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OSBC Attendees Bullish on Open Source

  • By Will Kraft
  • 03/31/08

Survey results conducted at the Infoworld Open Source Business Conference (OSBC), held last week in San Francisco, indicated a positive outlook for open source software.

The OSBC event brought together representatives from several companies involved in open source software, including Canonical/Ubuntu, Acquia, Sugar CRM and Sun Microsystems. They met to discuss the future of open source software. Topics discussed included the economic downturn and its relation to open source implementation, market drivers for open source and how some companies are spearheading the future success of open source.

OSBC attendees were polled by venture capital company North Bridge Venture Partners about the path to open source at the meeting. The majority (approximately 81 percent) of respondents felt that current economic conditions are beneficial to open source. They also indicated the three factors that they viewed as making open source attractive:

  • Lower acquisition and maintenance costs;
  • Source code access and the flexibility that comes with it; and
  • Freedom from vendor lock in.

About 55 percent of the delegates polled believed that in five years, 25 percent to 50 percent of software will be open source versus the predominant use of proprietary software today.

Open source software will have its greatest effect in the Web publishing and content management system (CMS) markets in the next five years, respondents indicated. The least effect will be seen for the use of open source in security tools, they added.

"The highly visible commercial success of open source has helped firmly place it on the map as one of the most influential market segments within the software industry," said Michael Skok, General Partner, North Bridge Venture Partners, in a publicly released statement.

A presentation that summarizes the survey's results is available here.

About the Author

Will Kraft is a Web designer, technical consultant, and freelance writer. His website is Pagewizard Web Design. You can contact Will at [email protected].

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