Pundits and business executives alike are predicting gloomy economic times for 2009. But when the talk turns to free and open source software (FOSS), suddenly the mood brightens. Whether their concern is the business opportunities in open source or the promotion of free software idealism, experts see FOSS as starting from a strong base and actually benefiting from the hard times expected next year. That's not to say that challenges won't arise, but the consensus seems to be that 2009 presents more opportunities than difficulties for FOSS. Long ago, Linux became the "furniture" of open source: essential infrastructure to most of the Fortune 500 and somewhat mundane in its predictable, ever-increasing adoption.Despite its impressive rise, however, Linux still has a long, long way to go. While results of an IDC survey published this week found that 55 percent of the 300 IT executives surveyed already had Linux systems in use, a full 97 percent were running Windows. But current situations could help FOSS to catch up again.The idea that software available at no cost will become popular in a recession is a no-brainer. The recession is going to force a lot of people to be more careful with their spending, and look to get more and more value out of their resources as they spend. And, the pressure to do more with less will be particularly hard on IT departments, who are always under pressure to deliver efficient, uninterrupted service. Under these circumstances, interest in software that is available at little to no cost is only natural. But FOSS has many more advantages than simply being a cheaper way of building infrastructure. Not only is FOSS in general and Linux in particular well-supported, with billions of dollars of investment from top tier companies, but that, unlike Windows, it is massively hedged, by which we mean that it is available in every form from cheap notebooks through embedded systems to super computers. It's just unparalleled in computing in terms of its versatility and its diversification. Pretty much everyone has opened up their device drivers, giving it broad hardware support that is only going to increase over the coming year. Moreover, FOSS is already strong in areas such as virtualization, which many large organizations may turn to in their efforts to do more with less. In fact, Linux and the FOSS ecosystem surrounding it has incredible advantages in any market over its main competitor, Windows -- advantages that an economic downturn only intensifies. At a time when a search for the lowest possible price point is happening in such areas as notebooks, FOSS is available at no cost. It is easy to rebrand and customize in a way that Windows isn't, and is also technically more efficient. Lower cost, faster time to market, higher profit margins, better branding -- these are all things that are in favor of Linux and not in favor of Windows.So,it is predicted that will continue to dominate notebooks and consumer electronics, as it did in 2008.
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