Open source developers take to the cloud

As many as 40 per cent of developers working on open source projects plan to offer their applications as web services hosted by cloud providers, according to the latest figures from Evans Data.

The market research firm said that its latest survey of over 360 developers proves that the cloud is becoming ever more popular, with 28 per cent of developers interviewed saying they plan to employ Google's App Engine, and 15 per cent Amazon's cloud computing services.

Microsoft, IBM and Salesforce.com cloud services were also mentioned, but were by no means as popular as Google or Amazon.

The increasing costs of labour, datacentre resources and power are purportedly the reasons pushing firms rapidly in the direction of cloud computing.

"Many companies are using this model to not only reduce infrastructure costs, but simultaneously increase their computational capabilities," said Evans Data president and chief executive John Andrews.

Evans Data estimates that 30 per cent of open source applications are actually distributed through open source software portals, more than by any other means. However, the report also points out that those distributing their applications on mobile app stores are more likely to make money from them.

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