Long viewed with suspicion by IT traditionalists, and held up as a black art by conventional software vendors for even longer, Open Source software is suddenly winning corporate hearts, minds, and budgets.

Even in IT, an arena almost defined by complexity and paradox, Open Source – software written, developed, shared, and supported based entirely on so called open standards – remains the classic mystery, inside a riddle, wrapped in an enigma for most people. And yet a quick look at the facts begs the question why.

It’s no longer a new phenomena; open source is fast approaching its 20th birthday and has been in the headlines for much of that time. (Linux vs. Windows anyone?) It’s big business; the global open standards community having grown at an incredible rate over the last decade or so – and there are now hundreds of open source vendors, thousands of open source projects, and millions of open source developers worldwide.

It’s also incredibly versatile – the greatest strength of the open source industry’s structure being that, to all intents and purposes, it has none.

Most crucially of all however, open source software is ‘free’; or at least free enough to have had every closed source, commercial software vendor on the planet glancing nervously over its shoulder for the last ten years.

So what’s the problem? Why, if you were to ask the common or garden business user about their understanding of open standards are you still likely to get a blank look and a comment along the lines of “what... you mean like opening Word or Excel?” Why doesn’t open source have the weighty, size-12 market footprint you might expect?

Well, apparently, it does. Perhaps just not where you’d expect. And it’s getting bigger all the time.

Indeed, if recent comments from Gartner are anything to go by, open source is about to hit the biggest purple patch since Elvis last donned a rhinestoned satin jumpsuit. Making its 10 key technology predictions for 2008, the analyst mooted that this year will very likely see open source making major strides into what has traditionally been strictly
closed source territory.

Noting that: “...many open-source technologies are mature, stable, and well supported (and) ...provide significant opportunities for vendors and users to lower their total cost of ownership and increase returns on investment”, the analyst even hinted that open source could force a wholesale rethink of how ‘commercial software’ is defined.

Gartner believes that, by 2012, a massive 80% of all commercial software will include open source elements of one kind or another, and sees uptake among Software as a Service (SaaS) providers being higher still. Open source is the ideal way to drive down the latter’s software acquisition costs and drive up their margins, and nine in 10 SaaS offerings will incorporate open source somewhere in their stacks within just 18 months, say Gartner.

Most telling of all however, is the analyst’s assertion that “...ignoring (open source) will put companies at a serious competitive disadvantage. Embedded open source strategies will become the minimal level of investment that most large software vendors will find necessary to maintain competitive advantages during the next five years.”



Open source is clearly on the march. iQ went along to the ApacheCon 2008 open source conference in Amsterdam recently, we wanted to find out why. And where to.

It was a chilly Tuesday evening when iQ arrived at the Amsterdam Movenpick – an imposing modern structure set on the Dutch capital’s main waterway – and it was soon apparent that this would be by no means your standard industry conference. First there was a distinct absence of show stands. A desk here, a tablecloth there, a few scattered brochures and leaflets. Not for these guys the giant plastic, formica, and chrome monoliths typical at most industry expos – in fact there was barely a pedestal, a logo, or a barstool (much less a bar) in sight.

Then, we ran into Microsoft, HP, and Google. Or at least we think we did. Their people were wearing T-shirts, jeans, baseball boots, and smiles. They were informal, chatty; relaxed even. In any event (and specifically this one) these companies – viewed by most as among the very bastions of the “mercantile” software marketplace – simply didn’t seem to have their customary direct, commercial, bullish edge. Quite the opposite in fact.

It was then that we realised just how horribly overdressed we were in jacket, shirt, and brogues. Everyone else looked like they either would have been at home at Woodstock or as though they may actually have been there.

When we were foolish enough to point this out however, we were quickly put in our place and disabused of the notion by conference lead, Noirin Shirley.

Open source, she said tersely, has been fighting the nerds’ convention image for rather longer than it would care to mention. And despite handing us a business card reading “Noirin Shirley, Geek to English Translator”, she insisted there’s a lot more to open source these days than sandals, socks, and in-joke t-shirts. If the face of open source used to be a guy with long hair, a beard, and a bandanna, she insists, these days it’s more like a guy with long hair, a beard, a bandanna, and a suit.

“We do get a bit tired of the Revenge of the Nerds, Star Trek labels. Open source may not be the suited, booted, perceived ‘safe bet’ that the closed source vendors – i.e. the Microsofts, the Oracles, and the SAPs of the world – claim to represent. But it is a very big deal. It really is an opportunity to do things faster, easier, cheaper – better – and that makes for a pretty compelling argument.”

But isn’t perception, as they say, reality? Not in this case, says Cliff Schmidt, executive director of open source-based education project, Literacy Bridge, former VP of the Apache Software foundation, and very probably the nicestman in the worldTM.

He admits however, that many barriers have had to be broken down – the fact that open source’s whole approach can seem counter-intuitive for businesses still living in or perpetuating a culture of blame. “Some businesses understand blame. They like it. But open source doesn’t work that way. If anything, it’s the opposite – an entire counter-culture concerned with sharing ideas and credit rather than assigning fault and apportioning blame – the polar opposite to how the commercial IT world tends to operate.”

Bruce Snyder, renowned as one of open source’s leading thinkers and one of its most recognisable faces, thinks it’s a question of control. “What makes a lot of companies jumpy about adopting open source – or at least it did in the past – is the idea of their developers just randomly downloading code from somewhere or other – the feeling of not having ‘one throat to choke’ should things go wrong. Businesses don’t like the idea of having to go and ask ‘a community’ for answers when things fall over.”

Bram Smeets, enterprise Java architect with open standards software services company, JTeam agrees. “The problem for many businesses is that the very lack of centralised control that makes open source what it is, also marks it out as a ‘risk’”, he says. “Roadmap? What roadmap? Businesses want more structure.”

In other words, organisations want the kind of bread and butter, SLA-driven, contract-based relationships they’re used to when dealing with closed source vendors – a bridge open source now looks to have successfully built and crossed, as a number of players are now emerging that are happy to deliver just that.

“More and more open source companies are now emerging – SpringSource, RedHat, Sugar CRM – that are willing to engage in the more traditional commercial relationships that customers want”, says Snyder. “The formal terms and conditions, the contracts, the SLAs – only based on open source rather than closed source solutions. So where many commercial enterprises used to view the open source community with a certain amount of suspicion – as a bit nebulous and free form – that’s all changing now.”

The historic debate about whether open source is ‘safe’ or ‘right’ for mainstream adoption is now looking increasingly moot then. The problem now, argues Steve Bale, International General Manager with open source database provider EnterpriseDB, is that the pros and cons of taking an open source approach are still being confused with the pros and cons of specific open source solutions.

He has a point. Many people even still use the terms open source and Linux interchangeably. Here, says Smeets, it’s important for businesses to understand that while the principals sitting behind open source haven’t changed since the likes of Linux first came on the scene, the open source movement and market have shifted irrevocably – in terms of size, scope, ambition and most of all, awareness.

“It’s no longer about hobbyists developing code in their bedrooms. It’s a much more serious mainstream proposition these days. Nine out of 10 ‘big banks’ are now using open source in some way, shape, or form for instance. That should tell you all you need to know.”

Snyder concurs, suggesting that things may now have even gone a stage further. He cites several Fortune500 companies as having not just accepted open source as a natural part of their IT mixes, but as having quietly embraced it at a strategic level. Why quietly? Because they now see open source deployment as an out and out strategic advantage and they don’t want their rivals cottoning on, insists Snyder.

But couldn’t this spell disaster for traditional, closed source vendors? Aren’t they concerned about it? Well if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then yes, absolutely they are. After years of scoffing at open source, most of the ‘big’ commercial software vendors have made hasty u-turns and are now busy opening their own open source divisions, acquiring complementary businesses and technologies, and even engaging with the same open source players they once scorned to ensure their respective solutions dovetail more effectively.

Moreover, while they may be loathe to talk about it and, in some cases, even admit to it, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and a whole raft of others are already embedding open source in some of their most high profile offerings. So too, and perhaps just as importantly, are heavyweight social networking websites like Facebook, Bebo, and MySpace. In fact many such sites are built using almost nothing but open source code.

The fact is, says Schmidt, that open source is no longer seen as the risky, marginal, loose cannon it may once have been considered. “More vitally still, companies are also realising that procuring software from closed, commercial sources isn’t necessarily always the default, smart, safe thing to do.”

Summing up, Smeets echoes the same sentiment. “It’s not that open source is something that should suddenly be embraced just because it’s labeled ‘Open Source’. But neither is it something to be avoided for that reason.”

So what does all this mean? For users, probably not a lot, aside perhaps, from some shiny new applications. Most users don’t care whether their software has been downloaded free, written, baked, or crocheted – just as long as it works.

For the software vendors – both closed and open source – it’s a question of getting used to one another’s company, because both camps look to be in for the long haul. In the end it all comes down to an old maxim. Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.

For the business looking to cut costs and maximise efficiency however it is – or could be – a different story. Make no mistake, deployed and supported properly, open source can and will be a very powerful, very cost effective weapon indeed.


Bridging the Gap

Aside from being a former VP of the Apache Software foundation (and quite possibly the nicest man in the world™), Cliff Schmidt is also executive director of Literacy Bridge – an open source-based third world education project that aims to provide under-privileged people – both children and adults – with affordable tools for knowledge sharing, literacy, and learning.

Looking to help drive not just education, but health, economic development, democracy, and human rights, current Literacy Bridge initiatives include the “Talking Book” device, a low cost MP3 player and recorder, together with a complimentary Content Distribution Network to deliver relevant content.

Literacy Bridge is committed to making this:

Affordable - It is planned that the Talking Book will cost just $5
Accessible - via the Literacy Bridge Content Distribution Network
Relevant - with content produced by local organisations and users themselves
Shareable - Users will be able link their Talking Books enabling easy content sharing
Sustainable - Literacy Bridge’ aim is to collaborate with local organisations, serving as “a catalyst” in the manufacture, marketing, sale, and support of the device and the network to create a sustainable eco-system.