日前，從一份哈佛商學院的報告中我們得知，在開源領域，Linux獲得了大約75%的風險投資。這份報告同時還指出，
在這份報告中指出，在1995-2005間，整個風險基金市場上，大概有20億美金投入了開源軟件市場，和Linux相關的產業獲得了15億，和Firefox相關的獲得了3億多，7600萬左右的風險資金投入了OpenOffice的開源開發和推廣，剩下還有大概4800萬左右的資金用于資助MySQL數據庫產品。
另外還獲得數額不菲風險投資的開源項目有：PHP腳本語言相關項目大概獲得了2400萬，TCL腳本語言相關項目獲得1500萬美元，JBoss中間件項目也獲得了1000萬美元的資助。
從2005年起，又有更多的風險投資進入了這個領域，特別是以Eclipse為代表。但是投資的目的都是非常明顯，那就是獲得高額的回報。所投資的項目大多數是商業產品的替代品或者補充，這些在相關業內觀察人士的預料范圍之內。
為了計算投資等級，研究人員不僅僅要看直接的經濟因素，比如投資額度和風險基金本身的等級，還要看被投資項目的影響力、未來發展前途、用戶貢獻度、開發人員貢獻時間和貢獻代碼的數量等等。
報告還提到了一種新的評估開源軟件項目影響力的指數系統，通過安裝開源軟件的字節數來計算。然后得出了下面的一個排行榜：
Linux：204 TB/周
OpenOffice：27/周
MySQL：15周
Firefox：12/周
JBoss：3/周
The Linux operating system is the recipient of 75% of all vendor investment in open source software, according to a new report from the Harvard Business School, which also indicates that vendor support for open source is primarily motivated by boosting their proprietary offerings.
The preliminary draft report suggests that $2bn was invested by vendors in open source software between 1995 and 2005, with $1.5bn plowed into Linux, $317m into the Firefox browser, $76m into the OpenOffice.org productivity suite and $48m into the MySQL database.
The only other projects to receive significant vendor backing, according to the study, were the PHP scripting language with $24m, the Tcl scripting language with $15m, and the JBoss middleware stack with $10m.
Although numerous investments since 2005 would change the picture, and the Eclipse tools project appears to be a notable omission, the research indicates that the vast majority of vendor investment in open source has been placed in Linux, and that vendors are clearly looking for a return on their investments.
"If vendors were altruistically motivated to contribute to OSS projects, we would expect to see an even distribution of investments across projects," noted the reports authors: Marco Iansiti, professor of business administration at the Harvard Business School, and Gregory Richards, managing director of Keystone Strategy Inc.
Their research indicates that most investments in open source software are driven by economic motives and are complementary to proprietary software, hardware and service portfolios, something that many industry watchers would have predicted to be the case.
To calculate the investment levels, the researchers looked at direct financial contributions and venture capital funding, as well as putting a value on developer hours for ongoing development and contributed code. Customer contributions, volunteer time, and investments from individuals and non-profit organizations were excluded.
The report also suggests a new metric for assessing the impact of an open source project by multiplying weekly distributions by the size of the installation file (representing problem complexity) to calculate the installation rate. Linux had an installation rate of 204 terabytes per week, OpenOffice.org 27, MySQL 15, Firefox 12, and JBoss 3.
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