The Open Source Census goes way beyond the traditional, too rarely used Linux Counter.

The other day we reported findings from the Open Source Census--a global effort to track the number of installations of open source packages on computers. Among the top-level findings were that open source is seeing broad adoption in Europe and in finance.

There is a growing demand for knowing the extent of open source usage, according to OpenLogic, which has undertaken a census to determine just how much OS software resides on enterprise servers. Enterprises struggle to sift through thousands of open source projects to determine what might work for them. However, not all industry watchers agree that a census is necessary.

Microsoft has become a sponsor of The Open Source Census, a project started earlier this year that aims to track and catalog the use of open-source software in enterprises worldwide, the group announced Monday.

The Open Source Census rolls forward, but I'm not sure how far it has gone as yet. In the summary, it shows just 789 machines scanned (as of the time that I read it). That's not a bad start, but it is just a start. As such, it's hard to read much into the data.

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.

"IT workers who specialise in free and open source software are earning more than the national average for IT, according to the results of Australia's first open source census. The average full time salary of respondents to the Australian Open Source Industry and Community Census was between $76,000 and $100,000, but the 10 percent working on open source full time were earning almost three times the national median."

Today at GUADEC I presented the results of the GNOME Census, a project we have been working on for a while. For as long as I have been involved in GNOME, press, analysts, potential partners and advisory board members have been asking us: How big is GNOME?

Australians working with open source software are urged to participate in an online census launched this week to discover the capabilities of the local industry.