Using network protocols' fingerprints to efficiently determine the penetration level of open source software in online businesses

Abstract

The Open Source Software (OSS) philosophy has revolutionized the world of software usage and development by opening the codes. It was accompanied with a number of freedoms that definitely leads to a continuous enhancement and advancement in these software. At the same time, a benefit of this philosophy is that its adoption implies a reduction of software piracy and, in a few decades, perhaps the near extinction of this crime. Furthermore, the evaluation of adoption of OSS by different companies remains a fuzzy one as the most common approach is the use of questionnaires for a survey. In this paper, an automated methodology is proposed so as to evaluate the level of OSS adoption by online businesses. We also demonstrated how network protocols can be used as fingerprints to determine the penetration level of OSS in public hosts. The study was conducted on the public network underlying Mauritius and revealed the extent to which OSS is adopted. The methodology used can be applied to other territories for a similar assessment.