[ImoLUG] Fwd: [nexa] "Contribution of open source to Europe's economy: 450 billion per year"

[Riccardo Corradino Consulenze]

spero di fare cosa gradita girandovi la segnalazione di interessante 
articolo che quantifica il risparmio in Europa con l'adozione di OSS.
Saluti

---
Dott. Riccardo Corradino
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-------- Messaggio originale --------
Oggetto: [nexa] "Contribution of open source to Europe's economy: 450 
billion per year"
Data: 2012-10-11 18:14
Mittente: "J.C. DE MARTIN" <demartin@polito.it>
Destinatario: NEXA List <nexa@server-nexa.polito.it>


Submitted by Gijs HILLENIUS [1] on October 11, 2012
Rating: 0/5 (based on 0 votes) | 175 reads

CONTRIBUTION OF OPEN SOURCE TO EUROPE'S ECONOMY: 450 BILLION PER YEAR

https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/contribution-open-source-europes-economy-450-billion-year
[2]

THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY IS SAVING AROUND 114 BILLION EURO PER YEAR BY 
USING
OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS. APART FROM DIRECT COSTS SAVINGS, OTHER
BENEFITS OF OPEN SOURCE RESULT IN REDUCED PROJECT FAILURE AND LOWER
COSTS FOR CODE MAINTENANCE. REINVESTMENT OF THESE SAVINGS LEADS TO AN
INCREASE IN PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY WORTH AT LEAST 342 BILLION EURO
A YEAR, ACCORDING TO ESTIMATES PUBLISHED BY OPEN SOURCE RESEARCHER 
CARLO
DAFFARA. "DECIDEDLY NOT A MARGINAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE EUROPEAN
ECONOMY."

Daffara is a researcher in the field of IT economics. He focusses on
collaborative development models. In the past fifteen years he was also
involved in European Commission research projects involving open 
source.


To assess the value of the use of open source, Daffara combines data
from code reuse surveys with macroeconomic esimates. Quoting several
sources, he estimates that about 35 per cent of the software used in 
the
past five years is directly or indirectly derived from open source. To
translate this into savings, the researcher draws on estimates for the
total value of the IT sector. Industry groups and analysts estimate 
this
to be between 374 billion and 399 billion euro.

To this Daffara adds estimates on costs saved because using open source
generally has a positive impacts on projects success rates. He also
points to research showing that "code that is reused is substantially
better in terms of quality". Such software also improves faster and its
maintenance efforts are substantially lower, he writes. Based on 
earlier
research models, the costs for reused code is about three-fifths that 
of
traditional code.

"Especially important is the effect of the reinvestments of these
savings into IT itself", the researcher continues. Companies that use a
lot of open source are more productive and efficient, he finds. The
researcher suspects that there is a correlation between the use of open
source software and the ability to attract customers of a relatively
larger scale. The result is a long term increase in productivity and
efficiency, of at least 342 billion euro per year.

Daffara's estimates of the contribution of open source software to the
European economy were published by the OpenForum Acadamy, a think-tank.
His paper is part of the proceedings of the first OFA conference, which
took place in Brussels on 24 September. The book can be downloaded for
free.

  MORE INFORMATION:
  OFA conference proceedings (pdf) [3]

Links:
------
[1] https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/people/11119
[2] 
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/contribution-open-source-europes-economy-450-billion-year
[3] 
http://www.openforumacademy.org/library/ofa-research/first-conference-proceedingsA4.pdf