So what is all this Open Source Software Stuff



OPEN SOURCE SYSTEMS

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Sister M. Isidoris Flanagan, Chad Laramore, Eric Lenning, MarkWomer

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary 3

SECTION 1: Overview, Terms, and Concepts 4

SECTION 2: Vendor Perspective

Big Blue and the Little Company that Could 11

SECTION 3: Customer Perspective

Open Source Software Issues for Customer Organizations 16

Conclusions 24

References 24

Executive Summary

From conception in the 1970’s and 80’s to a firmly established movement affecting all levels of software development, open source software has evolved into a thriving community of dedicated programmers producing some of today’s most stable and widely used software. This paper traces the history of open source from its humble beginnings through the development of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and its General Public License (GPL). We also follow its transformation in the 1990’s to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) and analyze the open source definition. From there, we examine both the concerns of the open source vendor to the pros and cons of utilizing open source as a customer.

The open source software movement has made its presence known at all levels of software development. Apache, one of the anchors of the OSS movement, is the established leader in the web server market. With GNU/Linux and some of the various Berkeley Software Distribution(BSD) derivatives, OSS has a significant market share in the operating systems market. Open source also has a strong presence among desktop applications, with the OpenOffice suite of software as well as the Firefox web browser and Thunderbird email software, although the more user-friendly proprietary software tends to lead that market.

The vendor side of open source software has made dramatic strides over the last five years. Large established corporations such as IBM have developed strategies in targeted markets that utilize open source. New open source corporations such as JBoss have developed a Professional Open Source business model that is continuing to evolve and is successfully competing directly with established corporations. Future IS leaders need to be aware of the opportunities and risks of the changing software market.

Customer organizations must understand the various vendor choices and the different business models in the software marketplace today.  There are many factors that must be weighed as an organization considers which software technology to adopt.  Open source software products have demonstrated several potential advantages over proprietary applications.  These advantages may include: better portability to different hardware and operating system platforms, greater use of open standards, and a price tag -- in some cases -- of zero.  We will discuss these potential benefits along with some possible drawbacks for the use of open source products.  We will show that the issue is not just Windows versus Linux, and that cost is just one of many factors to be considered.

SECTION 1

Ho! Ho! Ho!

Upon close examination of the title page cartoon,[i] you will notice that the two contrasting views of open source systems are illustrated. It depicts the view held by most large IT software companies, as Microsoft, with an angry Bill Gates expressing how “immoral” open source can be. Meanwhile, Santa with his reindeer and penguin-elf savor the purity of the pool of open source, claiming the “best things in life are free”. In order to understand Santa’s wisdom fully, we first must know exactly what is meant by the term “open source” as well as what Santa actually means by “free”. From there we will try to understand the reasoning behind these two contrasting views, as well as uncover the real identity of Santa Claus. Once this foundation is established, we will expand our analysis of open source by viewing it from two different perspectives. First, we will try to determine how you can make open source an economically viable option by analyzing two open source vendors, IBM and JBoss. Finally, we will examine the view of the customer and decide what are the benefits and potential drawbacks of using open source software products.

So what is all this Open Source Software Stuff?

There are many misconceptions as to what open source software actually is. Let us first dismiss a few of the more popular, but wrong, beliefs. Open source software (OSS) is not synonymous with shareware or freeware. Both of these classes of software refer more to their distribution method than to any characteristic of the software itself. Whether you obtain it without cost (freeware) or try it before you buy it (shareware), typically neither freeware nor shareware allow access to the underlying source code, which is at the heart of OSS. Neither can we equate open source software with public-domain software. While you are allowed to copy, modify, and distribute the public-domain software freely, much like OSS, public-domain software has no copyright, whereas open source is a specific means of copywriting software. In fact, one can copyright public-domain software for oneself without permission from anybody.[ii] This, as we shall learn, differs dramatically from the accepted definition of open source software.

Richard Stallman vs. The Evil Xerox Printer

Learning the somewhat entertaining history of the open source software movement will give us a more clear understanding of what it is today and where its future lies. The open source movement began innocently enough at MIT in the early 1980’s. Richard Stallman (Figure 1) had been a programmer at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab since the 1970’s. He and his colleagues were developing an operating system referred to as the Incompatible Timesharing System.[iii] More important than the project itself were the methods used by Stallman and his peers in its development. Stallman and his coworkers worked in a climate emphasizing the free exchange of ideas, problems and solutions. Whenever one of them wrestled with an issue in the software, or discovered a new tweak to improve the software, they would freely exchange that information, as well as the source code, to benefit the project.

The freedom that Stallman experienced in the AI Lab, his own personal utopia, was undone quickly with the seemingly harmless the purchase of a new Xerox printer (depicted in fig.2). Like most printers of the era, their new printer was plagued with paper jams. The difference between this printer and other equally jam-ridden printers, however, was the means by which Stallman could remedy the problem. In the past, Stallman had the ability to obtain the source code he desired, alter it to suit his needs, and alleviate the issue at hand. In this case, however, Xerox, would not release to Stallman its proprietary code to be adapted to fit his needs. Stallman was distraught. This was not the first time he had been faced with the difficulties of working with proprietary software, and this, in his view, was a trend in the software community which needed to be diffused. He vowed:

“I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program that I must share it with other people who like it. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement.

So that I can continue to use computers without violating my principles, I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along without any software that is not free.”[iv]

With that, Stallman quit his job at MIT and founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF), in 1985. His goal for the foundation was to preserve the “free” status of software through the guarantee of its own copyright and license. The word “free” has many connotations and thus has caused some confusion. For the FSF, free refers to a matter of liberty, not one of price. Stallman eloquently stated that one should think of it as “free as in free speech, not as in free beer”.[v] The Free Software Foundation advocates four main freedoms for its software:[vi]

1. The freedom to run the program for any purpose

2. The freedom to modify the program to suit your needs

3. The freedom to redistribute copies so that you can help your neighbor

4. The freedom to improve the program and release your improvements to the public so that the whole community benefits

In order to implement the freedoms and to facilitate open participation in the developer community, Stallman devised the General Public License or GPL. The following are a few key provisions of the General Public License, as well as analysis of each[vii]:

1. Copyleft—“…everyone has the right to use, modify, and redistribute the program’s code or any program derived from it but only if the distribution terms are unchanged.”

Stallman believed that copylefting allowed the right to copy to belong to the individual. Often referred to as a “share alike” clause, copyleft creates a “viral” effect in software derived from code protected by GPL. Copyleft forces the derived code to guarantee the same distribution terms.

2. Fees—No license fees, but a fee for distribution, service or warranty protection allowed.

It is at this point that the common belief that open source is “free” (as in beer) takes a beating. This provision allows for the free software community to recoup some of its expenses.

3. Source Code—The ability to access, modify, and distribute source code is guaranteed.

This provision is the heart of free software. Stallman believed this would allow a freer flow of ideas within the developer community.

Free Software vs. Open Source Software

Netscape released its browser source code in 1998 to much fan fair within the free software community. However, the free software belief was not fully embraced by all within the IT industry. Most businesses did not fully understand the “free” concept and shied away from the whole “share alike” premise. Two men, Eric Raymond (Figure 3) and Bruce Perens (Figure 4) recognized this trend and attempted to remedy the situation. They coined the term “open source” and founded the Open Source Initiative (OSI) that same year.

Under OSI, Perens and Raymond outlined the open source definition to help clarify for all what exactly open source entails. The following are a few key provisions of the open source definition as well as analysis of each: [viii]

1. Free Redistribution—You can make copies of software and sell or give them away. You don’t have to pay for the privilege to do so, either.

Much the same as the GPL, the option to sell or freely redistribute open source software is given to the user.

2. Source Code—Programs must include source code and allow distribution in source code or compiled form.

Source code is necessary for the open community to modify or enhance a program. Therefore, this provision requires that the source code be distributed with all programs and derived works.

3. Derived Works—You must allow modifications and derived works and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software.

Modified and derived works must be allowed to be distributed under the same license terms, however, it is not required as in the GPL. This provision does not hand-cuff the producer of the derived work to accepting the “share alike” terms of copylefting. This stipulation allows for a more practical use of open source software.

Where is Open Source Software Today?

In order to understand how far open source has come in a short period of time, conducted a survey in June of 2001 of operating systems that were being utilized on public web servers worldwide (Figure 5).[ix] Protected under the GPL license, GNU/Linux is the operating system preferred by nearly 30% of web servers. Also included within the open source movement are a large percentage of the BSD operating system groups (Table 1). Therefore, open source operating systems are utilized by approximately 35% of web servers worldwide.

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Figure 5. Web server operating systems in 2001.

Table 1. Percentage of different operation systems on web servers worldwide (2001).

|OS group |Percentage (June) |Composition |

|Windows |49.6% |Windows 2000, NT4, NT3, Windows 95, Windows 98 |

|[GNU/]Linux |29.6% |[GNU/]Linux |

|Solaris |7.1% |Solaris 2, Solaris 7, Solaris 8 |

|BSD |6.1% |BSDI BSD/OS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD |

|Other Unix |2.2% |AIX, Compaq Tru64, HP-UX, IRIX, SCO Unix, SunOS 4 and others |

|Other non-Unix |2.4% |MacOS, NetWare, proprietary IBM OSes |

|Unknown |3.0% |Not identified by Netcraft OS detector |

A Patchy Apache

In many ways, the open source software movement flowed logically from the academic environment, where much of the innovative software for the internet was initially developed. Much like the free flow of ideas we observed with Stallman within the MIT AI Lab, there was a free flow of ideas, concepts and code between programmers at various sites.

In the early 1990s, the University of Illinois’ National Center for Supercomputing Applications released to the world its first version of a web server.[x] When a programmer in this young internet community would find an improvement for this server, he or she would create a “patch” which could be added to the source code to remove a bug or create new functionality. In the early days of the internet, the Web was growing quickly and constantly programmers were coming up with new patches for the server. When Rob McCool, the University of Illinois student who had been the primary programmer for the server, accepted a position with Netscape, the NCSA could no longer keep up with all of the patches. Frustrated by the NCSA not responding to their emails, the programmers started to build their own server from the patches they had written. Brian Behlendorf established a mailing list for the members to manage the improvements and modifications to the server. The group renamed the improved software application “Apache” which brings a connotation of strength and assertiveness and the name is play on the “patching” they had done to the original source code. They started with eight developers who called themselves the “Apache Group.”

In 1999, in response to the increasing economic interest in the Apache web server, the Apache Software Foundation was born from the Apache Group.[xi] Between 1995 and 1999, the Apache web server had become the market leader. The Foundation was necessary for several reasons. First, it created a more cohesive organizational structure for the development of software projects, so more work can be done more efficiently. The Foundation provides a legal entity to manage the resources used in the development of the software projects and to form a shield to protect the individual developers from lawsuits aimed at the projects to which they have contributed and a means to protect the “Apache” brand from abuses by other organizations.

The Apache project was initiated not by an individual but by a diverse group of people who learned to know one another through their exchange of ideas and information while working on the project. From the beginning, individual’s contributions earned recognition within the project community. The ASF calls itself a “meritocracy,” literally a “govern of merit.” Under this principle, when the Foundation’s members believe that an individual has proven himself worthy to be a part of the development community (by submitting patches, suggestions and other important contributions to a project), he is given write access to the code repository. Those contributors who have been granted write access to the code are called committers. This process has worked very well for the Foundation and they have grown to nearly 800 committers.

Over time, the ASF has expanded its software development and currently the Foundation is organized into 24 projects, many with sub-projects. These projects include: Tomcat, a container for the Java Servlet and the Java Server Pages technologies; James, Java Apache Mail Enterprise Server; Geronimo, a container for Java 2, Enterprise Edition (J2EE).[xii]

From the Lizard issues a Fox and a Bird

We already learned that Netscape’s 1998 release of the source code for its browser created quite a stir in the software community, spawning the development of the OSI. The event also gave birth to another organization as well. Mozilla was the original code name for the Netscape browser project. With the release of the source code for Navigator, immerged as a virtual meeting place to continue the development of the Mozilla code in the open source community. Mozilla Foundation was incorporated in 2003 with the mission to “preserve choice and innovation on the internet.”[xiii]

Mozilla develops and produces software, but they are not the primary coders. Rather, they integrate the code provided from Netscape and various programmers in the open source community and release the improved software. Firefox is the web browser released by Mozilla on November 9, 2004 and within a year has already been downloaded more than one million times- and has reached a market share of 8.65% by October 2005.[xiv] Thunderbird is the email software provided by Mozilla. It can be used in conjunction with Firefox or it can stand alone.

Open Standards

Within the complex world of technology, new innovations appear constantly, branching in all directions. Open Standards are guidelines, available to the general public, for ensuring compatibility within and between systems. They have been developed to create a framework for the developer community to ensure interoperability between systems and system parts. Anyone can help to develop and modify the standards, and they are available to anyone without any significant barriers.[xv] Some of the common open standards include:

HTML: Hypertext Markup Language

HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol

POP: Post Office Protocol

TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol

Another standard currently under development is “OpenDocument” or ODF, which is short for OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications. This Standard would define how office documents are shared and stored. ODF would provide one single formatting standard for all office documents, whether they are text files, letters, memos, spreadsheets, or presentations, etc. This standard would allow portability of documents not only between vendors of similar competing products but also different software applications. Several software companies, including IBM and Sun are avid supporters of this new standard. Not surprisingly, the strongest opposition to implementing ODF comes from Microsoft, with its specific, and well guarded, document formatting protocols. Microsoft, at this time, has no intention to support OpenDocument in its newest version of Office, due to be released next year.[xvi]

Middleware

Middleware software is the “glue” that connects the various applications running on a network. As the internet has grown, the software technology required to support its demands has evolved. In the early days of the internet, web pages were static html files. If a user sitting at a workstation wanted to see a specific web page, the user would type in a web address on the browser screen. The browser would send that request to the specific internet site. The web server at that site would retrieve the specific html file requested and send it off to the browser.

Web pages have become more sophisticated over the years, often requiring the use of a database or some other software application to create the dynamic page that the user will see on his web browser. A web server is not able to provide anything beyond the static html file. In order for these dynamic pages to be sent to the user, some type of middleware is required to act as an interface between the web server and the database application (Figure 6).

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Figure 6. Simplified depiction of the Internet to illustrate the role of middleware.

Java 2, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) is a specific open-standards-based platform that enables development, deployment, and management of multi-tier server-based applications.[xvii] The open source applications that utilize the J2EE technology are often in the form of middleware. As previously mentioned, Apache has a J2EE project called Geronimo. Now we will discuss how IBM and JBoss have incorporated open source, specifically J2EE middleware into their business strategies.

SECTION 2

The Vendor Perspective: Big Blue and the Little Company that Could

Over the past five years software vendors have started to utilize the profitability of open source software.  IBM for example established a strategy early on to capitalize on one of their targeted markets in middleware.  At the same time, dot com start-up corporations, such as JBoss, created a new business model that is successfully competing with IBM.  Future leaders in the IS sector need to be aware of the shifts in the software market due to the emergence of open source software. 

Why open source for IBM?

In 1998, that pivotal year in the history of open source, IBM began to experience a cultural shift toward open source, as the new college graduates joined the corporation having been educated in an environment enriched by the merits of open source software. These new employees were familiar with open source software, often having used in their thesis projects, and were anxious to expand on that work. IBM had to make the decision whether or not to allow its employees to continue such work. Corporations, such as Microsoft, can require that employees use only their software products, as a means of safe-guarding their intellectual property rights. The choice by IBM to allow its recently hired employees to continue work on the open source software projects was not trivial. That decision slowly opened the eyes of the “Big Blue” culture to the potential advantages of Open Source.[xviii]

Critics of open source within the organization were concerned with the quality of the software. Many had the impression that the open source software efforts were nearly opposite IBM’s structured standards made famous in the seventies by its employees all wearing blue suits.18 Yet the open source cultural shift became inevitable as the media began to recognize the qualities of open source, and new corporations such as Google utilized open source software.

The defining moment for IBM’s shift toward open source was the release of the Jikes source code. Jikes is a compiler that translates JavaTM source files into the bytecoded instruction set and binary format defined in The Java Virtual Machine Specification.

“Within eight hours of the release, a programmer in California sent an email to the Jikes authors containing a non-trivial enhancement to the compiler, one which required investing some time and effort to understand the code.”18

Instantly IBM realized that there might be something to the open source movement, and during 1999 created three strategic goals that have remained the same since their establishment.18

• “To support rapid adoption of open standards by facilitating easy access to high quality open source implementations of open standards in order to speed industry adoption.”

• “To use open source as a business tool by keeping the platform open and taking advantage of new business opportunities.”

• “To enhance IBM mind share, creating a preference for IBM brands by associating them with successful OSS projects and building relationships with a broad spectrum of developers.” 18

So how can we profit from this?

Middleware was already an established emphasis for the corporation. When IBM was looking to enhance their portfolio using open source, they noticed that middleware was one area of open source with only minor activity. Using the open source community to aid in the development of IBM’s middleware technology “strongly affects the value and viability of products like WebSphere.”18

WebSphere is one of the products in the J2EE market, and according to Giga Information Group that market grew 39 percent in 2001 to $2.19 billion. Note that 2001 was a harsh year from an economic perspective. The country was in the midst a recession, which officially lasted from March to November of 2001, and yet IBM’s WebSphere managed to gain a 34 percent market share in that growing market. IBM was tied with BEA Systems for the lead in the J2EE market share.

The J2EE market changes in 2004. IBM remains a leader in the market at 33 percent, but they have surrendered the lead to JBOSS at 34 percent while BEA systems lost market share to 27 percent.[xix]

Where did JBoss come from?

Marc Fleury, the founder and CEO of JBoss, started the project while living at his in-laws home in 1999. He likes to say, “My in-laws financed JBoss.”[xx] Fleury has a diverse background. A native of France, he is an ex-Lieutenant in the paratroopers who studied both mathematics and theoretical physics.

JBoss is the pioneer for a new business model called Professional Open Source (POS). POS is exquisitely simple. Essentially, it merges the best of two worlds, utilizing the benefits from open source, such as open licenses, high-quality code, and innovation, with the high degree of accountability and support expected from vendors traditionally in the software industry.[xxi]

Strategic Risks of a POS Firm

There are innate risks in every market. A POS firm is like any other company in that its goal is to survive and eventually prosper. To understand the benefits of POS we can look at how the JBoss addresses the risks of demand, innovation, inefficiency, and scaling.

Fluctuating demand and the possibility of market collapse are the two main components of demand risk. To address this risk, a firm must understand the mutability of customer preferences and the dynamics of current economic conditions, and use this information to revise operations constantly. While the majority of its competitors use software license fees to generate about half of their revenue with service and maintenance fees making up the difference (see Table 2), JBoss’s revenues are solely from service and maintenance. We already noted that in 2004, BEA Systems lost market share in the J2EE market while JBoss gained significantly. Because the POS firm can price their software licensing fees at zero, while other firms use the license fee to generate revenue, the POS firm gains an advantage in the market.21

"Every year is an election year with our customers." Marc Fleury[xxii]

When Marc Fleury says, “every year is an election year,” he is referring to the danger of other firms producing a better product. That danger is called innovation risk. A POS firms address this innovation risk with constant code improvements, many of which are recommended by its own customers. Because the source code is open to the public, clients become actively involved in the process of innovation.[xxiii]

If all things are exactly the same and yet one product has a lower price which product would you choose?

The inability to match a competitor’s unit costs is called an inefficiency risk. The POS firm effectively mitigates this risk by using open source code. As development costs go down with the use of open source code, this in turn reduces the inefficiency risk.

“A goal before the year's end is developing a partnership with his fellow Southerners at Red Hat, in Raleigh, N.C”[xxiv]

When a corporation is unable to expand fast enough to match market growth, that corporation will experience the effects of scaling risk. A POS firm allows free downloading of its applications, which considerably helps to alleviate the scaling risk. But, more significantly, it is the open source environment of collaboration that gives POS firms an advantage. JBoss has created an ecosystem in which interdependent partners work together in the identification of problems and the discovery of solutions.[xxv] The ecosystem is composed of partnerships that bundle software together, expanding markets for both firms.

Lessons for Future IS leaders

If one assumes that the POS firm is a viable enterprise, how will this affect the future of the software market? To answer that question here are eight predictions for IS Leaders.25

1. The cost of running an IS unit will decline.

The most important reason to adopt open source software is because it is free, and as long as the quality of the product remains the cost will decline as more open source firms enter new markets.

2. Software innovation and quality should improve.

The source code availability allows more eyes to view the problems in the code and more people the opportunity to correct those problems.

3. Benign POS monopolies might emerge.

4. IS units might become less dependent on a single POS support Provider.

The openness of the code will allow more firms to enter the market and provide support. POS firms will need to differentiate their support from other firms. This could become difficult if a POS product becomes an industry, standard like HTML.

5. POS will Escalate.

6. IS leaders will experience pressures from out-side the IS unit.

With the emergence of the POS firm, and JBoss’ success in that role, we can expect more open source firms to enter the market. As these firms establish themselves creating their own ecosystems, IS leaders will have employees in their organizations who have experienced the benefits of POS products and will wish to continue to use those products.

7. IS units will develop an OS strategy.

8. Traditional software companies will be forced to adapt.

As corporations grow they often overlook such basic developmental questions as: where has our corporation been and what does this mean about where our corporation is going?[xxvi] IBM is a powerful example of a corporation that developed an open source strategy in an attempt to answer the question of where their corporation is going.

SECTION 3

Open Source Software Issues for Customer Organizations

There are two main motivations for studying the vendor perspective on the issue of open source software. First of all, managers whose organizations develop commercial software may need to consider whether it makes sense to convert their products to open source. At the very least, they should be aware of the possibility that open source products might compete with their own. Secondly, even those whose organizations are purchasers of software, not developers, need to understand the various vendor choices and the different business models in the marketplace. The purpose of this section is to discuss the issue of open source software specifically from the perspective of a customer organization.

Looking Beyond the Price Tag

When deciding whether to adopt open source software products, there are many issues that executives and managers need to consider. Often the question is oversimplified as simply a choice of Windows versus Linux (Figure 7), with Windows being expensive but easy to use, and Linux being free but less user-friendly. In reality, the issue often is not one of Windows versus Linux, and cost is just one of many factors.

The one critical point for customers to remember when considering open source products is to use the same standards they would for any software purchase. This approach demands more both from proprietary and from open source software. If an open source product does not meet all of the user’s needs, why should the user select this software? Likewise, if an expensive proprietary product offers few additional benefits over its open source (and potentially free) counterpart, why would a user choose the proprietary product? In most cases, it makes little sense for customer organizations to select open source products simply for philosophical reasons (e.g., they dislike Microsoft). Nor should an organization choose a proprietary product just because it is perceived to be a “standard” or “safe” choice.

Shopping for Software

There are many factors for a customer organization to consider when selecting software. Table 3 discusses just a few of these, and it is likely that individual organizations have many others. All of these factors must be weighed and prioritized before a software selection is made. It is very possible that price may not be among the most important considerations.

When considering the items in Table 3, it is not realistic to say that proprietary products always are better at addressing certain factors, while open source products always are better for others. Even so, the process behind the creation of open source software does tend to give open source an advantage in some areas. Similarly, the historical marketplace success of proprietary products currently tends to give that software an advantage in other areas. For these reasons it is worthwhile to discuss the potential advantages of commercial versus proprietary software for some of the factors listed in the table.

Table 3. Some factors organizations might consider when selecting software.

|Issue |Explanation |

|Ability to Upgrade |Are upgrades frequent and affordable? |

|Compatibility |How well does the software interact with other software applications? |

|Cost of Ownership |How expensive will it be to maintain and manage this software? |

|Ease of Use |How easy or straightforward is this software to use? Will much training or retraining be required |

| |for the users? |

|Features |Does it have a rich and fully developed feature set? |

|Level of Support |How well does the vendor support its product? |

|Maintainability |How easy or straightforward is this software to maintain? Do we have people who can do this? |

|Performance |How well does the software perform? Is it fast enough? |

|Portability |Will the software run on many different hardware or operating system platforms? |

|Price |What is the upfront cost (sticker price) of the software? How much will it cost to increase, |

| |perhaps greatly, the use of this software product? |

|Quality |Is the software well-designed and robust? |

|Scalability |Can the product be deployed across multiple processors for load balancing, parallel processing, or |

| |redundancy? |

|Security |Will the software be vulnerable to attacks? How well and how quickly are security problems |

| |addressed by the vendor? |

|Suitability |Does the software meet our current and anticipated needs? |

|User Community |Who else is using this software? Will there be others we can turn to for support? Does the vendor |

| |have a large enough user base to stay in business? Will we be able to hire people who already know |

| |how to use this software? Will we be able to share data and files with our peers? |

| | |

Some Potential Advantages of Open Source Software Products

Yes, price can be one advantage.

The first advantage that often gets mentioned in a discussion of open source software is price. Quite simply, many (though not all) open source products are free, so a customer organization pays nothing to acquire the software and install it on as many systems as it wants. Additionally, customers do not face new purchase costs for software upgrades, so they can more easily deploy the latest version of an application. While it is possible that price might be an insignificant factor in some purchase decisions, few organizations have unlimited funds for buying software. In most cases, if two applications are equivalent in nearly every important way, the lower-cost option wins.

Escaping Vendor Lock-In

The other potential advantage for customers who choose open source products is the avoidance of vendor lock-in. Vendor lock-in occurs when a customer becomes dependent on the products of a specific vendor, to the advantage of the vendor and the detriment of the customer, because of the difficulty or high cost of switching to products from a different vendor.[xxvii]

Generally speaking, open source software has tended to rely more than proprietary software on open standards for storage and communication of data. In fact, as open source applications have grown in popularity, vendors of proprietary software have been forced to ensure their products also support open standards. This increases the chance that data created in one vendor’s application will be compatible with another vendor’s application. Customer organizations benefit by being able to avoid lock-in, and by having the freedom to choose applications based on factors other than compatibility.

An additional advantage is that many open source applications are designed to be portable to multiple operating system platforms. Organizations have greater flexibility if their web server or database program, for example, does not determine which operating system they can use. Likewise, customers who choose an open source operating system are less likely to be forced into buying hardware from one specific vendor. This lets multiple vendors compete for a hardware sale, which should further decrease costs for the customer.

Lower costs and avoidance of vendor lock-in are just two of the potential advantages offered by open source products. There is no guarantee that an open source product will be less expensive or more portable than its proprietary counterpart, but organizations often cite lower hardware and software costs, more frequent upgrades, better software compatibility, and increased portability as reasons for selecting open source products over proprietary solutions.

Linden Lab, a privately held San Francisco company founded in 1999, is one example. Home of the 3D online virtual world known as Second Life, Linden Lab decided to adopt an open source software platform based on Linux for strategic reasons. Since the number of processors required to support the online world grows by as much as 10% each month, “The need to pay licensing fees might have prevented the growth of Linden and Second Life,” says Cory Ondrejka, VP of Product Development.[xxviii]

Some Potential Disadvantages of Open Source Software Products

Who exactly do you call for help?

With the advent and growing popularity of open source software, proprietary software companies have started to defend and promote the advantages of their own products relative to open source applications. For example, a website at presents Microsoft’s arguments for choosing the Windows Server platform over Linux. In a 2004 interview, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer posed a question that echoes the statements on the website: “When it comes time to ask somebody for a new feature in Linux, who do you talk to?”[xxix]

Ballmer’s question highlights a primary difference between open source and proprietary software. He implies that a disadvantage of Linux is that it is designed and supported by a community of users, so there is no specific vendor to provide support, bug fixes, and enhancements. In a sense this is true, because Linux is not the product of one individual company. However, Ballmer’s question can be answered in at least three different ways:

Answer #1: You can seek help from the worldwide community of developers.

Answer #2: There are many companies you can hire to add the feature for you.

Answer #3: You don’t have to talk to anybody; you can add the feature yourself.

Ballmer’s question also can be posed in reverse: “When it comes time to ask somebody for a new feature in Windows, who must you talk to?” Obviously the answer is: “Microsoft.” Rather than trying to determine if one approach is better than the other, individual customer organizations must decide for themselves which development model best suits their needs.

Getting what you pay for?

Another potential disadvantage of open source products is the smaller feature set in some applications. As one example, early versions of the free and open source MySQL database server lacked many of the features found in proprietary databases like Oracle or SQL Server. Similarly, the GNU compiler that ships with nearly every open source operating system lacks functionality available in proprietary compilers from Intel or Portland Group. These are just two examples, but when comparing expensive proprietary software to free open source alternatives, customer organizations must carefully consider which features they actually need. In other words, customers must decide whether the extra features in a proprietary product justify the entire cost of that product, if all the other features are available for free in a different product.

Not Playing Well with Others

A related issue for open source software is the potential incompatibility with popular proprietary products. In reality this is a disadvantage of using proprietary software, but the issue becomes a disadvantage for open source products when they are not compatible with industry standards. For example, open source office productivity suites like OpenOffice will not gain wide acceptance until they are 100% compatible with the proprietary Microsoft Office file formats. Similarly, industry standard applications like Photoshop from Adobe and ArcGIS from ESRI generally have not been able to run on Linux platforms, at least natively. Before an organization makes the decision to migrate to any new platform, open source or otherwise, they must make sure that all of their critical applications are supported on the new platform.

The Unix Civil War

The issue of platform migration raises another important point that managers and executives need to understand. Often the question of migrating to an open source platform is portrayed as a battle between Windows and Linux. Stories about organizations making such a transition sometimes appear in the mainstream press, or at least the business sections, with catchy headlines like, “Brazil falls in love with Linux.”[xxx] Migration from Windows to Linux might be big news, but migration to Linux from a proprietary version of Unix is much more common and also much easier. Linux has caused more problems for vendors of proprietary versions of Unix than for Microsoft to this point. As one example, the November 2005 quarterly report from Silicon Graphics states:

“During the past several years, we have transitioned our focus from our legacy systems based on our MIPS processors and IRIX operating system to our core systems based on industry-standard Intel Itanium processors and the Linux operating system.”[xxxi]

The report also notes that SGI stock recently began trading on the Over-the-Counter (OTC) securities market for less than a dollar. Proprietary Unix platforms worked very well for vendors in the early days of the Internet, but locked customers into a situation where they became overly dependent on one vendor’s hardware and software. As Linux became more robust on many different platforms, and especially on the ubiquitous Intel processor, customers realized they could escape vendor lock-in and achieve great cost savings.

Security and Reliability Issues

Proponents of the proprietary software model raise two common objections to the open source development model. First, they assert that publicly available source code lets malicious hackers discover vulnerabilities in the code. Of course, it is clear that people searching for vulnerabilities do not require source code. Even though Microsoft does not release its source code, its products have been the victim of many well-publicized security penetrations. Open source proponents point out that “security through obscurity” provides no security at all, and believe that exposing code to the light of day allows flaws to be corrected before they become vulnerabilities.

The second assertion by open source opponents is that software created by a loose-knit band of developers from around the world can not possibly as good or reliable as products designed by a professional software company. In reality, studies indicate that neither open source nor proprietary products have a consistent advantage in this area. [xxxii] Additionally, the studies show that all software has defects, and the rates are similar for both types of products. The question for consumers is how these flaws are fixed. Is it preferable to wait for a single software vendor to acknowledge a problem and provide a solution, or is it better to have many sets of eyes examining the code to find a solution, perhaps even before it becomes a problem? Each organization will have to decide this question for itself.

Other Open Source Trends

A recent study of 625 Western European corporations, all with at least 100 employees, identified several clear trends in the use of open source software.[xxxiii] Industries that perceived software as the most important to their ability to compete – such as telecommunications companies, which rely on software to provide their core services – had the highest rate of open source adoption. Other industries with high open source adoption included financial services and business services. In contrast, industries that treated software as a commodity were less likely to have open source deployments.

Many companies said the ability to customize open source software was important so they can build their own additions. Companies also mentioned their desire to migrate their web server architecture completely toward the LAMP open source stack of applications. LAMP consists of the Linux operating system, the Apache web server, the MySQL database, and the middleware scripting languages Perl, Python, and PHP.

A Change in the Weather Service

The National Weather Service (NWS) is a federal government agency under the Department of Commerce. With a budget around $800 million and approximately 5,000 employees, the NWS strives “for protection of life and property”[xxxiv] by providing the nation with 24-by-7 staffing in over 120 forecast offices and 9 national centers. The NWS is the nation’s single official source of weather watches, warnings, and advisories, and also provides continually updated forecasts that are freely available to anyone.

The Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) is the cornerstone of the modern NWS. The AWIPS computer system lets forecasters overlay data from multiple sensors (e.g., Doppler radar, satellites, lightning detectors, surface equipment, weather balloons) and atmospheric models. AWIPS acquires all of the data and displays it for the forecaster (Figure 8), provides the platform for generating a forecast, then allows the forecast to be sent out to the world. Each NWS forecast office has at least five or six 3-headed AWIPS workstations, as well as a rack of servers to process and store weather data.

The AWIPS system originally was designed for the proprietary HP-UX operating system and the Informix database running on HP workstations. However, the situation of vendor lock-in made it difficult for the NWS to incorporate non-HP hardware without also migrating to a different operating system. As it came time for older hardware to be replaced, the NWS realized it could achieve greater flexibility and significant cost savings by migrating to an operating system that could run on hardware from multiple vendors. It was at that point the NWS decided to explore the possibility of running AWIPS on a Linux system. Tests conducted on prototype systems confirmed that this plan would be feasible, and the NWS began its migration to the Linux operating system and PostgreSQL running on Intel processors.

Former NWS CIO Barry West says of the migration, “Linux does not necessarily provide any better performance than the various flavors of Unix that are out there, but Linux gives us [purchase-and-support] cost savings of almost 3-1 over Unix, and that’s just something we can’t ignore.” West goes on to say, “Funds freed up by the move to Linux can be invested in researching better weather forecasting methods, which is, after all, what we are supposed to be here for, not for maintaining computer systems.”[xxxv] As for the risks and challenges of migrating to an open source platform, West states, “Lots of groups [now] offer support and 7-by-24 availability. There was some risk, because there weren’t a lot of other agencies that had done this, but when we laid the factors out, or corporate board decided to move forward.” Finally, West points out that Linux works with many different types of hardware and environments. “We can run the same applications on a supercomputer and take them down to the workstation without recompiling,” he says. “You can’t do that with other operating systems.”[xxxvi]

The NWS case illustrates several of the points raised during the discussion of issues for customer organizations. Cost was a major factor in the decision, but factors such as performance, portability, cost of ownership, and level of support all figured prominently. By choosing to migrate to Linux, the NWS also avoided being locked in to HP hardware. The choice of the PostgreSQL database server indicates that the NWS feels an expensive proprietary database would provide too little additional functionality to justify its cost. Finally, this was yet another case of an organization migrating not from Windows to Linux, but from a proprietary Unix to an open source version. This migration was not without its challenges, but it certainly was not as difficult as moving from Windows to Linux.

Managing the Risk

NWS CIO Barry West mentioned having to weigh the risks involved with moving from a proprietary Unix platform to the open source Linux. The following list presents strategies that organizations can use to mitigate these risks when considering open source products:[xxxvii]

1. Have lawyers scrutinize usage rights and license agreements.

Organizations should not ignore the legal issues, but they should not allow these issues to become roadblocks. The first section of this paper presented a history of the open source movement and explained some differences between two of the more common open source licensing models. In fact, there are many more license models than just those two. Picking up on the possible confusion this situation presents, Microsoft’s “Get the Facts” campaign concentrates heavily on the legal indemnification issues associated with open source products. In short, companies who adopt open source products might be directly liable for unauthorized use of the code, whereas Microsoft accepts all the legal responsibility for code that it might use without authorization.

The legal issues raised by Microsoft are relevant, but there are ways to mitigate these risks. For starters, an organization’s legal department should scrutinize the usage rights and license agreements of open source products. This is to make sure the terms are understood, and also to verify that the terms are compatible with the organization’s other software contracts. It also is wise to designate at least one employee specifically to manage license terms and legal issues.

2. Perform an architecture and engineering support review.

As stated earlier, any time an organization makes the decision to migrate to a new platform -- even from one version of Windows to another -- they must make sure all their critical applications still will run correctly. When considering a new software application, an organization should verify that the new product will integrate with existing systems. It also is important to determine how the organization intends to support the new technology. Valuable skills and knowledge can be gained by first adopting open source applications for smaller internal projects.

3. Establish a list and repository of approved products.

Few organizations allow their employees to install software without approval from the IT staff. Generally the list of approved applications is very specific. In this sense, open source software is no different. Of course, license issues are easier to manage, since many open source products can be installed for no charge. This allows organizations to provide repositories from which approved software can be downloaded.

4. Do not discard major investments without a very good reason.

Until it is time to replace legacy systems or hardware, it probably does not make sense for organizations to throw away proprietary software products in which they have large investments of time and resources. Open source solutions are easiest to adopt for new projects and when making a wholesale replacement of existing systems (as in the National Weather Service case). On the other hand, organizations must determine if their current hardware and software platform is sustainable and expandable if demand for computational resources should increase dramatically. If adopting a new platform would be less expensive than maintaining even a fairly new existing one, there may be reasonable incentive to make a switch.

Conclusions

Customer organizations must understand the various vendor choices and the different business models in the software marketplace today.  There are many factors that must be weighed as an organization considers which software technology to adopt.  We have shown that the issue is not just Windows versus Linux, and that cost is just one of many factors to be considered.  Customers must demand the same standards for open source software as they would for any software product.  They will see that open source software may be the right choice for many reasons.

On the vendor side, open source software has made dramatic strides in recent years. The open source software movement has made its presence known at all levels of software development. Both large established corporations, such as IBM, and small startups like JBoss have developed successful strategies in targeted markets that utilize open source. As these open source business models continue to evolve, future corporate leaders need to be aware of the opportunities and risks in the changing software market.

References

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[i] vikko_50.html, viewed 11/21/05

[ii] definitions.html, 11/21/05

[iii] David Bretthauer, “Open source software: A history”, Information Technology and Libraries, Mar. 2002 p. 4.

[iv] Brian Carver, “Share and Share Alike: Understanding and Enforcing Open Source and Free Software Licenses”, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol. 20:443 (2005), p 446.

[v] Bretthauer, “Open source software: A history.”, p. 5

[vi] Bretthauer, “Open source software: A history.”, p. 5

[vii] Brian Carver, “Share and Share Alike: Understanding and Enforcing Open Source and Free Software Licenses”, p 455-457.

[viii] Bruce Perens, Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution, 1st Ed. Jan 1999 p. 5.

[ix] survey.index-200109.html, 11/21/05

[x] Friedman, Thomas L., The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2005.

[xi] , viewed November 12, 2005.

[xii] For more details and a complete listing projects currently sponsored by the Apache Software Foundation, see their website:

[xiii] , viewed December 4, 2005.

, viewed December 4, 2005.

[xiv] Techtree News Staff (Nov. 10, 2005). “Firefox turns One; Rages On.” : India’s Technology Daily. id=69099&cat id=643, viewed November 10, 2005.

[xv] Coyle, K, “Open Source, Open Standards” Information Technology and Libraries, Vol. 21, 1, pp 33-36

[xvi] Darrow, Barbara (Dec. 1, 2005). “IBM Jumps on the Open Document Bandwagon.” CRN. , viewed December 5, 2005.

[xvii] , viewed November 22, 2005.

[xviii] Capeke, P.G., S. P. Frank, S. Gerdt, and D. Shields. “A History of IBM’s Open Source Involvement and Strategy.” IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 44, No. 2, 2005.

[xix] Watson, Richard T., Donald Wynn, Marie-Claude Bondreau. “JBOSS: The Evolution of Professional Open Source Software.” MIS Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 3, Sept. 2005.

[xx] Greenemeier, Larry, “High 5: CEO of JBoss Inc.: Marc Fleury.” Information Week, 10/17/2005.

[xxi] Watson, “JBOSS: The Evolution of Professional Open Source Software.”

[xxii] Greenemeier, Larry, “High 5: CEO of JBoss Inc.: Marc Fleury.”

[xxiii] Watson, “JBOSS: The Evolution of Professional Open Source Software.”

[xxiv] Greenemeier, Larry, “High 5: CEO of JBoss Inc.: Marc Fleury

[xxv] Watson, “JBOSS: The Evolution of Professional Open Source Software.”

[xxvi] Greiner, Larry E. “Evolution and Revolution as Organizations Grow.” Harvard Business Review, Vol. 76 Issue 3, p55-68, May/June 1998.

[xxvii] Berinato, Scott. “.Net, Web Services, and the End of the Vendor Era.” CIO Magazine, Nov. 1, 2005. Available at , viewed December 7, 2005.

[xxviii] Greenemeier, Larry, “Open Doors to Innovation.” Information Week, 10/17/2005.

[xxix] ZDNet video (22 Oct. 2004). “Ballmer on Linux: The evidence is clear.” , viewed November 11, 2005.

[xxx] Ashurst, Mark (1 Feb. 2004). “Brazil falls in love with Linux.” BBC World Service. , viewed November 25, 2005.

[xxxi] Silicon Graphics, Inc. Form-10Q, November 9, 2005.

[xxxii] Boulanger, Ann. “Open-source versus proprietary software: Is one more reliable and secure than the other?” IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 44, No. 2, 2005.

[xxxiii] Broersma, Matthew (21 April 2005). “Companies buy open source because it's better, not cheaper.” , viewed November 9, 2005.

[xxxiv] The Mission of NOAA’s National Weather Service. , viewed October 15, 2005.

[xxxv] Robinson, Brian. “Is Linux ready for prime time?” Federal Computer Week, 08/12/2002. , viewed September 29, 2005.

[xxxvi] Schwartz, Karen D., “More Agencies Pick Open Source Software.” Government Executive, 12/15/2003. , viewed September 29, 2005.

[xxxvii] Greenemeier, Larry. “Open Source Goes Corporate.” InformationWeek, 09/26/2005.

URL: , viewed October 5, 2005.

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Figure 2. The evil Xerox printer.

Figure 3. OSI cofounder Eric Raymond.

Figure 4. OSI cofounder Bruce Perens.

Table 2. From Watson et al. (2005).

Figure 7. Image by Markus Koljonen.

Figure 8. Screenshot of an AWIPS display.

Figure 1. Open source pioneer Richard Stallman.

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