"IT workers who specialise in free and open source software are earning more than the national average for IT, according to the results of Australia's first open source census. The average full time salary of respondents to the Australian Open Source Industry and Community Census was between $76,000 and $100,000, but the 10 percent working on open source full time were earning almost three times the national median."

Security professionals favor open source software about as much as proprietary solutions for IT deployments, a vendor survey suggests

In a free market, over time, competition in the production of a commodity product will eliminate all profits. Bread-makers can sell their bread for enough money to cover the cost of the capital invested in the bakery, the cost of the flour, yeast, sugar, and water, the fuel needed for firing, and the salary of the baker. They can earn no more money than that.

Clearly, the 2010 IT Salary Guide reveals that average starting salaries are suffering a rough patch. It's a bit grim to look at the list of IT salaries and see numbers that have fallen since last year: database administrator, down 4.1%; systems administrator, down 2.8%; IT manager, down 2.4%. Factoring in inflation, these modest declines represent true budget discomfort.

"The news over the past few years in open source establish it as the natural way to release software. If there’s anything else you can do to earn money–whether setting up a social environment like Second Life, putting up ads like Google, or selling hardware like Intel–you really need to search hard for a reason to keep software proprietary."

A new survey of companies and individuals supplying Open Source solutions and services claims to show that Open Source IT professionals make more money than their proprietary IT counterparts because they're more highly skilled.

Joining the open source club has many benefits. How many Microsoft receives depends on how far it wants to go. Compare your salaryUse the IT salary benchmark wizard and know the average salary differences between different job functions.

Two prominent open-source projects recently got a thumbs-up from Veracode, a company that applies a standards-based approach to software vulnerability testing.

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