Open source is a disruptive technology

Javed Tapia says that Linux has moved up in the value-chain and has crossed the chasm

Disruptive technologies change our relationship to the world—how we travel, communicate and work. For instance, the railroad was a disruptive technology to the horse and buggy. Technologies that don’t evolve, disappear.

The emphasis on openness in open source software has fostered the growth of a worldwide community of developers contributing to the evolution and improvement of a variety of software programs. While such a diffused structure for software development may seem chaotic, this approach is being considered as a more democratic alternative to monolithic single vendor initiatives.

Linux, which started as a niche operating system for highly technical users, is now in the IT spotlight as enterprise users embrace it for a growing range of applications. The Linux operating system has emerged as the most viable and cost-effective alternative to the other proprietary technologies. Linux is gaining a lot of momentum and adoption from governments and enterprises, especially in the developing countries. Progressive countries like China, Malaysia, Singapore and Germany have already adopted open-source technologies and are saving huge amounts of money.

With Linux gaining popularity among global and Indian user communities, the software development brigade in India is also gradually joining the Linux bandwagon. A number of India’s 450,000 to 600,000 developers are being drawn into the Linux vortex.

Linux has been widely accepted as a technology of the future that can bridge the digital divide and make IT available to the masses. This can be vindicated by the fact that a whole gamut of companies in India have extended support to Linux, in line with global strategies and initiatives undertaken by them in the open source space.

For small and medium enterprises, Linux provides a computing solution that grows with the business, especially in the case of Internet-oriented organisations that demand speed, flexibility, and reliability. A new business venture / service provider may want to put up a company website, or create a corporate intranet, but budgets may be tight. The efficiency of Linux takes care of these needs. With Linux, even old computers become more-than-capable Web, e-mail and print servers. And that’s not all. As the company grows, Linux proves its flexibility as one can cluster a number of Linux servers together to create an efficient server solution.

Linux adoption in Indian enterprises can be gauged by the fact that several prominent companies like Asian Paints, ICICI Bank, Reliance, Raymonds, IDBI and several others have embraced Linux for their mission-critical applications.

Linux enjoys the support of many of the world’s largest and most powerful computing companies, including Oracle, IBM, Sun, HP, Silicon Graphics, Veritas, CA, Checkpoint, Legato, Trend Micro, Command and so on—all of whom have contributed significantly to improve Linux.

Linux is increasingly becoming a platform of choice for ISVs and there is a gamut of applications available on Linux for all purposes.

Linux is inexpensive and can be easily customised to meet specific operating needs. On the enterprise front, Linux remains an ideal choice for IT managers, as it allows them to confront their daily tasks with much greater reliability.

Servers running Linux have been known to run for months, even years together, without needing to reboot. Affordability is another factor. Even though the initial price of the Linux software puts it in a class by itself, initial price isn’t the only consideration. Ongoing operational expenses, licensing fees, and support costs can make initial costs seem insignificant.

Consequently, one major argument against the implementation of proprietary software is the subsequent dependency on proprietary software vendors. Whenever the proprietary standards are established, the necessity to ‘follow’ them is given. Even in an open tender acquisition system, this requirement for compatibility with proprietary standards makes the system biased towards specific software vendors, perpetuating a dependency.

This basically is due to two reasons: first of all software owners have to upgrade the software, even if there is no internal reason or interest in doing so. Otherwise they risk facing a situation where their programs are not capable of processing documents and files created by newer versions of the same product. The ending of support for ‘older’ versions is another coercive factor that influences the upgrade cycle.

This situation thus has major consequences for the cost side of IT management. Additionally, with every new license and update implementation, software users have to undergo training in new program versions. This has often been described as the typical lock-in situation: The system is working with proprietary standards and migration to another reliable and interoperable technology requires much effort and a high cost. The longer the situation goes on, the worse it becomes. After a while the software vendor does not have to fear competition, since the client has to take its product anyway. A typical—at least de facto—monopoly situation evolves in which the vendor dictates prices, conditions and quality. Consequently, liberation from such a situation is advantageous for the buyer.

An important selling point of Linux is its stability. Barring hardware malfunctions, Linux is highly stable. Operating system crashes are almost unheard of. Not only is this a must for server computers, where an OS crash causes problems to many users, but is highly desirable on desktop computers too, where an OS crash could cause a user to lose a lot of work. This is reflected in the fact that today large enterprises and government bodies are adopting Linux in a big way for their mission-critical applications.

Regarding the question of data security, open-source software is believed to be less vulnerable than proprietary software due to a simple reason: the source code is available. Proprietary software hides the code. For administrators, proprietary software is a black box they have to trust regarding security. Open-source software developers actively ask to check security gaps. If there is one, awareness of this security problem, and possible remedies, become public immediately.

Since the code is available to everybody, fixing anything is much faster with more developers actually testing it and even fixing it when the need comes. Hence, at any stage of evolution, the Linux OS is much more stable than any proprietary software. When found, bugs are fixed quickly—SecurityPortal found that Linux vendor Red Hat, with 31 total advisories, took an average of 11.2 days after a bug was discovered to respond with a patch. In contrast, Microsoft, with 61 advisories, took an average of 16.1 days to issue a patch, while Sun, with eight advisories, took an average of 89.5 days from advisory to patch release. The recent attack of Sapphire and the SQL slammer bug has left much to be desired of proprietary systems in terms of reliability.

Myths

Open-source software is for free. This is a myth, which very often is used by the opponents of open source to justify that the cost of maintaining an open- source system is equal to the cost of licensed software in the long run. Open-source software has a cost associated with it but despite all that its opponents may say, open-source software costs far less to support, maintain and upgrade than the licensing costs of proprietary software. If one vendor charges too much, the organisation is free to select another vendor without any proprietary lock-in. In this kind of competitive situation, costs have to be reasonable and market-driven.

One apprehension that users have is pertaining to the support for Linux-based systems. End-users were in a quandary as to who the owner of Linux would be. With the advent of premier Linux companies in India, getting support for Linux systems has become easier than before.

Conclusion

Linux has started to become a mainstream operating system in all sizes of organisations, in all markets, worldwide. Linux has moved up in the value-chain and crossed the chasm. It has become a potent environment for some business critical applications like databases, clustering solutions, ERP, SCM and so on. The reliability, stability and ease with which the software can be customised, installed and operated is quite appealing to organisations. The fact that many application development and deployment, middleware, serverware and application products are freely available on the platform helps as well.

Specifically in the Indian context, enterprises are warming up to the idea of moving to open-source technologies. They have understood the benefits it has to offer and have decided that they need to have the freedom of choice.

Finally, the situation after the migration to open-source software will lead to lower life cycle costs. Service, support and maintenance can now be contracted out to a range of suppliers, being placed in the competitive environment of a functioning marketplace. The money saved due to the service-oriented model of open source is then normally spent within the local economy or the governmental organisation. This is unlike the proprietary software model where large sums are paid out as pure license fees to large monopolistic multinational organisations. The service-oriented model of open source has a positive fallout on the domestic economy through the generation of local employment, spurring of local investment and ensuring local technological upgradation.

Javed Tapia is the CEO of Red Hat India. He can be contacted at jtapia@redhat.com