A number of businesses in the UK are still uncomfortable with the prospect of adopting open source software, a recent study has outlined.

Survey Interactive understood that open source technology was in use by 42 per cent of UK software or IT support firms, with a further 22 per cent interested in the idea of adopting the free alternatives available to them.

However, the UK continues to lag behind its European neighbours on the adoption side of things, with 67 per cent of Germans using the technology.

Four out of every five Chinese organisations were also using it, Survey Interactive found.

The report explained: "The proportion of UK respondents who feel that the benefits of open source software outweigh the inhibitors has decreased this year.

"Significantly, the UK continues to demonstrate a degree of reticence towards open source adoption, with almost a quarter still monitoring developments but not yet evaluating."

Many organisations on the web are firm proponents of open source software, with SourceForge.net providing a free base of operations for any code makers.

In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were guaranteed response times and allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues.