Microsoft "Not Against" Open Source

The division between proprietary software vendors and open-source providers is not as clear as some industry players perceive it to be. As more enterprises consider adopting open source technologies, even traditional software vendors such as Microsoft have taken steps in responding to such customer needs.

"Open source is not a product but an approach to software development," said Matthew Hardman, platform strategy manager at Microsoft Singapore. "Microsoft does not compete with open source, just as Nike does not compete with running."

Hardman said the software giant seeks to provide the best possible platform' for open source applications to run. "We believe that enterprises and vendors should have a choice of software development methodology, and open source is one such choice."

The platform strategy manager noted however, that Microsoft will compete with open source-based providers, just as it also competes with other proprietary vendors.
Open-source contributions

According to Hardman, Microsoft has contributed to technologies that are deemed open source. "PHP, a technology used to build web pages, ran into multiple issues around performance and scalability on Windows Server 2003," he said. "With the introduction of Windows Server 2008 and host technology such as Fast CGI, we are now able to run PHP up to 200 per cent faster than Linux."

Hardman said the company has contributed code to PHP libraries for database support, making it easier for PHP developers to connect to Microsoft databases.

"Linux is open source, but open source is not Linux," Hardman noted. "PHP was designed to make it easy for people to build web pages, not specifically to run only on Linux."

As part of its open-source strategy, the company hosts a website called CodePlex, where Microsoft employees and the developer community work on some 6,000 open-source projects. "Examples of such projects include the AJAX Control Toolkit, SugarCRM, .Net, and code that can interact with the 'World of Warcraft,'" Hardman said.

CodePlex includes more than just projects that Microsoft has released, according to Hardman. "It's a hosting platform where people can create and share projects, and we have also used it to share some of our technology to encourage further innovation."

Some five million developers worldwide have created various applications using Microsoft platform technologies such as Windows, .Net, Windows Server and Microsoft Xbox, according to the software giant.
Different business models

Unlike Red Hat, Microsoft does not have a subscription-based model for open-source solutions. "When we want to share source code, we will share it for free," Hardman said. "For example, if someone took the AJAX Control Toolkit, embedded it into a project and commercialised it, that's fine with us."

"It's not so much an issue of opening up the source code," Hardman said. "Rather, it's about how to make open-source technology work for the enterprise, without it having to change its existing platform or infrastructure."

In short, interoperability among solutions, whether open source or not, is very important, Hardman noted.
Other open-source issues

Enterprises need to consider several other issues when deciding whether to adopt open-source technologies, according to Hardman. Knowledge about the level of support provided by the service provider, such as ready availability of security patches, is crucial.

"It's not enough to only have technical expertise in building the open-source solution," Hardman said. "Business knowledge is also essential to ensure the solution works for the enterprise."

Additionally, the open-source provider must be confident that the contributing community can ensure adequate information security. "There must be no weak links in security features," Hardman said.
Open source and SaaS

According to Gartner's State of Open Source report for 2008, software-as-a-service (SaaS) will eclipse open source as the preferred enterprise IT cost-cutting method by 2012.

The report stated that both the open source and SaaS business models price by subscription, operate on low profit margins and can reduce enterprise IT costs. Gartner contends however, that SaaS reduces enterprise requirements for IT technical skills, while open source tends to increase such requirements.

Gery Messer, president of Red Hat Asia Pacific, disagreed: "Open source does not increase the requirement for IT technical skills within the enterprise."

Messer said Red Hat's subscription model provides enterprises with a predictable cost structure and allows them to outsource IT development and support requirements.

"Open source is an infrastructure platform on which many enterprise applications run," Messer said. "Its community-based accelerated innovation approach multiplies software development capacity many times over, providing enterprises better, more innovative solutions."

Messer agreed however, that like open-source software (OSS), SaaS can also help enterprises, especially small- and medium-sized businesses, cut IT costs.
Defining open source

"While I agree with Red Hat's general definition of SaaS, I wouldn't agree with their definition of open source," said Brian Prentice, Gartner's research vice president for emerging trends and technologies. "Open source is not just an infrastructure platform, it can be a lot more than that and is."

According to Prentice, Gartner's definition of open source is software governed under a licence agreement recognised by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). OSI is a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting open-source software. "It is the licence agreement, and specifically the rights to modify and redistribute the code, which is the most important component of open source."

As a co-author of the Gartner Open Source report, Prentice explained that OSS tends to increase skills requirements because new technologies require new skills in an organisation.

"If, for example, my organisation uses Windows Server, the addition of Linux, regardless of distribution, would require new skills," Prentice said. "If I am currently using a mix of Oracle 11g and SQL Server, and then introduced MySQL, that needs a new set of skills."

Prentice said SaaS tends to avoid this problem because it is "run on someone else's infrastructure".

"I concede there is some nuance in this area particularly as we start looking at platform-as-a-service capabilities like Force.com from salesforce.com," he noted.

Source:- cio.com/

Open source opens doors for small businesses

ActiveState and Bryght have helped Vancouver establish its reputation as an open-source software development centre.

Vancouver’s growing love affair with open source software (OSS) development is being manifested in a growing community of startups, scores of blogs and monthly events.

The city, which has played a prominent role in the OSS movement, is home to ActiveState and Bryght, the former being one of the first commercial OSS developers; the latter being the first company to use Drupal – a popular OSS – as its sole product development platform.

ActiveState was acquired for US$23 million in 2003 by U.K.-based Sophos, which then sold the company in 2006 for US$2.25 million to Vancouver’s Pender Financial Group Corp. (TSX-V: PDF).

Bryght was founded by Boris Mann, a leading OSS advocate who sold the company to Vancouver’s Raincity Studios last November.

OSS is free, and users don’t need to have programming savvy to develop websites, blogs or web applications.

As well, anyone can manipulate and change OSS and then distribute those changes without fear of licence infringement.

That freedom has allowed OSS users to develop software in step with the ever-changing Internet.

“Sharing those changes freely is what makes the whole thing grow,” said Mann who, after selling Bryght, co-founded Vancouver’s Bootup Labs, an incubator to help web startups develop and raise early stage financing.

According to Gartner Research, 90% of commercial software will, by 2012, contain significant amounts of open source code.

“[Drupal] started out as nothing more than a content management system, [and] evolved from there as more people started using it to become a really flexible system,” said Mann.

Mann started a wiki page to compile a list of Drupal-powered websites of B.C.-based organizations, governments, startups, consulting firms, independent consultants and schools.

At press time, the list had reached 50 websites, including citizen journalism site NowPublic.com, Vancity’s changeeverything.ca and the websites of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and the Georgia Straight.

Mann doesn’t use Microsoft Corp.’s SharePoint or EMC Corp.’s Documentum – two of the leading proprietary, pay-for-use content management platforms.

“With a lot of content management systems, people used to pay millions of dollars for [them],” said Mann, “and in some cases [people] still get suckered into paying that.”

Along with Drupal, the most widely used OSS platforms are Joomla and WordPress, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.

According to OSS users, the three platforms combined have enough power to compete – if not outperform – proprietary platforms offered by Microsoft and the other big web developers.

“The reality is that if you have Drupal, Joomla and WordPress, you can solve most problems nowadays,” said Rastin Mehr, founder of Rastin Mehr Design Studio Inc. & Associates, a Yaletown-based web application development firm.

“An average small business can now afford to use more advanced technology than some corporations.”

His company was founded on the Joomla platform and is developing a custom OSS platform for content management and for building web-based social media.

“The Internet is becoming social,” said Mehr.

“Social anything goes hand in hand with open source.”

Mehr was an organizer of last June’s Vancouver Joomla! Day – one of many OSS user events that are held in Vancouver each year.

“For any healthy open-sourced project, you want to invest in growing the community around it,” said Mehr.

Mehr calls OOS events “unconferences,” because there’s no corporate involvement in organizing them.

“Open source is really the model of the village versus the pyramid – the pyramid being the corporation.”

Drupal and Joomla have developed the largest worldwide communities and, as a result, users debate which platform is superior.

Mehr said Drupal is ideal for publishers, webmasters and web designers with mid-level programming expertise, whereas Joomla serves inexperienced bloggers and software architects located at opposing ends of the expertise spectrum.

ActiveState released a report last July to debunk many of the “myths” surrounding OSS.

Source:- bivinteractive.com/