Open Source Still Faces Obstacles

The proprietary nature of the software large companies depend on has replaced a lack of standards as the primary obstacle to open-source development, according to Evans Data. In a survey of development managers at companies with 2000 or more employees, almost 27 percent said that their proprietary software prevents them from using open-source development, down from 29 percent in an earlier poll. In contrast, only 25.4 percent cited a lack of standards as the main barrier to open-source development, down from 34.5 percent in an earlier survey. As Graph 2 shows, fewer than 10 percent said that open-source software isn't reliable enough for their projects or that open-source software lacks adequate testing tools.