INDIATIMES NEWS NETWORK[ MONDAY, DECEMBER 27, 2004 12:30:05 AM]
The hottest topic of discussion in the IT sector to day is whether Microsoft will open its source code. If Gates surrenders to the Linux challenge, it will be the biggest corporate story of this generation.
Though there is still a long way to go for free software to make a mark in the commercial sector, it should be noted that open source software have captured approximately 45% of the commercial market, and that figure seeming to rise each year.
If at all commercial software exists in two decade's time, it may be seen as an 'alternative' used by a elite few.
What is free software?
Software whose license permits anyone to use it for any reason, as well as access, modify, copy, and distribute modified copies of the source code is reffered to as open source software. In general, the term open source is intended to appeal to the business community and the advantages are cost and not locking the user into proprietary systems.
The freedoms offered by free software are the freedom to run the program, for any purpose, the freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs, access to the source code, the freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor, the freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
What are the other options to free software?
Software whose license does not comply with the open source or free software definition and which is usually controlled by a single company, on which you are dependent for upgrades and fixes is reffered to as Proprietary Software.
Commodity Software: Software which is widely useful for many, if not the majority of, computer users. Examples include office suites, web browsers, and mail programs.
Operating System: The basic piece of software that makes the computer function, including a kernel, input/output facilities, a graphical user interface, and a basic set of utilities.
What are the benefits of free software?
The main conflict in the free software debate is between the software giant Microsoft's Windows, which is a proprietary operating system and Linux, which is a open source operating system.
The main advantages of the free software are:
The price of new computers will drop, mainly due to the elimination of the need for the computer manufacturer to pay for a Windows license. The savings could be anywhere from $50 to $300, depending on the version of Windows and the office suite that would come with a traditional proprietary system.
Much more free commodity software will come standard with most PCs. Examples may include GIMP, an excellent Open Source image editing program; the Mozilla browser; and OpenOffice, the open source version of Sun's StarOffice; and several quality open source games.
Also software can be freely copied and passed on to friends without breaking the law.
License management will not be necessary. For some companies, keeping track of legal software licenses and verifying that everything stays legal is a full-time job. Open Source licenses give you permission to use them for any purpose on any number of computers and for longer periods.
License management becomes a problem only when modifying or distributing software outside the company, and even then it's fairly straightforward.
File formats are not completely controled by a certain software vendor. What if your data is in a proprietary software program, which uses a cryptic and undocumented file format in order to keep you locked in to products from that company, and you need to import it into a different application, but the proprietary program does not export the data?
If the vendor completely abandons the application and no longer is upgraded your data gets stuck.
With proprietary software, only the vendor can fix problems. But, with free software you can go to any number of qualified consultants who are familiar with your software.
Open source products generally have great security, and when a flaw is found, it is usually fixed much sooner than flaws in proprietary software. Programmers at proprietary software companies usually work for paychecks, not for the sheer love of doing what they're doing, and they themselves don't necessarily want to use the code they're producing.
Open source systems, especially UNIX-based ones, are incredibly flexible. Because they are built from blocks that have well-documented functionality and that work together, it is easy to replace pretty much any part of the system with anything else that has a similar interface.
Many great scripting languages, such as Perl and Python, come standard with nearly every Open Source platform. You can write automation scripts in these languages.
How has Linux fared vis-à-vis Microsoft?
IDC's Q3 2004 server report found the users spend £529m worldwide on Linux servers - an increase of 44% on last year.
Sales of Microsoft Windows-based systems were also growing, but at a lower rate. Sales hit £2.8bn worldwide - an increase of 13.3% on last year's figures. Hewlett-Packard said it had shipped 27.4% more Linux servers compared to last year.
According to IDC Blade servers, which promise more compact and manageable server technology, are gaining popularity. Sales have grown by 44% over the past year, although at £152m they only account for 2.5% of the global server market.
The proprietary software has several advantages like, it captures profits and encourages software firms to make risky investments in the development and improvement of software.
A for-profit firm can control the development and subsequent evolution of the product. While it may make mistakes in shepherding the project, it has profit motives to make the program as valuable as possible to consumers.
Most mass-market software vendors, for example, have chosen to make sure that their products are compatible with previous versions, and to make sure that there is a "standard" current version. Having standard versions encourages the development of complements-for example, the vast array of applications software for Windows.
What is the future outlook?
Microsoft server sales are still growing faster than the overall market growth-- increasing Microsoft's market share.
Linux is growing, but mostly at the expense of commercial versions of UNIX
Linux nor Apple is undermining Microsoft's complete domination of the desktop market.
Many of Microsoft's competitors are collaborating in support of Linux.
UNIX wars had earlier helped Microsoft to place their programmes in the market. So a similar split in Linux will knock out the free software community out as a strong competitor to the centrally-controlled standards of Windows.
The availability of open source software may become one of the options for government agencies to stop Microsoft's monopoly power.
Open source will be more accepted among big business. Many big businesses have accepted open-source software, such as IBM, Oracle and Sun. Even Microsoft has developed a healthy respect for open source as a formidable adversary.
With open source, distributed development is a viable method of generating software, so buyers are more likely to be offered software solutions that incorporate open-source licensed code. Also small and medium business enterprises will also prefer open source software.
Open source software has evolved to become the single greatest threat to Microsoft and, increasingly, to other sections of the business software industry.
The model has now reached a stage where organisations are proposing to use the free software to build the core elements of the enterprise software stack - from the operating system, through database technology and application and web servers, to content management systems and business intelligence software.
Linux may not be ready for high-end transaction systems or 'earned in blood' reliability, but it is certainly ready for mission-critical firewall and web applications.
Linux has become big business for a number of companies, and it continues to grow in terms of economic and technological importance. The outcome of this case may change all of that, which is why it is of such concern to so many people.
