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diff --git a/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2007/01.15.07/Wed/freesoftware.txt b/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2007/01.15.07/Wed/freesoftware.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 59ff5d0..0000000 --- a/old/published/Webmonkey/Monkey_Bites/2007/01.15.07/Wed/freesoftware.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1 +0,0 @@ -There's an interesting, albeit rather long, new study available from an international, interdisciplinary team of researchers that documents Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) and its economic influences on the EU.
The full text of the 287 page report, entitled ""Economic impact of open source software on innovation and the competitiveness of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in the EU," is [available online][1] (PDF). The report provides one of the most thorough and comprehensive looks at the FLOSS community and what FLOSS software has done for the IT community that I've ever seen.
While most of the statics and numbers are geared toward EU and European nations in general (the lead contractor of the study was UNU-MERIT from the Netherlands), the study nevertheless provides a fascinating look at free software and its impact on the world at large.
Particularly stunning is the estimated time to reproduce this software in proprietary format (131,000 person years) and the estimated amount of donated programming effort in monetary terms (800 million per year).
Here's some more highlights pulled straight from the text:
>* Almost two-thirds of FLOSS software is still written by individuals; firms contribute about 15% and other institutions another 20%.
* Europe is the leading region in terms of globally collaborating FLOSS software developers, and leads in terms of global project leaders, followed closely by North America (interestingly, more in the East Coast than the West). Asia and Latin America.
* The existing base of quality FLOSS applications with reasonable quality control and distribution would <strong>cost firms almost Euro 12 billion to reproduce internally</strong>. This code base has been doubling every 18-24 months over the past eight years, and this growth is projected to continue for several more years.
* This existing base of FLOSS software <strong>represents a lower bound of about 131 000 real person-years of effort that has been devoted exclusively by programmers</strong>. As this is mostly by individuals not directly paid for development, it represents a significant gap in national accounts of productivity. Annualised and adjusted for growth this represents at least Euro 800 million in voluntary contribution from programmers alone each year, of which nearly half are based in Europe.
* Firms have invested an estimated Euro 1.2 billion in developing FLOSS software that is made freely available. Such firms represent in total at least 565 000 jobs and Euro 263 billion in annual revenue. Contributing firms are from several non-IT (but often ICT intensive) sectors, and tend to have much higher revenues than non-contributing firms.
* Defined broadly, FLOSS-related services could reach a 32% share of all IT services by 2010, and the FLOSS-related share of the economy could reach 4% of European GDP by 2010.
* Proprietary packaged software firms account for well below 10% of employment of software developers in the U.S., and "IT user" firms account for over 70% of software developers employed with a similar salary (and thus skill) level. This suggests a relatively low potential for cannibalisation (sic) of proprietary software jobs by FLOSS, and suggests a relatively high potential for software developer jobs to become increasingly FLOSS- related.
This report gives me a warm fuzzy feeling every time I think about it. As government documents go this one is pretty readable and if you have any interest in evangelizing for open source software there's a enough positive numbers in here to sway the opinions of the most hardened proprietary skeptics.
[Discovered via BoingBoing][2]]
[1]: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/doc/2006-11-20-flossimpact.pdf ""Economic impact of open source software on innovation and the competitiveness of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in the EU"
[2]: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/17/giant_amazing_study_.html "BoingBoing: Giant, amazing study of Free/Open software"
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