Sizing the Linux market ecosystem is no easy task. Downloads of Linux operating systems and applications are not an accurate measure. Analyst firm IDC, however, has a handle on the market and its size, and it’s large. At the Linuxworld Open Solutions Summit, which kicked off today in New York, IDC analysts detailed where they see the Linux ecosystem today and where it is headed by 2010.

For 2006, Al Gillen, research vice president of system software at IDC, told an early morning audience that

the research firm has pegged the Linux ecosystem that includes servers and software to be worth $18 billion. By 2010, Gillen said, the market will be worth $40 billion.

In terms of Linux operating system deployments, a surprising finding that Gillen described is that there are almost an equal number of paid Linux server deployments, which include Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, as there are unpaid “free” Linux deployments such as Debian and Fedora. >>>>>