Large FLOSS Study Gets the Real Facts

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/17/0113235&threshold=4

An even shorter Executive Summary:

(of pages 9-12 of the PDF article)
FLOSS role in the economy

* FLOSS applications are first, second or third-rung products in terms of market share in several markets
* FLOSS market penetration is also high
* Almost two-thirds of FLOSS software is still written by individuals
* Europe is the leading region in terms of globally collaborating FLOSS software developers
* (more details on specific role in Europe in paper)

Direct economic impact

* The existing base of quality FLOSS applications with reasonable quality control and distribution would cost firms almost Euro 12 billion to reproduce internally... code base has been doubling every 18-24 months
* This existing base of FLOSS software represents a lower bound of about 131 000 real person-years of effort that has been devoted exclusively by programmers... it represents a significant gap in national accounts of productivity
* Firms have invested an estimated Euro 1.2 billion in developing FLOSS software that is
* made freely available... represent in total at least 565 000 jobs and Euro 263 billion in annual revenue
* FLOSS-related services could reach a 32% share of all IT services by 2010, and the FLOSS-related share of the economy could reach 4% of European GDP by 2010
* (more statistics in the paper)

Indirect economic impact

* Strong network effects in ICT... risk leading to innovation resources being excessively allocated to defensive innovation. There is a case for a rebalancing of innovation incentives... (to target) publicly available technology for new functionality.
* FLOSS potentially saves industry over 36% in software R&D investment
* ...a large and increasing share of user-generated content is not accounted for and needs to be addressed by policy makers
* Increased FLOSS use may provide a way for Europe to compensate for a low GDP share of ICT investment relative to the US

Trends, scenarios and policy strategies

* Doubling the rate of FLOSS take-up in Europe would result in a software share of investment at 1.5% of GDP, reducing but not closing this investment gap with the US
* Europe's strengths regarding FLOSS are its strong community of active developers, small firms and secondary software industry; weaknesses include Europe's generally low level of ICT investment and low rate of FLOSS adoption by large industry compared to the US
* FLOSS provides opportunities in Europe for new businesses, a greater role in the wider information society and a business model that suits European SMEs
* Europe faces three scenarios: CLOSED, where existing business models are entrenched... GENERIC, where current mixed policies lead to a gradual growth of FLOSS... VOLUNTARY, where policies and the market develop to recognise and utilise the potential of FLOSS
* (goes on to suggest policy initiatives to support FLOSS)