The Open Source Jobs Boom InfoWorld (07/24/08) Snyder, Bill
as it appeared in the July 28, 2008 edition of ACM TechNews.
As much as 15 percent of IT positions currently available require open source software skills, concludes a new report. Analysts say the strong growth of open source-related jobs, particularly at a time when overall job growth in IT may be slowing, suggests widespread adoption of open-source technologies in industry. In fact, the slowing economy may be driving open source adoption as a low-cost alternative to commercial software. Another indicator of the growing popularity of open source can be seen on SourceForge, which maintains a database of projects and downloads. The number of projects hosted by the site grew from 12,500 in 2000 to nearly 200,000 by the end of 2007, an annual growth rate of about 55 percent. Annual downloads on SourceForge have also jumped. In 2003, there were slightly less than 200,000 downloads, but by the end of 2007 the annual total had risen to 800 million, and by the end of 2009 the annual total is expected to real 1 billion, says report author Bernard Golden. That estimate may even be understating the actual number of downloads because some products are hosted on mirror sites that do not track cumulative totals. Click Here to View Full Article
