A lack of standards and an unwillingness to open their own code
are the two main reasons why Open Source tools are not being
adopted in the enterprise, according to a survey of
enterprise-level development managers released today by Evans Data
Corp.
The study, focused on development managers at companies with
more than 2,000 employees, found that 26.7 percent of the surveyed
development managers agreed that the proprietary nature of their
company’s software was the biggest problem they faced with regard
to Open Source software development. The study also found that 25.4
percent of the managers cited a lack of standards as the biggest
obstacle. Lesser drawbacks to open source development in the
enterprise were the possibility of forking in the code (cited by 10
percent of the managers), lack of reliability (cited by 9.3 percent
of managers), and a lack of adequate testing criteria (cited by 7.6
percent of the managers).
However, when compared to previous surveys from Evans,
enterprise acceptance of Open Source software has risen: six months
ago, a third of surveyed development managers found that a lack of
standards was hindering their corporation’s adoption of Open
Source.