Open source software has become a multi-billion dollar industry

The popularity of open source software development projects has grown so much that it has become a multi-billion dollar industry that attracts investment from companies around the world.

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The volume of investments in open source software from organizations around the world has reached $7.7 billion, according to the results of a study conducted by Github, the Linux Foundation and Harvard University. This volume of funds has a clear division: most of the investments (86%) come in the form of working time of company employees, and only 14% are expressed in direct financial contributions. The study analyzed data from 501 respondents who invested $1.7 billion in open-source projects over the course of a year. Average expenses per organization are estimated at approximately $520 thousand: $345 thousand in labor costs and $175 thousand in direct financial contributions.

More than half (57%) of direct financial contributions went to contractors; less than a fifth goes to specific projects (17%) and funds (16%). Community (4%), maintainers (4%) and rewards platforms (1%) also received cash infusions. More than two-thirds (68%) were unable to answer how much financial support they had allocated to various open source project goals; 78% did not report or were unable to report how much of the organization’s budget was dedicated to open source projects.

Despite the efforts made by researchers to quantify the market, the data is collected from a limited number of organizations and the conclusions are more of an educated guess. The researchers encouraged company employees to self-report participation in such projects and incorporate it into organizational work processes. There is a clear understanding that open source software drives innovation, and GitHub, the Linux Foundation, and Harvard are calling for encouragement of monitoring and transparency of such activity to ensure its continued growth in the future.