A survey of Windows software developers comes out with both good and bad news for the open source software movement.
More than half of the 400 developers surveyed said that they prefer open source development. But nearly a quarter of them thinks the free software movement won't succeed.
In the open source model, programmers ship code, not the final compiled program. This allows other developers to "get under the hood" of the software and make their own modifications.
Traditional software companies such as Microsoft bar access to their applications' underlying source code, and consider it closely held intellectual property.
Fifty-three percent of the developers interviewed last month by Evans Marketing Services favored open source software. Twenty-two percent said they thought it was a good idea, but that it would never work.
"There is a very strong acceptance among developers for open source code," said Janel Garvin, director of research for Evans Marketing Services, which released the survey Tuesday. "Many of the developers we interviewed were ... very enthusiastic. They really like the idea of being able to get down to the source and make changes, add features, or otherwise modify programs that are integral to their development efforts."
Garvin attributed the negative outlook for open source to a feeling that the open source idea is too good to be true, and that it just won't work in today's software marketplace.
Fewer than 5 percent were opposed to open source. The remaining 20 percent had no opinion, or were unfamiliar with open source.
An internal Microsoft memo leaked to the press in November revealed that the company considers open source software -- such as the popular Linux operating system and the Apache Web server -- a "direct threat" to its business.
