This year's Open World Forum 2009, held in Paris, brought together the company heads of open source companies, public and government organisations and customers who use open source, for an exchange of views and an opportunity to map out the future of open source.

Public sector and Open Source Software (PS-OSS), a report commissioned by the EU Commission addresses the question : What would be the potential impact on the development of the Information Society if public organisations (administrations, research institutions, universities, agencies, public companies) were to release software fully owned by them under a Open Source licence?

Open-source software may not make major inroads into industry-specific enterprise applications, according to an IBM open-source guru. The next 10 years will be "do or die" for this type of application, said Bob Sutor, vice president of open source and standards at IBM, in a LinuxWorld keynote address Wednesday.

Sean Daly's telephone interview with Mark Taylor, President of the UK Open Source Consortium, October 18, 2007

The take up of free, open source software in the public sector is painfully slow despite the Government's Open Source Action Plan...are we to blame?

In reading through IDC's excellent report, "2007 Industry Adoption of Open Source Software, Part 2: Project Adoption," analyst Matt Lawton stumbles across an intriguing observation in open-source software adoption. He apparently believes it is a weakness of the current open-source landscape, but I believe it is a strength. The observation? That IT departments do most of the services around open source, rather than third-party consulting companies.

With LinuxWorld showcasing the popularity of the open source operating system, and with open source in general finding its legs in the enterprise, Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of open source and standards, made a slate of predictions for Linux and open source during his keynote address on Wednesday at the Black Hat conference.

The use of open source environments for enterprise software projects is growing at an unprecedented rate, with notable peaks of interest among financial services and public sector organizations. Indeed, the adoption of open source software is growing at a great clip, with worldwide revenue from standalone open source software having reached $1.8 billion in 2006, according to recent calculations from IDC. That figure is expected to reach $5.8 billion by 2011, representing a compound annual growth rate of 26 percent. As a result, IDC is calling open source "the most significant, all-encompassing, and long-term trend that the software industry has seen since the early 1980s."

Results of Australia’s first large-scale Open Source community census have been released to the public. Produced by Open Source consulting firm Waugh Partners, the Australian Open Source Industry & Community Report gives voice to the business potentials, patterns and concerns of a previously mute sector of the IT industry.