Those Heady Days of Sex, Drugs & Linux Are Over

FOSS is Now Costing Software Vendors $60 Billion a Year in Annual Revenues, and It's Still Only 6% of the Global Spend

Apr. 30, 2008 04:45 PM

Well, it looks like Richard Stallman, the father of FOSS, is going to have to cut his hair and get a suit because the warmed-over hippie movement he’s been leading is no longer the radical anti-software establishment counter-culture his rag-tag army fancies it is.

Nope, it IS the software establishment.

That is the finding of the Standish Group, which after five years of research on open source has delivered a $1,000 report called “Trends in Open Source,” a study that finds that FOSS is now costing software vendors $60 billion a year in annual revenues, and it’s still only 6% of the global spend.

Standish also says that if open source product and service were calculated at commercial prices, the open source initiative would be the largest software company in the world, outselling Microsoft, Oracle and Computer Associates combined.

And if all its annual hours were added up and divided by the average workweek, the open source community would equate to the largest software employer in the world.

Standish says the open source phenomenon has reached the “fashion” stage, meaning the market has reached maturity and general acceptance, After that comes commoditization.

Published Apr. 30, 2008— Reads 13,995 — Feedback 4
Copyright © 2008 SYS-CON Media. All Rights Reserved.

About Maureen O'Gara
Maureen O'Gara is the Virtualization News Desk editor of SYS-CON Media. She is the publisher of famous "Billygrams" and the editor-in-chief of "Client/Server News" for more than a decade. One of the most respected technology reporters in the business, Maureen can be reached by email at maureen(at)sys-con.com or paperboy(at)g2news.com, and by phone at 516 759-7025.

YOUR FEEDBACK

Those Heady Days of Sex, Drugs & Linux Are Over

jonson wrote: So it means that FOSS is now saving software users $60 billion a year in ICT costs

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Those Heady Days of Sex, Drugs & Linux Are Over

Drummer wrote: "Those Heady Days of Sex, Drugs & Linux Are Over" That's "Hedley". (with thanks to Mel Brooks).

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Those Heady Days of Sex, Drugs & Linux Are Over

tracyanne wrote: quote>> Nope, it IS the software establishment. << quote That is exactly what we have been working all these years to achieve.

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Those Heady Days of Sex, Drugs & Linux Are Over

Dean wrote: I'm sure Stallman would disagree with you. First, he objects to use of the term "open source" and he won't speak to you unless you call Linux by the name "GNU Linux". The hippie roots of free software and GNU-Linux are still firmly planted where they've always been (see the GPL). Corporations have taken the plants which have grown from these roots and decided to prune them so as to better fit into their business plans and make them money.

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