Linux, Open Source & Ubuntu: Open-Source Software Winning Mainstream Status in Enterprises

SOURCE: eWeek

ndustry observers have been predicting for years that open-source software will achieve mainstream adoption. Five years ago, open source was in its “nascent stages” and its future “was promising but still unknown,” said Michael Skok, general partner at North Bridge Venture Partners. He presented the fifth annual Future of Open Source Survey at Computerworld’s Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco. The latest survey results “clearly demonstrate” that open source “has gone mainstream,” Skok said, as organizations focus on improving “operational excellence around areas such as support, product management, feature functionality and return on investment.” Open source is being implemented across a wide variety of markets and applications. Examples include the Obama administration’s selection of the Drupal content-management system for WhiteHouse.gov, Yahoo’s Hadoop software framework being deployed in data centers to manage big data applications and Apache’s software becoming the de facto standard for Web servers.