Measuring the economic value of open source. A Survey and a Preliminary Analysis
Several days ago the Linux Foundation publishes a report in which he talks about the reasons for adoption by companies and developers to depend part of their work or infrastructure on the Open Source.
open source technologies they are largely free to use, making them hard to value In economic terms. While the reasons for contributing to open source have been widely studied, the reasons for adopting open source and the value of that adoption have received less attention.
Professor Henry Chesbrough, open innovation pioneer conducted a survey to measure the economic value of open source, looking at where and to what extent companies are reaping the benefits of adopting open source.
Compiling the results of this survey, The Linux Foundation published a report examining the benefits perceived economics of open source software, including cost savings, faster development, open standards, and
The results show that open source is indeed valuable, not only by itself, but also in relation to alternative technologies that companies could use instead of open source. However, its perceived value varies from company to company, and these differences are likely to stem from the practices employed by companies using free software, particularly whether they have extensive experience using it and to what extent they actively contribute to initiatives. open source.
Many organizations in the sample have worked with OSS for more than 20 years. However, a significant number only started working with the OSS in the last five years. Therefore, the sample included companies whose experience with free software varied considerably.
This variation probably explains some of the differences in the perceived value of open source software in the sample: “In a follow-up question (question 14), 19% of respondents had instituted an open source program office (OSPO) to help coordinate the OSS. use and compliance with OSS license settings, while 81% had not created an OSPO.”
Professor Henry Chesbrough noted that while cost is a significant perceived benefit of the open source, not everyone finds it cheaper. However, even those who believe that “open source costs more” argue that the benefits of open source outweigh the costs. The main advantage? Disponibility. In other words: speed of development.
In data from a new Linux Foundation survey on the economic value of open source, reducing costs associated with open source emerges as the top driver of open source adoption:
The cost is not the only benefit, Of course. It also highlights the speed of development and the relative independence of software providers. But cost is the main benefit cited by companies today for their adoption of open source.
Despite some of the issues raised like security (which is getting better thanks to vendors like Chainguard and industry consortia like the Open Source Security Foundation) and despite the costs of open source, even those who think open source is more expensive alternative owners say their benefits outweigh those costs
While conducting the survey for the Linux Foundation, he asked about this seemingly counterintuitive finding.
“If you think [open source is more expensive, why are you still using it? he asked a respondent. Your answer ? "The code is available." What it means: “If we were to build the code ourselves, it would take a while. It may be cheaper for us to do it,
For this respondent and others like him, open source may be more expensive, but it still offers a time advantage. Time, for most companies and most developers, is much more important than cost, because for every hour a developer spends on the undifferentiated drudgery of rewriting code that duplicates open source functionality. , there is nothing that does not innovate.
Based on survey data, companies expect the benefits of using open source to increase relative to its costs. Only 16% think the costs are growing faster than the benefits.
It is also interesting, but not surprising, that the more companies use and contribute to open source, the more likely they are to discover benefits and see your way beyond cost. As Chesbrough said, "you learn more from years of experience and get better at managing costs." He went on to say, "But also, you're probably getting a little more strategic in the way that you use it to lead and shape the space that you're competing in."
This means that we are likely to see companies become much more strategic over time as they transition from simple users of the software to co-creators of it.
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