We continue to see signs that open source software is growing beyond its enterprise footprint as more resellers, service providers, system integrators and other channel players are starting and expanding their open source use, reliance and offerings.

It wasn’t that long ago that we talked about open source tuning into the enterprise and midmarket channels when we covered the announcement of the Open Source Channel Alliance, led by open source stalwart Red Hat, other open source vendors and enterprise channel stalwart Synnex.

We also heard recently that Tech Data, another large channel player in Europe, may be working to establish and encourage some sort of open source ecosystem body among value-add resellers (VARs). Again it seems the various IT distribution and sales channels are indeed opening up and tuning in to open source.

Other significant market and channel players that are increasing their participation and products in open source software include SAP, which recently upped its membership and leadership in the Eclipse Foundation, and enterprise services provider Accenture, which continues to increase its involvement in open source.

We talked about the growing opportunity for open source software in the midmarket and smaller customers through resellers and other channel players in a recent CAOS podcast. While we highlighted the far greater opportunity for open source software in the enterprise and among larger customers in our report, ‘CAOS Five-The SMB market opportunity,’ we may be seeing that start to change. A couple of examples of open source vendors that are growing their smaller customer stables and service provider relationships include virtual appliance vendor JumpBox and security vendor Untangle.

We had an interesting discussion that reaffirmed some of the changing attitudes and approaches toward open source software in the channel while speaking with communication and collaboration vendor Open-Xchange this week. While the company originally managed to grow among midmarket and smaller end users, it has found greater traction among the largest hosting and Internet service providers, which are now among its primary targets. In this case, we see the vendor moving up in the channel and this illustrates how open source continues its pervasiveness at both the lower and higher ends of the market.

Given all of this actvity among channel players and resellers — along with the continued and expanded embrace of open source software among SIs, service providers and others — it seems open source is now indeed clicking the channels.