Are companies using commercial Linux considering migrating to non-commercial Linux distributions?

Vendors of commercial Linux distributions face many challenges as the Linux market continues to evolve. One of the most challenging issues will be their ability to compete with the open source community and provide value above what is already available from public sources.

While many customers will continue to look to a commercial supplier to support the ongoing development of their Linux kernel, there exists the potential for many to opt to bring this development in-house as internal developers gain more experience with maintaining the Linux kernel themselves.

VDC’s most recent end-user survey indicates that while users of publicly sourced Linux distributions are highly likely to use non-commercial Linux in the future, commercial Linux users seem to have less confidence that they will use commercial suppliers on future projects.