Survey says: Firefox, OpenOffice leads in open source deployments
Firefox leads the way in open source software used in organizations, and the Web browser is being deployed abundantly on Linux and Windows PCs alike, according to new data from the Open Source Census released today.
Open source software deployment is higher in Europe than the US, and in government and finance than in other industries, says the Open Source Census (OSC), a six-month-old effort which is also accumulating data on use of open source software across Linux and Windows.
The open source productivity suite OpenOffice has been found on 45% of the Linux and Windows machines scanned for the ongoing survey, first launched by open source software vendor OpenLogic just over six months ago.
However, deployment of OpenOffice (73%) is much greater among participants' personal computers than in the businesses where they work, acknowledged Kim Weins, OpenLogic's VP of sales and marketing, in an interview with BetaNews.
"This isn't just for developers. Anybody can participate. We might be tending to attract [individuals who are] open source advocates, but we've been working on getting more participation from enterprises by spending more time talking about it at conferences. Our sponsors are also encouraging enterprises to take part," she told BetaNews.
As could only be expected, overall installations of open source software are considerably higher for Linux systems (87 components on average) than for Windows (39 on average). Linux PCs come pre-loaded with open source software anyway, she noted.
Yet two-thirds of the survey participants have scanned Windows machines for open source components, and the brands of seven of the ten most popular open source components are the same across both systems, said Weins. Participants use OpenLogic's OSS Discovery tool to scan their systems.
Last June, Microsoft and four other new partners joined OpenLogic and eight other founding sponsors. Survey sponsors are allowed to view more of the data than other participants. Participants are allowed to contribute information anonymously, however.
The survey is also coming up with less surprising findings. Open source deployment is farther ahead in Europe, at 68 open source components per machine, than in the US, at 51 per machine.
Deployments in vertical markets are lead by government agencies, which average 123 open source packages per machine, followed by financial services, with an average of 116.
For its next industry report slated for April of 2009, the OSC is looking at including data on historical trends, BetaNews was told.
Meanwhile, in compiling a list of the "best free and open source" software for Windows XP, a separate organization known as OpenSourceWindows.org includes Firefox and OpenOffice, in addition to Cabos for P2P file sharing, Thunderbird for e-mail, and the Azureus BitTorrent client.