% of those with 25 or less open source products in place have an open source software policy, that figure grows to over 60% when looking at those with 25 or more products in place. As complexities grow, organizations identify and recognize the need to build systems to manage the growth of open source applications.
Additional Data: In addition to the topic of enterprise open source policies, we also surveyed respondents on a range of issues including the number of open source packages used, type of usage, and cost savings. Download the entire survey whitepaper.

Q: Does your company have a formal open source software policy? Base: 1-100+ open source products installed (685), 1-25 installed (542), 25-100 installed (96), more than 100 installed (47).