[Masterlibre-list] "Open to Open Source" : Article from March 1st 2006

[Anne Østergaard]

"Open to Open Source"
Open source software has found a permanent home on some college
campuses. But according to a study released today by the Alliance for
Higher Education Competitiveness, open source products, which enable
programmers to modify code and customize programs, have yet to reach the
masses of academe.


Kenneth Green, founding director of the Campus Computing Project, which
studies the role of technology in higher education, calls the mindset
regarding open source “affirmative ambivalence.” Chief information
officers are confident the software will be a part of the future but are
still taking a wait-and-see approach, Green said.

Read more:
http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/03/01/open
and about the study here:
http://www.a-hec.org/open_source_state.html

  Summary Table of Open Source Adoption in Higher Education (Excerpts)
 Parameter

 Study Results 

[They look much nicer in the schema]

 

Note: Percentages shown are estimates of the percentage of all U.S.
institutions.

Implementation of open source infrastructure products

57%

Leading open source infrastructure products

Apache (53%), Linux (51%), MySQL (38%), Firefox (35%), and Tomcat (33%)

Open source infrastructure products replaced or considered for
replacement†

Web server (44%), operating system (34%), web browser (33%), database
(32%)

Implementation of open source or open source compatible application
products

25%

Leading open source application or open source compatible application
products

uPortal (7%), OpenOffice (6%), SCT Luminis Platform (6%), Moodle (5%),
Sakai (4%), Unicon Academus (3%), and OSPI (2%).

Application vendors replaced or considered for replacement by open
source or open source compatible products†

Microsoft (19%), Blackboard (17%), WebCT  (16%), and homegrown software
(15%)

Open source or open source compatible applications being most considered
right now

Sakai (28%), Moodle (23%), uPortal (20%), OpenOffice (15%), OSPI (12%),
OKI (10%), SCT Luminis Platform (9%), and Kuali (8%),

Perceptions of which open source or open source compatible applications
are viable today

uPortal (29%), SCT Luminis Platform (29%), OpenOffice (21%), Moodle
(19%), Sakai (13%), Unicon Academus (9%), and OSPI (7%)

Percent of institutions that have not yet given serious consideration to
open source

32%

Top reasons why open source has not yet been seriously considered

- Lacking the resources to implement 
- An unclear future for open source in higher education 
- Satisfaction with current non-open source products (and therefore no
reason to change) 
- The costs are not clear
----

This is a US study- but where are we?

Best regards


Anne