The Open Source Census has announced the latest findings from their data collection regarding the use of open source software. These findings reveal that in just six months since it began, more than 300,000 open source package/project installations have been discovered.

 

The Open Source Census is a collaborative project that works to count the number of open source software installations and gain a sample large enough to be representative of open source deployments in the world.

 

Commenting on their latest findings, Kim Weins, senior vice president of products and marketing at OpenLogic said, "We're excited about the growing pool of data The Open Source Census is collecting."

 

"By participating, these enterprises, for the first time and at no cost, are able to identify what open source software is already installed on their computers and benchmark themselves against others in their industry."

 

The Open Source Census has also uncovered other findings in its research by scanning computers including findings that government and financial services companies are the highest users of open source per machine scanned. With 123 different open source packages installed on computers in government agencies and 117 different packages on the computer of financial services companies.

 

When it came to specific countries, they have so far seen Europe as the highest user of open source just before the U.S. According to the data, the U.S. averages 51 open source packages per machine and Europe averages 68 packages per machine.

 

Other findings also noted include a significant amount of open source software used on Windows, with 39 percent of open source software packages per machine. In comparison, Linux users were found to have 87 percent of open source packages per machine scanned.

 

Just last month, The Open Source Census also reported it identified more than 275,000 open source installations on more than 2,000 machines.