_ 23. October. 2012

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 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 , 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 ȖȖBuilt 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 his web server and browser, Software companies liked it at the enterprise level from user the traditional 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

ȖȖOpen 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 ”. 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 used the 2008 upgrades and product end-of-life deployments of Linux and its many Luc Vandergoten, chief executive This back-office IT trend is faith in the open cloud. software code more firmly locked open source technologies from JavaOne conference to explain announcements may become a variants in heavyweight business of LetterGen, explains: “We made changing though. As open source “What OpenStack does for us down than others. Open software the cloud to the desktop, what the workings of the open model. less-prevalent feature, licensing environments. In the mid-1990s, the strategic decision to migrate gets ever closer to users’ desktops, is to give us options – and really is built with inherently dynamic role or Apple will play “The software is free but, when and regulatory compliance issues these perceptions began to change for a variety of reasons but, in as a Windows or Apple OS X alter- powerful options – because so software code that is, by its very is harder to predict. Microsoft has you want the support and mainte- are by no means equally reduced. and, predominantly at the server particular, we were impressed by native, so it also finds success in many companies are now moving nature, changeable and customis- made its own not inconsiderable nance, we’ll be there to sell that to TCO is probably easier to analyse level, open source started to emerge Red Hat’s subscription model that the business- function space when toward OpenStack. We see this as able. In environments where com- forays into open source and has you,” he announced. as long as we accept the difference as a viable, adaptable and secure Open source can offer huge benefits, has no high up-front licence fees used as an enterprise resource been partnering for the sake of The same model is found at Red between “gratis” versus “libre” alternative to proprietary solutions. and costs the same each year. We planning (ERP) tool, a business interoperability with open plat- Hat where the firm is a major and recognise that there is a cost “Open source software is proven enabling faster innovation and reduced expect the virtualisation guest process management (BPM) layer, Share and discuss online at theraconteur.co.uk form players for some years now. contributor to the free Fedora associated with so-called free soft- to be secure and reliable for rights, included in the Red Hat and as an executive-facing busi- Futurists and open source evan- Linux operating system project, ware. all business functions, including total cost of ownership Enterprise Linux subscription, ness intelligence (BI) tool, often gelists alike argue that that the alone to lead to reduced IT-related running on a cloud platform. an explosion of capacity and loca- pliance and governance concerns future is open for software, hard- costs by over 60 per cent.” Spawning a healthy proportion of tions, which are very important demand it, a hardened version of ware and the platforms that we LetterGen used a live migra- cloud implementations right now to us. We think OpenStack is a “static code” is available – once use to build both our information tion feature to move to its new is OpenStack, an infrastructure- very powerful player in the cloud again at a price. technology and everything from infrastructure and it is now as-a-service project initiated by community and will be the future Proof that open source can be bicycles to motor cars. able to make efficient use of its cloud-hosting company Rackspace of cloud computing as we go for- implemented successfully in the “Today it's common to see open virtualisation cluster by moving in collaboration with the US space ward,” he says. aerospace sector is found in travel source technology powering all virtual machines from one host agency NASA two years ago. Subse- An important caveat is that, even transaction processing company areas of the enterprise right from to another without affecting quently, the cloud technology stack where open source solutions are Amadeus. The firm transitioned to infrastructure to business-critical performance. “In addition, the developed by the two companies deployed at the enterprise level, open platforms and says that, even applications and the desktop,” says maintenance management func- has been open sourced and handed some customers will work in envi- in its demanding high-volume Canonical’s Mr George. “Because tions enable hosts to be upgraded over to its community of users for ronments where implementation transaction processing environ- open source is prime for web, and maintained while the virtual further development. of commercially supported code is ment, open systems have proven intranet, file and server, it means machines are running. The result Backed by more than 180 tech- mandatory because they are bound not just fit-for-purpose, but also that it's possible for new and large- has been much less downtime nology vendors, OpenStack has by a stipulated level of risk due to critical to helping the business scale web-based organisations, such and much higher availability,” been successful in terms of paving the sensitive nature of their work. transform how it operates. as Quora and Instagram, to build says Mr Vandergoten. the way for open computing plat- Application deployment sce- “Open source can offer huge ben- and run their entire business on it.” As open source continues its forms in the cloud arena. Website narios, such as those found in efits, enabling faster innovation As we stand today, it is 100 years concerted, but comparatively and web application testing com- and reduced total cost of owner- between the invention of the non-aggressive encroachment pany Soasta used Rackspace’s ship. While transitioning from autolathe process to manufacture across the newly cloud-enabled Cloud Servers product on the closed to open systems is no trivial standard component engineering enterprise, what software appli- OpenStack platform to provide task, unless this step is taken, parts, such as the standard screw, cation areas are we most likely to customers, including the London businesses risk being left behind and the subsequent invention and see open platforms supporting? 2012 Olympic Committee, with its While transitioning from closed as their competitors capitalise on construction of the jet airliner. Continuing Linux’s proximity to Cloud-Test service. the new possibilities this offers,” Common open standards that “lower-level”, data-centric func- This service enables companies to open systems is no trivial says Hervé Couturier, executive drive innovation always win in tions, open source finds much to analyse their site and applica- vice president of development for the end. success when employed to drive tion performance in response task, unless this step is taken, the Amadeus IT Group. elements, such as application to simulated high-traffic bursts. While we can almost certainly servers, software code change In providing this service, Tom businesses risk being left behind define the current decade as a

04 raconteuronthetimes.co.uk theraconteur.co.uk twitter.com/raconteurmedia raconteuronthetimes.co.uk theraconteur.co.uk twitter.com/raconteurmedia 05 Commercial Feature Open Source

Open source web system to improve Sheffield City Council efficiency

Sheffield City Council recently announced that it rebuilt its complete web infrastructure within a unified technology platform driven by Magnolia 50% of IT executives said they CMS, the open source content management system use open source in non- mission-critical and mission- critical environments

ȖȖThe project was implemented by partner sites, which had previously of the sites, is consistent and easier for Sheffield City Council. “This is not just scores the readability of new content, user experience-led enterprise web been run using a legacy content man- users to learn.” about technology and usability of the highlighting problem areas, like exces- developer, Technophobia, part of Cap- agement system (CMS). With the deci- Further custom functionality devel- website, but also clear communication sive use of long words or complex sen- ita plc. It is part of Sheffield City Coun- sion to adopt a common Java platform oped by Technophobia for Sheffield and social inclusion. tences, via a simple traffic-light warning cil’s eServices strategy to deliver more for the council’s online infrastruc- City Council has included powerful “One of the most exciting develop- system. By reminding editors of this as council services online and follows ture, these websites have also been analytics capabilities built into the editor ments is how we have customised they write, it helps us to build best prac- recent recommendations highlighted migrated to a Java system. This means dashboard. Where analytics data was the interface for content editors. We tice into our day-to-day operations and by an independent review of Directgov that all sites can now draw on central previously accessible to a few power have created a special dashboard that continuously improve our online offer.” led by Martha Lane Fox. services, such as search and analytics, users, the dashboard lets all content Magnolia CMS will allow Sheffield City a reuse of functions that typifies how editors see detailed information on their Council to improve efficiency and will SOA can drive efficiencies. pages, such as page visits, unique users be a key component of a modular, Java- Saul Cozens, consultant, Technopho- and search keywords. based service-oriented architecture bia, explains how the new platform is Magnolia CMS has brought about (SOA), which will dramatically simplify already delivering benefits: “As just one another significant change behind the 46% the provision of new online services key example of this, we were able to scenes for council staff looking to add Look beyond the software of organisations have and future self-service transactions. integrate enterprise search technology new pages. The easy-to-use interface deployed open source The new platform consists of several straight into Magnolia CMS to deliver a allows editors to see exactly how the applications for specific components, including Magnolia CMS, best-of-breed federated search capa- page appears to site visitors as they departments and projects an enterprise search service, and an bility running across all the sites. create and edit content. The previous to the people behind it analytics service, integrated to form a “For end-users, this one simple devel- CMS did not allow in-page editing, so service-oriented architecture that can opment changes the usability of the changes were time-consuming and be extended with new features. council’s entire online services. Users more difficult to get right first time. In Initial benefits already delivered no longer need to start out on the cor- addition to increasing efficiency, the include a federated search function, rect one of seven websites to find the ability to customise the administration enabling site visitors to access a range information they are looking for. The system functionality has also allowed Open source software of partner websites which deliver ser- new unified platform ensures that a the council to add features that improve is based on the communities that develop vices on behalf of the council. The site search on any one of the seven web- accessibility and user friendliness. Before embarking on open source, organisations should carefully consider the and support it will have an improved focus on creat- sites will return relevant results from As the web’s importance as a channel ing accessible plain English content to both the council and its partners’ sites by which local authorities can engage strategies and policies required to implement it successfully, writes Billy MacInnes help users easily find and understand and available online resources, such as with their citizens increases, the use of information and services. The new jobs, council tax, waste and recycling. an open platform gives Sheffield City platform will also reduce the time and “The search function is now included Council the option to avoid big expen- assessing their skills to ensure they who know the product and want at the licence behind the software. STRATEGY complexity of providing information in the new common navigation tool- sive upgrades and gradually introduce can implement and manage the to work on it.” An (OSI) online, helping deliver greater efficien- bar that we have added across all the new features cost effectively as they chosen software, although Brian For businesses accustomed to certified licence gives the user cer- cies and value, and enabling the coun- sites. For now, the design for each site are required. ȖȖWhile the decision to adopt open Gentile, chief executive at Jasper- dealing with vendors who sell tain rights to modify the software, 22% cil to increase the range of services remains the same, minimising disrup- “As people expect more services to An open platform enables Sheffield City source software can seem momen- soft, suggests that some teams may and support their own products, customise it and redistribute it. that site visitors can carry out via self- tion to existing users, but the navigation be available online, it is vital that we tous, it is only the beginning of the already possess open source skills the open source world can appear “If you find a problem and report use open source serving online. toolbar is starting to draw together the ensure these services are also acces- Council to avoid expensive upgrades and process. Choosing the right prod- from working on non-production slightly disorienting. Fortunately, it, the maintainer of that software consistently across all The council hosts seven websites, way these sites behave. This is vital as it sible to everyone,” says Julie Bullen, uct is the next step but, in the open or personal projects. there are some safeguards, as Paul can help fix it,” Mr Powell explains. departments including the main council site and six means the experience, when using any director of customer services for gradually introduce new features cost effectively source world, the criteria an organi- It is also very important to look at Wander, vice president at Inviqa, “If you make a change, you should sation applies to making that choice the ecosystem behind the product. points out. Many products tend to do your best to get that accepted into can differ from buying traditional Open source software is based on be backed by a heavyweight com- the core project so you don't have commercial software. communities that develop and pany, such as Red Hat or Acquia, the cost of perpetual maintenance.” Using externally developed open support particular products, so he says, so if something goes Mr Jones at i-KOS adds: “A good source code is a different process companies would be well advised wrong “there is a serious company open source citizen will share than internal development, so to investigate the community that will be there to catch you and improvements they make to the companies need to identify inter- around a product before they support you”. software, for their own purposes, nal stakeholders – including IT, decide to deploy it. Alfresco chief executive John with the wider community. This quality assurance, and legal and Richard Jones, technical direc- Powell says it is also worth looking concept can be quite alien to business management – to review tor at i-KOS, puts it succinctly: some organisations.” and approve what code is used and “Open source is an ever-changing, Companies struggling to get to where, says Peter Vescuso, execu- volunteer-powered organism. grips with the open source culture tive vice president of marketing at The majority of open source may find it easier to use a consul- Black Duck Software. software contributors are vol- tancy or solution provider to help Brian Green, managing director unteers and the culture of open them develop an open source pol- of Suse UK, believes businesses source is based on free sharing of A good open source citizen icy and strategy. The broad range 31% also need to consider how the tech- found and created content. of open source software means nology fits into their broader IT “Look beyond the software itself will share improvements companies are not tied to specific said open source is part of strategy. In most cases, it needs to to the people who are behind it. vendors for services and the wide the company's IT strategy sit alongside an existing infrastruc- How are they behaving? Are they they make to the software, for selection of service providers ture so it is important to under- committed? Do they respond supporting open source projects stand the impact open source will quickly to security issues? You their own purposes, with the means “everyone can find a pro- have on existing IT systems. want your chosen solution to vider that meets their skill and The IT department needs to come with an active, welcoming budget requirements”, concludes Source: Overview of Preferences and wider community Practices in the Adoption and Usage of Open spend time educating teams and community and available talent Jaspersoft’s Mr Gentile. Source Software, Gartner 2011

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Growth of open source In five years, what percentage of purchased Open source adoption in the United States is Are you familiar with the term software will be open source? mirrored in the UK and elsewhere in Europe “open source"? gathers momentum

Open source investment by numbers 14% 30% 29% 27% 100% $43,460 average annual wage for all occupations in the US, 2010 66% Yes 85 $ Dollars invested 42 89 310 94 $452.8m 49% $674.9m $89,456

0-25% open source 51-75% open source Total Source: 2012 Future of Open Source, average annual wage for software North Bridge Venture Partners and development occupations in the US, 2010 Black Duck Software with 11% Number of 26-50% open source 76-100% open source The 451 Group respondents No

Average deal size Source: Munich Personal RePEc Archive, April 2012 49% How is the growing use of open source components $6.8m impacting the manageability of applications? $10.1m 1.2m 12% estimated open source-related software development jobs in I have heard of it, but I am More complex the US, 2008 29% not sure what it means Initial and first-round funding Less complex 100% 47% 62% Neither, no impact on $118.7m application complexity $192.7m Total 24% 1.47 87 m Number of 141 projected open source-related 11% respondents 301 software development jobs in No response 73 the US, 2018 2010 2011 Percentage increase

Source: 2012 Future of Open Source, Source: 2012 Future of Open Source, Source: Munich Personal Source: Economic Impact of Open North Bridge Venture Partners and Black Duck North Bridge Venture Partners and Black Duck RePEc Archive, April 2012 Software with The 451 Group Software with The 451 Group Source on Small Business: A Case Study

fees, even discounted, they would the reason the cloud exists,” he says. platforms, compared to compa- cant financial advantage. Equally, the smartphone but, according SHARING ECONOMY have paid $10 billion (£62 billion) Major cloud providers, such as nies such as Microsoft which had when usage is expected to vary to figures from analysts IDC, the Hidden powerhouse every year in such fees.” Amazon, built their platforms to make Windows licensing fit significantly, open source solu- Android open-source operating ȖȖIt is not hard to get a good exam- Three content management systems: web servers with database Google is a strong supporter on open source software foun- the cloud model. tions can sidestep the commer- system was installed on 68 per ple of the hidden benefits open systems commonly used for blogs, backends, security programmes and is involved in numerous ini- dations. The lack of licensing “The result is a cloud environ- cial complexities of enterprise cent of phones shipped in the drives forward source software (OSS) brings to WordPress, Joomla and Drupal, and network simulators – for tiatives, such as Apache, OpenBSD, restrictions made open source ment which is not all open source licences that have not yet adapted second quarter of 2012. everyday life. Start with some- are OSS and account for 70 per example, Zebra – to play with more OpenSSH and Chrome. Facebook much easier to use with cloud – Microsoft, VMware and other to the cloud era.” The natural benefits of open thing most of us use frequently: cent of the market. advanced stuff.” also has a very strong open source closed source providers have source technology – freedom new markets the internet. Dominique Karg, chief hacking Red Hat chief executive Jim ethos. It runs the world’s largest substantial penetration – but of choice, no licensing costs, no Around 78 per cent of websites officer at AlienVault, offers a -per Whitehurst claims OSS played deployment of Hadoop software, overwhelmingly tilted in open Government vendor lock-in, easy to under- seeks to define rely on an open source technology sonal recollection of the impact a large role in the development supporting distributed processing of source's favour,” adds Mr O’Grady. basis for software stand licensing terms, the ability known as PHP and nearly 58 per OSS made 15 years ago. of Google and Facebook. In an large data sets across computer clus- Fabio Torlini, vice president of adoption to modify source and improve From the birth of the internet to the cent of web servers use Apache “I still remember the huge sat- interview with the Times of India, ters. Other Hadoop users include marketing at Rackspace, agrees code to address an issue or prob- Pages 14 & 15 software which is also OSS. An isfaction I had by just setting up he says: “The cost of building even Google, Amazon and Microsoft. open source will make signifi- lem – have helped to grow new creation of the cloud, free software has additional 12 per cent use Nginx, my own Apache and sharing a the beginnings of Google, if you Open source is also fuelling a Open source is, in a very cant inroads in cloud comput- markets more rapidly than if yet another open source project. couple of sites,” she says. “This were doing that in the traditional large part of the cloud computing ing. “When an organisation has they had been left to proprietary been the major driving force, as Billy In total, 70 per cent of the web exhilarating experience drove me, IT stack way, would have been phenomenon. Stephen O’Grady, real sense, the reason the firm plans for many hundreds The smartphone and tablet vendors. Without open source hosting market is powered by and a huge number of others, to prohibitive. Our estimate is that, analyst at RedMonk, is unequivocal. cloud exists or thousands of cloud servers, markets are big open source users. technology, things would be very MacInnes discovers open source. explore and set up our own server if they had paid traditional licence “Open source is, in a very real sense, open source can have a signifi- Apple’s iPhone helped popularise different today.

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Open source encourages Fresh ideas to enable co-operation and free-thinking new technologies Raspberry Pi Open data OpenStack Collaboration is the secret of open source’s ongoing success because the pooling of seasoned experts’ skills and the free- computer analytics cloud thinking of newcomers creates exciting possibilities, as Richard Hillesley reports The Raspberry Pi is a revolution- The role of big data analytics is At the forefront of cloud develop- ary computer, the size of a credit to crunch and rationalise huge ment is the OpenStack project card, designed to be a cheap, fun volumes of data across clustered which now describes itself as “a computer that can be used as a file systems to find patterns which global collaboration of developers INNOVATION badly-needed educational tool might uncover hidden relationships and cloud computing technologists for teaching programming skills in the data or give a business advan- producing the ubiquitous open ȖȖOpen source is driving the next is more powerful than a single company is giving away software to children. It is marketed by the tage to an organisation. The field is source cloud computing platform wave of computing – and there developer working on their own.” that has brought it advantage, it is British-based Raspberry Pi Founda- still maturing, but it is being increas- for public and private clouds”. are good reasons why this should The informality of the open also gaining from the donations of tion, a registered charity. ingly dominated by open source On the internet, information is be so. As data and the network source model and its ability to its rivals. It is estimated that the The computer comes in two ver- projects, such as Hadoop, NoSQL, exchanged in many different com- become more complex, interoper- allow participants to find their pooled value of the research and sions, priced at $25 for a standalone and the R statistical computing lan- puter languages, so it is important ability and commonality become own level encourages innovation development incorporated in the model or $35 for a networked guage and graphics environment. there are common reference greater issues. The transparency beyond the reach of commercial Linux kernel is worth more than version. It is priced in dollars, the Hadoop, the driver of much of the points to facilitate interaction. In of open source and its adherence structures. Anyone can contribute $10 billion (£6.3 billion). Com- Foundation says, because “cur- current technology around big data the cloud, interaction standards to open standards are essential in and the measure of their worth is panies as diverse as IBM, Intel rency markets are so volatile at analytics, is an open source imple- are still loosely defined, awaiting a a networked world where every the quality of their contribution. and Qualcomm invest billions in the moment”. mentation of Google's MapReduce report from the Cloud Standards device has to be able to speak to The employee of a company who Linux and open source innovation When connected to a TV and a and File System (GFS) technologies. Customer Council (CSCC) address- every other device. is paid to contribute to an open centres, and Google sponsors the keyboard, a Raspberry Pi will do Companies that use Hadoop typically ing open interoperability standards The distributed open source source project is seen first as a “Summer of Code” which offers most things a PC does, but the have millions of visitors every day, from the end-user viewpoint. model of software development member of the community and, stipends to students all around the makers hope schools will take up the each of whom demands a unique set According to Angel Luis Diaz, grew out of the developer com- second, as an employee of the com- world to work on free software and challenge and use it to teach children of instantaneous responses. IBM vice president for software munities that evolved around pany for which he or she works. open source projects. deploy conflicting technologies ware under open source licences where the governing rules for the saving. The designs are now dis- the delights of programming. It uses According to analysts Forrester standards and the cloud: “What is the Linux kernel and other free Julian Heerdegen, customer Open source gives access to that result in vendor lock-in and because “ease of access helps ecosystem will be looser, promot- tributed under the auspices of the an Arm processor and a solid-state Research, the reasons why these unique about OpenStack is that it software projects during the early- relationship management evan- expertise and technology that there is no point in re-inventing large innovative communities and ing freedom and innovation.” Open Compute Project as a service Secure Digital (SD) card for booting solutions are gaining acceptance in is a perfect example of user-driven 90s. These communities called gelist at SugarCRM, says: “If you might otherwise be out of reach. the wheel. Consequently, open ecosystems to spring into life”, The proven model of free/libre to other companies, perhaps in the up the operating system, and for the field of analytics are because architecture. It has a huge end-user upon thousands of volunteers, work on an open source project, For this reason, many smaller source has moved up the stack. according to Mr Heerdegen. “Open open source software (FLOSS) hope that they will develop further general storage of data. “open source initiatives are trans- community which has accelerated with a diversity of skills, who came your work is visible to the com- start-ups, as Google once was, Pooling knowledge and resources source is to innovation what public development and the accessibility power-saving enhancements. The recommended operating forming all platforms and tools... the development and the usability together across organisational and munity, which results in mecha- have based their operations on the on the technology and feeding back infrastructure is to an economy: of ideas that it promotes has obvi- A more radical possibility is system is Raspbian, an optimised open source communities are and interoperability of the software. geographic boundaries to write free nisms akin to peer review, the use of open software. Google was software changes to the commu- the more you have, the more ous attractions for a wider variety provided by the Riversimple open version of Debian GNU/Linux, and where the fresh action is... and open When it started in 2010, there were software, facilitated by the channels methodology used in science to able to customise its own version nity has been of mutual advantage growth is driven by individuals of projects beyond programming source, hydrogen-fuelled car, includes the Lightweight X11 Desktop source solutions and providers are a handful of developers. Now there of communication that had been ensure the quality of research. of GNU/Linux on clustered serv- to all the players. Sharing the making the best use of it,” he says. and the narrow confines of com- designed by British engineer Hugo Environment (LXDE) desktop devel- maturing rapidly”. are 6,000 individual contributors opened up by the internet. The result is ultimately the same ers to build its search and storage technology has improved perfor- In recent years, the nature of puter systems software. Spowers and backed by Sebastian opment tools, and “example source Hadoop, NoSQL and R are com- from 200 companies and 40 user Open source encouraged the – high quality of code.” algorithms, which required thou- mance and reduced overall costs computing has begun to change. Facebook provides an illustra- Piech, grandson of Ferdinand Por- code for multimedia functions”. mon ingredients in diverse software groups across the globe. The participation of communities of Ms Baker adds: “Developers need sands of Linux servers running on for everybody. Collaboration, even Every computing device is net- tion of the possibilities and has sche. Riversimple intends to license A user guide is being written by suites from different vendors. Each software has been downloaded developers, students, companies, to have the freedom to explore. commodity hardware. with rivals, works – a fact that has worked to other devices, and free released the design specifications its designs to an independent body, Computing at School to help teach- supplier depends on the support 300,000 times.” hobbyists, professionals and aca- Open source technology provides Paradoxically, the willingness of been realised with some effect in and open source software is com- for its server hardware under an The 40 Fires Foundation, on the ers and pupils to get the best out of it provides for revenue, making The turning point in OpenStack's demics. And the code was better for crucial access to product develop- companies to collaborate encour- the animation, special effects and ing into its own. The conductors open licence “because openness understanding that “engineers and the Raspberry Pi. commercial open source soft- fortunes was the decision to form it. Mitchell Baker, chairwoman at ment for a number of developers ages innovation in other aspects biotech industries. of the new realities of enterprise always wins”. The Facebook devel- designers from around the world ware projects more responsive to an independent foundation to put the Foundation, points to who wouldn't normally have access. of the business. A new device can A growing number of enter- computing, mobile devices, virtu- opers have redesigned the power can help develop the vehicles, and customer demands – because they space between the community the developer-driven nature of such It provides a vehicle for them to be brought to market much more prise software companies, such as alisation, big data analysis and the supplies and motherboards for any manufacturer around the world have to be. and the ownership of the code by projects as one of the reasons why experiment and to try the crazy quickly because the operating SugarCRM, distribute their soft- cloud, are being driven by open its servers, and stripped away the can make them”. Rackspace and NASA. open source is driving innovation. things that nobody else would.” system is already there. No single source software. server cases and unnecessary add- “Open source technology pro- There are no limits on who company has had to recoup the In the mobile space, Mozilla is ons, to achieve a massive power vides a voice to a vast population participates, which inevitably vast expense of developing an working on a truly open source of developers enabling them to be extends the possibilities for enterprise-level open source from Linux-based mobile operat- heard,” she says. “These develop- unconventional perspectives and scratch and precious engineering ing system to compete with iOS ers have valuable knowledge that unexpected solutions. Many suc- resources are liberated to develop and Android. “Firefox OS is not open source technology can tap cessful projects, including the other aspects of the design. designed to create a third plat- into. Ultimately, a product that has original Firefox browser, began as A corollary of the collabora- Open source is to innovation what public form,” says Mozilla’s Ms Baker. had a number of different develop- the work of one or two developers tive approach is that there is a infrastructure is to an economy: the more “Instead, Mozilla wants the web ers working on it will be better, with a crazy idea that turned out commonality of standards so to be the third alternative to the because each developer will pro- to be the right. interoperability issues fall away. you have, the more growth is driven by closed walls of the Apple and vide different ideas and knowledge Pooling of resources and col- As computing has moved towards Google stacks. Firefox OS will be an to the development. Collaboration laboration benefits everyone. If a the web, it has made less sense to individuals making the best use of it open source platform for mobile,

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Liam Maxwell combines his role as deputy government chief information officer (CIO) with that of director of ICT futures at the ‘Don’t risk Cabinet Office where he is responsible for devising new ways for the public sector to use technology to increase efficiency and reduce cost; he has also worked as head of being left behind’ At the heart of open computing at Eton College Adoption of open source software has been the key to success for many of government’s digital future today’s top-performing companies. For those without a transitioning strategy, it is time to adopt or die, warns Professor Jim Norton

Professor Jim Norton is a respected adviser to governments, an independent director, and has served on several notable inquiries and commissions; he is a past president of the BCS – The Chartered Institute for IT, former chief executive of the UK Radiocommunications Agency and ex-chairman of Deutsche Telekom Ltd

OPINION source – or proprietary – software. We have also published our open ȖȖThe shift to open source software operating system. Along the way, a happen first in open source and with closed proprietary systems the total cost of ownership over source tool kit to provide guid- (OSS) is one of the most important number of well-known proprietary that's a radical change from even that require on-going maintenance the lifetime of use of the software. Liam Maxwell, deputy government chief information officer and Cabinet Office executive ance to the procurement and IT current trends in technology, yet operating systems, such as those five years ago.” and reconfiguration. Last year, the London School of communities so we can address it is surprisingly little discussed from Apple and BlackBerry, built It is not just about innovation. One of the most important, yet Economics published a report on director of IT Reform, says the future is based on open standards and open source capability issues in departments. when compared with the major on OSS foundations, while others, When faced with an ever-faster often overlooked, advantages is the total cost of ownership for the But use of open source is about e-businesses built on its founda- such as Google’s Android, remain pace of change, OSS provides an better access to skilled, motivated UK Government’s Cabinet Office. more than back-office efficiency tions, including Google, Amazon, largely open. important competitive weapon by and innovative people. A gen- This report found that: “The high- architecture, delivery and pro- renegotiated to release tens of mil- base. The Department of Energy – it is also at the heart of our com- YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The advantages of open source, encouraging a quicker response eration has now grown up with est score for strategic drivers was POLITICS curement. It also showed a way to lions of pounds in savings. and Climate Change (DECC) and mitment to deliver public services Open source can offer huge both to the IT provider and the to changing requirements. The the internet and with open source. for reduced vendor lock-in. A close radically lower the cost base for We firmly believe that estab- the Department for Business, Inno- designed around the needs of citi- benefits. While transitioning from enterprise customer, are manifold. speed of change in many markets, They want to work with these second was value for money.” ȖȖThere are still those who con- government IT. And this needed lishing a level playing field for vation and Skills (BIS) stand out as zens: digital services that deliver closed to open systems is no trivial Perhaps one its most important especially those with a consumer systems and tools rather than the Open source has demonstrated sider open source to be a marginal to come down – in 2009, industry open source and proprietary leaders and in some large opera- better services for less money. task, organisations that fail to attributes is the access to greater focus, is now relentless. The avail- closed and proprietary approaches its capabilities and is now consid- option, less secure than propri- experts such as Kable [market software changes that dynamic tional departments there is now a The future of government is not embrace it risk being left behind as innovation that OSS affords. The ability of a wide range of cost- that are frequently seen as being ered fit for purpose even in busi- etary software and not as good as intelligence] showed that, across and unlocks efficiencies. It cre- strong presence – for example, 30 about IT – actually we have to fall their competitors capitalise on the combination of open source soft- effective development tools, the more limiting. If companies want ness-critical applications. Ama- the big, branded software packages the public sector, IT costs were ates a much needed competitive per cent of Revenue and Customs out of love with IT. It is about digi- new possibilities offered. ware, open systems interoperabil- ability to scale rapidly and access to attract the best talent, they must deus IT Group, which processes – but their day has long gone. approximately 1 per cent of GDP. tension in our procurements and (HMRC) IT is open source. tal public services. The first stages There are wider benefits to the ity and open standards has created to a global community of shared embrace open source software. around a billion travel-related Open source software is a core The Coalition Agreement in opens up innovation. We have undertaken a pro- of constructing this digital govern- economy as a whole, adopting a self-reinforcing community of knowledge, all favour the use of the This “people advantage” also transactions per year and the fast- component across enterprises 2010 was the first programme for It also enables government to be gramme of myth-busting to ment were completed earlier this open source will help to ensure shared research and development, open approach. Having an IT infra- extends to the existence of a global moving trading systems of the and government. Indeed, it feels government to carry a detailed an intelligent customer, so that we address unfounded concerns month with the launch of GOV.UK. that businesses are fit for purpose, and a pooling of creative ideas. structure that is able to support OSS community, allowing compa- London Stock Exchange exemplify strange to think it was once viewed technical objective: “We will cre- can break up uncompetitive con- around the security of open As my colleague Mike Bracken, can compete globally and are best In the words of Jim Whitehurst, the required commercial agility is nies to draw on millions of soft- its use in highly demanding trans- as unorthodox. Companies now ate a level playing field for open tracts, place ourselves in control of source software and taken steps to who leads the Government Digi- able to evolve to meet the changing chief executive of Linux provider a key to success. ware architects, analysts, design- action processing environments. routinely mix both proprietary and source software and will enable our IT architecture and reduce the address any requirements specifi- tal Service (GDS), explained at requirements of their customers Red Hat: “More innovation will Under the continuing impetus ers and programmers to share Open source allows consumers open source software as a means of large ICT projects to be split into cost of government IT. cations that unfairly preclude open the launch of the beta version of and marketplaces. of Moore’s Law of increasing tech- knowledge and resolve problems. access in real time to a depth and lowering the cost of IT and stimu- smaller components.” We have shown this year that GOV.UK in February, this open OSS did not spring into life fully nological change, developments In turn, this opens up endless pos- range of services that would simply lating innovation. Too often, government contracts disaggregating black-box system government platform is “inher- formed; it has had a long gestation continue apace. In hardware, this sibilities for greater collaboration be unaffordable using the old mod- Until recently, government was adopted a default position of using integrator contracts into smaller ently flexible, best of breed and period. Its antecedents stretch has included the introduction of and innovation. els. The importance of this for the behind that particular curve, yet a small number of large IT sup- multi-supplier contracts saves completely modular”. back some 40 years to the concepts ultra-high resolution displays, There is also the added benefit broader UK economy, too, should open source played a crucial role pliers – the “oligopoly” – on long- us up to 30 per cent. To date, for For the inquisitive, GDS has of open system interconnection Adopting open source will help enhanced wireless networking of lower total cost of ownership. not be ignored. in understanding why government term contracts. 2012/13, we are booking £400 mil- We firmly believe that establishing a published its technology stack (OSI) and the development by Bell and network-based storage, while While OSS is generally free to Based on the Open for Business IT projects were so big, complex The result was a lack of com- lion in savings from our spend con- here: http://radar.oreilly. Laboratories of the portable UNIX to ensure that businesses are fit in software and systems the field acquire, rather than being subject white paper, sponsored by Ama- and expensive. The treatment of petition for our contracts, poor trols process as we drive through level playing field for open source and com/2012/01/with-govuk-british- operating system. of business analytics has grown. to the licensing fees normally deus IT Group. open source by government IT value for money and high levels of that change. government.html UNIX was the inspiration for the for purpose, can compete globally By embracing OSS, companies can charged for access to proprietary departments in the first decade of vendor lock-in. That lock-in often Now, all government depart- proprietary software changes that This is the future of government first Linux kernel released in 1991 benefit from the rapid exploitation software, this is not the correct this century identified many areas included uncompetitive software ments use open source to some – and it is based on open standards and the following 22 years have and are best able to evolve of new technological develop- basis on which to compare costs. of misunderstanding in strategy, deals – deals we have recently degree and intend to build on that dynamic and unlocks efficiencies and open source. seen intensive development of that ments in a way that is not possible It is more appropriate to consider

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‘Maybe there Government seeks to IT costs reduced by UK is such a thing define basis for 80% Border Agency used by any market participant and The UK policy was designed to saving by UK Border implemented in any technology create a level playing field for all as a free lunch Agency using open without constraint. companies, large and small, with software adoption IT technologies Following discussions with lead- interests in supplying services ing vendors and stakeholders in and products to the government the IT market, including the British IT strategy, especially the move to – and dessert is A government committee is preparing to Standards Institution and Interna- a cloud environment (G-Cloud). tional Standards Organisation, the Unfortunately, it was swept up in reveal its definition of open standards to coalition decided to form the Open the international tussle between £12m Standards: Open Opportunities the interests of powerful propri- included’ level the playing field for implementing Flexibility and Efficiency in Gov- etary technology companies and ernment IT committee to define their open source competitors. The 30% what an open standard might be result will determine the blueprint open source software alongside proprietary in context with its plans for open for the future, based on the conclu- of HM Revenue & source implementation. sions reached by the government’s Having worked in business applications, writes Mark Ballard Customs IT software A key consideration is whether Open Standards: Open Opportuni- is open source open standards should include ties inquiry which is due to report intelligence and data analytics £2m those for which a royalty fee is its findings. charged. This would include con- How much it will save also for many years, I saw an sideration of software that con- depends on this outcome. Esti- tains some proprietary code, but mates range from £600 million to opportunity to acquire Voodoo is otherwise open. Examples of billions of pounds but, whatever these would be fair, reasonable the sum, the true victory would and non-discriminatory (FRAND) be a freeing up of the stagnated IS, a company delivering value standards which are usually core government IT ecosystem to allow to clients with an open source 80% elements of an application. These new blood in. operational saving and staff efficiencies are essential, particularly for ini- It remains to be seen if this island TBC by moving Transport for London Oyster tiating communications protocols will be home to truly open stand- strategy, says Scott Cunliffe, and because of this are charged for ards which will pave the way to a Card to open source at non-premium prices. harmonious blend of open source managing director, Voodoo This is a contentious area because and proprietary software. purist open source advocates spec- Information Systems ify that no licensable material £20m should be used in the software. saving by moving Transport for London gration with other applications. Oyster Card to open source No single supplier or These benefits mirror central government’s current ICT strategy, Source: Cabinet Office which advocates the use of open technology should be so source tools. Cost is not the only benefit. It is free software; however it would be an powerful that it could not be oversight to justify an open source contracts that have come up for standards of communication so one GOVERNMENT implementation on cost alone. renewal. It has also been deploying part of the system could co-operate swapped with any other Technologies that Voodoo work open source software where it can. with another, sharing applications, with, such as Pentaho and Talend, The Government Digital Service functions and data. have development communities ȖȖThe Coalition Government laid breath of fresh air through govern- Setting his ideas out in a 2010 also launched an early version of a The problem was that the market numbered in the thousands that out plans to re-evaluate, renego- ment datacentres by backing open report for The Network for the website called GOV.UK which was had coagulated into competing dwarf any business intelligence Scott Cunliffe, managing director, tiate and open up its information source technologies wherever they Post-Bureaucratic Age, a Cam- built using open source software. islands of technology based on Voodoo Information Systems development department of IBM technology relationships with ven- offered cheaper implementation eron administration think-tank, "The future of government is open proprietary standards. Dominant or Microsoft. dors shortly after it was elected. and innovation. It also planned to Mr Maxwell says government source,” he says. "GOV.UK is all vendors used their standards tool So, why should you consider open Risk mitigation steers chief This massive cost-cutting effort shake up the market by breaking IT had become so expensive that open source. It's the publishing plat- kit to lock competitors out, stagnat- source? information officers towards the was applied with gusto, but then down big IT projects into smaller its total expenditure was more form for the future of government." ing the market and making open Let me start with an analogy; assumed “safe” options, not neces- it stalled. components, which could be han- than the entire public budget for Yet the centrepiece of govern- source harder to integrate. imagine for a moment that the IT sarily the best options. There have Now, two-and-a-half years on, dled by a larger number of suppli- Wales or more than the Ministry ment policy – the piece that The coalition proposed it would market is a café, you fancy a bite been many examples of projects what happens next will depend on ers, and not just the major propri- of Justice and Income Support brings it all together – has still to place government functions and to eat and you choose a sand- with big software vendors resulting the results of a public consultation. etary vendors of the past. budgets combined. be settled; namely, its policy on data in the broadest possible wich. Before taking a bite you sign in seven-figure disasters, unused The government's dilemma is how Liam Maxwell, deputy govern- "Have we got value from IT?" open standards. ecosystem to ensure no single a legally binding agreement not to software and vendor lock-in. to implement the policy. The ques- ment chief information officer asks Mr Maxwell. "We don't think open the sandwich and explore Voodoo have successfully mini- tion for the consultation is what at the Cabinet Office, insists the we have. its contents. Distaste for cucum- mised customer risk by supporting “open” in open standards and open government is still committed to "When we break up the big, black Share and discuss online at theraconteur.co.uk ber or tomato could well result in many open source management source really means. this policy. box contracts – disaggregate them some unpleasantness. information projects. The premise was that the IT mar- "We spend a large amount of into their component parts – we The benefit of source code being ket had become stagnant. Projects money on IT in government are looking at savings of 20 to 30 per Both coalition proposals – to supplier or technology was so open to the market is obvious. Open were expensive because govern- because we have for years spent cent," he says. promote alternative technology powerful that it could not be source software allows a commu- Learn more at ment was using so few companies to our money with the same old crew Mr Maxwell believes the gov- and to break projects into smaller swapped with any other. In this nity of people to improve reliability www.voodoo-is.com run them and to supply the technol- – which my minister refers to as the ernment has made progress. The parts – begged for a way to glue the way, contracts could be disag- and add functionality resulting in Contact [email protected] ogy to be implemented. This lack ‘oligopoly’ – under large, long-term Cabinet Office has saved £400 parts together. There would be lit- gregated and dominant suppliers rapid evolution, scalability and inte- of competition, the government contracts," he says. million this year by disaggregating tle point in breaking projects up if replaced without causing prob- contended, had inflated prices and it only made them so disparate it lems for existing systems, paving public IT projects were disastrous created a different problem. the way for open source software because the technology options In the first place, the original dif- to be deployed because it would had become stagnant. This lack of The future of government ficulties that gave rise to the limited not be hamstrung by proprietary competition had stifled innovation. IT ecosystem derived from technol- standards and protocols. The government proposed a ogy's inherent need for its parts to The government would do this by two-part solution in its Coalition is open source work together as a coherent system. employing open standards – proto- Agreement in 2010. It would inject a This was achieved by using specific cols and connections that could be

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