Most notably, Canada's federal government uses it. As described in the second of its frequently asked questions on the subject, the main public web site www.canada.gc.ca uses the web server Apache, an open-source solution. The Government of Canada also maintains a significant amount of information and resources on this class of software.

Google Incorporated, the proprietor of the most widely used search engine, uses Linux while Yahoo!, one of the biggest Internet content providers, uses FreeBSD. Linux and FreeBSD are common operating systems in the open-source world.

Ticketmaster, the ticket seller and distributor, uses the open-source database MySQL for its on-line transactions. This site is one of the largest e-commerce sites on the Internet. There is a long list of companies that use MySQL.

The city of Munich, Germany has recently made the switch from a Microsoft Windows desktop environment to a Debian Linux desktop environment. The high-profile deal involves 14,000 computers.