23. October. 2012 Open Source
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
_ 23. October. 2012 Open Source CONTRIBUTORS Distributed in Publisher Editor Design Managing Editor Daragh McDowell Eric Doyle The Surgery Peter Archer MARK BALLARD ADRIAN BRIDGWATER BILLY MacINNES Freelance journalist, who covers computer Specialist author on software engineering Editor and writer, he has written about the policy, business and systems, he writes and application development, he is a technology industry across a wide variety of Although this publication is funded through advertising and sponsorship, all editorial is without bias and Computer Weekly's public sector IT blog. regular contributor to Dr. Dobb’s Journal publications for more than a generation. sponsored features are clearly labelled. For an upcoming schedule, partnership inquiries or feedback, please call and Computer Weekly. +44 (0)20 3428 5230 or email [email protected] Raconteur Media is a leading European publisher of special interest content and research. It covers a wide range of topics, RICHARD HILLESLEY ROD NEWING including business, finance, sustainability, lifestyle and the arts. Its special reports are exclusively published within The Freelance writer on Linux, free software Freelance business and technology writer, Times, The Sunday Times and The Week. www.raconteurmedia.co.uk The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources the Proprietors believe to be correct. and digital rights, he is a former editor of he contributes regularly to the Financial However, no legal liability can be accepted for any errors. No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior LinuxUser and now contributes to Tux Times, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and consent of the Publisher. © Raconteur Media Deluxe and The H Open. The Washington Post. 10.3bn application development software market forecast by 2016 $ Source: Gartner 95% of mainstream IT organisations will leverage open source solutions within mission-critical software deployments by 2015 Source: Gartner Opening up the code 50% of all software will be acquired on an open source licence within the next five years is freedom for innovation Source: Jaspersoft 2012 44% of industries most impacted The cloud, big data by open source are data Developed by a community of volunteers and made freely available, open analytics, smartphones management and tablet computers rely on open source Source: North Bridge Venture Partners, source software is attracting attention and challenging proprietary packages, Black Duck Software and The 451 Group writes Rod Newing install and use the software. Hav- including local councils and the wanted the perceived lower risk of Major web-based companies, such OVERVIEW ing free access to the source code, National Health Service, not to using software from major vendors, as Amazon, Facebook, Google, Twit- meant that anybody in the active mention large numbers of students with a clear responsibility, known ter and YouTube, have built their Ȗ Built by academics and not busi- and enthusiastic user communities at schools and universities. as “one throat to choke”, if things massive and reliable infrastructures ness people, the internet was open could develop and make available Technically, adopting open source went wrong. on open source. Even high-volume, source from the outset. When Sir additional functionality and bug software was a sensible choice. Faced with the threat of losing real-time transaction processors, Tim Berners-Lee decided not to fixes very quickly. However, it incurred resistance much of their installed user-base, such as Amadeus, the global airline patent his web server and browser, Software companies liked it at the enterprise level from user the traditional proprietary software and travel booking system, are he ensured that the world wide because, with the licence fee being organisations, possibly unaware vendors defended their interests migrating mission-critical systems web, which made the internet usa- replaced by ongoing support con- that their businesses were already with a series of hard individual to open source. ble by businesses, would be domi- tracts, they were able to sell associ- dependent on open source software negotiations with their largest The speed of development associ- nated by open source software. ated services. Even vendors, such as deep in their infrastructure. They customers. The result was large- ated with open source has encour- It was only a matter of time before IBM and HP, were heavily promot- volume, long-term licensing deals aged innovation and increased open source moved out from net- ing Linux, the open source operat- that would keep them away from business agility, vital for bringing work infrastructure to applications, ing system, against their own UNIX open source for a period. sustained advantage in an increas- enabling computing to become fully operating systems. Whereas the principal software ingly competitive business envi- independent from the big and pow- Governments liked it because, vendors have always had a formal ronment. With the shift to private erful hardware and software ven- after being locked into a series structured ecosystem of partners and public cloud computing, open dors. Some of the most active areas of costly proprietary software The speed of development and resellers, open source has source is playing an increasingly currently in computing – big data upgrades for enormous numbers of encouraged a much larger informal important role in the transforma- analytics, the cloud, smartphones users with little volume discounts associated with open source group of individuals and compa- tion of corporate computing. and tablet devices – rely heavily on being given, it offered them reduced nies, including both developers the software. annual IT costs. Software is not has encouraged innovation and and users, to collaborate in facili- Open source attracted adopters needed just by the Civil Service, tating entire integrated, highly because they did not have to pay to but by the whole public sector, increased business agility reliable and secure systems. raconteuronthetimes.co.uk theraconteur.co.uk twitter.com/raconteurmedia 03 Open Source Open Source Enterprises break open the proprietary mould Open source shatters established policies that favour proprietary software packages. Now support and security concerns have been allayed, enterprises are not only finding cost-saving benefits, but also discovering fresh sources of innovation, as Adrian Bridgwater reports ENTERPRISE Ȗ Open source’s welcome embrace but also sells Red Hat Enterprise and GNU Project founder Richard those which handle sensitive and of interactive community engage- Linux, a supported release for Stallman famously explained that financial customer data,” says ment and its inherent diversity was commercial use. we should think “Free – as in free Steve George, vice president of always going to unsettle the tradi- The question arises, irrespective speech, not as in free beer”. By this products and communications at tional business sector’s approach of flexibility and control factors, measure, Linux still incurs support Canonical. “In fact, many open to software. In the locked-down can return on investment (ROI) costs and a firm will still need to source organisations specifically world of enterprise IT, proprietary pay for electricity, internet band- target the public sector, such as behemoths of both hardware and width, data storage and back-up defence and healthcare, where Hidden software dominated for more than powerhouse charges, plus all traditional busi- security is paramount. It's exist- half a century, so change was never driving forward ness costs from equipment insur- ence is much, much more preva- going to happen overnight. new markets ance to air conditioning. lent than many people realise.” There is no such thing as a “free Pages 08 & 09 Enterprises can improve ROI As we now move to cloud com- lunch” and the concept of offering and TCO if open technologies are puting environments, where the open source applications with no embraced for their core functional so-called virtualisation of hosted charge to enterprise is no differ- and total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits. If a company has a com- computing resources support the ent. Sun Microsystems, despite actually be improved inside the petent set of in-house software needs of IT, open technologies being primarily known for its open computing model? developers or a trusted third party appear to be leading something server and storage hardware, was ROI is always hard to gauge if working with open source code, of a charge. LetterGen, a Belgian also the lead developer and organ- a firm is moving to Linux and then there is an opportunity to supplier of document manage- iser of the Java operating system other open platform technolo- react to change and modify soft- ment software, migrated its vir- community. Prior to its acquisi- gies because a certain amount ware more quickly. tualised systems from VMware tion by Oracle in April 2009, Sun’s of training and reskilling will Access to the code gave rise to to the fully open source Red Hat Enterprise Virtualisation plat- management systems and content Lounibos, president and chief aerospace, government or health- significant inflexion point for the president and chief executive typically be involved. While forced claims of a lack of robustness in form late last year. management systems. executive of Soasta, placed his care, for example, will need their wide-scale implementation of Jonathan Schwartz