The Linux Foundation Presents Results of Collaborative Development Study
The Linux Foundation has announced the release of its first “Collaborative Development Trends Report,” which presents the results of an invitation-only survey of nearly 700 software developers and business managers about their participation and investments in collaborative development practices. The complete report is now downloadable online, and is released in conjunction with The Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit in Napa, Calif. The report shows strong growth for collaborative development projects and more investments made in them.
According to the announcement:
"The rise of Linux and open source tools and components in the enterprise software industry over the past decade has been well documented. More recently, a new business model has emerged in which companies are joining together across industries to share development resources and build common open source code bases on which they can differentiate their own products and services. This collaborative approach is transforming industries from cloud computing and the datacenter, to automotive and mobile computing, and creating the next generation of technologies. The Linux kernel community pioneered this approach to software development and their success has helped to inspire the spread of collaborative methods to other industries and technologies."
The report found that ninety-one percent of business managers and executives surveyed ruled collaborative software development somewhat to very important to their businesses. And nearly 80 percent say collaborative development practices have been seen as more strategic to their organization over the past three years. Nearly half of business managers surveyed said they prioritize collaborative development because it allows them to innovate and/or help transform their industry.
Among business managers and executives, 44 percent said they would increase their investments in collaborative software development in the next six months; 42 percent said they would sustain their current investment, and no one reported they would decrease their investment. Sixty-three percent of software developers surveyed said they spend more time now on collaborative software development, compared with five years ago. And 59 percent reported increased participation in collaborative software development in the last year.
“Linux is the largest collaborative development project in the history of computing and has paved the way for other collaborative efforts to accelerate technology advancements and dramatically reduce research and development costs,” said Jim Zemlin, executive director at The Linux Foundation, in a statement. “These collaborative development practices are dramatically disrupting the way technologies are built and distributed, and the new Collaborative Development Trends Report helps inform how and what we can expect in the coming months.”
It should be noted that many companies polled in the survey were large technology companies, where you would expect familiarity with collaboration as a development model. The companies included Cisco, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Intel, Google, NEC, Oracle, Qualcomm and Samsung.
