Both the Department of Infrastructure and Department of Sustainability and Environment are clients of Melbourne-based software development services company Groupware Consulting, and are using its custom software built with open source components like the Spring development framework and MySQL database.

Groupware's managing director of design and delivery Domenic Brasacchio said the company has a focus on open source because of the benefits it brings.

"The Victorian government is getting the benefits of community contributions and the professional level of software," Brasacchio said. "Open source meets enterprise software standards - it's scalable, reliable, and portable."

Brasacchio said Sun's decision to open source Java was a confirmation of the direction software services is going.

"The uptake has been really good and we have seen a huge increase in growth in our open source software services offering and we are migrating clients to that for the benefits and access to enterprise technology," he said. "The market is seeing the benefit of custom solution as opposed to an off-the-shelf product."