91 per cent of enterprise developers say open source will play a part in their organisation's future, report

Code transparency, reduced lock-in and the flexibility to adapt and fork seen as the major benefits

Open source software is gaining ground, with a report by OpenUK finding its use is growing 28.6 per cent year-on-year in the UK and that it contributes up to £43 billion to the country's economy.

The drivers of its growth in acceptance are many and various and include the rising use of cloud, the need for rapid product iterations and developer demand - software developers and engineers overwhelmingly prefer the open source mix-and-match model.

This finding was backed up by a recent survey of 200 UK developers working in large enterprises who specialise in cloud and database technology. The study was conducted by consultancy Resonance for Aiven, a managed service provider of open source databases, streaming and messaging systems.

The top four benefits of open source were given as:

• Transparency of code: bugs are more visible and get fixed more quickly (69 per cent)
• Reduced lock-in (53 per cent)
• Build your own, add features, fork the code (53 per cent)
• Innovation (51 per cent)

However, there are downsides to this flexibility and choice. Some open source software packages are immature and community support may be lacking (45 per cent). It can also be harder than packaged proprietary offerings to configure and install some open source software (48 per cent) and when codebases are changing rapidly it can be a challenge to keep up with the updates and security patches (54 per cent).

Nevertheless, the developers surveyed listed twice as many benefits associated with open source technology as they did disadvantages, and asked about the future of open source in their organisations their answers were positive. Just nine per cent said open source would play no part in their setup (15 per cent are in that position today, operating a fully proprietary major technology stack). Meanwhile, 44 per cent said it will be a major part of their future, with 49 per cent saying it will be a minor part.

On the question of support, the majority seemed confident in their capabilities. Using in house capacity was the most popular option with 51 per cent choosing it, while outsourcing and managed services each came in at 35 per cent.

Heikki Nousiainen, CTO and co-founder at Aiven, said: "Using open source software is a fantastic way for enterprises to take advantage of the latest innovation in software. More importantly, it provides businesses with the flexibility for growth, without having to worry about vendor lock-in and other challenges that come with using proprietary software."

He continued: "However, open source software does not come without its own challenges and it is crucial that businesses looking to adopt open source have the necessary support to overcome any hurdles associated with installation and maintenance, whether that be built in-house or provided by a third party."