News and Notes from the Makers of Nexus | Sonatype Blog

2014 Open Source Development Survey: Making Results Matter

Written by Derek Weeks | April 01, 2014

Want to win a programmable LEGO robot? Share your voice in this year’s survey.

Let me share three statistics with you from the 2013 open source development survey:

  • 76% of organizations lack meaningful controls over the use of open source software in development
  • 86% of developers believe their typical applications include over 80% open source components
  • 71% of applications have more than one critical or severe open source component vulnerability

These stats might surprise you or may not. Surprise is not their intent. The real intent of these survey results is to SPARK DISCUSSION. Remember, it’s not the stats that count...it’s the value of the discussions that follow that make this survey so important.

Today we kicked off the fourth annual open source development and application security survey. You can take the 5 minute survey here -- it takes less that 5 minutes, we promise.

Looking at last year’s findings, I see so many great discussion topics for your next team meeting, a lunch-and-learn at your office, or at a community MeetUp event. Topics like:

  • How do our practices compare? Are we ahead or behind?
  • What policies do we have in place, do we need new ones, or does anyone follow our policy?
  • Are our development, security, and compliance practices sufficiently aligned compared to other companies our size?

We’ll send everyone the final survey results to share, compare, and discuss with your team. You can also enter into a DAILY drawing for a $100 Amazon.com giftcard and a WEEKLY drawing for a super cool LEGO Mindstorms EV3 programmable robot. The survey is only open until April 30th. And the sooner you take the survey the more chances you have to win.