New study highlights the ongoing importance of open source
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) has become a critical part of the modern economy and it's estimated that up to 96 percent of codebases now include it.
In order to understand the impact of open source The Linux Foundation, in collaboration with the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard, commissioned its latest study into the space and today announces the release of the Census III of Free and Open Source Software -- Application Libraries report.
"Understanding the health and security posture of open source software is a critical step to ensure its sustainability. Census III underscores the importance of identifying and supporting widely used open source components, complementing Linux Foundation projects, initiatives, and security-focused research, and it comes at a critical time as we navigate regulations like the Cyber Resilience Act. These insights are vital for prioritizing resources in our efforts to steward a secure and resilient open source ecosystem," says Hilary Carter, SVP research at The Linux Foundation.
The use of cloud service-specific packages is increasing according to the report and there's an ongoing transition from Python 2 to Python 3. The number of Python2 users is dramatically higher in a some sectors such as 29 percent in data analysis, 24 percent in computer graphics, and 23 percent in DevOps.
Among other findings are that use of components from Rust package repositories has increased considerably since the earlier Census II report.
It's also interesting that much of the most widely used FOSS is developed by only a handful of contributors. This means that individual developer account security is increasingly important.
"Free and open source software has become the backbone of the digital economy," says Frank Nagle of Harvard Business School. "However, understanding which projects are critical to sustaining the FOSS ecosystem is difficult since there is limited ability to centrally measure the most widely used packages. Census III provides deep and broad insights into this problem as it measures which FOSS packages companies are most heavily reliant on and offers guidance for organizations and individuals who want to invest to support and secure this essential public good."
The full report is available from The Linux Foundation's site.
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