According to the study, 85 per cent of companies surveyed are currently using OSS in their enterprises and the remaining 15 per cent are expecting to in the next 12 months.

The survey was conducted in May and June 2008 and included 274 end-user organisations across various countries and markets in Asia Pacific, Europe and North America.

No formal OSS policy

According to survey findings, 69 per cent of companies surveyed still have no formal policy for evaluating and cataloguing OSS usage in their enterprise. This opens up major potential liabilities for intellectual-property violations, said the analyst firm.

"Just because something is free doesn't mean that it has no cost," said Laurie Wurster, research director at Gartner. "Companies must have a policy for procuring OSS, deciding which applications will be supported by OSS, and identifying the intellectual property risk or supportability risk associated with using OSS. Once a policy is in place, then there must be a governance process to enforce it."