Use of open source software in the enterprise is on the rise, according to a four-year survey by Zenoss Inc. Of 950 respondents at the annual USENIX Large Installation System Administration conference, 98 percent said they use open source. One reason it is becoming more popular is that it is considered increasingly easy to use. In 2006, 26 percent of the survey respondents said open source was easier to deploy than proprietary software, but in 2009, 71 percent said it was easier.

"What's telling about this survey is that that flexibility, followed by lower costs, is the main driver for open source systems management adoption today," said Mark Hinkle, vice president for Community at Zenoss. "Users indicated that the collaborative, transparent and free traits of open source management tools enabled agility and provide numerous other advantages which result in a high degree of satisfaction with the tools as evidenced in the survey responses."

Open source software still has its challenges, however. The biggest reasons enterprises don't choose it, according to the survey, is lack of support and poor documentation.

Often, organizations that make substantial use of open source discover that their own developers are more engaged because they have more freedom to extend the code, according to a new report from Forrester Research.

However, when it comes to business intelligence software, open source falls short in a number of areas, Forrester's researchers found. Despite the lower cost and more flexible support, a number of open source BI offerings come without features that proprietary versions offer, such as scalability tools and integrated security, reports Chris Kanaracus of IDG news service. Forrester took a look at BI suites from Actuate, Jaspersoft, SpagoBI and Pentaho.

For more:
- see Zenoss 2010 Open Source Systems Management Survey report
- see Chris Kanaracus' article at PCWorld

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