Quantifying the Interest in Open Source Systems: Case South-East Finland Uolevi Nikula
Sami Jantunen
Lappeenranta University of Technology P.O. Box 20, FI-53851 Lappeeranta, Finland
Lappeenranta University of Technology P.O. Box 20, FI-53851 Lappeeranta, Finland
[email protected]
[email protected]
Abstract – Open source systems (OSS) has emerged as one of the most interesting phenomena in software engineering today. Unfortunately, only little hard data is available to quantify the interest in OSS in commercially operating software houses. As a part of a local initiative to increase the alignment between the software industry and software engineering research and education, a state of the practice survey was conducted in the local software houses. Due to the globally recognized interest in OSS some explorative questions on the topic were included in the survey. The results of the survey indicate widespread interest in OSS in the industry, and even though the study had a strictly regional focus, the results provide quantitative support for future research on OSS.
I. INTRODUCTION Open source software development has emerged as one of the most interesting phenomena in software engineering today. Unfortunately, only little hard data is available to quantify the interest in open source systems (OSS) in commercially operating software houses. There are some quantitative studies on OSS but it seems that so far the interest has focused on understanding the community of OSS developers [e.g. 1, 2]. It has been claimed [3] that information technology research should both increase the understanding of the reality and also try to improve the current practices. Descriptions of the state of the practice [e.g. 4] are not very common in literature even though they have been claimed important by both the practitioners and researchers [5]. The increasing number of reports on regional process improvement efforts, on the other hand, provides evidence on the need of proper understanding of local circumstances [6-8]. Thus, as a part of a local initiative to increase the alignment between local software industry and software engineering research and education, it was decided to survey the local industry to collect data on the current software engineering practices. Overall, the survey had four cornerstones that were expected to help establish a solid and broad understanding of the software industry. First, the survey was conducted in a geographically well bounded area – the South Karelia and Kymenlaakso provinces which are collectively called South-East Finland. Second, the goal was to identify and survey all the companies that practiced serious commercial software development. Third, the companies were contacted personally and the survey was based on interviews. And fourth, the scope of the survey was software engineering practices by and large including some aspects of adopted business models. The essence of the survey was to get hard data on the basic software engineering, process improvement and business practices in the companies. This broad approach made it impossible to cover every topic in detail but, on the other hand, made possible the identification of interesting and important areas from the others. In this paper the results of the survey on the interest and use of OSS are
reported. In particular three questions are addressed: the level of interest and use of open source software, use of different operating systems, and use of different database systems in the companies. These explorative questions were included in the survey to quantify the interest in these areas so that future research efforts can be based on hard data on the interest and use of OSS in the local industry. The rest of this paper is structured as follows. Section II describes the research method used and Section III reports the results of the study. Section IV provides a discussion on the results and Section V includes the conclusion of the paper. II. RESEARCH METHOD The present study focuses on software companies in the South Karelia and Kymenlaakso provinces which are collectively called South-East Finland. The primary source for acquiring the list of companies was a national business contact and marketing information provider [9] where the companies were identified based on a national adaptation of the European standard industrial classification [10], Section K 72 Computer and related activities, as the selection criteria. The initial list was supplemented with companies found from different sources such as local technology centers, company listings from the provincial federation, listings from previously conducted research efforts, and web searches. The final selection criteria required software development for commercial purposes involving more than one person. The survey was implemented in two parts. First, key informants of the companies were interviewed using a structured questionnaire, and second, a link to a web survey was sent to selected employees of the companies. The employees to answer the web survey were acquired from the key informants at the end of their interviews. The thirteen-page key informant questionnaire form was developed based on a literature survey and numerous other surveys found thereby. In this paper the data from these interviews is mainly used to establish the industrial context of the present study. The four-page employee survey focused on the use of tools, technologies, and processes. Both forms were piloted in another region in six companies with comparable characteristics as the target companies, and changes were made to reduce ambiguity in the forms. The key informant interviews were conducted with the help of a laptop and a data projector so that the interviewee(s) could see the form and how it was filled in by the interviewer. The interview sessions were conducted at the interviewee’s premises when possible, they were audio recorded for future reference, and took from 1 hour and 10 minutes to 3 hours and 40 minutes to complete with an average of 2 hours and 10 minutes. Since three separate people conducted the interviews, the researcher responsible for the questionnaire development attended the first three or four interviews to assure the uniform performance of the interviews. Each employee named for the web survey
Proceedings of the First International Conference on Open Source Systems Genova, I, 11th-15th July 2005 Marco Scotto and Giancarlo Succi (Eds.), pp. 192-195
received a personal link to the survey form by e-mail, so that the responses to the survey could be monitored; if no response was received within a week, a reminder was sent to each respondent. The data from both surveys was stored in a database and later analyzed with a spreadsheet program. III. RESULTS In this section the results of the study are reported. Section A reports the company and employee characteristics and B focuses on the attitude towards OSS. A. Company and Employee Characteristics The companies were studied on a business site basis since many of the sites were subsidiary locations for the companies with headquarters located elsewhere in Finland. The conducted site search found 77 sites that were deemed interesting and 62 of them (81 %) agreed to be interviewed. 89 % of the interviewed sites were willing and able to report the share of software related activities of their revenue: 64 % got more than 60 % of the revenue from software business, 18 % got 31 – 60 %, and 18 % got 0 – 30 % of the revenue from software business. The companies were operating mostly with business customers and the largest customer type was large companies which represented 45 % of the total revenue; small and medium sized companies represented 40 %; the public administration represented 15 %; and private consumers represented only 1 % of the total revenue. Considering the customers by their industry sector, the forest industry represented 20 % of the total revenue of the companies, information and communication technology 19 %, metal industry 10 %, energy and environment 10 %, logistics 5 %, and other sectors 35 % of the total revenue. In the other sectors the largest single customer type was the public sector which formed 29 % of the group. The number of people in each site was generally small, and the largest site had 168 employees. From the employee count point of view the largest group of sites had from 5 to 9 employees (35 %) while the most typical size of a whole company was from 10 to 49 employees (33 %) (TABLE I). The two biggest sites were part of a corporation that claims to be the largest information technology service provider in the Nordic countries; altogether this corporation employed 468 of the 1196 (39 %) full time employees in the interviewed software houses in the region. From the people working in all the interviewed sites, 63 % were software developers and the rest included management, trainees, and sales and other personnel. The data from the key informant interviews revealed some interesting aspects of the actual way of working. Observations about the software the companies produced include the following: 89 % of the companies had some kind of commercial off the shelf software products available; 70 % of the bespoke projects and products were completed with less than five person years of effort; and in general the companies operated with non-critical applications. Namely, the companies reported that a failure in the end products could result in a loss of human lives in only 5 % of the companies, halt the normal company operation in 53 %, result in significant economical losses in 50 %, cause distraction to normal operation in 92 %, and result in general irritation and dissatisfaction in 97 % of the
companies. In general, 82 % of the companies had carried out some process improvement activities during the past 12 months but only 29 % of them had utilized the established quality system standards (e.g. ISO-9001) or maturity models (e.g. CMM, CMMI, SPICE) in these activities. Two companies themselves noted that they had an ISO certificate and one was applying for it whereas numerous companies had utilized the standard in their development work. The key informant interview was closed with a request to name from 1 to 3 typical project managers and from 2 to 6 typical developers with different levels of experience for the employee survey. The number of names received varied from zero to nine with a total of 165 named respondents; from these 128 (78 %) employees from 54 companies completed the web survey. 83 % of the respondents worked as developers, 30 % as managers, and 13 % played both of these roles. From the respondents (n=118) 26 % had less than 5 years of experience in software engineering, 48 % had from 5 to 10 years, and 25 % had over 10 years of experience in software engineering. The experience in the present company (n=124) was less than 5 years for 57 % of the respondents; 31 % had from 5 to 10 years, and 11 % had over 10 years of experience in the present company. 59 % of the respondents had an education in a field related to software engineering, 37 % had other technical education, 10 % had business education, and 10 % had some other education. Considering the level of education, a Master’s degree or an equivalent was held by 30 % of the respondents, a Bachelor’s degree by 29 %, a vocational degree by 20 %, and a degree higher than a Master’s degree was held by 1 % of the respondents; 9 % had some other degree and 16 % had no degree at all. The areas of expertise of the respondents varied as follows: 66 % were specialized in design, 60 % in the application domain, 44 % in databases, 38 % in project management, 36 % in requirements, 40 % in architecture, 36 % in testing, 34 % in maintenance, 30 % in process improvement, 29 % in customer support, 25 % in usability, and 22 % in quality. B. Attitude towards Open Source Systems The key informant survey studied the interest in OSS with the question “Do you utilize open source software in your software development?” This question had five nonexclusive response options: 1. No we do not. 2. We are investigating the possibilities to utilize open source software in our software development. 3. We utilize open source software in our internal activities. TABLE I NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES COUNTED PER BUSINESS SITE AND PER COMPANY Employees Count
Per Site Percentage
Per Company Count Percentage
2–4
17
27 %
11
18 %
5–9
22
35 %
18
30 %
10 – 49
20
32 %
20
33 %
50 – 249
3
5%
6
10 %
Over 249
0
0%
6
10 %
Proceedings of the First International Conference on Open Source Systems Genova, I, 11th-15th July 2005 Marco Scotto and Giancarlo Succi (Eds.), pp. 192-195
35 %
Not utilized
48 %
Possibilities are studied
50 %
Used internally
44 %
Used in business Basis of the business
5%
0%
20 %
40 %
60 %
Fig. 1. Interest in open source software, n=62
4.
We utilize open source software in our commercial activities. 5. Our commercial software development is based on open source software. 35 % of the companies (n=62) reported that they did not utilize OSS in their business (Fig. 1). 48 % of the companies reported that they were studying the possibilities to utilize OSS in their business and at the moment 13 % of these companies did not utilize OSS in any way. 50 % of the companies reported that they utilized OSS internally and 58 % of these were studying possibilities for wider utilization. 44 % reported that they utilized OSS it in their business; in this group 85 % of the companies utilized OSS internally and 59 % were studying possibilities for wider utilization. Only 5 % of the companies stated that their business was based on OSS. Looking at the selected combinations of these options only two unexpected combinations were found. First, three companies utilized OSS in their commercial activities but did not do so internally; further, these companies studied possibilities for larger utilization of OSS. Second, one of the companies based its business on OSS and used it in internal operations, but did not use it in commercial activities or study possibilities for wider utilization. The web survey included two questions on the use of OSS – the operating systems and database systems. The use of different operating systems was studied with five options, which were Not used, Microsoft operating systems, Unix based systems, Embedded systems, and Other. This question was answered by 128 people from 54 companies and looking at the operating systems used (Fig. 2) the dominance of Microsoft operating systems was clear (81 %) (e.g., Windows 2000 and XP). However, Unix based systems (35 %) (e.g., UNIX and Linux) and embedded systems (20 %) (e.g., Symbian and PalmOS) 81 %
Microsof t
Embedded Other
Object based
9% 20 %
59 %
Commercial 30 % 24 % 4%
Other
2%
0%
The collected statistical data bears little surprises and mainly quantifies the general perceptions about interest in OSS. The fact that 5 % of the companies based their business on OSS, 35 % did not utilize OSS at all, and 44 – 50 % of the companies were doing something between these two extremes suggests that OSS is in its early adoption phases [11]. Thus it can be expected that existing literature on diffusion of innovations [e.g. 11, 12] provides a good basis for business planning in addition to the literature specific to OSS [e.g. 13]. However, one should keep in mind that adopting a new business model is not necessarily comparable to adopting a new technological innovation like a mobile phone or a methodology [cf. 14]. In the key informant interviews some discrepant OSS related issues were brought up. In one company the managing director told that he had been interested in OSS databases a few years earlier and considered them as an option for commercial databases, but he failed to find reasonably priced training at the time. Consequently, he said that they were forced to continue using the commercial databases for the time being. In another company the managing director said that they had been looking for business opportunities based on OSS some years ago but failed to find anything solid enough for business activities. Thus a decision was made to become a Microsoft partner, and he claimed this decision and partnership very positive ones for the company. In the course of the conducted interviews two further companies brought up the Microsoft Certified Professional training programs and the benefits they brought to the companies. Despite the fair interest in OSS, the utilization of it appeared informal and discussions did not raise any concerns about, for example, the quality of OSS or licensing practices. The employee survey included questions about the use of tools in different software engineering related tasks, but only the questions related to the operating systems and database solutions discussed above brought up any quantitatively interesting results. This paper has some obvious limitations. It was not possible to collect accurate data of the site revenues and no provision is made for the companies’ economical importance in the region, but results are reported on the basis of site counts. The employee survey sampling does not reflect the size of the companies and their selection
Open source
20 %
Not used
IV. DISCUSSION
File based
35 %
Unix
were also well represented in the participating companies. In the same vein the database solutions used (Fig. 3) were clearly dominated by commercial databases (59 %) (e.g., Oracle, MS-SQL Server, MS-Access), and file based solutions (30 %) (e.g. XML) were more common than OSS databases (24 %) (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL).
2%
Not used 40 %
60 %
80 %
Fig. 2. Use of different operating systems, n=128
100 %
0%
23 % 20 %
40 %
60 %
80 %
Fig. 3. Use of different database solutions, n=128
Proceedings of the First International Conference on Open Source Systems Genova, I, 11th-15th July 2005 Marco Scotto and Giancarlo Succi (Eds.), pp. 192-195
100 %
was done by the key informants which is likely to have distorted the respondents’ profiles; in some cases the key informants themselves responded to the employee survey since they also participated in daily software development work. Due to the regional focus the applicability of the results in any other region is questionable, and finally, the study provides only a snapshot of the current practices since no data was collected on future plans or needs. V. CONCLUSION In this paper results of a survey on commercial software houses in South-East Finland were reported quantifying the interest in open source systems. The survey was conducted in a regionally well bounded area and it managed to engage 81 % of the software houses in the region in the study. Overall, the study aimed at demystifying the current practices in the local software houses so that research and education on software engineering could be aligned with the real needs of the local industry. The central findings of the survey were twofold. First, the results confirmed the perceptions about the general level of interest in open source systems indicating that OSS is in its early adoption phases. In practice, the following profile of interest was identified: 5 % of the responding companies had based their business on OSS, 35 % did not yet utilize OSS in any way, and 44 – 50 % had studied possibilities to utilize OSS in their business or had already done it to some extent. Second, discussions in the course of the interviews indicated that individual companies may have well-argued reasons to base their business solely on commercial software or OSS. The hard data collected on the interest in OSS provides a justification and basis for future research efforts. The identified profile of interest suggests that future in-depth studies on the role of OSS in software development are justified. However, the companies basing their business on OSS are likely to be better suited for qualitative research methods while the other groups are likely to suit quantitative research methods. Viable research goals include continued interaction with the industry to confirm that the results of the study reflect their feelings about the current practice, to explore the reasons for the current situation, and to find out more about the perceived future needs. It is also evident that educational and research institutions should increase the understanding of and skills in open source systems to be able to serve the industry when the need arises. One clear action would be to help the students to build a solid understanding of open source systems and their realities in the commercial software industry. VI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study was conducted as a co-operative effort between Lappeenranta University of Technology, SouthCarelia Polytechnic, and Kymenlaakso Polytechnic. The study was funded by the National Technology Agency and the Employment and Economic Center of Finland. More information about the project can be found at http://www.it.lut.fi/katapultti.
VII. REFERENCES [1] R.A. Ghosh and V.V. Prakash, "The Orbiten Free Software Survey," First Monday, vol. 5, no 7, July 2000. [2] B.J. Dempsey, D. Weiss, P. Jones, and J. Greenberg, "A Quantitative Profile of a Community of Open Source Linux Developers," University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA, SILS Technical Report TR-1999-05, 1999. Available at http://ils.unc.edu/ils/research/reports/TR1999-05.pdf. [3] S.T. March and G.F. Smith, "Design and Natural Science Research on Information Technology," Decision Support Systems, vol. 15, no 4, December 1995, pp. 251-266. [4] M.A. Cusumano, A. MacCormack, C.F. Kemerer, and B. Crandall, "Software Development Worldwide: The State of the Practice," IEEE Software, vol. 20, no 6, November-December 2003, pp. 28-34. [5] R.L. Glass, "The State of the Practice of Software Engineering," IEEE Software, vol. 20, no 6, November-December 2003, pp. 20-21. [6] M. Jenkins, "PRO-SOFTWARE: A GovernmentIndustry-Academia Partnership that Worked," in Proceedings of the 2004 17th Conference on Software Engineering Education & Training, pp. 92-97. [7] N. Habra, E. Niyitugabira, A.-C. Lamblin, and A. Renault, "Software Process Improvement in Small Organizations Using Gradual Evaluation Schema," in Proceedings of the 1999 International Conference on Product Focused Software Process Improvement, pp. 381-396. [8] ICT West, "ICT West," http://www.tut.fi/public/index.cfm?MainSel=7476&S el=7479&Show=7874&Siteid=109, Accessed 24 November 2004. [9] Blue Book, "Bluebook," http://www.bluebook.fi, Accessed 27 September 2004. [10] The Commission of the European Communities, "NACE Rev. 1.1: Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community," http://europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/ramon/nace_rev1_ 1/nace_rev1_1_en.html, Accessed 27 September 2004. [11] E.M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovations, 4th edition, The Free Press, New York: 1995. [12] G.A. Moore, Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers, Revised edition, HarperCollinsPublishers, New York: 1999. [13] F. Hecker, "Setting Up Shop: The Business of OpenSource Software," IEEE Software, vol. 16, no 1, January-February 1999, pp. 45-51. [14] C.K. Riemenschneider, B.C. Hardgrave, and F.D. Davis, "Explaining Software Developer Acceptance of Methodologies: A Comparison of Five Theoretical Models," IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, vol. 28, no 12, December 2002, pp. 1135-1145.
Proceedings of the First International Conference on Open Source Systems Genova, I, 11th-15th July 2005 Marco Scotto and Giancarlo Succi (Eds.), pp. 192-195
