The newest report (that I know of) from Forrester is showing that Open Source is showing up more in next years budgets for companies than in previous years.

Well, cost is the primary driver for open-source consideration, as a recent Forrester report suggests, but what is most significant is the overwhelmingly positive experience CIOs are having with open source, as this same Forrester report suggests.
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Open-source software isn’t perfect, and its quality varies widely, just as in the proprietary-software world. But unlike proprietary software, open source actively de-risks the IT purchasing decision by enabling you to try before you buy, buy on subscription (i.e., no long-term commitment), and pay a lot less for equal or greater value.

Small wonder, then, that CIOs are voting with their wallets, buying into open source while cutting investments in proprietary software.

I would love to see a similar study done among libraries. How many libraries are dropping proprietary options for open source next year?

Learn more about this report on CNET News.

If you have some time, take this survey on Open Source Satisfaction in Libraries:

I am a Ph.D. candidate in the School of Information Management at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, and my research topic is an investigation of factors that influence participant satisfaction with library or information management free/open source software projects. Some library-related examples are DSpace, EPrints, Koha, Evergreen, Greenstone, and MyLibrary. More general information management software includes web content management software such as Drupal, wiki software such as MediaWiki or PmWiki, or blogging software such as WordPress.

If you use or are involved with a relevant project, I would like to invite you to complete an online survey. I am especially interested in hearing from people in a range of roles, for example user, developer, release manager, or system administrator. I am keen to have responses from people who have had either positive or negative experiences with free/open source software, to ensure that I get a perspective on factors that diminish satisfaction, as well as those that contribute toward it.

The results of this project will help developers of free/open source application software projects identify opportunities to increase user satisfaction, and it will also help users identify ways in which they might contribute to projects.

I expect the survey to take between 15 and 20 minutes of your time. You may receive several copies of this message, since I am sending it to a number of project and library technology email discussion lists; however, I ask that you only complete the survey once. If you have colleagues who you think would be interested in completing it, please forward this invitation to them.

The survey is available at:

http://surveys.sim.vuw.ac.nz/survey.aspx?surveyid=205

It will be available until Friday, 14 November 2008.

I will post a summary of the results to relevant project and library technology email discussion lists, once the thesis is finished in mid-2009. A copy of the thesis will be deposited in the Victoria University of Wellington Institutional Repository (http://researcharchive.vuw.ac.nz/).

If you have any questions about this survey, please contact me at brenda.chawner@vuw.ac.nz or phone +64 4 463 5780. My supervisors are Professor Gary Gorman, email gary.gorman@vuw.ac.nz and Professor Sid Huff, email sid.huff@vuw.ac.nz.

In my open source talk I use data from a Forrester study that says that businesses are using open source for mission critical applications. This is why I found it interesting to read Matt Asay’s report that Forrester now says that virtually no one is using open source.

I generally like Forrester’s work, but this survey flies in the face of every piece of research on open source that I’ve seen in the last five years…including research from Forrester. Also, as the research itself finds, often its survey respondents are using open source even when they don’t know it: Nearly half of those surveyed by Forrester who are using open-source frameworks (e.g., Spring) still claim they are not using open source.

Forrester’s newest research finds:

• Seventy percent of decision-makers responded that they don’t have interest or have no plans to adopt open-source software;
• Only 23 percent of respondents said expanding their use of open-source software was a priority;
• Security is the main concern around adopting open-source software. Eighty-eight percent of respondents said it was an important or very important concern.

Matt goes on to provide some great stats on how open source is being used - and some of the data is even from Forrester.

Thank you Chrissy for posting your paper! I wish more students would post stuff like this.

Many library and information professionals feel that open source software aligns with public library values and First Amendment rights. Tammi Moe, a librarian working for the open source consulting firm Re:Evolve, explains, “The Open Source community shares common goals with the library community… Both work to maintain free access to information” (2004, 291). Freedom of expression and the right to seek information represent core values of the library profession (American Library Association). According to Moe, “Open Source is driven by the desire to create superior computing technologies,” rather than for profit (2004, 291). Libraries also strive to provide excellent resources to meet customers’ informational needs, not for profit but for the benefit of the community.

Read the entire paper here.