Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
22
The economics of free/open source
software in industry
Simon Thornber
Abstract:
Free and open source software has many attractive
qualities, perhaps none more so than the price tag. However, does
'free' really mean free? In this chapter, I consider the process of
implementing FLOSS systems within an enterprise environment. I
highlight the hidden costs of such deployments that must be
considered and contrasted with commercial alternatives. I also
describe potential business models that would support the adoption
of FLOSS within industry by providing support, training and
bespoke customisation. Finally, the role of pre-competitive initiatives
and their relevance to supporting open source initiatives is presented.
Key words:
pharmaceuticals; economics; enterprise deployment;
pre-competitive; cloud computing; Pistoia.
22.1 Introduction
In the last few years use of free/libre open source (FLOSS) software has
exploded. Versions of Linux are found in millions of television set-top
boxes, Google's Android is arguably the leading smart phone operating
system, countless websites are powered by Apache, and millions of Blogs
by WordPress. However, for total number of users Mozilla's Firefox
browser is hard to beat, with an estimated 270 million active users (as
measured by active security pings received by Mozilla [1]), accounting
for around 20% of web traffi c in general surveys of such things. Firefox
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