The State of Open Source Software in 2025

This blog was first published on Nov 26, 2025 at https://blog.irvingwb.com/blog/2025/11/the-state-of-open-source-software-in-2025.html and repurposed here with consent from the author. 

A few weeks ago, Linux Foundation Research published “The State of Global Open Source 2025,” the third annual report based on its survey of the open source community. The report highlights the evolution of open source software (OSS) from a productivity tool to a key component of global mission-critical infrastructures. The 2025 global survey on which it’s based confirms that organizations depend on OSS as the backbone of their critical systems.

Given my long involvement with open source technologies and the Linux Foundation, I was invited to write the Foreword of the 2024 Open Source report, where I tried to explain why open source has been so successful over the past several decades:

“For centuries, experts have worked together to jointly address some of the most complex and important problems of their times, from exploring the secrets of the universe to developing new healthcare treatments. Open source is part of this long tradition of collaborative innovation.”

I then cited two concrete, successful examples of collaborative innovation from my personal experiences in the IT industry. One was the explosive growth of the Internet and World Wide Web. Once the Internet and Web were widely embraced in the 1990s, everyone could finally communicate with each other and access information and applications because they were all using the same standards based on open source implementations of their key protocols. Similarly, once Linux became widely accepted as an open source operating system embraced by research and business communities, these communities were able to jointly develop a large number of Linux-based systems and applications across just about all industries.

The 2025 report warns that despite open source software being the backbone of organizations’ critical systems, “most lack the governance and security frameworks to manage this dependency safely. While expecting enterprise-level reliability and support, organizations systematically underinvest in the security practices, formal governance structures, community engagement, and comprehensive strategies that production environments demand. … This governance gap creates substantial risk exposure given the mission-critical nature of these deployments.”

The report is based on a global survey that included 45 questions on open source use, contribution, value, and sustainability. Survey participants were carefully screened to make sure that they were willing to share their employment status and experiences with OSS. Ultimately the survey received 851 qualified responses. 37% came from countries in Europe, 29% from North America, and 21% from Asia-Pacific countries.

52% of respondents worked in software development, system operations and other IT roles; 27% were C-level executives and managers. 41% worked in companies in the IT industry, 9% in financial services, 7% in manufacturing, 7% in education, and 5% in government. And, 35% of respondents worked in small companies with 1 to 249 employees, 42% in companies with 250 to 9,999 employees, and 23% in large enterprises with over 10,000 employees.

Let me summarize the results of the survey.

Widespread OSS adoption

Open source has achieved substantial penetration across the core components of enterprise technology stacks: operating systems (55%), cloud & container technologies (49%), Web & application development (46%), database & data management (45%), development operations (45%), and AI & machine learning (ML)(40%).

Which technologies benefit the most from open source?: AI/ML (38%), operating systems (36%), and cybersecurity (26%).

How does OSS benefit organizations?: Improves productivity (86%), reduces vendor lock-in (84%), lowers the cost of software ownership (84%), facilitates innovation (82%), improves software quality (79%), lowers the cost of IT operations (78%), makes the organization a better place to work (78%), improves security (78%), reduces development time to market (75%).

What industries benefit most from open source?: Information technology (35%), government (33%), education (30%).  

Organizational maturity lags adoption rates. Only 34% of organizations have defined a clear open source strategy, and only 26% have implemented an Open Source Program Office (OSPO). Not surprisingly, large enterprises (10,000+ employees) are 2.4 times more likely to have an OSPO compared to small companies (39% vs. 16%), reflecting their greater resources, complex compliance needs, and ability to dedicate specialized teams to open source governance.

“This lack of clear structures or strategies for open source creates significant risk exposure and limits organizations’ ability to capture the full strategic value of open source participation. Establishing an OSPO helps formalize open source efforts and manage compliance, security, and contribution workflows.”

Organizations treat open source technologies as business-critical infrastructure, with expectations for support that mirror commercial software standards: 71% of organizations now expect response times of less than 12 hours from support providers for open source software in production environments; 53% expect long-term support guaranties; and 47% expect rapid security patching.

Paid support is considered essential across high-stakes use cases: these include 54% of mission-critical workloads, 43% of systems handling sensitive data, and 38% of regulated industry environments.

“This transformation creates both opportunities and challenges for the open source ecosystem, as traditional community-driven maintenance models must evolve to meet enterprise requirements while preserving the collaborative development advantages that made open source valuable in the first place. This shift is creating new market opportunities for commercial support providers, particularly in environments where the cost of system failure far exceeds the price of professional support services.”

What actions does your organization usually take before using a new OSS component?: Check the activity level of the project community (44%), look at the frequency of releases (37%), evaluate the direct dependencies of the OSS components (36%), look at ratings and package download statistics (36%), use automated security testing tools (31%), and manually inspect the source code (28%).

“Organizations demonstrate concerning gaps in their evaluation practices for open source components, with most security-focused assessments adopted by fewer than half of the surveyed organizations.”

Organizations view open source participation as a strategic investment that accelerates their market positioning: 83% believe open source is valuable to their organization’s future, and 72% believe that engaging in open source projects makes them more competitive.

What are the most important benefits of OSS to your organization?: Develops knowledge and skills of staff (77%), improves software quality (76%), fulfills a moral obligation to contribute back to the OSS community (72%), improves security (72%), enables the IT industry to be more innovative (72%), and makes the organization a better place to work (70%).

“These benefits directly translate to competitive advantage through reduced maintenance costs, faster feature delivery cycles, and more reliable products that strengthen customer relationships and market positioning.”

OSS improves workplace satisfaction and recruitment potential: 78% of respondents believe that OSS makes the organization a better place to work, and 74% believe that engaging in OSS projects helps attract technical talent.

“These findings suggest that open source engagement is a significant component of technical talent strategy, particularly as the competition for skilled developers intensifies across various industries.”

What are your organization's priorities for investing in OSS?: Sponsoring OSS projects that the organization depends on (44%), training developers on OSS usage (41%), increasing collaborations and contributions (39%), hiring or designating full-time OSS maintainers in-house (29%), and improving the compliance and legal review process (23%).

What are the key barriers that limit OSS adoption?: Licensing IP concerns (37%), lack of technical support (36%), and security concerns (36%).

And, what are the key barriers that limit OSS contributions?: Fear of leaking IP (33%), legal or licensing concerns (33%), and  uncertain ROI (29%).

“The 2025 World of Open Source Survey reveals a paradox: while open source software has achieved mission-critical status with widespread adoption across enterprise technology stacks, organizational maturity significantly lags behind this adoption,” said the report in conclusion. “This disconnect creates significant business risks: organizations depend on foundational technologies they cannot adequately assess, understand, or strategically influence.”

Finally, the report offers a few key recommendations:

• Establish open source governance structures. Implement Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) or formalize open source strategies to manage compliance, security, and contribution workflows.
• Strengthen security evaluation practices. Move beyond the community health checks currently used by 44% of organizations to implement systematic security assessment frameworks.
• Establish enterprise-grade support arrangements. Organizations should establish support arrangements with sub-12-hour response times for mission-critical workloads.
• Promote strategic participation through active engagement. Prioritize sponsoring critical open source dependencies to ensure project sustainability and gain strategic influence over technology roadmaps.