A beautiful day in the open source neighborhood

Mr. Rogers could have been singing about open source software (OSS), with all the good news that seems to be coming out these days.

First there's a new report from the Standish Group that calculates open source software saves companies $60 billion a year over proprietary software. That's billion with a “b.” Of course the Standish Group spins this as “a real loss of $60 billion in annual revenues to software companies,” but we all know what that means – organizations are looking for the cost savings and performance benefits that only OSS can deliver, and it seems they can't replace their proprietary software quickly enough.

Then there's even more good news from the analysts at IDC. They state that the market for quality assurance and testing of OSS is expected to grow by as much as 150% between 2007 and 2008. IDC is suggesting that the market for OSS will expand as companies tighten their belts during the expected recession, with the OSS service market growing right along with it.

As my good friend Dave Rosenberg blogged over at CNET, “It's a great time to be an open source company.” I couldn't agree more.