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Article: What do you value most about open source?

Jun 27, 2000 — by Rick Lehrbaum — from the LinuxDevices Archive — views

As part of its continuing efforts to measure and characterize the Embedded Linux Market, LinuxDevices.com is conducting an ongoing poll entitled “What do you value most about open source?” The picture is now starting to come into focus — and the results are surprisingly different from what many have probably assumed.

Contrary to popular notions of programmers hacking away at source code to create unique implementations of the Linux kernel and other open source software, there is a far greater propensity toward using source code for READING purposes, rather than for WRITING (or modifying).

Possibly the most interesting result, is that the #1 reason doesn't even pertain to USING the source. Rather, it expresses a strong belief that open source development produces better software than traditional proprietary software development.

Methodology

The poll offers seven alternatives and asks respondents to identify their first, second, and third most important reasons for wanting to use open source software. The choices provided are:

  • so I can add functionality directly within the OS
  • it represents “insurance”, even if it's never needed
  • it facilitate debugging and troubleshooting the application
  • it allows fully understanding what's going on inside the OS
  • it lets me immediately fix OS bugs, in case they arise
  • to eliminate dependence on a single OS vendor
  • the collaborative open source development process produces superior software
  • I don't need or want open source
  • other
To assemble a composite result, each selection is weighted according to whether it is a first choice (5 points), second choice (3 points), or third choice (1 point). After compilation, the resulting scores are normalized such that the highest score is 1.0.

Results: “and the winner is . . .”

Here are the composite results, sorted by importance (1.0 is highest importance):

    1.0 the collaborative open source development process produces superior software
    0.9 it allows fully understanding what's going on inside the OS
    0.9 to eliminate dependence on a single OS vendor
    0.7 it represents “insurance”, even if it's never needed
    0.4 it facilitates debugging and troubleshooting the application
    0.4 so I can add functionality directly within the OS
    0.3 it lets me immediately fix OS bugs, in case they arise
    0.1 I don't need or want open source
    0.0 other
The above results may be viewed graphically, here.

Continuing Embedded Linux surveys

The purpose of the LinuxDevices.com Embedded Linux Polls is to develop an improved understanding of the embedded Linux market. The polls highlight specifics of the embedded applications, developer preferences for tools and support, and other aspects of the growing use of Linux in embedded applications. The open source poll joins four other ongoing surveys:

Like Linux itself, the data collected in these polls are fully available for all to share. LinuxDevices.com also invites companies and developers in the embedded Linux market to email suggested questions for future Embedded Linux Polls to [email protected].

Do you have questions or comments on this article? Talkback here

 
This article was originally published on LinuxDevices.com and has been donated to the open source community by QuinStreet Inc. Please visit LinuxToday.com for up-to-date news and articles about Linux and open source.

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