451 CAOS Theory 
A blog for the enterprise open source community
The 451 Group CAOS Open Source Adoption survey
Matthew Aslett, October 29, 2009 @ 7:52 am ETWednesday saw the launch of The 451 Group’s CAOS Open Source Adoption survey, covering end user attitudes to the potential financial benefits of open source.
Given current economic conditions there is considerable interest in open source software with many people wondering whether open source licensing can help users lower the cost of enterprise computing compared to traditional proprietary licensing.
The Open Source Adoption survey seeks to answer this question, as well as update the survey we initially conducted in 2006 for our second CAOS Report – ‘Cost Conscious – A practical guide for understanding and calculating the financial benefits of open source for enterprise IT projects.’
In order to reach as wide a sample of open source users as possible, for this year’s survey we asked a number of vendors to send the survey to their customers on our behalf. Nearly 30 vendors agreed to do so and the response has been tremendous, with over 1,250 users completing the survey in the first 24 hours.
To be clear, and to correct some confusion that has arisen in a report about the survey published by The VAR Guy – which incorrectly states that it is a Digium survey being conducted by The 451 Group – this is not sponsored research.
Digium is indeed one of the vendors that agreed to send our survey to its customers. However, as noted above, it was one of almost 30 vendors (both clients and non-clients) that did so. No vendors were involved in drafting the questions for the survey, no vendors will be involved in the analysis performed on the results, and no vendors will see the results before they are published.
It is important for us to clarify this point because one of the core principles of The 451 Group is that 451 research is never sponsored, nor is it produced to promote a particular vendor’s agenda. For more on the scope of the 451 Group’s research see our Scope of Research.
That said, we are extremely grateful to the vendors concerned for enabling us to reach such a substantial survey sample, and they, like the users completing the survey, will be receiving a copy of the research results for their trouble. Among the questions addressed by the survey are:
- the primary benefits of open source software (pre- and post-adoption)
- the level of importance of cost savings in selecting open source
- the extent to which cost savings were met and where they came from
- the use (or lack) of IT project financial analysis
- the use (or lack) of open source software adoption policies
- the use (or lack) of open source software contribution policies
- the impact of the current economic climate on open source software adoption
We look forward to sharing some of its findings with you in the coming weeks and months, not least in the forthcoming update to Cost Conscious.
If you are a vendor interested in distributing the survey or a user interested in contributing to it, please send an email to Matt Aslett and/or Jay Lyman and we will send you the details.
Comments (9) Categories: Software,The 451 Group
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Matt: The VAR Guy apologizes for causing confusion. You’ve clearly stated that the research is not sponsored by Digium. But in the future The VAR Guy would also respectfully recommend that vendors promoting the survey clearly articulate they are not sponsoring or influencing the survey’s content.
All that aside, The VAR Guy apologizes for the confusion he caused and wishes 451 Group well with its efforts.
-TVG
TheVARguy [at] NineLivesMediaInc.com
No problem, and your recommendation is duly noted.
Apart from the irony of choosing Survey Monkey for this survey (who use closed source solutions. occasionally with standards compatibility issues, when there is more than one off the shelf open source survey software of equivalent capability…), the survey is broken (or standards incompatible?).
Specifically, the survey does not accept entries in the “other” option on most questions. I used that category on most questions where it was an option and it marked them all as needing an answer. Let me know when fixed and I’ll complete it.
Thanks for the comment Chris. There is one question where the “other” response is not an option (this is due to user error rather than any standards incompatibility). However the thousands of people that have filled out the survey have used their common sense to find a way of answering it in a way that expresses accurate information to us. Dealing with this issue means more work for us, but it does not prevent anyone from completing the survey.
As for the openness of Surveymonkey – like most organisations The 451 Group has a pragmatic approach of using the best tool for the job that is available to us regardless of whether it is closed or open (or in this case a service based on closed or open technologies). We have an existing surveymonkey account, so we use it.
Well, I’ve ticked boxes where I wanted to respond with other; having no idea whether the “other” boxes will actually still pass the content. Not sure if that is common sense or not, I don’t have any, being both IT and senior management…
The comment on the openness of SurveyMonkey was not on 451′s use, but the peculiar business decision of creating your own product to provide a service, when there was a highly functional open source product they could have deployed with lower costs to themselves. But then maybe they don’t have common sense either…
[...] software are now willing to live with that uncertainty and risk to give open source a chance. Our recent survey of open source software users and customers reinforces the idea that open source is now more [...]