Linux could boost GPL market

Recent research has revealed that, because Linux is still being warmly welcomed in corporate environments, industry attitudes may provide a significant boost for the open source market.

A report carried out by internet and application software provider (ISP and ASP) Idaya, found that the Linux market is expected to grow by more than 150 per cent during 2001 - a figure suggesting that the Linux adoption trend could constitute a boost for the General Public Licence (GPL) market.

Over a thousand ISPs and ASPs were involved in the survey, featuring a mixture of business managers, techies and service managers.

Around 83 per cent of respondents believed that the porting of key enterprise applications to Linux, such as Lotus Notes, Oracle, SQL server etc., would constitute a boost for the GPL market. But 13 per cent believed it would pose a threat, under the assumption that the code would no longer be free at the point of usage under the GPL principle.

Some 42 per cent said that the adoption of Linux by the big players, such as IBM, Hewlett Packard and Compaq, would improve the business opportunities of small companies.

But 21 per cent actually felt that this adoption could hobble the opportunities for smaller players, contrary to the founding principles of the open source movement. A further 37 per cent felt that it wouldn't make any difference to the industry at all.

As far as the future of Linux on the desktop is concerned, the service provider industry was split 50/50 on whether it could ever wrestle the laurels from Microsoft and become the desktop operating system of choice.