Open source delivers faster bug response

NEW DELHI: According to a recent survey conducted by the research firm Evans Data Corporation (EDC), Open source coders have an advantage over their counterparts as they get a faster response time to fix for the bugs in their code.

With the help from over enthusiastic Open source developer community, open source coders, on an average, get a fix for their bug in less than four business hours, revealed the EDC survey.

The survey conducted in October this year collected data from 450 developers working on Open source projects. Out of the total numbers 17 percent said it takes them less than four hours to find a fix, while 28 percent marked it from eight to 24 hours and about 30 percent said it took them more than 24 business hours to get a solution.

John Andrews, president with EDC, comments, "Some of the main strengths of open source software development are the communities that have grown into knowledge repositories for development. Using these communities an open source developer can find and fix severe bugs much more rapidly."

A good understanding of the working style of Open source community helps developers narrow down their search enabling a faster fix for the bugs.

Open source developers would not mind paying for support and acquiring high quality tools is another finding of the survey. While 64 percent, of developers said they would willingly pay for a tool even if it was not open source a mere 6 percent said they would "absolutely not" buy a tool that wasn't open source.