Report look open source usage, and trends – and who is contributing code.
The non-profit Open UK has completed the second phase of its research into open source adoption in the UK and found that 97% of business are using some form of open source software, operating systems and programming languages. The report surveyed 273 businesses in the UK and was sponsored by GitHub — the code sharing site that’s now owned by Microsoft (itself once an opponent but now a fan of open source). The first phase of the report found that open source contributed £43 billion ($60.22bn) in value to the UK economy with an estimated 126,000 local developers who helped create, develop and maintain open source projects. UK-based chip designer Arm is also backing the project and explains how standards-based open source software benefited the company. « A big advantage of having de facto and approved software standards that are open, is that they remove the appeal of unnecessary differentiation, allowing companies to invest their time, effort and money where it really matters, » says Andrew Wafaa, a distinguished engineer and senior director of Arm software communities.
