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23 June 2009, 08:54

Survey - "Show us the code" says China

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A survey by Actuate which looks at open source attitudes and adoption has included China for the first time. Surprisingly, according to the survey, 80.3 per cent of Chinese respondents were already using open source with the main benefit being perceived as the lack of licence costs. More surprisingly was the 72.6 per cent of those respondent s who cited access to the source code as a benefit. This is a far higher figure than in North America (39.9 per cent), the UK (35.2 per cent), Germany (41.1 per cent) or France(36 per cent). Although no reasons were given in the survey for the preference, it may be that the Chinese market appreciates source code availability because it would make it easier to make the software operate with the Chinese language and character sets.

Elsewhere in the world, the survey confirmed the general trend that open source software is now mainstream for enterprises. In North America, 41 per cent were already using open source, with almost another ten per cent planning to adopt or already adopting. France continues to lead the way in Europe, with 67 per cent already using open source, followed by Germany at 60.6 per cent and the UK trailing at 42 per cent. Attitudes to open source adoption repeat the pattern with those who feel benefits outweigh other issues coming in at 47 per cent in the UK, down from 54 per cent in 2008, while in Germany, 62 per cent believed that to be true. Another problem for the UK is that 22.4 per cent of the respondents in the UK say they are still monitoring developments in open source, but have not yet begun evaluating it.

According to Nobby Akiha, SVP of Marketing at Actuate, the survey, performed for Actuate by Survey Interactive, is "one of the ways in which Actuate gives back to the open source movement". Actuate is the developer of BIRT, which it has contributed to the Eclipse Foundation as an open source system for business intelligence and reporting.

(djwm)

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