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OPEN SOURCE: Freestyle Moves

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DQI Bureau
New Update

The chicken-and-the-egg question persists in the Indian open

source movement-for, to grab the imagination of computer users, you need

penetration and availability, while to ensure this happening, you need to first

grab the user imagination. The highly diasporic quality of Linux distros in

India points to several convergent issues. But as programmers in the Perl

community are known to say, "There is more than one way of doing it."

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The evolution has been endemic, and parallely, intuitive, as

curiosity down the years was fuelled by the need to be virus and crash-free-which

later metamorphosed into sheer necessity for today's users of open source

software. Even beyond mail servers where Linux, for one, occupies an almost 70%

mindshare in the small and medium enterprises. Linux and other open source

technologies today dominate the mail server market share, and are slowly gaining

ground in other categories.

On the desktop side of things, a much-needed, though belated,

open source star act was needed to divert attention from a dominant Windows.

This came from the government in May this year with its decision to ship free

software (comprising largely Tamil applications) from Bangalore-based Centre for

Development of Advanced Computing. This had the blessings of a known open source

votary, President Abdul Kalam, and was feared to be a likely blow to Microsoft.

This was mainly on account of the government's direct role in shipping Mozilla's

open source browser, Firefox, as well as OpenOffice.org and other open source

applications on CDs.

Over 3 lakh developers now work on Linux India's LUGs

(Linux User Groups) have played a stellar role in uniting the community and

speeding up resource-sharing efforts

State governments are looking at ways to expand their use of

Linux and open source technologies in



e-government projects

More enterprises are deploying open source databases than

ever before, with many looking at mission-critical deployments in the coming

years

In order for Linux to become more commercially acceptable,

key challenges still have to be met. These include distribution, standards,

support, compatibility and validation from major independent software vendors

Worldwide, Linux distributors are working on raising specific

open source products, such as Linux, JBoss, Eclipse, and Tomcat

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One Microsoft source dismissed the entire "Linux on

CD" distribution exercise as hooey, the product of a well-planned stunt.

Microsoft is fast moving ahead with its goal of making Windows available in 14

vernacular languages by the beginning of next year. Ostensibly, over the last

five years, while MNCs and their Indian rivals talked of

"globalization", localization has been the buzzword in the push to

gain mindshare and drive the horizontal app development moves of the growing

open source developer constituency.

Minus the Hassle,They Say



In a diverse market like India, open source, which can be modified without

legal hassles or code access issues, is now emerging as the key to serving a

market where multiple languages, especially in urban centers, are a business

opportunity by themselves. "Open source teams are easy to assemble and the

members of these teams are often full-time company employees who can work

without the pressures of a commercial project," says one open source

developer.

Over 3 lakh developers now work on Linux in the major

stakeholders of open source-besides the core Linux vendors, there is the

government, OEMs, research institutes like the IITs, Homi Bhabha Centre for

Science, the IISc and other major stakeholders. State governments are looking at

ways to expand their use of Linux and open source technologies in e-government

projects. Open source votaries say that the government can save at least $300 mn

a year by promoting the shift from Windows to Linux. However, progress at the

policy level has been lacking, says leading open source consultant Atul Chitnis.

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A key member of the 4,000-strong Bangalore Linux Users Group

(BLUG), Chitnis counters the view that OEMs have helped foster the growth of

Linux in mission-critical applications. "Well, OEMs do support open source

in a highly visible way, but for Linux as a platform for developing their closed

source apps," Chitnis says. But in the two primary markets for open source

technologies- enterprise and SMEs-open source database clusters, Linux on

the mail server and Apache have flourished. The last mentioned holds 60% of the

Web server market share in India, according to some industry estimates.

India's LUGs (Linux User Groups) have played a stellar role

in uniting the community and speeding up resource-sharing efforts. While the

Mumbai and Kolkata LUGs have specialized in localization programs, the Bangalore

LUG has been uniting the user community and bringing them closer to the

developers. Efforts like that of Deepak Phatak of IIT, Mumbai, are notable.

Phatak has begun an effort to create an open-source license that will let

programmers share ideas while also letting them retain the rights to their own

software modifications. The license is likely to be on the lines of the Berkeley

Software Distribution or the MIT License programs. Over the past two years, the

number of open source licenses out of India has exploded and endeavors like

Phatak's aim at harnessing the power of over 2.5 lakh new engineering

graduates every year.

Microsoft rejects any suggestion that the status quo on the

developer side could change. "We compete with Linux and other open source

varieties on the strength of our technologies. Open source fears don't keep me

awake at night really," said Sheila Gulati, Director - Developer and

Platform Evangelism, Microsoft India, at the announcement of the company's

annual coding competition, Imagine, in May this year.

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On the server, Linux usage in India has increased without

anyone having to convince people. Worldwide, the overall Linux share is expected

to touch 33% by 2007. The environment for Linux and its acceptance has grown

tremendously. About 80% of the Internet-facing servers in India are non-Windows

and 60-70% of this figure comprise Linux servers, according to industry

estimates.

To take on the commercial applications leaders, a semblance

of co-operative spirit is being seen on the corporate front. A consortium of

Linux distributors, The OpenLX Alliance, currently has nine companies from

India, one from Dubai, and one from the US. The alliance is now working on

pitching for joint business contracts of products and services on Linux across

the globe.

Well Connected, But...



Open source, especially Linux, has gone from a tech toy for engineers to a

serious business choice. In the MIS 100 survey conducted last year, MIS Asia

found that over one-third of organizations surveyed had Linux installations.

Educational institutions and government departments still predominated as early

adopters, but it's also starting to find favor in commercial sectors such as

banking. Open source databases in India continue to make inroads into SMEs,

offering more robust, high-performance, and advanced DBMS features and

functionality as SMEs look for low-cost solutions. More enterprises are

deploying open source databases than ever before, with many looking at

mission-critical deployments in the coming years. Today, there are at least five

viable open source database products available, and flexibility is built into

any investment proposition, according to vendors like RedHat. Database

clustering on RedHat's Red Hat Enterprise Server is showing a good growth rate

in India, say sources, though exact figures are unavailable.

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Filename

'Ubuntu':
Debian-based Ubuntu Linux is attracting more desktop users

with its focus on stability and security. Linspire, another distro, is highly

customized and popular

Vendors like SlashSupport are now offering comprehensive open

standards support and services, like counselling on patch downloads, to meet the

growing demand. The future of open source databases remains bright, with

products expanding to include advanced features and continuing innovation, in

addition to enabling evolving technologies like XML, Web services, and content

management. Starting with small application deployments, Linux has the potential

to further widen its current 27% server market share in India with the wider

adoption of open databases. Another reason behind the allure of these

technologies for SMEs lies in the fact that PHP, Apache and MySQL perform better

with Linux as they were written for Linux, say developers like Chitnis.

The traditional LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and Perl, PhP)

open source combo has worked wonders in India, he adds. In fact, though these

programs were not originally designed specifically to work with each other, the

combination is popular because of the low cost and the ubiquity of components

which are bundled with most current Linux distributions. When used in

combination they represent an interoperable solution stack of technologies like

Java/J2EE and the .NET architecture. And, this is to the advantage of SMEs using

Linux, who manage mostly open source applications to stabilize their

investments.

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However, the choice and flexibility of the LAMP combo has not

always been readily lapped up by the larger enterprise datacenters, where the

Windows Server and Windows Exchange combo still enjoy a huge lead over Linux.

Often, incoming mail servers in India are Linux-based for the additional

security and firewall compatibility they offer, while outgoing mail is handled

by Windows Exchange, says a systems administrator with HP India. "It's a

clear combination of the two which works well for us."

The stampede to hold hands with Linux has often been

emphatic. Oracle's e-governance Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Bangalore now

works completely on Linux desktops from Red Hat and SuSE. Around 5,000 Oracle

developers migrated to Linux desktops in one single move last year. In order for

Linux to become more commercially acceptable, key challenges still have to be

met. These include distribution, standards, support, compatibility and

validation from major independent software vendors. Infosys sees an addressable

$300 mn Linux market worldwide.

Migration Pains



Right. While Linux might be cheaper in some cases, where deployments are

complex or where there is proprietary third party software involved, the

economics of migrating to open source generally don't stack up. This is a key

challenge ahead. Many users still do not factor-in all the costs associated with

a specific platform, including hardware, software, support, services, management

and migration. The costs of the operating system are only a very small

percentage of overall costs. Besides, large and midsized companies have hundreds

to thousands of applications that require Windows and would be extremely

difficult- and expensive-to transfer to an open-source platform.

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Disabling Norton on your PC tests the true

mettle of Firefox
Want a quick test on how well two highly acclaimed

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start, disable Norton on your PC. Norton 2005 does a decent job at catching 99

out of 100 viruses which regularly sneak into your registry, mostly via the

Internet. Once disabled, use Microsoft's Anti-Spyware Beta (ASB) as your only

life support.

Now,

ASB is by no means the final frontier in the anti-spyware effort, but almost

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programs from obscure servers home in on your IP address and the hordes of

malware close in. ASB screamed out eight warnings during the 10-minute session

and 19 viruses are detected in c:/windows and over a dozen sub-registries.

Repeat the exercise with Firefox's latest

edition 1.0.4 and the number whittled down to eight rogue programs. Honors for

this particular rapid-fire virus test go to Firefox. And, open source.

Warning: try this test with your

all-suffering systems guy around. You wouldn't want to exceed 10 minutes on

the Internet without your warm Norton clothes.

Test duration: 10 minutes, Website

visited: Sify.com

Where Linux and its other open source kinsmen really stand to

gain at least 20% is in the high-volume and replicated applications market,

since over 80% of these deployments use Intel-compatible platforms. Intel and

Linux is a combination which delivers overall cost savings. Though, on corporate

desktops, Microsoft's stranglehold does not make things easy for Linux. The

silver bullet for open source in India will also factor in government agencies

and companies with aging systems. Here, open source models, combined with open

source standards, can make it easier to add new services and capabilities to

legacy systems-instead of tearing them out and replacing them wholesale. But

again, migration costs will be the key challenge.

Greater standardization by Novell and RedHat and the

integration skills of Linux apps vendors will drive the move towards conformity

of non-proprietary apps with quality requirements-whether it be migration, or

widening the scope of open source app servers and databases in mission-critical

environments. Worldwide, Linux distributors are working on raising specific open

source products, such as Linux, JBoss, Eclipse, and Tomcat, to the level of a

"technology standard" with their own circles of tech training and

support tailored to individual customers. Further, refining of criteria for open

source applications in context to the environments where they are needed will be

a key step forward for OEMs and Linux OS vendors.

This is especially true of environments where users have

complex documents or unique Windows applications for which there is no Linux or

generic browser alternative. OpenOffice.org, for example, is known to co-exist

on many desktops with Microsoft Office '97 on Windows XP, according to

reports. Therefore, an important factor is that for companies that identify

relatively few Windows applications or complex Office documents, Linux may be a

suitable OS, and workarounds such as Wine, Windows Terminal Services or PC

virtualization may be appropriate for users who require some Windows or Office

compatibility.

A final tally for the open source crusade does not exist, and

a clear winner in the open source vs closed competition is yet to stand up and

be counted. However, for the major stakeholders-the user and developer groups,

OEMs, ISVs and enterprises-just the very journey ahead is exciting. With

"more than one way of doing it".

Ravi Menon

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