Open source has come a long way since Richard Stallman started the free-software movement with his GNU project in the late 80s. Today, open source powers most of the recent developments in IT, be it the cloud, DevOps, or containers.

1. The Importance of Open Source

Open-source software exemplifies disruptive innovation. An innovation first creates a new value network and later disrupts and displaces the incumbent value network. The early adoption of open-source software was for low-end tasks and processes. Over time, the open-source development model has grown in capabilities and popularity. Initially, the society favoured open-source for its low costs. Today, a majority of IT leaders consider open-source software as agile and strategic compared to proprietary code.

“The State of Enterprise Open Source” report by Illuminas and sponsored by RedHat surveyed 950 IT leaders worldwide. The survey underscores the importance of open source in enterprises. 95% of respondents regard open source as strategically important. 69% of IT leaders regard open-source software as very or extremely important for their enterprise. The corresponding rate is 61% in the APAC region. Even the dissenters do not ignore open-source software. Only 1% of enterprise leaders consider open source as not important at all.

2. Adoption Rates

Over 40% of enterprises use open-source software today.

The adoption rates are higher in Asia compared to the rest of the world. Open-source accounts for anywhere between 25% to 75% of all software in Australian, Korean, Chinese, and Indian companies.

The major use case of open-source extends to website development, cloud management tools, security, Big Data analytics, and databases. 45% of enterprises use open-source for their website development. 51% of enterprises use open-source solutions to set up cloud management tools. 52% of enterprises use open-source resources to secure the network. 47% of enterprises use open-source solutions to power their Big data analytics. 49% of enterprises use open source databases.

The biggest growth areas in open source adoption are the cloud and containers.

Multi-cloud went mainstream in 2018. As on cue, enterprises planned multi-cloud strategies in 2020. The trend will entrench in 2020, with multi-cloud becoming the norm rather than an upgrade. 83% of enterprises regard open source as instrumental to take advantage of cloud architectures.

Containers, likewise soar in popularity, to run the software and with agility, across platforms. 56% of enterprises will increase their container usage over the next 12 months, and most of them will use the open-source Kubernetes.

2. Growth Rates

Open source is growing at an exponential pace, and will soon dominate enterprise IT.

77% of enterprise leaders concur open source will continue to grow, even from the high base rates of today. The growth of open-source software comes at the cost of proprietary software. The share of proprietary solutions will decrease from 40% to around 30%, on average, at the macro-level.

68% of enterprises have increased open-source software use in the last 12 months. 29% of enterprises have neither increased nor decreased open-source adoption. Only 3% of enterprises decreased open-source software use. 77% of enterprises plan to increase open-source software usage in the next 12 months, and only 2% plan to decrease open-source usage.

The biggest inhibitor to adopting cloud-ready open source applications is legacy applications. Enterprises will not touch about 47% of legacy applications in any significant way over the next two years. The wisdom “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” drives many enterprises. They remain reluctant to change and bring in disruptions to a model which works well for the present.

Only 14% of enterprises plan to re-architect their IT resources as cloud-native. Another 16% plan to re-architect their IT resources as cloud-enabled.

3. Areas of Adoption

Open-source now permeates all gamut of enterprise IT.

Most enterprises use open-source when they upgrade their IT assets. As enterprises upgrade their legacy infrastructure, open-source finds increasing favour of proprietary software. 53% of enterprises use open source for modernizing their IT infrastructure. 43% of enterprises use open-source programs for application development and app integration projects.

Digital transformation speeds up open-source adoption. The use rate of open source programs for digital transformation corresponds to the use rate for modernization and up-gradation. 42% of enterprises use open source for digital transformation.

DevOps offers a path to speed up development cycles and faster time-to-market. As of now, 40% of enterprises adopt the DevOps approach, which places value on collaboration, integration and automation. Open-source drives most of these initiatives.

The market for open-source business applications such as CRM and ERP is still nascent, dragging down the overall figure of open-source adoption. As the popularity of open-source increases, open-source will permeate these functions soon.

4. The Reason Why Enterprises Adopt Open Source

The widespread adoption of open source is for good reasons.

Open source delivers value for money. One out of three enterprises (33%) prefers open-source for higher quality software. 30% like open-source for lower costs. Proprietary software offers an automatic lock-in since the developer keeps the source code. Since open-source code is free, it is hard to lock in users. Developers ensure the highest quality standards to keep users. The ability to edit and share code offers a significant productivity boost.

Open-source software is flexible and adaptable, compared to proprietary software. Open-source fuels innovation, amidst competitive pressure for innovation and agility. 27% of enterprises who adopt open source do so to power their innovations.

Open-source technologies offer a higher level of security and support, freeing up time for innovation. 29% of enterprise chooses open-source for robust security, 25% choose it for access to enterprise-level support. The high adoption rate for security and enterprise-level support is a remarkable turnaround. In the early days of open-source, security vulnerabilities, and lack of reliable support were major inhibitors to cloud adoption.

Customization has been a traditional strong point for open-source software. 25% choose it for the ability to customize applications.

Over the past five years, most developments in IT happen first in open-source. From being low-cost alternatives to proprietary software, open-source is now an instrument of strategic innovation. Enterprise open source continues to rise in prominence, even from the high baseline of previous years.