Is there a business case for open source software?

Transcription

Illustration 1: "The Thumb" a sculpture in Tettye, Pecs, Hungary.
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MSc Information Technology, UWE.
By Garfield Lucas.
Version 1.00, 2009-05-07.
Copyright Garfield Lucas 2009
Synopsis
This paper attempts to examine the viability of using free, open source software as opposed to
proprietary software in a business context. The term “business context”means that it is intended for
people who use computers as part of their working life, as opposed to leisure pursuits such as gaming or
gambling.
The topics discussed in this paper are subject to very rapid change and development. Consequently,
almost all of the literature used to research this paper has come from sources on the World Wide Web.
Even when paper-based alternatives are available, its author has chosen to use on-line sources because
they are generally more up to date.
For example, whilst some of open source protagonist Eric Raymond's papers have been published as
hard-copy by O'Reilly & Associates, the latest versions of his work are always available on line.
Moreover, many of the developments within the open source community actually take place exclusively
on line and proceedings seldom make hard copy at all.
Firstly, one needs to establish exactly what is meant by “open source” software, examine why its
protagonists have such faith in it and understand what makes it fundamentally different from closed
source or proprietary software.
No study of open source software would be complete without examining Linux, the free open source
Unix-like operating system that is considered by many to be the flagship product of the open source
movement.
This paper briefly puts the cases for and against open source software in a business context. The relative
security of proprietary versus open source software is a hotly debated issue amongst both IT
professionals and end-users. In particular, this paper examines claims that Unix-like operating systems
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are more secure than Windows ones.
Before conducting any case studies or surveys, one needs to be clear with regard to what is meant by a
“business case”. Then a survey of 64 verified users of open source examines how users deploy open
source software and how they feel about it, particularly in a business context.
It is appropriate to undertake some case studies with regard to real businesses that are actually using
open source. This paper considers a selection of businesses that have made substantial use of open
source technology and for whom open source is an intrinsic part of their business, including the author's
own small business.
To make the study more complete, this paper goes on to examine how some large, government funded
organisations are taking open source on board, with a brief look at some of the issues involved with
migrating from proprietary systems.
With the world in the midst of a serious global recession, it seems appropriate to discuss how this might
affect the way businesses regard open source software?
Finally one has to ask if there really is a business case for open source software? Moreover one has to
ask if the question really has a simple yes or no, one-size-fits-all answer anyway?
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Table of Contents
Synopsis..............................................................................................................................2
What is “open source software”?.....................................................................................8
Is “free software” and “open source software” the same thing?......................................................8
The role of the Free Software Foundation..........................................................................................8
The GPL (General Public License).....................................................................................................9
What makes open source software different?..................................................................................10
Compliance......................................................................................................................................11
Examples of popular free open source software..............................................................................12
Development of open source software...............................................................................................14
Tools used for open source development..........................................................................................15
Communication channels.................................................................................................................15
Version and revision control............................................................................................................15
Free support......................................................................................................................................16
Paid support......................................................................................................................................16
Observations........................................................................................................................................17
What is Linux?.................................................................................................................18
Popular Linux distributions...............................................................................................................18
Anyone can make Linux.....................................................................................................................20
Linux and the cult of the penguin......................................................................................................21
Is Linux a “disruptive technology”?.................................................................................................22
Progress............................................................................................................................................23
Perspective.......................................................................................................................................25
Observations.....................................................................................................................................25
Arguments for and against open source software........................................................26
The case for open source software.....................................................................................................26
Cheaper............................................................................................................................................26
Standards-based................................................................................................................................26
Greater transparency - more honest about its shortcomings............................................................26
High level of compatibility with existing systems...........................................................................27
More rapid bug-fixing......................................................................................................................27
Better security .................................................................................................................................27
Greater flexibility.............................................................................................................................27
More rapid development..................................................................................................................28
Development tools are much cheaper, often free.............................................................................28
Source code can be shared between projects...................................................................................28
Suitability for poorer communities..................................................................................................28
Better for the environment...............................................................................................................29
Large support communities..............................................................................................................29
The case against open source software..............................................................................................29
Support is too informal.....................................................................................................................29
Problems running specialist or bespoke Windows software on Linux............................................30
Lack of warranty..............................................................................................................................30
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Risk aversion....................................................................................................................................30
Open source has a geeky “Raymondesque” image..........................................................................30
Security by obscurity is better..........................................................................................................31
Poor hardware support in Linux.......................................................................................................31
Poor documentation ........................................................................................................................31
Licensing difficulties........................................................................................................................31
Questions arising over intellectual property rights .........................................................................32
Possible infringement of software patents.......................................................................................32
Total cost of ownership (TCO)........................................................................................................32
Comparing security............................................................................................................................33
Security through obscurity...............................................................................................................33
Linux security threats.......................................................................................................................33
Microsoft Windows security threats................................................................................................34
Unix security via highly enforced permissions................................................................................34
Unix permissions in practice............................................................................................................35
Critique of open source security .....................................................................................................36
Critique of Fortify............................................................................................................................37
The weakest link..............................................................................................................................38
Personal experience..........................................................................................................................38
Privacy..............................................................................................................................................39
Comparing “feature creep” or “creeping featurism”......................................................................40
Comparing FUD..................................................................................................................................40
Comparing TCO.................................................................................................................................41
Observations........................................................................................................................................42
What is a business case?..................................................................................................43
Open source software user survey..................................................................................44
Design considerations.........................................................................................................................44
Choosing and identifying participants..............................................................................................45
Graphical display of results..............................................................................................................45
Survey part 1 of 8. Start.....................................................................................................................46
Survey part 2 of 8. Do you use any free open source software (FOSS)?........................................46
Question 1. Which open source software do you use? ....................................................................46
Question 2. Please list any other open source software you use: [text-box]....................................48
Survey part 3 of 8. Operating systems..............................................................................................50
Question 3. What operating systems do you use? ...........................................................................50
Survey part 4 of 8. Type of open source operating system..............................................................51
Question 4. What version(s) of Linux or (other open source operating systems) do you use?........51
Question 5. Please list any other open source operating systems that you use: [text box]..............53
Survey part 5 of 8. Open source operating systems.........................................................................54
Question 6. Where do you use Linux (or other open source operating systems)? ..........................54
Question 7. Please list any other devices or locations that you use Linux (or other open source
operating systems): [text box]..........................................................................................................55
Survey part 6 of 8. Do you agree or disagree with the following statements?...............................56
Question 8. The total cost of ownership of open source software is generally lower than for
proprietary software.........................................................................................................................56
Question 9. Open source software is generally more secure than proprietary software..................57
Question 10. Generally, there is a strong business case for using open source software................58
Survey part 7 of 8. How do you feel about free open source software (FOSS) generally?...........59
Question 11. Do you like open source software generally?.............................................................59
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Question 12. Do you like open source operating systems such as Linux?.......................................60
Question 13. Do you have any other comments or thoughts regarding open source software? [text
box]..................................................................................................................................................61
Survey part 8 of 8. Finish...................................................................................................................63
Limitations...........................................................................................................................................63
Observations........................................................................................................................................64
Case study: applications for business users..................................................................66
Two popular open source business applications..............................................................................66
GnuCash...........................................................................................................................................66
OpenOffice.org.................................................................................................................................69
Observations.....................................................................................................................................71
Running Windows applications on Linux........................................................................................71
Methods............................................................................................................................................72
Windows applications running on Wine or CrossoverLinux...........................................................72
Observations.....................................................................................................................................73
Case study: open source based businesses.....................................................................74
EcoMoney............................................................................................................................................74
Background......................................................................................................................................74
Business model.................................................................................................................................74
Interview with Robert Simpson, Director of Ecomoney Ltd. .........................................................75
Hidden costs.....................................................................................................................................76
Observations.....................................................................................................................................77
My own business: Garf Technology..................................................................................................78
Background......................................................................................................................................78
Dependence on Windows.................................................................................................................78
Looking for alternatives...................................................................................................................80
First impressions of Ubuntu in a business environment..................................................................80
Current situation...............................................................................................................................81
Observations.....................................................................................................................................83
blackPanther Linux and its dispute with the Hungarian Government.........................................84
Background......................................................................................................................................84
Business Model................................................................................................................................84
Interview with Charles Barcza, CEO blackPanther.........................................................................85
Current situation...............................................................................................................................86
Observations.....................................................................................................................................86
The XO Laptop project......................................................................................................................87
Background......................................................................................................................................87
Business model.................................................................................................................................87
Critique.............................................................................................................................................88
Current situation ..............................................................................................................................89
Observations.....................................................................................................................................90
Government-funded organisations that are moving to open source software...........91
EU.........................................................................................................................................................91
City of Munich.....................................................................................................................................91
City of Vienna......................................................................................................................................92
French Parliament..............................................................................................................................92
UK Government..................................................................................................................................92
UK local authorities............................................................................................................................93
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UK NHS...............................................................................................................................................93
US Army..............................................................................................................................................93
US California State.............................................................................................................................94
Observations........................................................................................................................................95
Open source and global recession..................................................................................96
Projections...........................................................................................................................................96
Open source and the internet ............................................................................................................96
Cutting costs........................................................................................................................................97
The end of independent open source.................................................................................................97
Other things that might adversely affect open source.....................................................................97
Observations........................................................................................................................................98
Conclusions.......................................................................................................................99
Apendices........................................................................................................................102
Appendix 1: Formats of dates and times........................................................................................102
Appendix 2: Weights & measures...................................................................................................102
Appendix 3: Frequently used abbreviations...................................................................................102
Appendix 4: The “Tux” email .........................................................................................................103
Appendix 5: Bibliography................................................................................................................105
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What is “open source software”?
Open source software is software where the underlying programming or “source” code is available to its
users so that they may read it, make changes to it, and build new or derived versions of the software
incorporating their own changes1. A lot of popular open source software is also free of charge.
Is “free software” and “open source software” the same thing?
The word “free” is used a little confusingly to mean both “free as in speech” and “free as in beer”2. The
Free Software Foundation (FSF) is careful to make a distinction between the uses of the word “free”.
Quoting from the Free Software Foundation's Definition of free software:●
“Free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should
think of “free” as in “free speech”, not as in “free beer.”
●
Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and
improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the
software:●
The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
●
The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs
(freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
●
The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor [sic]
(freedom 2).
●
The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements (and
modified versions in general) to the public, so that the whole community
benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.3
The role of the Free Software Foundation
According to the FSF, a program is defined as “free” software if users have all of the freedoms detailed
above. And freeware is not the same as free software in this context. Thus, for software to be considered
free software as defined by the FSF, one should be able to distribute copies of the software, either with
or without modifications, either free of charge or charging a fee for distribution. Being free to do these
things means that the user does not need to pay the original author nor ask for his/her permission to use
or distribute the software.
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One should also have the freedom to make
modifications to the program and use them privately in
one's own work or play, without even mentioning that
they exist. If one does publish any changes, then one
should not be required to notify anyone in particular,
or in any particular way.
Of course, in the real world, these freedoms have
become diluted and the FSF makes a distinction
between what it describes as “free” software and the
Illustration 2: Richard Stallman, cover picture for
O'Reilly Media's book “Free as in Freedom”.
broader concept of “open source”. In an article entitled
“Why 'Free Software' is better than 'Open Source'” The FSF argues:The Free Software movement and the Open Source movement are like two political camps within
the free software community We are not against the Open Source movement, but we don't want to
be lumped in with them. We acknowledge that they have contributed to our community, but we
created this community, and we want people to know this. We want people to associate our
achievements with our values and our philosophy, not with theirs. We want to be heard, not
obscured behind a group with different views. To prevent people from thinking we are part of
them, we take pains to avoid using the word “open” to describe free software, or its contrary,
“closed”, in talking about non-free software4.
The GPL (General Public License)
Back in 1989 Richard Stallman created the The General Public License version 1. The GPL version 2
was written by the Free Software Foundation in 1991. Since then, the Linux Kernel is put under this
licence. The final GPL version 3 came out on 2007-06-29.
Open source does not just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source
software must comply with the following criteria, paraphrased from the OSI's Open Source Definition5.
In a nutshell, the General Public License gives one some very important freedoms, in which one may:●
Use the program any way one sees fit, including commercial use.
●
Study and modify the source code.
●
Make as many backup copies as one wishes.
●
Redistribute it freely.
It is also the legal mechanism that protects these freedoms. It also protects them from being taken away.
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That is, any derivative work based on a GPL-licensed program must also be licensed be under the GPL6.
What makes open source software different?
The open source software development method is relatively
unstructured, because it has no pre-defined development tools and
development phases. Instead, every project has its own momentum
and its particular way of doing things.
In 1997, Eric S. Raymond wrote what many regard as his seminal
work, a paper entitled The Cathedral and the Bazaar7. In his paper,
Raymond describes two distinct way that software may be developed.
1. Conventional closed source development. Raymond likens
this type of development to the building of a cathedral. It is
planned centrally and organised centrally from start to finish.
Illustration 3:
Eric S Raymond.
[From the Wikipedia.]
2. Open source development. Raymond likens this to a “a great
babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches out of
which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles.”
The bazaar analogy is intended to be indicative of the discussion
involved in an open source
development process. In some projects, anyone can submit suggestions and discuss them. Yet strangely
Raymond argues that “coherent and stable systems” can and do emerge from open source software
development projects. The differences between the two styles of development involve the how bug
reports and features requests are managed, as well as the financial and administrative constraints under
which the programmers are working.
In closed source software development, the programmers often have to spend time on administrative
issues such as writing bug reports and attending meetings and not on the actual development.
Also, in closed source projects, the development teams must often work under management-related
constraints such as deadlines and financial budgets that open source advocates argue interfere with
actual business of writing code.
In open source software development, the users are much more closely involved with the development
process. Bug reports are handled by forums and projects such as Bugzilla and it uses sophisticated
version control systems. Open source protagonists argue that this allows developers to get on and do
what they do best, namely development.
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Compliance
One of the organisations actively involved in maintaining and verifying open standards is the The Open
Source Initiative (OSI)8. It is a non-profit corporation formed to educate about and
advocate for the benefits of open source.
One of its most important roles is publishing and maintaining a formal definition of
Illustration 4:
Open Source
Initiative logo
Open Source. “The Open Source Initiative Approved License” trademark and
program creates a framework of trust so that developers, users, corporations and
governments can organise open-source cooperation.
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Examples of popular free open source software
●
Blender is professional quality 3D graphics and animation software.
Blender is available for a variety of different operating systems including
Linux, Macintosh OSX and Microsoft Windows9.
●
Illustration 5:
Blender logo.
The Gimp or simply Gimp – The GNU Image Manipulation Program.
This is a bitmap & photograph editor, similar to Adobe Photoshop.
Described by its makers as a “versatile graphics manipulation package”,
GIMP is available for a variety of different operating systems including
Linux, Macintosh OSX and Microsoft Windows10.
●
Illustration 6:
Gimp logo.
OpenOffice.org or commonly known as OpenOffice or OO.o is a free office suite with similar
functionality to Microsoft Office. As well as opening and saving in its
own native Open Document Format, now adopted the European Union
as one of its open file standards, OpenOffice also opens and saves
documents in Microsoft's proprietary Word, Excel & Powerpoint
Illustration 7:
OpenOffice.org logo.
formats11. However OO.o currently lacks a credible database and some
of Microsoft Office's more esoteric features. Unlike Microsoft Office, OO.o is available for a
wide variety of different operating systems, including GNU/Linux.
●
Scribus is a desktop publishing program for Unix-like operating systems as
well as for Microsoft Windows. It has a slick, modern-looking interface. It
also includes several important professional features including CMYK colour,
ICC colour management colour separations, and a built in portable document
format (PDF) creator12.
●
Illustration 8:
Scribus DTP
logo.
Clamwin is free anti virus software, where not merely is the software
itself free but so are all the updates13. Whilst Clamwin is specifically for
Microsoft Windows based systems, it is is based upon a CLAM, a
popular virus detection system commonly used on many Unix-like Illustration 9: ClamWin
Antivirus logo.
operating systems.
●
Stellarium is a sophisticated planetarium software. It shows a photo-realistic sky in three
dimensions. It has a default catalogue of over 600,000 astronomical objects and plugins with
more than 200 million additional objects. It also has photo-realistic realistic atmosphere, sunrise
and sunsets as well as time and zoom controls14.
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●
Mozilla Firefox is a web browser originally based on Netscape but
now featuring many advanced features including tabbed browsing
Illustration 10:
Illustration
Stellarium11:
logo
Mozilla Firefox logo.
and a sophisticated set of useful and reliable plug-ins15. It is now the
world's second most popular browser with approximately 21.53%
global market share in 2009 January16.
●
Mozilla Thunderbird is an email client similar in style to Microsoft
Outlook17 but without suffering the data file restrictions and security
issues of Outlook. Unfortunately it does not communicate with
Microsoft Exchange. However it is well suited to standard POP3 or
Illustration 12: Mozilla
Thunderbird logo.
IMAP email servers and it includes a number of sophisticated security and anti spam features.
●
Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor, similar to Adobe
Illustrator and CorelDraw. It fully supports and utilises the W3C's
standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format18.
Illustration 13: Inkscape logo.
Until recently, Canonical, the Company that makes Ubuntu Linux also produced a CDROM consisting
of a large collection of high-quality, free, open source windows software called theOpenCD19. The
rationale behind theOpenCD was to offer Windows users a single CD ROM containing just the software
they are likely to use, without unnecessary environmentally unfriendly packing, advertising or seldom
used and unwanted clipart. Users may use copy and distribute the CD freely without concerning
themselves with draconian licensing restrictions or easily forgotten 25 digit licence keys. Seems
theOpenCD project has been discontinued. Nevertheless it has spawned similar projects such as
theOpenDisc20 and its sister project aimed at the education community, OpenEducationDisc.
Illustration 14: OpenEducationDisc logo.
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Illustration 15: Open source software development process diagram
[from the Wikipedia].
Development of open source software
Open source software development can be divided into several phases. The diagram above shows a
typical open source software development methodology. It shows the various stages of open source
software development together with the corresponding data elements. The process starts with a choice
between the further development of an existing project known as adoption, or creating a new one known
as initiation. If a new project is started, the process goes to the initiation phase. If an existing project is
adopted, the process goes directly to the execution phase, which includes development and testing of
new code both for functionality and security issues21.
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In the real world, open source projects actually have a wide diversity of development plans that range
from the complex structure detailed above for large projects down to one-man projects developed for
primarily for the developer's interests. Examples of these one-man projects include Bob Parnass's ham
radio control software22 or even my own Javascript “Units Converter23” – originally developed to learn a
little JavaScript but subsequently released under GPL for general use.
Tools used for open source development
Communication channels
In open source software development, particularly on larger projects, contributors and users are often
separated by large geographical distances and often they never physically meet at all. They require some
electronic means of communications. E-mail is one of the most common forms of communication
among open source developers and users. Often, electronic mailing lists, such as the ones deployed by
the Debian Linux project at lists.debian.org24 are used to make sure e-mail messages are delivered to all
interested parties at once. This ensures that at least one of the members can reply to it (in private or to
the whole mailing list). In order to communicate in real time, many projects use an instant messaging
method such as IRC (internet relay chat).
More recently, web-based forums using software such as phpBB25 have become
a useful way for providing effective feedback to open source software
developers. Forums are also a popular way for users to get help with problems
they encounter when using an open source product. Wikis have also become a
Illustration 16: phpBB
(forum software) logo
popular and effective way for both developers and knowledgeable users to
document open source software projects.
Version and revision control
The large geographical distances between developers also
means that some method is in place to handle updates and
changes to open source projects in a well-ordered and easily
Illustration 17: “git” (version control system
used for the Linux Kernel) logo.
managed way. Many open source projects are now using
distributed revision control systems, which scale better than centralized repositories such as SVN, CVS
and Git the version control system developed by Linus Torvalds and used by the Linux kernel
developers26.
Concurrent Versions System27 (CVS) is a prominent example of a source code collaboration tool being
used in OSS projects. CVS helps manage the files and codes of a project when several people are
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working on the project at the same time. CVS allows several people to work on the same file at the same
time. This is done by moving the file into the users’ directories and then merging the files when the
users are done. CVS also enables one to easily retrieve a previous version of a file.
SVN28 ( Subversion revision control system) was created to
replace CVS. It is quickly gaining ground as a the main
system used to manage open source software project version
Illustration 18:
Subversion (version control system) logo.
control.
Keeping a central list of bug reports is also essential. One such system
that does this is GNU's Bugzilla29. Basically it is a centralised defect
tracking system that allows individual or groups of developers to keep
track of outstanding bugs in their product effectively.
Illustration 19: Bugzilla (bug
reporting system) logo.
Free support
User support for open source software varies widely from one project to another, both in terms of its
quality and its method of delivery. Large projects such as Joomla content management system and
Ubuntu GNU/Linux operating system have large support forums that are fed both by developers, and by
knowledgeable users. Smaller projects may just have an email address on the developers website.
My own “Converter” project mentioned earlier is strictly supplied on an “as-is” basis. In short, I do not
have the resources to support it. It was developed for my own purposes and considering it is a relatively
simple project I took the view that if people wish to use my code they do so entirely at their own risk.
Paid support
Some companies actually provide paid support of open source software as part of their business plan.
For example Red Hat, makers of Fedora and Red hat Linux allow their products to be downloaded and
used for free. However, if one wishes to use their products in a commercial environment and have a
guaranteed service level agreement then one has to pay for it. Other big players such as Novell, IBM and
Sun Microsystems also operate in a similar manner. In the case of IBM, it does not actually make Linux
at all. But many of its systems will run Linux and it is happy to provide commercial support for it on its
systems.
Often on the support forums for open source projects, one will stumble across consultants offering their
services to provide commercial-style support for the project. Or one might see users offering to pay for
for particular expertise30.
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Moreover, developers of very small projects that generally offer little or no free support are often
prepared to provide support for an agreed fee. Indeed, if a client were offered to pay me at an
appropriate rate for support on my Converter project then I would be delighted to provide it.
Observations
Open source projects vary greatly in size and purpose. Open source has a large political and
philosophical dimension with protagonists arguing that not merely is it better technically but that it is
better ethically too. Whilst almost all open source software is free of charge, many of the companies
producing it generate revenue by service and support contracts.
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What is Linux?
Linux is a (usually) free, open source version of the Unix operating
system, created originally in 1991 by Linus Torvalds whilst
studying at Helsinki University31. The Linux model is not a new and
revolutionary development model, but a logical continuation of the
GNU (Gnu’s not Unix) project of the Free Software Foundation.
Strictly speaking, the term Linux is a misnomer because it only
refers to the kernel. The more correct term is GNU/Linux.
Many consider Linux to be the flagship product of the open source
community32. Therefore a meaningful discussion regarding open
source software would be incomplete without giving due
consideration to Linux.
Illustration 20: Linux creator Linus
Torvalds [from the Wikipedia].
Linux has developed considerably since 1991 and can be used to
replace Microsoft Windows completely. In some circumstances, an
open source operating system such as Linux can perform better than Windows, for example, on web
servers. Moreover some IT experts claim Linux is a lot more secure than Windows.
Only Microsoft makes Windows. However anyone can create a Linux distribution33 and use the “Tux”
penguin logo on their product. This has spawned a vast number of Linux distributions.
Popular Linux distributions
There are many Linux distributions or “distros” currently available. These are some of the more well
known ones, offering free downloads, with a brief summary of what they offer:●
Debian is a free Linux based operating system. Debian uses the Linux kernel (the core of an
operating system), but most of the basic operating system tools come from
the GNU project, hence the name GNU/Linux. As well as an operating
system, Debian at time of writing also provides 25113 free, downloadable
software packages34.
●
Illustration 21:
Debian logo.
Fedora is a Linux operating system developed by the community-supported
Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat Incorporated. Fedora's mission
statement is: “Fedora is about the rapid progress of Free and Open Source
35
software” .
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Illustration 22:
Fedora Linux logo.
●
Gentoo is a free GNU/Linux operating system where all its software components are supplied as
source code and have to be compiled by the user36. The
disadvantage is that it requires additional technical skills of the
user. The advantage is that it can be compiled to suit the hardware
Illustration 23: Gentoo logo.
upon which it runs. This makes it very fast and enables it to use
hardware resources efficiently.
●
Linspire formerly Lindows is a Debian-based Linux operating system that now owned by
Xandros37. Following a court case in 2004, Microsoft, paid US $20 million to Lindows Inc. to
settle a dispute over the use of the company's name, which Microsoft said was too similar to its
Windows trademark. Microsoft took over the Lindows trademark and domain name as part of
the settlement and Lindows changed its name to Linspire38.
●
Kubuntu is a free and user-friendly GNU/Linux operating system
based on Ubuntu operating system but featuring the Germandesigned K Desktop Environment39. The KDE desktop has a look
and feel that resembles Microsoft Windows in many respects and
Illustration 24:
Kubuntu Linux logo.
even has a start menu40.
●
Mandriva (formerly Mandrakelinux or Mandrake Linux) is a French-based Linux operating
system created by Mandriva (formerly Mandrakesoft)41. With a
history of financial difficulties, its former parent company
Mandrakesoft initially operated under bankruptcy protection from
Illustration 25:
Mandriva Linux logo.
2003-01-27 to 2004-03-30. Nevertheless Mandriva is has become an
important player especially in continental Europe. It has spawned several small nationally-based
distributions such as Hungarian blackPanther Linux, discussed later in this paper.
●
Novell SUSE now renamed Novell OpenSUSE, this German-based GNU/Linux distribution is
run and funded by US networking software giant Novell Inc. since its
takeover in 200342. In German, SuSE stands for Gesellschaft für
Software und Systementwicklung mbh. In English it means Company for
Software and System Development Ltd.
●
Illustration 26:
OpenSUSE logo.
Puppy Linux is a GNU/Linux operating system originally developed in Australia by Barry
Kauler and is designed specifically to run on low specification
hardware43. Puppy Linux distribution is just 93 megabytes big and will
run on computers with as little as 64 MB of RAM. This is the system
chosen by Ecomoney, as discussed later in this paper.
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Illustration 27:
Puppy Linux logo.
●
Red Hat is the commercial version Linux distribution that shares much of
its codebase with Fedora44. Red Hat supplies open source software on a
commercial basis and is one of the top one hundred biggest software
Illustration 28:
Red Hat logo.
companies in the world45.
●
Slackware is one of the earliest Linux distributions46. Dating
back to 1993-07-16, it the oldest Linux distribution currently
being maintained.
●
Illustration 29: Slackware logo.
Ubuntu is a Debian based, community developed, GNU/Linux operating system designed for
modern laptop and desktop PC's as well as servers47. Ubuntu has a
strict biannual release cycle and usually provides eighteen months
of free security updates after each version is released. Ubuntu is
owned by Canonical. Its CEO and founder is South African-born
Illustration 30: Ubuntu logo.
Mark Shuttleworth, who made his fortune when he sold his company Thawte to US company
VeriSign in 199948. According to Distrowatch, Ubuntu is currently the world's most popular
Linux distro49. It is also the system I chose for my business, as discussed later.
●
Xandros50 was formed in 2001 when it bought the defunct Corel Linux
from Corel. Based upon Debian, Xandros has become a major player
especially on the desktop. Xandros is the standard operating system
shipped with the Asus eeePC, discussed later.
Illustration 31:
Xandros logo.
Anyone can make Linux
Linux has been developed by a loose coalition of developers all over the planet all giving their time
largely for free. However, just because it is free, it does not follow this development has no value.
According to the Linux Foundation, had the developers been on a salary, then the cost of developing
Linux, as of 2008-10-23 would be an estimated US $10.8 billion51. Estimates are based upon an open
source codeline calculator called SLOCCount52.
There are thousands of currently maintained Linux distributions according to Distrowatch53.
Additionally anyone can make their own. For example, applications such as Remastersys54 make
creating one's own distribution based upon Debian or Ubuntu very straightforward indeed.
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Meantime, many of the companies that produce Linux distros, such as
Shuttleworth's Canonical give away their Linux distro for free, whilst relying
on support contracts to generate revenue55.
Linux and the cult of the penguin
Tux, the infamous Linux penguin logo was created for Linus Torvalds by
Larry Ewing, using an early version of Gimp. The penguin logo and its usage
typifies the ethos of the open source movement. Ewing still owns the rights
to the image. However permission to use it is as follows56:“Permission to use and/or modify this image is granted provided you
Illustration 32: Mark
Shuttleworth, founder &
CEO of Canonical - owners
of Ubuntu. [From Mark
Shuttleworth's site.]
acknowledge me [email protected] and The GIMP if someone
asks.”
In early 1996, several people were talking on the Linux-kernel mailing list about the need to create a
readily identifiable logo for Linux57. Many suggestions involved parodies of
other operating system corporate logo's. Others suggested strong, noble
creatures such as eagles or sharks. Then Torvalds mentioned that he rather
liked penguins58.
After several attempts to draw Penguins in various poses, someone suggested
a Penguin holding up the world. Torvalds said he thought more in terms of a
satisfied penguin that had “just enjoyed a tasty herring.”[Full email see
appendix 5].
The name Tux has little to do with the dinner jacket or tuxedo. Rather it is an
Illustration 33:
Larry Ewing's "Tux" - the
Linux penguin logo.
[Created by Larry Ewing
using GIMP.]
acronym based upon Torvalds Unix.
Usually corporations protect their corporate logos very carefully. Torvalds decided to do the opposite.
Anyone can use the Tux logo. This has spawned a huge variety of tribute and spoof projects including a
children's birthday cake, to a series of sewing patterns59. Nevertheless despite its various guises, the
penguin is now inextricably linked with Linux.
The unfettered use of the Tux logo has spawned a vast array of Linux fan-based communities that have
adopted and adapted Tux as their own mascot, for example the
Linux advocate web site “Penguinista”60. Today the term
Illustration 34:
Penguinista website logo.
“Penguinistas” is also often used to refer to any group that
supports Linux.
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Is Linux a “disruptive technology”?
The BusinessDictionary.com defines disruptive technology as:“New ways of doing things that disrupt or overturn the traditional business methods and
practices. For example, steam engine in the age of sail, and internet in the age of post office
mail.61”
If one performs a simple Google search for “disruptive technology” and the word “Linux”, it returns
over 50,000 hits62. The problem is that many of the articles that are returned by the search are relatively
old, often going back as far as 2001. A lot has happened in the last few years and one wonders if it is
still appropriate to refer to Linux as disruptive? There are several reasons for this:1. Today Linux is a well-established and mature operating system. There are many well-engineered
and easy-to use Linuxes for desktop users. By all accounts desktop Linux's were not particularly
easy to use or install in 200163. Indeed, some experts were even predicting the death of the Linux
desktop at the time.
2. Windows 5.x (2000 & XP) were regarded as good products in their day64. Moreover, the full
extent of Microsoft's now infamous security holes, virus vulnerability and its draconian licensing
policy was not in the public consciousness to the extent that it is today. Therefore one could
argue that there was not much impetus for users to switch to Linux in those days.
3. Windows 6 (AKA Vista) has proven problematic for Microsoft65. So much so that MS is rushing
to release Windows 7 by the end of 2009 in order to move users from 2001-vintage Windows
XP66 and to stem the increasing haemorrhage of users migrating to other operating systems.
Some analysts such as Gartners have gone as far as stating that they believe Windows may be
collapsing67.
4. There is a whole new generation of computers that simply won't run Windows such as the tiny
Asus eeePC - or if they will, then the performance can be poorer on Windows than on Linux68.
5. Sub-£300 laptops such as the machines upon which I currently run my business with have
become very popular in recent years. These machines perform very poorly on Microsoft Vista
but work well on Linux's such as Ubuntu69.
6. Android70. Android is Google's new Linux-based, open source operating system for mobile
phones & PDA's. Many major mobile phone handset manufacturers have said they plan to adopt
it71. Though there have been criticisms regarding the nature of the license, and the predominance
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of Java over direct system API calls, it nevertheless means development can go
ahead across many different platforms.
Progress
The illustrations on the next page give a visual indication of how far Linux has come.
The first image actually pre-dates Linux and shows a classic graphical Unix desktop
Illustration 35:
Google Android
logo.
of the early 1990's. The second screengrab shows a modern graphical desktop, Enlightenment 0.16 atop
gOS – a Ubuntu derivative. Note the almost Mac-like button panel at the bottom of the screen.
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Illustration 36: Early X Window System. Tom's Window Manager (twm) with
a number of applications the xlogo, an xterm, oclock, xbiff, xman, and xload.
This reminiscent of a typical Unix graphical desktop from the early 1990s.
[From the Wikipedia.]
Illustration 37: Modern X Window System. Enlightenment 0.16 on top of gOS (a Ubuntu derivative), and a number of
applications including the System Panel, Gimp, Firefox and Gterm. This is one of many graphical desktops available
for Linux in 2008.
[Screengrab by Garfield Lucas.]
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Perspective
It would seem that Linux has come a very long way both in terms of usability and diversity. Therefore,
businesses already using Linux and|or a variety of open source applications should find further adoption
of open source to be evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
Therefore, one could argue that whether or not Linux is “disruptive” depends largely on one's
perspective. Some open source convertees argue they now have all the tools and applications needed to
run their businesses72. Due to the way many Linux distributions manage their software packages, users
find their upgrade paths and system updates are routine, well organised, very reliable and highly
sustainable. In many instances they are also free73. If users can adequately access, secure and manipulate
their data, then Linux is far from disruptive. In fact, one could argue that it is the classic “sustaining
technology” in the sense that it relies on incremental improvements to an already established
technology.
However, users who have invested heavily in Microsoft-based products and particularly those whose
business data is locked into Microsoft-only formats may find moving to Linux to be very disruptive
indeed74.
Observations
Some argue that Microsoft is actually attempting to accelerate its vendor lock-in 75. For example, it is
much more difficult to run a DotNet-derived program on Linux under WINE than it is an older
VisualBasic one, though there are some open source projects that attempt to deal with this situation with
limited success, such as WineTricks76.
One could even argue that if one plans to adopt open source in the foreseeable future and that one
wishes to avoid disruption, then now is not a good time to buy or write new Windows applications.
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Arguments for and against open source software
Before attempting an analysis of business case for open source software, it is helpful to understand the
various general arguments for and against open source software.
The case for open source software
Cheaper
Most open source software is available free of charge or for a very modest distribution fee. Additionally
most open source software is distributed on line. Therefore there is no manufacturing, packaging or
distribution costs. A study undertaken at the United Nations University, Maastrict, Netherlands
undertaken on behalf of the European Union endorses this view77. Open source software can lower
customer barriers to access and reduce costs of switching software78. Open source also avoids being
locked in to the goods and services of just one provider.
Standards-based
Many open source projects are – or claim to be – based on internationally recognised standards such as
those laid down by ISO and the W3C (Worldwide Web Consortium). Protagonists argue that by having
standards maintained by bodies outside those of large corporate interests., it is less likely that uses will
be locked in to one supplier's products. Moreover some argue that a standard cannot be deemed to be
truly an open standard unless its parameters are a matter of public record79.
Being standards based benefits both customers and developers because it reduces pointless duplication
of effort that often happens with competing proprietary systems80.
Greater transparency - more honest about its shortcomings
Open source developers tend to be more honest about their products’ shortcomings. As a result, the open
source community is able to develop products that are not merely cheaper than the offerings of the
major software corporations, but also better engineered, more reliable and most importantly, more
secure. Open source protagonists argue that this is because the flaws in open source products are
common knowledge and are therefore fixed quickly by the various open source development teams.
Whereas it is argued that the closed-source mode used by the big corporations fosters a culture of
secrecy and denial – especially when problems occur81.
Additionally, it creates a shift in trust, according to Linux inventor Linus Torvalds. That is, users do not
need to trust the developer, one only needs to trust the code82.
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High level of compatibility with existing systems
Most open source software can safely co-exist with proprietary products. Many open source products
are also easier to deinstall if the user decides they are not suitable. For example, open source Clamwin
antivirus can be deinstalled in seconds whereas deinstalling proprietary Norton Antivirus is highly
problematic83. The same applies to Firefox web browser as opposed to Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Firefox may be installed and uninstalled relatively easily, whereas removing Internet Explorer from a
Windows installation can prove difficult and in some cases impossible84.
More rapid bug-fixing
Most open source bugs are a matter of public record and protagonists argue that these bugs therefore
tend to get corrected quickly due to feedback from the open source community. Proprietary software
manufacturers tend to be rather slower to admit security problems due to commercial reasons and in any
event the quality of their source code cannot be examined publicly.
For example, in a recent report by security experts Secunia, during 2008 Mozilla averaged 43 days to
respond to 115 reported vulnerabilities in its Firefox browser whereas Microsoft took 110 days to
release patches for 31 Internet Explorer security holes85.
Better security
Some popular proprietary products are notorious for their security flaws. For example during 2006,
Internet Explorer was deemed “unsafe” for 286 days during 2006. That is, it went for 286 days with
known serious security flaws that remained unpatched86.
Open source is, by its nature, open to public scrutiny and peer review. Consequently, open source
protagonists argue that security flaws can be identified and resolved much more quickly and effectively.
This claim is very vigorously refuted by protagonists of proprietary software, and some of the issues
involved are discussed later.
Greater flexibility
In many cases, open source software products are available for many operating systems, not just
Microsoft Windows – for example, Mozilla Firefox, VLC media player & OpenOffice [detailed earlier].
In many, cases these will co-exist with existing proprietary systems. To quote Mark Taylor, chief
executive officer of open source vendor Sirius in an interview with ZDNet magazine, “The reality is
that open source reduces costs by giving greater flexibility of licensing, while up-and-coming opensource technologies are well ahead of proprietary software.”87
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More rapid development
End-user products can be developed much more quickly. More appropriate products can be built and
configured exactly as people need them. In a proprietary software environment, a new idea must be put
to the right person. Then this person must be convinced that the idea is good. Finally, a way to fund the
project must be found. After all that, it is likely that the idea is stale or simply outdated. A good idea can
simply become stuck in a mire of bureaucracy.
In an open-source environment, the creator is free to develop the idea without any consultation with
anyone. The creator may also use the open source code of thousands of other developers in the project
and is free to collaborate (or not collaborate) with others in any way he or she sees fit88.
Development tools are much cheaper, often free
Key operating and development environments that can be downloaded and used for free are included
with most Linux distros. This includes programming languages such as Zend PHP89, Ruby on Rails90
and Python91 along with database engines such as mySQL92 & PostGres93 So are many of the additional
development tools such as SVN & CVS versioning management systems [detailed earlier].
Moreover, DebianHelp lists hundreds of development and management tools that are available for
Debian Linux and its derivatives94.
Source code can be shared between projects
Creators of open source products can legally use source code from other products rather than having to
“reinvent the wheel”. For example, the Songbird cross-platform media player borrows code from
another popular media player VLC95 and from the Firefox open source web browser96. Popular releases
of GNU Linux such as Ubuntu and Kubuntu are based almost entirely on Debian Linux97.
Suitability for poorer communities
Open source software seems particularly suited to poorer developing countries that cannot afford
licences to use proprietary software, e.g. Brazil. Many universities and government organisations in
Brazil have rejected Microsoft Windows in favour of Linux. Some estimates even suggest that soon up
to one third of South America's computer systems will run Linux98.
Moreover, open source operating systems and associated applications can be complied to run on older,
less powerful hardware. That is hardware for which there is no available version of Windows. Examples
of such equipment can be found at the Scunthorpe Cybercafé project which successfully deployed
Puppy Linux on machines built in the late 1990's, as discussed later in this paper.
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Better for the environment
Most open source software is downloaded rather than being distributed on disk. Moreover, the
documentation for open source is delivered on-line. The licensing of open source software means that
that it can be freely distributed within over local and wide area networks. No packaging and no original
manufacturer's distribution disks are required. This means that fewer raw materials are required for its
distribution and therefore less waste is produced.
More significantly, open source operating systems can be compiled to run on relatively modest
hardware. Therefore relatively old hardware can be used right to the end of its physical life, rather than
thrown away simply because it will not run on the latest version of Windows99.
Large support communities
Open source software is often supported by a broader community of enthusiastic users 100. The open
source community is an informal term referring to the developers, users, and supporters of open source
software.
The case against open source software
Support is too informal
Users feel more comfortable paying for support and software than getting it for free. Support forums can
be quite rude and often assume a high degree of technical knowledge. Moreover, the assumption made
by Eric Raymond that many eyes looking for a bug can solve the problem more quickly and effectively
is essentially flawed because many users are unable to understand what the bug is, let alone describe in a
meaningful way how to resolve it. This is how IT journalist Andrew Brown described the problem,
writing about OpenOffice.org in The Guardian in 2005101:The myth of open source rests on two improbable assumptions. The first is that a significant
proportion of users can fix bugs. That is true at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where
the concept of open source was first formalised in the 1980s by Richard Stallman and others, and
it is true in some of the geekier corners of the internet. But on programs intended for use by the
non-programming public, it's a very different story. This is important because of the second
crucial false assumption: that even if not all users can fix a bug, they can help find them. They
can't. Most users just think: “The computer isn't doing what I want.”
In addition, development is often chaotic, lacking proper leadership and proper process practices.
Worse, development, especially on smaller projects can abruptly come to a halt and all developer
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support simply dries up.
Problems running specialist or bespoke Windows software on Linux
Many end-users have an existing Windows-based system. If they have commissioned expensive
proprietary software written in a Microsoft-based programming language such as Visual Basic for
Applications, e.g. a bespoke MS Access database, then it is difficult (though not impossible) to run this
software natively on a Linux desktop machine. It requires extra software in the form of a Windows
compatibility layer such as WINE or Windows running in a virtual machine such as VMWare or
VirtualBox – which some would argue defeats the purpose of running Linux in the first place.
Lack of warranty
Most open source software comes with the General Public License as designed by Richard Stallman or
something similar. Trouble is, this type of license specifically states that the software is provided as-is
with no warranty whatsoever102 103 104. This is unappealing to corporate IT buyers.
If something goes seriously wrong with proprietary software then there is a perception on the part of the
customer that it will be put right by the company because it is in its best interests to do so in order to
avoid subsequent monetary losses. This is particularly important to IT managers.
It is difficult to have confidence in a product for which one cannot hold anyone accountable. Arguably
one of the biggest advantages that commercial software development companies have is that their
customers believe there is someone accountable when things go wrong105.
Risk aversion
Corporate buyers try to avoid new or unknown technology that might fail. They prefer known, triedand-tested systems even if these products have known flaws. If an IT manager orders a Microsoft based
product and it goes wrong then Microsoft gets the blame. If (s)he orders an open source product then
(s)he gets the blame for using a non-standard product106.
UK IT journal The Register suggests that simply writing better code will not sell a product to IT
professionals, especially in government circles. Without better incentives to use open source software,
IT managers will be to scared and possibly “too lazy” to risk anything unknown107.
Open source has a geeky “Raymondesque” image
Open source is perceived by its critics as being developed randomly by geeks and hackers rather then
being developed using a recognised methodology by paid industry professionals. (After Eric S
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Raymond’s “Cathedral & Bazaar” & “How to become a Hacker”)108
Security by obscurity is better
Open source antagonists argue that making source code accessible to all makes open source generally
less secure than proprietary products – where security is enhanced by obscuring the source from public
scrutiny. Moreover, most users do not actually look for security flaws until one actually occurs and it
affects the user. Since most users do not actually engage with the security process, allowing them to see
flaws has no value.
Some argue that obscurity and secrecy do actually provide some security because they increase the
amount of work an attacker must do in order to attack a system. Moreover, this obscurity may also help
expose the attacker because it will require some probing to penetrate the obscurity, thus allowing some
logging and perhaps even advanced warning of the attack109.
Poor hardware support in Linux
Most consumer hardware is designed to run under Microsoft Windows. Whilst an increasing amount of
hardware and its associated drivers is being reverse engineered by open source developers, there are still
many devices that will only run on Windows. This is because such devices are manufactured very
cheaply and have vital hardware been stripped away so the work has to be done in software. The most
common of these “dumb” devices is the “WinModem”. However, there are also printers and other
peripherals that function in a similar fashion110.
Poor documentation
Whilst some open source projects are quite well documented, for example mySQL and OpenOffice,
others are very poorly documented and often rely on users and enthusiasts to document them through
largely unmoderated wikis111. Richard Stallman of the free Software Foundation admits112:The biggest deficiency in our free operating systems is not in the software—it is the lack of good
free manuals that we can include in our systems. Documentation is an essential part of any
software package; when an important free software package does not come with a good free
manual, that is a major gap. We have many such gaps today.
Licensing difficulties
There are many types of open source software licence. These can be complex documents and have
complex arrangements with regard to the way copies of the source code may (or sometimes has to be)
redistributed with derived products. These licences can cause conflicts between commercially-based and
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open source companies. It can even cause issues between providers of open source software. For
example Debian Linux & Mozilla Foundation disagreed over the distribution of Mozilla Thunderbird
email client – recently renamed “Icedove” for distributions of Debian Linux113.
Questions arising over intellectual property rights
Some proprietary manufacturers, notably Microsoft and SCO have made claims that some supposedly
open source code may in fact belong to them. Therefore end users may risk being the subject of law
suits over copyright infringement. The SCO suit against IBM failed as it was largely based upon a
private contract between IBM and SCO. The 700,000 lines of disputed code turned out to be just over
300 and most of these were comments rather than active code114. Nevertheless, this could make IT
managers nervous.
Possible infringement of software patents
Now Microsoft is threatening Linux users directly. Although no court-validated patents cover the Linux
kernel, 283 issued patents may apply to Linux generally, if they are upheld in court115. In 2004 The
Patent Foundation concluded in a report written for the OSRM that of the 283 patents, 98 are owned by
Linux allies, including 60 from IBM, 20 from Hewlett-Packard and 11 from Intel116. OSRM is Open
Source Risk Management - a company specialising in providing insurance for copyright claims against
Linux. The review examined both the current version 2.6 and the earlier version 2.4 of the the Linux
kernel.
Although open source suppliers such as Red Hat have tried to reassure their customers, fear still persists.
Linux creator Linus Torvalds said in an interview with CNet in 2003117:“Finding patent infringement has always been a responsibility of the patent holders.”
“It is a fact that I do not encourage engineers to look up patent information.”
Whilst Torvalds' opinion may be legally correct, it is hardly reassuring for risk-averse IT managers.
Total cost of ownership (TCO)
Some observers believe that open source software such as the Linux operating system is not really free
if one takes into account the cost of learning, servicing and maintaining it118. Others feel that is is only
really suited to those who enjoy playing with technology119 and that for normal users it is entirely
inappropriate due to the time it takes to learn how to use it. Finding people with the prerequisite skills to
maintain it can be much more expensive than for well known proprietary software. Indeed the TCO
argument is a long-standing one put forward by Microsoft and other providers of proprietary software.
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Therefore short term costs would be higher for organisations migrating, even partially, to open source,
because of the initial cost of training. Also, there is the risk that some workers may feel undervalued if
they are required to work with free software.
Comparing security
Security is one of the most hotly debated issues when Windows versus Open Source is discussed120.
Therefore it seems appropriate to examine some of the claims and counter-claims in a little more detail
and attempt to ascertain if there are any verifiable advantages on either side of the debate.
Security through obscurity
Some argue that proprietary products are more secure than open source ones because everyone knows
how open source ones work, whereas the workings of proprietary products are by their very nature,
secret.
Open Source protagonists argue that open source software is more secure for exactly the same reason.
The fact that the source code is “open” means that flaws, particularly in security are public knowledge
and can be fixed by developers much more quickly. Moreover it is argued that whilst the public at large
would not know the inner workings of a proprietary product, hackers and others with evil intent would
certainly know how a proprietary works – certainly enough to hack it or to write malware that could
attack it.
To some extent, the degree of trust one may have in security by obscurity depends on ones trust for the
company doing the obscuring. There are concerns that trust in Microsoft may be misplaced due to its
allowing unspecified third parties have access to security secrets that are not available to its
customers121.
Linux security threats
Linux is not entirely immune security threats122. One Linux virus that has been around for over seven
years is the “Linux/Rst-B” virus. British antivirus experts Sophos actually produce a freeware detection
tool123 – though there is no automated removal tool. Whilst Linux is immune to almost all the viruses
that affect Windows, a Linux server can act as a host for viruses that can affect Windows machines
connected to it.
Moreover poorly written scripts written in PHP programming language can create some very serious
risks to interactive websites, particularly where it fails to validate user input. This is often the source of
MySQL injection attacks124.
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Microsoft Windows security threats
Microsoft's email and web browsing software has a long history of allowing a users' computers to
become infected when they do something as simple as reading an email or visiting a website 125 126 127 128
129
. And the problem still persists today with crimeware such as Sinowal 130. Sinowal is botnet malware
that affects Windows XP. It is estimated that roughly 500,000 Windows computers have been hijacked
by Sinowal131 – stealing the bank and credit card details of their users. Indeed the botnet situation is
quite alarming and Microsoft itself admits that a single botnet can consist of over 100,000 so-called
“zombie” PC's.
In order for crimeware such as Sinowal to take hold of the user's machine, the hacker first has to gain
access to it. So hackers often trick users into clicking tempting links on innocent-looking websites and
into opening emails that will download malicious software (malware) on to their PC, without owners
consent or knowledge. This malware allows fraudsters to control computers remotely, which in turn
allows them to steal users' credit card numbers, banking details and passwords. Once the hackers have
gained access to a machine then they can do other destructive things too, such as using the hijacked
machines for sending spam and for storing and distributing illegal pornography.
Unix security via highly enforced permissions
To understand Unix security one needs to understand its sophisticated and rigidly enforced file and
directory permissions. It is argued by protagonists of Unix-like operating systems that a sophisticated
system of permissions that makes Linux intrinsically more secure than Windows.
In Unix-like operating systems, every file has permissions known as read, write and executable flags
that, may be set as either true or false. Moreover each of these flags are defined by user, group and
“world”. These permissions are intrinsic to the operating system and are rigorously enforced. Unlike
Windows “read-only” attribute, Unix permissions cannot be overwritten by a user who does not possess
the required access rights.
In Unix, the superuser is called “root”. Ordinary users do not have root permissions – though in some
cases users may execute commands at root level by entering a root password and using the “su” or
“sudo” commands.
When a user runs an application, that application runs with the restricted privileges of the user that
launched it. Or to be more precise, the application's system calls to the Unix API do132. The application
can only write to the user’s own home directory. It cannot write to a system file or even to another
user’s home directory unless root explicitly gives the user permission to do so133.
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This means that if one not running as root and one visits a website that tries to run a command on one's
machine, the website only has the permissions of the user, not those of root. Therefore the damage the
malicious site can do and the information it can extract about one is very limited.
Additionally, in order to run an executable program, the file needs to have its “executable” flag set to
true for the current user. By default, files such as email attachments are not set as executable. Therefore
it is virtually impossible to execute a Unix command simply by clicking an email attachment.
Unix permissions in practice
Illustration 38: Screengrab of KDE Konqueror file manager showing Unix file permissions.
The screengrab below shows a directory on my laptop computer, displayed in the KDE file manager
“Konqueror”, containing a Perl script and a small number of associated files. The permissions column in
the right hand pane displays the access permissions granted to each of these files. Unix permissions
explained.
The access permissions of each file are displayed in the permissions column. It is in the following
format134.
In relation to the screengrab above, permissions for each file may be determined as follows:-
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Illustration 39:
Unix permissions diagram [from Association for Computing
Machinery, University of Illinois].
●
Directory (or folder) “more-code” has permissions “drwxr-xr-x”. It can be read and have files
written to it by me. Everyone else can read files from it but cannot write them to it. The initial
“d” indicates that it is a directory rather than a file.
●
Text file “info.txt” has permissions “-rw-rw-rw-”. It can be read and written by me, by my group
and by everybody else. No one may execute it.
●
Text file “private.txt” has permissions “-r--------”. It can only be read by me. I cannot write to it
or execute it. No one else can read, write or execute it.
●
Perl script “timeshift.pl” has permissions “-rwxrwxr-x”. It can be read, written and executed by
me and my group and everyone else can read and execute it but cannot write to it.
●
Text file “typical-usage.txt” has permissions “-rw-rw-r--”. It can be read and written but not
executed by both me and my group. Everyone else my read the file but cannot write or execute
it.
●
Backup file “typical-usage.txt~” has permissions “-rw-r--r--can be read and written but not
executed by me. My group and every one else can only read the file. They cannot write to it135.
Thus the strictly enforced regime of permissions mean that on properly configured Unix-like machine, it
is highly unlikely that third parties can execute code on one's machine without one's permission. Or to
quote SecurityFocus columnist Scott Granneman, “To mess up a Linux box, you need to work at it; to
mess up your Windows box, you just need to work on it.”136
Critique of open source security
Some of the most scathing criticism regarding security the security of open source products have come
from Fortify Software Inc. According to Roger Thornton, the Founder and Chief Technical Officer of
Fortify Software137:“Today's enterprises are built and operated by software that comes from a variety of sources. The
software could be developed in-house, purchased off-the-shelf, outsourced, or as we're seeing
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more often, based on open source. In order to mitigate the business risk created by insecure
applications, it is imperative that companies adopt a process that allows them to assess,
remediate and prevent security vulnerabilities in all of their business software, whatever the
source.”
Fortify's site adds:“Enterprise adoption of OSS has steadily increased, little has been done within the OSS
community to implement enterprise-worthy application security measures. As a result of the
survey, Fortify recommends that enterprises should follow the example of financial services
companies in applying risk and coding analysis techniques to their open source software.”
Critique of Fortify
Fortify Software Inc. is a Microsoft partner138 and it is interesting to note that two out of nine of its
current directors139 held executive positions at Microsoft and three out of eleven members of its advisory
board140 were also working for or advising Microsoft at one time.
Fortify has an entry in the Wikipedia. However, at time of writing, the webmasters at the Wikipedia
have commented on Fortify's entry:“This article is written like an advertisement. Please help rewrite this article from a neutral point
of view. For blatant advertising that would require a fundamental rewrite to become
encyclopedic, use {{db-spam}} to mark for speedy deletion. (October 2008).”
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Illustration 40: Screengrab captured 2009-02-19 showing
Fortify Software's Wikipedia entry.
The weakest link
Regardless of how secure a system becomes, there is an overwhelming consensus of opinion to suggest
that the weakest security link is the user141. For example, if users run Unix-like systems as root, then all
the benefits of Unix's sophisticated access permissions become negated142.
Personal experience
In the year prior to May 2007 my business suffered three trojans and countless incidences of spyware on
desktop and local servers running Windows. This was despite running up-to-date virus and spyware
checkers. Since May 2007 our six laptops and two local media servers have run Kubuntu Linux. In
common with others that have migrated, we have suffered no malware issues on any of these Ubuntubased machines143 144 145.
However, I also run two Linux webservers. These have been hit three times with SQL injection attacks.
One of these was due to a badly written PHP script in Joomla content management system (CMS) and
two due to similarly vulnerable PHP scripts in Coppermine picture gallery. Fortunately due to correctly
setting Unix file permissions, the damage wreaked by these attacks was limited to only those files to
which the webserver had write access.
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Privacy
At both a personal and a business level, I have become increasingly alarmed by the data some
proprietary suppliers can extract from one's computer without one's knowledge146. A colleague alerted
me to the fact that Microsoft automatically collects data about software one is running when one visits
its site. So as an experiment I accessed its Microsoft Office 2007 page using a web browser with an addin called No-Script. This allows hidden scripts in the page to be switched off.
Illustration 41: Screengrab demonstrating Microsoft's attempt to extract information from users'
systems without first warning them or seeking their permission.
[Screengrab by Garfield Lucas, captured using a machine running Kubuntu Linux 8.04 c/w Mozilla
Firefox 3.0 and its NoScript plug-in .]
The illustration below demonstrates how Microsoft's site attempted to run a script that interrogated
users' PCs to ascertain whether they are running its software or not. This attempt is normally obscured if
the user is using Microsoft Internet Explorer so that one is entirely unaware that such interrogation has
taken place. It only becomes apparent when one visits the site using a non-Microsoft browser with a
script blocker such as NoScript147.
It is reasonable that visited websites know one's IP address, along with what browser and operating
system one is running148 149. But whether site owners have the right to know what other software one is
running is more debatable. In my opinion, a web browser should never allow non-essential information
to be leaked in this fashion and it could be regarded as an unwarranted invasion of one's privacy. In this
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instance, the spy is a foreign corporation, in a foreign jurisdiction, for which users outside the United
States have little legal recourse. Fortunately, open source browsers such as Firefox and Opera that do
not support ActiveX render such attempts to obtain this information ineffective because they require a
separate executable to be installed instead150.
Interestingly, since making this screengrab, the page has changed and it no longer interrogates remote
machines with hidden scripts. But the fact that Microsoft has done it and that its browser permits it are
matters of great concern and question the wisdom of using its products in a business context.
Comparing “feature creep” or “creeping featurism”
Feature creep151 is the uncontrolled proliferation and development of additional features in a software
project. This additional functionality goes beyond the basic design of the product. Consequently the
product becomes complex and difficult to use. However, both the closed source and open source models
can both suffer from this problem, albeit for different reasons.
For example Microsoft Office has been criticised for having a vast range of seemingly unnecessary new
features152 in order to increase its saleability. Whilst most open source projects are not directly
concerned with sales, nevertheless there still are other pressures on developers. Some feel the need to
show off their skills. More pressingly, developers want to avoid their projects being accused of lacking
features available in their commercial counterparts. An example of an open source project that is often
criticised for having more features than an average user can possibly use is Gnu Emacs153 text editor.
On the other hand, some protagonists of either of the above mentioned applications might argue that the
plethora of features is actually a good thing. Therefore, feature creep cannot be seen as an absolute,
definable quantity and is very much dependent on one's opinions and needs.
Comparing FUD
According to Eric Raymond's “Hackers Dictionary” the term FUD or fear uncertainty and doubt is a
term first defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company: “FUD is the fear,
uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill (sic) in the minds of potential customers who might
be considering [Amdahl] products.”154
IT journalist Glyn Moody claims that Microsoft has been undertaking a policy of FUD against open
source for many years.155 However, as with feature creep, one could argue that there is FUD on both
sides of the proprietary versus open source debate156. In any event one needs to be careful to sift the
facts from the FUD, which is not always easy.
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Comparing TCO
On the face of it, because free open source software such as OpenOffice.org and Linux have zero
licensing costs, they would appear to be cheaper than comparable proprietary products such as
Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop.
However, the initial purchase price is just part of the overall costs. One also has to consider how much it
costs to maintain and take into account any retraining costs. One needs to do a detailed TCO calculation
on a business by business basis and that there is no one-size-fits-all answer. However, there is no
common standard of how to obtain comparable low-FUD TCO-figures157.
This is why tools such as TCO_Tool are deployed. If the same basic parameters are used, then it is
possible to undertake some sort of meaningful comparison. However, this means a large range of
businesses need to be assessed using the same methodology.
Illustration 42: TCO-Tool function diagram [from TCO-Tool website].
I should add that having run the tool on my business, albeit in a very cursory manner, my TCO for Open
Source was zero. However, prior to going open source in 2007, I was still only spending around £300.00
per year on software, largely because a lot of proprietary software was provided for me by a client.
Moreover, in both calculations I did not cost in my time because learning, fixing and developing
technologies benefits me personally since my main role is an IT consultant. But it is clear that due to the
circumstances of my business, even using the same calculation methodology it would actually be quite
difficult to calculate my TCO relative to other businesses.
I would further argue that since no two business are the same, and considering that so many judgements
need to be made, any claims made regarding TCO on either side of the debate need to be viewed with a
degree of scepticism.
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Observations
The proprietary versus open source debate rages on and many of the claims and counter claims have
plenty of FUD but lack conclusive proof. Additionally, both methods of developments can suffer from
issues such as feature creep, albeit for different reasons. However it does seem that properly configured
Unix-like systems may indeed be more secure than Windows ones. However I suspect this has more to
do with Unix's rigidly enforced file permissions than its being open source. However secure one makes
a system, it can all be broken if users fail to act responsibly.
The privacy issue does seem worrying. The fact that the closed source model can allow foreign
corporations to extract information from business computers without users' consent seems intensely
undesirable.
With regard to total cost of ownership debate, it seems there is no definitive answer and TCO
calculations need to be done on a case by case basis.
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What is a business case?
Having examined the types of technology involved and discussed some of the licensing, cost-ofownership and security issues around it, we now need to be clear concerning exactly what we mean by a
“business case”.
The UK Office of Government Commerce defines the purpose of a business case as158:●
The Business Case is used to obtain management commitment and approval for investment in
business change, through rationale for the investment.
●
The Business Case provides a framework for planning and management of the business change.
●
The ongoing viability of the project will be monitored against the Business Case.
A business case is intended to detail the rationale behind a particular project. The reason one documents
or discusses one's business case is because wherever precious resources such as money or intellectual
effort are deployed, these should actually support the business rather than simply to appeal to ones
personal values or vanity.
For the remainder of this paper, I use the more practical and some would argue looser term “open
source software” rather than the term “free software”. This is because this paper is intended to examine
real world issues surrounding using this type of software in a real business environment where end user
licences may differ from the GPL to some extent.
Therefore, a simplified form of one's business decision-making process with regard to open source
software may be stated thus:●
Is it genuinely free?
●
Can I use it freely?
●
Does it do the job?
●
Is it safe and secure?
●
Is it legal?
●
How will the business benefit?
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Open source software user survey
The purpose of this study is to find out how a small cross section real users actually open source
software as a desktop replacement for Windows software and how they feel about it. I have detailed
each question, the format it is presented in and the reason for asking the question. The survey was
conducted on-line on via one of my open source driven web servers:●
http://www.deoss.org/projects/survey/survey.php?sid=28
Users were invited to participate via an emailed invitation. Data was gathered via a PHP-based
password-protected data entry form and stored in a MySQL database for easy subsequent analysis.
Initially I attempted to write my own data collection system using PHP & MySQL. But this proved a
very complex task. Instead I decided to use a tried and tested survey package written by John W Holmes
called UCCASS159. UCCASS was originally developed for polling US military personnel. It is very
flexible and supports many different question structures.
I downloaded and installed the UCASS software on my DEOSS server and then set about building the
survey as I needed it.
Design considerations
In designing this survey I tried to make the collection and analysis of fairly complex data as simple as
possible. The survey was broken up onto eight separate parts, and I created a separate but linked web
page for each part. The reason for this was to avoid confronting participants with too much information
all at once.
I avoided asking mutually exclusive questions in part 2 to part 5 because participants may well be using
several different operating systems under a variety of different circumstances. Moreover, some of the
participants are in a situation where their home life and work life is blurred. That is, they do some work
from home. Therefore most questions are in the form of a series of non-mutually-exclusive “tick all that
apply” type “true|false” tick-boxes.
Only part 6 uses mutually exclusive “radio buttons”. These provide the system with a number in the
range of 1 to 10 that can be added together and then divided by the number of respondents to give an
over view of opinion with regard to open source software.
Whilst the careful use of tick and radio buttons is designed to make the subsequent analysis of collected
data relatively straightforward, I felt it important to avoid leading users to give responses that fit with
my personal opinions and values. Therefore, I provided a text box beneath each major group of
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questions in order to capture answers that may not fit neatly into any of my pre-determined boxes. I also
felt it possible that participants' comments may provide insight and offer opinions and ideas that I have
not considered.
Choosing and identifying participants
I configured the survey so that only invited people could take part. Whilst this inevitably reduces the
number of participants, it also guarantees that the respondents are all real people. I wanted the data
collected to be as genuine and representative as possible.
Moreover I wanted, if necessary, to be able provide verifiable data to my tutor and the board examiners
if required. I posted on several of the forums to which I belonged, explaining the project and inviting
them to take part. Once I had their agreement and their email addresses, I instructed the UCCASS
software to issue them a PIN (personal invitation number). The software then automatically mailed the
participant with the survey URL and the appropriate PIN. I also mailed the person manually, just in case
the mail from UCCASS got trapped in the participant's spam filter. The survey ran on-line from
2008-10-20 0:00 to 2008-12-15 0:00 UTC.
Graphical display of results
Results are displayed in the form of horizontal histograms. However, the responses to some questions
were mutually exclusive whereas some were not.
●
Therefore, in order to distinguish between the two, these results are presented so that responses
to tick all that apply type questions are displayed with a graphic similar to:-
●
Whereas the answers to mutually exclusive questions are displayed thus:-
Page 45 of 117
Survey part 1 of 8. Start
Statement: “Thank you for taking part in this survey. It is relatively straightforward and should
only take you a few minutes. You may use the "Previous Page" and "Next Page" buttons to
complete the questionnaire in any order you wish. However you MUST click the "Finish" button
on the final page in order to submit and save it. Please note that although you are here by
invitation, the survey is anonymous and your answers are not linked to you in any way...”
Rationale:- The privacy statement is intended to allay any fears concerning misuse of personal data.
Survey part 2 of 8. Do you use any free open source software
(FOSS)?
Question 1. Which open source software do you use?
Blender [tick-box]
GIMP [tick-box]
Mozilla Firefox [tick-box]
Mozilla Thunderbird [tick-box]
OpenOffice [tick-box]
Other (please list below)
Rationale
Lots of people, even MS Windows users use some open source software. I am interested to learn what is
currently in use. Tick all that apply was deployed because software usage is not mutually exclusive.
Results
Blender
- 6
GIMP
- 37
Mozilla Firefox
- 60
Mozilla Thunderbird
- 25
OpenOffice
- 51
Other (please list
below)
Total Answers
- 37
2.78%
17.13%
27.78%
11.57%
23.61%
17.13%
- 216
Observations
On reflection, I feel I should have chosen a much larger range of software for this question to be
meaningful. Or put it another way, judging by the answers to subsequent questions, it seems that I have
underestimated the diversity and range of open source software that participants are using. Nevertheless
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the results indicate that the main open source software that users are actually using is OpenOffice.org
and the Firefox web browser.
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Question 2. Please list any other open source software you use: [text-box]
Rationale
With literally tens of thousands of open source programs available, obviously I was unable to list them
all. This text box gives respondents the chance to list some of the less well known packages they use.
Results
[Spelling errors and typos corrected.]
Total
Answers
-
45
45. Eclipse, zlib, Linux, gcc, bash, Haiku, Hibernate, Apache, VLC, MySQL, Apache Tomcat, Hudson,
Robin Hood, JUnit, Ant, Open JDK, Cups, javacc.
44. Libsbml
43. Gentoo Linux with a large number of extra packages.
42. FireFox add-ons a). FlashGot b). WebMail Notifier c). Yahoo! Toolbar d). ColorfulTabs.
41. Ubuntu.
40. Inkscape.
39. Filezilla, Apache, PHP, Singapore,Linux (Ubuntu/Linspire), mySQL.
38. I like Abiword. Wife has Open office in her Windows Boxes. DeVeDee. Braserio, Screenshot,
Desklets, Mousepad, Seamonkey, Dillo, Opera, Xsane image scanner, Lynx, Transmission BitTorrent
Client, ClamAV, AVG for Linux, No Script.
37. I use solely open source software. Most of the time I use: Linux, OpenBSD, eMacs, Awesome
(WM), Mutt.
36. The whole Slackware 12.0 distribution plus programs developed by myself.
35. Avidemux.
34. Ubuntu, Fedora and a lot of software in these distributions. On web servers: Joomla, Drupal,
CiviCRM, VTiger, Moodle...
33. Ubuntu.
32. Opera.
31. Audacity.
30. Joomla, Wordpress, Evolution, Google Chrome.
29. Joomla, Simple Machines Forum, WordPress.
28. Emacs editor, Totem Video Player,UNIX Cups for print,Nautilus CD Writer.
27. Debian GNU Linux Ubuntu Linux GNU Octave GNUSim8085 Geany.
26. All that Fedora 9 (my basic OS, not dual booting) uploads with the Gnome desktop as well as
individual downloads: Hugin, Amarok, CinePaint, Brasero, PeaZip, EasyTag.
25. gcc, rTorrent, Gnome.
24. Linux – Xubuntu.
23. Moodle.
22. Linux, cygwin, Vim, TOra (Toolkit for Oracle).
21. XeTeX, FontForge and a lot of small applications for everyday use.
20. Ubuntu -> loads of others Pidgin, GnuPlot.
19. Hard to list all: K3B (including plugins), Amarok (including plugins), Kstars, Inkscape,
Scribus, Audacious, several Linux Distributions, Pidgin, Videolan's VLC, X-Chat, Wammu, Wine,
DosBox, several FOSS games, Samba and many, many more.
18. Debian Linux, Postfix, Exim, Proftpd, etc. What an average SOHO or HA server needs.
17. Ubuntu 8.04 & 8.10, Fedora 8, Centos 5.
16. Latex, Geany, Pidgin gFTP, gLPK, Eclipse, Wine, Mplayer, Cmus, Evince, GQView, Abiword
gnumeric pcmanfm
15. gFTP,GnomeCommander,almost everything that is under Linux.
14. The OS on my notebook is gentoo Linux. On my desktop I have windows, but I use Firefox and
OpenOffice. On servers we use open source software almost everywhere.
13. Cygwin, GnuCash, Krita, Scribus, battle for Westnoth,ClamAV, Pidgin, Stellarium.
12. Are you serious??? Thousands of them...
11. gThumb, Picasa, Azureus, Opera...
10. Hundreds... Fedora/Ubuntu/CentOS with Gnome desktop and the most common oss apps.
9. (These are the ones that spring to my mind. Since I use a FOSS-based system/desktop, there are
a dozen more) KDE (as my desktop, with many 'KDE-related' apps, like Kopete, Amarok, KMail...)
TeX (to make documents I need at the university), WINE (to run programs meant for Windows only),
MAME.
8. VIM OpenTTD and lot others :-)
7. Linux, GNU, KDE.
6. Emesene, fvwm-crystal, WINE, NetBeans, RhytmBox, Linux.
5. K3B, Amarok, Skype.
4. Media Master, Photo Master.
3. Evolution, KVirc, Mercury, Pidgin, SMPlayer, MPlayer, Audacious, and more than ~200
software :D
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2. As required.
1. [list]
● Editors: Kate, Text Editor
● Games: Frozen Bubble, Planet Penguin Race, Super Tux Kart
● Graphics: Gwenview, kPDF, Tuxpaint
● Internet: Konqueror, BitTorrent, skype
● Multimedia: Amarok, Vlc, Movie Player, Kaffeine, Kplayer
● System: klamAV, Terminal, Konsole, Disk Usage analyser, KWallet,
● Toys: KWorldClock, Aquarium.
● Utilities: Dolphin, K3B, Krusader, Smb4K, Kcalc.
Observations
Seems that people are actually using a much bigger range of open source software than I envisaged.
Many Linux distributions come with a large number of free applications, some of which get used
without the user even realising. Many respondents, commented that they were using too many open
source applications to list. Some respondents were confused between operating systems and software
and several listed operating systems. However one could argue that large Linux distributions such as
Ubuntu or Red Hat are applications as well. This is because unlike Microsoft Windows, these large
distributions contain most, if not all the software applications that users need, out of the box.
I think one respondent summarised the situation very succinctly: “Are you serious??? Thousands of
them...”
Page 49 of 117
Survey part 3 of 8. Operating systems
Question 3. What operating systems do you use?
MS DOS [tick-box]
Microsoft Windows 95, 98 or Me [tick-box]
Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP [tick-box]
Microsoft Windows Vista [tick-box]
Macintosh OSX [tick-box]
Linux [tick-box]
Other Unix or Unix-like OS [tick-box]
Rationale
I wanted to get a rough idea of what operating systems respondents are using. Tick all that apply format
was deployed because the results are not mutually exclusive. Users can multi-boot their machines in
order to run more than one operating system. Alternatively, a user may have several computers.
Results
MS DOS
- 4
2.92%
Microsoft Windows 95, 98 or Me - 3
2.19%
Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP - 42
Microsoft Windows Vista
- 20
Macintosh OSX
- 8
Linux
- 49
Other Unix or Unix-like OS
- 11
Total Answers
- 137
30.66%
14.60%
5.84%
35.77%
8.03%
Observations
It seems that Linux is actually more popular than I expected. Also interesting to note how few
respondents are using Microsoft Vista. However, on reflection the results are a little distorted because I
broke down the Windows versions into separate releases, whereas I lumped all the Linux distributions
into one heading. Interesting to note that there were many more Linux users than Mac OSX users.
Page 50 of 117
Survey part 4 of 8. Type of open source operating system.
Question 4. What version(s) of Linux or (other open source operating systems) do
you use?
BlackPanther [tick box]
Damned Small Linux [tick box]
Debian [tick box]
FreeBSD [tick box]
Knoppix [tick box]
Linspire [tick box]
Mandriva [tick box]
Mepis [tick box]
OpenBSD [tick box]
Puppy Linux [tick box]
Red Hat | Fedora [tick box]
SUSE [tick box]
Ubuntu | Gobuntu | Kubuntu | Xubuntu [tick box]
Xandros [tick box]
Other open source operating system [tick box]
Rationale
I wanted to discover which open source operating systems respondents were using. Users could tick all
that apply because these answers are not mutually exclusive.
Results
blackPanther
- 1
Damned Small Linux
- 6
Debian
- 14
FreeBSD
- 6
Knoppix
- 3
3.00%
Linspire
- 1
1.00%
Mandriva
- 1
1.00%
Mepis
- 1
1.00%
OpenBSD
- 1
1.00%
Puppy Linux
- 2
2.00%
Red Hat | Fedora
- 11
SUSE
- 2
Ubuntu | Gobuntu | Kubuntu |
Xubuntu
- 35
Page 51 of 117
1.00%
6.00%
14.00%
6.00%
11.00%
2.00%
35.00%
Xandros
- 2
Other open source operating system
- 14
Total Answers
- 100
2.00%
14.00%
Observations
Clearly the Ubuntu family of Linuxes is the most popular, though it is interesting to note that a number
of respondents are using operating systems I did not list. I was surprised to note the relative lack of
popularity of the Red Hat/Fedora family of Linuxes.
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Question 5. Please list any other open source operating systems that you use: [text
box]
Rationale
It is quite possible that users may be using operating systems that I had not considered. I felt it fair to
give participants the opportunity to list these operating systems separately if they wish.
Results
Total
Answers
-
22
22. Haiku.
21. Gentoo Linux.
20. NimbleX 2008 and I haven't decided on what I am going to install on IBM M57 that should arrive
in the next couple of days. Most likely something Debian-related.
19. Slackware, GNU/Linux, NetBSD.
18. PCLinuxOS Used to use BlackPanther.
17. Solaris.
16. Tend to use Mac OSX rather than open source OS.
15. UHU 2.1 Hungarian developed Linux version.
14. Gentoo Linux.
13. Have previously used Ubuntu, PC Linux OS and Mint. Now solely Fedora.
12. OpenSolaris.
11. TinyMe Linux.
10. I have Knoppmyth for my DVD-recorder.
9. FreeDOS.
8. Arch linux.
7. UHU-Hungarian Linux distro.
6. Gentoo.
5. ArchLinux.
4. Freedos.
3. Gentoo.
2. Linpus Linux Lite.
1. Xandros: http://www.xandros.com/
Observations
There is considerable diversity in Linux distributions and it seems that a significant number of
respondents are taking advantage of this diversity. I was interested to see that one respondent was using
Haiku160. This is not Linux but was derived from the now-defunct BeOS161 I was also interested to note
that several respondents are using Gentoo162. Gentoo is an interesting choice because all the programs
one runs on Gentoo are only available as source code. This means that users have to compile the code
themselves, thus implying considerable technical expertise on the part of the respondents concerned.
Page 53 of 117
Survey part 5 of 8. Open source operating systems.
Question 6. Where do you use Linux (or other open source operating systems)?
at home [tick box]
at work [tick box]
on a desktop PC [tick box]
on a laptop PC [tick box]
on an ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) e.g. Asus eeePC [tick box]
on a file server [tick box]
on a web server [tick box]
on a NAS storage unit [tick box]
on another type of device [tick box]
Rationale
I wanted to get a picture of the variety of devices upon which users are using Linux as well as where
they are being used. I grouped the questions together because many devices, particularly laptops and
uMPC's (ultra-mobile personal computers) may be used at home and at work. Users could tick all that
apply because these answers are not mutually exclusive.
Results
at home
- 50
at work
- 29
on a desktop PC
- 34
15.96%
on a laptop PC
- 34
15.96%
on an ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) e.g. Asus
eeePC
- 8
on a file server
- 14
on a web server
- 20
on a NAS storage unit
- 13
on another type of device
- 11
23.47%
13.62%
3.76%
6.57%
9.39%
6.10%
Observations
This question was flawed because I confused where machines were being used with what machines
were being used. Fortunately users could tick all that applied. Interesting to note that users seem aware
that Linux appears on many different types of devices, not just on PC's.
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Question 7. Please list any other devices or locations that you use Linux (or other open
source operating systems): [text box]
Rationale
I wanted to get a picture of the variety of devices upon which users are using Linux as well as where
they are being used. But I reckoned that there could be many other types of device that I had not
considered. Therefore I wanted to see which of these other devices were being used.
Results
Total Answers
-
15
15. Embedded systems.
14. Tuning and working on Engines, though mostly the software is wrote only to be used in
Windows.
13. I manage a couple of servers. All of them uses open source software.
12. Thinking of converting an old fallow laptop to Linux for home use.
11. I have kept an interesting article from Linux Format magazine as to running Linux on other
devices, audio players etc, but entirely lack the technical skills to make this happen as yet!
10. NAS Storage Device.
9. Home made DVD-recorder.
8. Router
7. Pendrive and Portable hard-drive.
6. Router, firewall, database server, etc.
5. htpc
4. Email server Database server Application server Wifi router (Linksys WRT54GL, with modified
firmware)
3. mail server, database server, firewall
2. security camera systems
1. Wii DVD writer
Observations
This confirms my analysis of question 6 insofar as it seems that a significant number of respondents
were aware of embedded Linux|BSD in a wide variety of devices.
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Survey part 6 of 8. Do you agree or disagree with the following
statements?
Question 8. The total cost of ownership of open source software is generally lower
than for proprietary software.
Neither agree nor disagree [radio button]
Disagree [radio button]
Strongly Disagree [radio button]
Agree [radio button]
Strongly Agree [radio button]
Rationale
This is very subjective question. I am trying to establish whether users consider open source cheaper to
run than proprietary software. Answers are mutually exclusive.
Results
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neither agree nor
disagree
Agree
Strongly Agree
Total Answers
- 0
- 2
0.00%
3.12%
- 4
- 31
- 27
- 64
6.25%
48.44%
42.19%
Observations
Over 90 % of respondents believe that open source is cheaper to run than proprietary software. Clearly
the majority of respondents do not agree with Microsoft's TCO calculations that claim its software is
cheaper to run than open source software.
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Question 9. Open source software is generally more secure than proprietary
software.
Rationale
This is another very subjective question. I am trying to establish whether users consider open source to
be more secure than proprietary software. Answers are mutually exclusive.
Results
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neither agree nor
disagree
Agree
Strongly Agree
Total Answers
- 1
- 4
1.56%
6.25%
- 16
25.00%
- 28
- 15
- 64
43.75%
23.44%
Observations
Seems users were not as certain about security as they were about total cost of ownership. Nevertheless,
over ⅔ of respondents believe that open source is generally more secure than proprietary software. 25%
said they were not sure and less than 10% disagreed.
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Question 10. Generally, there is a strong business case for using open source
software.
Rationale
I am trying to establish how participants feel about open source software generally in a business context.
Answers are mutually exclusive.
Results
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Neither agree nor
disagree
Agree
Strongly Agree
Total Answers
- 1
- 2
1.56%
3.12%
- 11
- 37
- 13
- 64
17.19%
57.81%
20.31%
Observations
This question is probably the most important on the survey. Unfortunately, it seems that on reflection,
the way this question was presented was flawed because it does not actually establish how many users
are actually using open source software in a business environment. Nor did I actually define for
respondent what is meant by “business case” in this instance.
Nevertheless, over 75% of respondents believe there is a business case for open source software, even if
I have failed to clarify exactly what this case may be.
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Survey part 7 of 8. How do you feel about free open source
software (FOSS) generally?
Question 11. Do you like open source software generally?
Like a lot [radio button]
Borderline [radio button]
Dislike [radio button]
Rationale
I am trying to establish how users feel about open source software generally. The response here is purely
emotional. Responses are mutually exclusive.
Results
Dislike
Borderline
Like a lot
Total Answers
-
0
6
58
64
0.00%
9.38%
90.62%
Observations
The results of this question probably reveals more about the respondents than it does about the validity
and value of open source. Considering this was a survey about open source software, it is no great
surprise that the majority of respondents took a positive view of open source and no one said they
disliked it. The problem is that it does rather cast doubt on the representativeness of the sample of
people that completed the questionnaire.
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Question 12. Do you like open source operating systems such as Linux?
Like a lot [radio button]
Borderline [radio button]
Dislike [radio button]
Rationale
I want to establish how users feel about Linux in particular. Answers are mutually exclusive.
Results
Dislike
Borderline
Like a lot
Total Answers
-
3
12
48
63
4.76%
19.05%
76.19%
Observations
Interesting to contrast these answers with those of the previous question. Seems that there is a small but
significant number of respondents who actually dislike Linux. Whereas, no one said that disliked open
source generally. Nevertheless, over ¾ of respondents said they liked Linux.
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Question 13. Do you have any other comments or thoughts regarding open source
software? [text box]
Rationale
I was concerned that some respondents might feel that my questions were too restrictive or prescriptive.
This text box allows respondents to air their opinions in a more relaxed and general manner.
Results
[Spelling errors and typos corrected]
Total
Answers
- 32
32. Though I agree in the principles of Open Source as opposed to Free for ensuring end users
(both individuals and companies) should be free from the lock in effect that comes with many types
of proprietary software. I disagree with some of the more strident Open source advocates that all
software should be Open Source as without an economic incentive many companies and individuals
would not be able to pursue new developments, the commercial model of selling support has not been
proved to work in sufficient cases to convince many firms to commit resources. Once a technology
has reached a sufficient maturity to be considered a vital element of the use of the devices in
which it could be utilized however a reference Open Source implementation should be created to
create a baseline for future computing environments. The adoption of truly open standard protocols
should be pursued to enable interoperation between different vendors solutions both open source
and proprietary. So called "standards" such as Microsoft's ooxml which rely on prior non standards
knowledge such as the binary implementation of a previous file type should not be considered true
open standards for the sake of any such interoperability requirement as the full specification
cannot be implemented until such "embedded" elements are also open standards.
31. Sometimes lags behind commercial efforts (e.g. lack of 16 bit support in Gimp).
30. About eight years ago I unsuccessfully tried to load Redhat on to a partition on my HD. But,
it's my fear of spyware that prevents me from using any other software.
29. FOSS is quite often platform independent. Often overlooked This means that a better
relationship with clients develops because they can easily look at what you are working on,
without it being a black box with the end result only visible. Easy - Download - Install - Open
Project. Any platform, no registration, no cost.
28. The one problem I see is in my line of work, software to tune and access ignition modules and
fuel injection modules is only wrote for Windows operating systems,which limit choice. It would be
nice to see some advances made in this field.
27. Encouraging to see it adopted by hardware suppliers - Acer etc. It does seem (at last) Open
source is being viewed as a positive alternative to MS rather than an eccentric choice.
26.
25. I strongly support free (libre) software. My IT-company is based on open source / free
software.
24. I like it but it has it's place.
23. I like the idea but it is not user friendly enough, the learning curve is too steep when other
software you already have suffices
22. Open source operating systems are for geeks. I primarily use Mac OSX for operating system.
21. The advantage of free software products among many are their riches many competitive versions.
thank to the broad developers community moreover theirs applications are more sophistically
elaborated which can be accessed by common people like myself on account of the open source. I
enjoy studies the sundries free software features.
20. I wonder why some technical universities in Hungary make their students use proprietary
software such as MS Visual Studio, and Windows, even if they know, that FOSS counterparts are much
better. I think they should really encourage their students to use FOSS. Education shouldn't only
be about money.
19. I feel the pros and cons of open source are in different dimensions, so many of the questions
are hard to answer in a one dimensional (agree/disagree) fashion.
18. I think it's gaining ground in lots of areas - when small businesses, currently enduring
difficult times, see the likes of large, cautious institutions like the military, universities,
public-service broadcasters (did you know the BBC has a Charter obligation to develop OSS?)
convert to Linux, then their preconceptions as to its overall cost and perceived lack of
flexibility start to be overcome. It was good to see President-elect Obama run his entire campaign
on a LAMP stack, so, friends in high places!
17. I hate Red Eyed Linuxoid fans...
16. Love running Open Source Software. Would like to see more use in the USA.
15. Can be slow and frustrating opening email attachments
14.
13. they're cool
12. The disadvantage and advantage of FOSS software are the way they work, it forces people on
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investigating more on problems. Sometimes I wish every option or feature would have it's own
detailed application, like Samba+LDAP (for example: a generic QT or GTK based FOSS application is
still missing having all the features listed). You can learn a lot about OS and software by using
open source, yet I would not call myself a regular user, but I still miss the detailed featured
applications from every WM: Gnome, KDE, etc...
11. Doesn't usually work for me, and not compatible with some other software. Too much to learn,
needs to be more user friendly.
10. I don't really use any open source operating systems, but I do hope to in future.
9. Nothing special.
8. Advantages: - fast response on common problems - no business like considerations - high
scalability - no secrets - support from community - Internet is the fastest and widest handbook
(SOP) Disadvantage: - culture around business like support - access for exclusive hardware
producers data - recognition in the education area (people use systems that they learned to use in
the school) - recognition in decision makers level (people make decision beside things, which are
comfortable = known) - lack of business management behind open source (professional marketing,
business solutions, campaigns, etc...)
7. They are usually safer (open source, bugs could be found&fixed easier) they offer freedom they
offer more rights (you actually can check the source what the software actually does
6. Comments to question 9: OSS is not more secure when distributed, but security flaws found are
fixed much faster. comments to question 10: there are many business cases where an open source
software is a better alternative to a closed source software. But there are other business cases
where the best choice is not open source.
5. A lot of apps I use will not run with Linux as they are bespoke programs otherwise i would use
it more
4. It never crashes and is really quick at starting up. Also the same laptop with Windows on it
instead of Linux was a lot more money.
3. There are more but I do not speak well in English :)
2. Being able to use open source software in my business gives me everything I need and more
1.
Observations
I had not expected so many respondents to respond to this question. This final text box was put there
more as a matter of courtesy to the respondents. However, I feel the responses to this question probably
reveal more about the diversity of my respondents than any other question:1. A significant number were not British or American and English was clearly not their first
language.
2. Roughly half the respondents felt it necessary to respond textually. It could be that my questions
were badly designed. On the other hand it could be that a significant number of respondents have
thought through their position with regard to open source.
In any event this result yields a wide diversity with respect to both the opinions of the respondents and
the use to which they put open source software.
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Survey part 8 of 8. Finish
Statement, “Well done! And thank you very much for your help. You have now reached the end of
the questionnaire. Please hit the “Finish” button to save and submit your answers. Best wishes,
Garf.”
Rationale.
I felt it appropriate to thank participants whilst politely pointing out the necessity of clicking the finish
button. Effectively, the entire survey is a web form, spread across several pages. Like any other web
form object, the data it collects is not actually submitted to the server until the user actually submits it.
Illustration 43: Screengrab:
Final screen thanking respondents for their participation and reminding them to click the “Finish” button
Limitations
This is a small scale survey of invited and it would seem relatively enthusiastic open source users,
Therefore there are some caveats to discuss before one can draw any conclusions from the survey:1. There were only 64 respondents to the questionnaire. Therefore results cannot be assumed to be
fully representative of the computer using population at large.
2. The line between home and work use is blurred in this study. Therefore this does not necessarily
give a representative view of open source software usage in a business context.
3. Many of the latter questions were very subjective and were based upon participants' emotional
responses rather than on empirical fact.
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4. There were no questions regarding privacy. This was an unfortunate oversight because it is a
matter about which I feel quite strongly.
5. Though it was not my intention, it seems from the responses to Question 11 that many
participants were actually open source software enthusiasts. Therefore their responses may have
been more positive about open source software than those of the public at large would be.
Observations
Caveats notwithstanding, many of my initial expectations and suspicions were confirmed by the results
of the survey:1. Firefox and OpenOffice.org are the two most popular pieces of open source software.
2. Ubuntu seems the most popular Linux distro. This fits with Distrowatch's findings discussed
earlier.
3. 90% felt the total cost of ownership was less with open source software than it was for
proprietary software.
4. 67% believe that open source software is generally more secure than proprietary software.
5. Linux specifically is less popular than open source generally. Only roughly 75% said they liked
Linux specifically whereas 90% liked open source generally.
6. There were doubts regarding the usability of some open source software.
7. People like open source and particularly like the concept behind it.
8. Whilst no one said they disliked open source software generally, 5% stated they actually disliked
Linux. This might indicate that Linux's geeky image is possibly damaging public perception of
it?
9. Some people had to use proprietary software because there was no open source software
available at all for the things they needed to do.
10. Most importantly, respondents generally felt there was a strong or very strong business case for
open source software. However whilst 57% felt strongly there was a business case for open
source, the flawed design of my survey neglected to establish why they felt this way.
The survey also yielded a few surprises:-
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1. There are roughly the same number of Linux installations as Windows XP. Of course the
question regarding operating system usage was not mutually exclusive. Therefore users could
have been dual or even triple booting to two or more operating systems.
2. Seems participants are using a much greater diversity of open source software that I had
imagined.
3. Red Hat and Fedora Linuxes have fallen from popularity to such an extent.
4. A few people are actually using some relativity obscure operating systems such as Haiku
(formerly BeOS) and Gentoo Linux.
Whilst 64 respondents is not a large number, it is more than 33% larger than the number that responded
to the “Commercial Open Source Survey” conducted by Open Solutions Alliance in July 2008163. Its
survey was designed to ascertain business trends in the commercial open source software. However,
from its 45 total responses, the survey drew some conclusions similar to mine insofar as there was a
consensus that open source software does indeed have a significant future in the world of business.
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Case study: applications for business users
One of the criticisms levelled against Linux both in the responses to the above questionnaire and
amongst users generally is the lack of high quality, “off-the-shelf” business applications. How valid is
this criticism? Whilst this may have been true at one time, how true is it today?
Two popular open source business applications
GnuCash and OpenOffice.org have made great strides in recent years and many believe they are now
serious rivals for expensive proprietary applications. My small business has used both applications
extensively over the last eighteen months, to the extent that it now relies heavily on both packages. Both
packages are genuinely free and so far I have encountered no legal or security issues with either
package. So the real question in this instance is, are they any good? Moreover, to prove there is a
business case, I need to assess how these packages benefit my business?
GnuCash
Illustration 44: GnuCash splash-screen
[Screengrab by Garfield Lucas]
I have used computerised accounts packages to run my small business since the late 1980's. I became a
user of Microsoft Money version 2 in 1992. I upgraded to Money 2001, first on Windows and then on
Linux using WINE. However, the fact that later versions of MS Money use MS Internet Explorer as their
engine caused me great concern. It seems very undesirable that one's accounts package could connect to
the internet without one's express permission. Moreover, Internet Explorer is renowned for its security
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issues164.
Whilst Microsoft's Money offers a lot of functionality, GnuCash is also equipped with a number of
potentially attractive features. For example, I felt that it is one of the few applications where its “Tip of
the Day” dialog contains information that is actually helpful.
Some might argue that, GnuCash's simple design is not as attractive as Microsoft Money. Nevertheless,
it is standards-based, with the ability to connect to on-line banking systems such as OFX DirectConnect
(Open Financial Exchange) for American users and HBCI (Home Banking Computer Interface) for
German users165.
Illustration 45: Helpful “Tip of the Day” dialog.
More importantly GnuCash uses a proper “double entry” book keeping system - or perhaps more
accurately, multiple entry166. This differs from systems such as Microsoft money that use a simple
category system167. In any event, these are my observations following 18 months of experimentation
with GnuCash:●
It has a genuine multi-currency system. This is useful for businesses running say Sterling and
Euro bank accounts side-by-side.
●
It will safely and securely download current share prices and currency values, on demand and
only when one tells it to, and without needing a web browser running.
●
The data-file is a compressed XML file. This means that vital business financial information is
not locked into a proprietary format or tied to the product of just one corporation.
●
Although it was developed for Linux, it can also be compiled for most other Unix or Unix-like
operating systems, including FreeBSD, Solaris and Macintosh OSX. There is also a version for
Microsoft Windows. This means that one does not have to change one's business accounting
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system just because one changes operating system.
●
Reports are output in standard HTML format. This means it is easy to email them to an
accountant or to import into an OpenOffice (or even a Microsoft MS Excel) spreadsheet – so one
can lay it out exactly as the boxes appear on one's Self Employed Tax Return.
●
It is completely free of charge and all its updates are free. This means that businesses are not
forced into a never-ending round of costly upgrades.
●
Updates appear to be genuine improvements and enhancements, not just cosmetic tweaks.
●
Its developers seem open and honest with regard to the product's shortcomings. All its bugs no
matter how trivial are listed in GnuCash's Bugzilla168.
It is relatively simple to import all one’s former MS Money accounts as QIF files (albeit one-by-one). In
my tests, my MS Money accounts always imported perfectly into GnuCash169. It is very easy to set up a
set of accounts that suits one's particular business. Its generic nature means it can be customised to deal
with whatever method of value-added or purchase tax exists in one's particular country – though some
businesses may not like the generic nature of the product and the fact that one may need to customise it.
I have been using GnuCash since May 2007. Initially I ran it as a pilot. Then in July 2007 I ran it for
real. Since then it has behaved flawlessly and it manages all my business accounting needs. Out of
curiosity, I have run several additional installations of GnuCash with fictitious accounts and then
verified the figures manually. The sample screengrab below shows a fictitious set of accounts I created
in 2008 to demonstrate to a client – a non-VAT registered UK-based professional photographer.
I have tried to find faults with GnuCash in order to produce this paper. However, so far I have found
none of any significance. I should also add that as a further experiment, I submitted my annual tax
accounts on-line to HMRC (Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs) for the first time on 2009-01-23 using
GnuCash to produce the figures. I was unable to communicate directly between GnuCash and HMRC's
systems. However, the figures produced by GnuCash were in a format that enabled me to copy and
paste them directly into HMRC's on-line forms without the need for intermediate calculations.
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Illustration 46: [screengrab] Typical GnuCash ledger showing credit card transactions.
All things considered, one could argue that for small businesses, GnuCash might be superior to many of
its commercial rivals, especially for business users for whom verifiable accuracy is important and who
intend to keep records for a long period of time.
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org or more commonly known as “OO.o” or “OpenOffice” is an office suite with similar
functionality to Microsoft Office. The big difference is that OpenOffice.org is open source and it is free
to download, use and distribute170.
It is available in many languages and runs on Linux, Apple Macintosh OSX, Microsoft Windows, Sun
Microsystems Solaris, and other operating systems. According to the description on its site,
OpenOffice.org version 3 is the result of over twenty year's software engineering. Unlike Microsoft
Office, it was developed as a single application from the start. Consequently, its various component
parts appear to have a consistency other products lack. A completely open development process means
that anyone can report bugs, request new features, or enhance the software. The result, according to its
web site, is171:“OpenOffice.org 3 does everything you want your office software to do, the way you want it to.”
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Developers all around the planet are developing free add-ons for OpenOffice.org, for example the
“Reporting GnuCash Data” add-on172 by “Knut”. OpenOffice.org is a mature, reliable and stable office
suite used all over the world by government departments, businesses and individuals. OpenOffice.org
“Writer”, the word processor part, is in some respects better than Microsoft Word. Combined with OO.o
“Draw”, it will double as a fairly credible DTP package, certainly for relatively simple layout tasks173.
OO.o Writer will also act as a competent HTML editor, thus enabling it to create and edit web pages.
Unfortunately, recent versions create a lot of superfluous HTML code that may require the user to edit
out manually.
It seems easy to install on both Linux and Windows platforms and it generally uninstalls cleanly, even
on Windows. This is important in the event that the user decides (s)he does not like it. It is quite a big
download however, typically around 140 MiB – though considerably smaller than the approximate
440MiB download for Microsoft Office174. It is also available for Apple Macintosh, though the
installation is a bit trickier because it requires the X11 windowing system to be installed upon Apple's
own Quartz window system. Since OSX version 10.3, Apple has provided an X-windows system but
this has to be installed as a separate component175. Consequently, a spin-off product called NeoOffice176,
designed to run on Macintosh OSX without X11, has become a popular choice for Macintosh users.
The current release of OpenOffice.org will open and save in the following formats:Microsoft Word *.doc and *.docx files using Writer.
Microsoft Excel *.xls files using Calc.
Microsoft Powerpoint *.ppt files using Impress.
OO.o will also open and save simple Microsoft Access database files though it will not handle complex
Access databases with forms. OO.o does not fully support Microsoft's VisualBasic programming code.
This means that many macros developed in Microsoft Office will not run on OpenOffice.org without
modification. OO.o natively supports the EU recommended and ISO approved OASIS Open Document
Format177. Impress will convert Powerpoint files to SWF (Macromedia Shockwave Flash) format
although the output is relatively unsophisticated. It also saves its output in Portable Document format
(PDF). As an aside, OO.o running on Kubuntu Linux is also the software used to produce this paper.
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Illustration 47: Spreadsheet application originally developed in Microsoft Excel then imported and converted into
OpenOffice.org format. This multiple spreadsheet uses field codes and hyperlinks. However it does not use any macro
code. [Screengrab by Garfield Lucas.]
Overall, my experiments indicate that OpenOffice.org is a very good product. However it lacks some of
Microsoft Office's more sophisticated features. In particular its lack of support for Microsoft
VisualBasic macros could prove a serious disadvantage to a business running bespoke Microsoft Officebased software. Nevertheless, for normal users I believe it is perfectly adequate and its stability makes it
very suited to composing long documents.
Observations
One should avoid drawing conclusions on the basis that “It works for me therefore it will work for
everybody else.” Nevertheless, it would seem reasonable to argue that there are competent open source
software packages freely available for businesses that will do many of the things that business need to
do in the office.
Running Windows applications on Linux
Whilst it seems that for many purposes there are competent and stable open source alternatives to many
proprietary products, there are occasions when it might be desirable to run Windows software on Linux.
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For example, shortcomings in the current release of OpenOffice.org detailed earlier might necessitate
the use of Microsoft Office instead.
Methods
There are several ways that Windows applications may be persuaded to run on Linux. Three of these are
listed in the GovernmentSecurity.org archives178. Though Codeweavers, maker of WINE is keen to
stress that its product is in fact a compatibilty layer rather than an emulator. WINE is a recursive
acronym meaning “Wine is not an emulator”. It works by providing an open source version of the
Windows API (application programming interface) for Linux. Thus it is reasonable to argue there are
four ways to make Windows applications run on Linux:-.
1. Emulation – using products such as Bochs179.
2. Compatibility layer – using products as WINE or Codeweavers CrossoverLinux.
3. Virtualisation. This is where a complete version of Windows is installed atop Linux in a virtual
machine. Such products include VMWare and the open source product now taken over by Sun
Microsystems called VirtualBox180.
4. Porting – editing and recompiling the source code of a Windows application to make it run
natively on Linux. This is usually a very impractical option because most Windows software is
proprietary and therefore one cannot legally gain access to the source code.
Windows applications running on Wine or CrossoverLinux
Since 2007-05-15, I have maintained a list on my personal website of Windows applications that I have
made work adequately on Ubuntu Linux181. I have used a commercial variant of WINE, called
Crossover Linux. I should at this point declare an interest here. I am a Codeweavers “advocate”182 for
two Windows programs, namely ThumbsPlus versions 6 & 7 written by Philip Crews of Cerious
Software183 and PHPRunner written by Sergey Kornilov of XlineSoft184.
Crossover advocates' duties are defined thus:1. Rank how well your application performs in each production release of CrossOver.
2. Submit at least one beta report for each new beta version of CrossOver, so we can track how
well your application works with a potential new release.
Having contacted the developers of both ThumbsPlus and phpRunner, it quickly became clear that they
had no intention of porting their applications to Linux. This meant one had to find other ways of making
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Illustration 48: Screengrab showing ThumbsPlus version 7 for Windows, running as if it were a
genuine Linux application under Codeweavers CrossoverLinux 6.10 on Kubuntu Linux version
7.10. [Screengrab by Garfield Lucas.]
them run on Linux. Since embarking upon the research needed for this paper, my business has tried and
tested over fifty Windows applications on Crossover Linux. Admittedly, some Windows applications
work better than others. That is, some applications will work “out of the box”, e.g. Microsoft Office
versions 9 & 10. Other applications require considerable persuasion, e.g. ThumbsPlus185.
However, my observations indicate that on the latest version of Crossover Linux, which at time of
writing is 7.10, ThumbsPlus is more stable than version 6.10 upon which I conducted my initial
experiments. Moreover, to date, every release of CrossoverLinux seems to deliver greater stability and a
larger number of supported applications. However there is still a significant number of applications that
will not run satisfactorily under CrossoverLinux. For these, virtualisation seems the only alternative186.
Observations
There several methods to make Windows applications run on Linux. However, one needs to ask whether
it is worth the hassle if one already has Windows-based PC's running the software perfectly well? On
the other hand, for businesses that want to migrate to open source but perhaps have one or two
applications that cannot be replaced with Linux-based alternatives, then there are several ways this can
be achieved.
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Case study: open source based businesses
This is to examine some real-world businesses for whom open source software is intrinsic to their
business models. This does not pretend to be representative of all businesses. Nor does it mean to imply
that all businesses should, or even could incorporate open source software in the same way that the
following businesses have.
EcoMoney
Background
Lincolnshire-based IT firm Ecomoney Ltd describes itself as “a social business”. It is a small, UK-based
business engaged mainly with social projects. I first became aware of Ecomoney and its Director,
Robert Simpson when I read his post in an internet forum explaining about a social project he was
running. The post was entitled, “10 pc Cybercafé for 30ukp!!!!”187
I was particularly interested to meet Robert because his personal ethics and values seemed to have a
particularly strong influence on his business model. Besides his claim seemed too good to be true. So on
2007-01-06 I went to interview Robert at the cybercafé he had set up in the Riddings Drop In Centre, a
local community centre about 2km from the centre of Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire, UK.
Business model
Financially, Ecomoney breaks even and its director, Robert Simpson explained that its main function is
to, “Do good things rather than make a profit.”188
Illustration 49: Riddings Drop-in Centre, Lincoln, UK. This is the
location of Robert Simpson's £30 Cyber Cafe
Located in a relatively poor part of the country, this project attempts to bring reliable modern computing
to people that otherwise simply could not afford it. More intriguing was the claim that the eight-year-old
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computers used to create this cybercafé prompted users to, “Remark on how fast they (the cybercafé
PC's) are compared to their computers at home.”
Interview with Robert Simpson, Director of Ecomoney Ltd.
At first glance, Roberts PC’s resembles a batch of 1999-vintage PC’s running Microsoft Windows XP,
complete with the ubiquitous “Bliss” wallpaper. But closer inspection revealed a little Tux (the Linux
penguin) on the “Start” button. This was because what we were looking at was not Microsoft Windows
at all. It was Puppy Linux189, a modern, GNU/Linux distribution, designed specifically to run at high
speed on minimal hardware. Robert has quite intentionally configured these machines to resemble
Windows XP. He explained:“Most of our users have no computer knowledge, Linux can sound frightening. Most people using
our machines don’t even realise they are not running 'doze.[Microsoft Windows]”
At the time of my visit, Robert’s cybercafé consisted of ten PC’s, each fitted with a mere 192 MB RAM
and a relatively pedestrian 566 or 700 MHz microprocessor. Yet these elderly machines performed with
very reasonable speed. They were also very stable and there was not one single crash in all the time I
was there. Robert told me during our recorded interview:“Drop-in centre users range in age from under three to over seventy-three. Assembling enough
commercial Windows-based software to keep such a wide range of users amused would be
prohibitively expensive. You would need to buy ten licences for each piece of software you chose.
And then you would need to buy ten MS Windows licences too. And that assumes one could still
buy a version of Microsoft Windows, sufficiently old to run on such elderly hardware in the first
place e.g. Windows 98.”
“Of course Windows 98 is now entirely unsupported anyway.”
Robert explained that Puppy Linux is a current, modern operating system, supported by a vibrant users
group whilst being designed specifically to run on low specification equipment such as his. Again,
unlike any version of Windows, where almost all the software one needs bears extra costs, Puppy Linux
gives its users almost all the software required for a project like Roberts’s ready to work “out of the
box”. It includes a secure web browser, email client, word processor and spreadsheet190. There are
thousands more free applications just a download away. Moreover, there are several versions of Puppy
that can be easily multi-booted from the same machines. One such distro is Edupuppy. This is designed
especially for younger children and certainly seemed to be greeted with enthusiasm from the younger
users at Riddings Drop In Centre.
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Illustration 50: “Puppy-powered workstations”. They look as if they are
running Windows XP but they are really running Puppy Linux
Robert's machines used to belong to a local school. When it decided to buy new computers, it needed to
dispose of the old ones. Nowadays one cannot simply throw old computers in a skip. They have to be
disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner due to the EC Directive on Waste Electrical and
Electronic Equipment (WEEE)191. Depending on the business's Local Authority, this is not cheap.
According to Robert, in this instance the disposal fee was going to be in the region of £1000.
Consequently, the school administrators were delighted for Robert and his associates to dispose of them
free of charge. Moreover, Puppy and all the software that comes bundled with it is open source and free
of charge too. Robert told me:“The £30 was actually spent on printer cartridges, four plug adaptors, a couple of longer
networking cables, a couple of packs of blank CD's and some cheap headphones. The computers
and all the software was 100% free.”
Hidden costs
The main hidden cost with the Riddings project was its creator's time and expertise. Riddings is Robert’s
first Puppy-based cybercafé. He admits it took him around two weeks actually setting it all up. If the
value of his time were added into the balance sheet then several thousand pounds could have been added
to the cost. However, Robert admits that he was inexperienced setting up such installations and that he
had a great deal to learn. He argues that it would be much quicker second time around, perhaps a day or
two.
Since setting up the cybercafé, Robert has created a complete working Puppy in a single file that can be
piped across a simple local area network. Using this technique, one well known to Puppy Linux experts,
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Illustration 51: Robert Simpson (centre) installs Puppy Linux on an elderly laptop,
explaining the process to me while I (right) interviewed him.
Robert demonstrated how Puppy could be fully configured, complete with all application software an
elderly Compaq laptop in less than half an hour.
Observations
Ecomoney's director is an enthusiast and his company's main purpose is “doing good things” rather than
making money. It is not typical of small business in that sense. Moreover, it relies heavily on the
expertise of its owner being provided for free. On the other hand, the Riddings project would have been
impossible with the limited financial resources available using conventional proprietary software. It is
also worth noting from an environmental perspective, this project gave a new lease of life to equipment
that would otherwise have been scrapped.
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My own business: Garf Technology
Background
My lifestyle and my business are inextricably linked and the business forms
part of my broader set of values and beliefs. To some extent mine is a
lifestyle business192. Today, my business runs almost 100% on open source
software with a commitment to contributing positively and freely back to the
open source movement. Roughly 66% of my working time is study-based,
Illustration 52:
Garf Technology logo
i.e. reading and general research and development, thus generating no direct
revenue at all. But in the long term, I believe my business would not survive
without it. I also make all the business's IT decisions.
Dependence on Windows
Garf Technology has run Microsoft Windows since 1991, when it first used Windows 3.0. Since then it
has used every commercial version available. However the business was never really satisfied with
Microsoft's products. In particular, five areas caused increasing concern:1. Ever-increasing security issues, such as the plethora of Viruses, worms, trojans, spyware and
keyloggers to which Windows systems seem so vulnerable193.
2. Microsoft's draconian licensing system, privacy concerns and possible limitations to the way
systems can be used caused by Microsoft's WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) 194. WGA is
contentious and was subject of a class action taken by California resident Brian Johnson against
Microsoft in June 2006195, alleging that WGA was in fact spyware196.
3. One could not simply install whatever software one needed on what ever PC was available at the
time without checking it was not breaching any licensing agreements.
4. Personal resentment at having to inform a foreign corporation in a foreign jurisdiction every time
one made any major changes to the business's hardware. On recent versions of Windows, major
changes to hardware configuration triggers Microsoft's authentication system, necessitating reauthentication197.
5. Concerns regarding the increasing financial cost of Microsoft licences and upgrades.
So when it was time to upgrade back in May 2007, Garf Technology began considering alternatives. I
had been very impressed when I interviewed Robert Simpson and learned of the way he had been able to
set up a very effective IT teaching suite using all open source software, at near zero cost.
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However the final straw came about when Garf Technology bought a pair of IBM
Lenovo 3000C200 laptop PCs. These are mid-range 1700MHz laptops purchased
from a UK supplier called eBuyer for around £300.00 each. They arrived with the
basic version of Windows Vista preloaded.
However, Vista's performance was deeply disappointing. Problems with
Microsoft Vista included:1. It took more than one hour to get the OS from pre installed state to being
actually usable.
2. MS outlook 2002 crashed on start-up. A cursory investigation revealed
Illustration 53: Free
Software Foundation
"Bad Vista" graphic
that the pre-installed Office 2007 conflicted with it.
3. Excessively slow start up. Repeated tests clocked the mean combined boot-and-start-up time to
be in excess of five minutes.
4. Application launch times in excess of thirty seconds.
5. Confusing, graphics-intensive user interface with lots of unnecessary clutter that needed
switching off in order to achieve reasonable speed from the machine.
Illustration 54: My Lenovo (left) running Kubuntu Linux - which took less than 30 minutes to install and a client's
Lenovo (right) from which we also removed Vista and were attempting to install Windows XP instead – which
incidentally took nearly two days due to driver issues.
When Vista finally loaded up, it had quite a different look and feel from more familiar platforms such as
Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Most notable was the so-called “Fluent” interface on MS Office
2007198. Whilst this would cause me little difficulty, it could cause problems for anyone working for
Garf Technology.
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Looking for alternatives
Firstly Garf Technology considered downgrading to Windows XP. Trouble was there were no
soundcard drivers for XP. Besides it seemed entirely unreasonable that the business should pay twice for
Microsoft licenses. Then Garf Technology considered Linux. It had been experimenting with a variety
of Linux distributions on desktop PC's for some time and had made several abortive attempts to deploy
desktop Linux:●
1999 Debian.
●
2001 Red Hat.
●
2003 Simply Mepis.
Unfortunately, during these previous attempts, Linux was not user-friendly enough for desktop use199.
Besides, it lacked relevant, stable, functional business applications needed to run a business. However,
things change very quickly in the IT Industry and Linux in particular has come a very long way. Besides
Vista made me so angry that I decided if my business had to suffer the inconvenience and consequential
costs of learning new software then Garf Technology should make this intellectual effort really
worthwhile and move all concerned over something that broke the business's dependency on Microsoft.
So research was undertaken on-line to try to establish which Linux distribution is best suited to day-today, desktop use in a harsh business environment. There are many choices but in the end a Debian-based
distribution called Ubuntu was chosen, detailed earlier in this paper.
According to Distrowatch, Ubuntu has become the most popular
Linux distribution in the world200. It was not its popularity per se Illustration 55: Distrowatch website logo
that interested Garf Technology. It was the likelihood of obtaining
adequate community support in order to convert and maintain its systems using Linux, when it been
Windows-based for many years.
First impressions of Ubuntu in a business environment
1. Having booted from the LiveCD, it took around fifteen minutes to install a fully working Ubuntu
operating system complete with a fully working installation of OpenOffice.org. Whereas
Microsoft Vista takes an hour on its own and then requires further time to install applications.
2. Then it was decided to replace Outlook with another FOSS product, Mozilla Thunderbird. Garf
Technology had already experimented successfully with Thunderbird under Windows. It never
crashed and handled a huge archive of old emails far better than MS Outlook. It seems Outlook
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can become unstable when its *.PST file approaches 2GB201. Thunderbird does not seem to
suffer this limitation either on Windows or Linux.
3. Timed tests indicate that Ubuntu's start up averages less than 1/2 of the time that Vista takes.
These findings seem compatible with those of other observers.202
4. Linux applications seem to load at a speed never experienced with any Windows machine.
5. Like many Linux users203, Garf Technology has experienced absolutely no malware issues on
any of its Linux PC's. Whereas on its last generation of MS Windows machines, around one third
of each machine's system resources were occupied running anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall and
other “protective” software. Yet despite these power-hungry precautions, Garf Technology still
suffered over 20 malware strikes on its Windows machines in less than six months, between
2006-12-01 and 2007-05-05.
6. Ubuntu, and almost all the software for Ubuntu is free of charge and easily available using
Ubuntu's Debian-based package management system204.
Current situation
After eighteen months service, these Ubuntu-based machines still deliver the same performance that
they did when they were new. This compares favourably with Windows, where often performance
deteriorates with time, as users install and uninstall more applications205.
Garf Technology subsequently upgraded from Ubuntu to what it regarded as the more stylish and
functional Kubuntu – a fully compatible variant oif Ubuntu featuring the KDE version 3.5 desktop.
KDE also has the advantage of resembling the familiar Windows interface 206. KDE is one of many free
desktop systems available for Ubuntu. Which desktop one chooses is purely a matter of personal choice.
Since May 2007, Garf Technology has purchased three
IBM Lenovo laptops and an Acer Travelmate. It has
removed the pre-installed MS Vista on all four machines
in favour of its modified version Kubuntu Linux. In
addition it is gradually migrating all its remaining
Windows PC's to Kubuntu as well. At time of writing it
runs 6 Linux-based machines on site (five running our
Illustration 56: New KDE desktop logo
demonstrates the increasing visual sophistication
of Linux applications.
modified version of Kubuntu version 8.04 and one
running Xandros). Additionally it has four off-site machines: two UK-based webservers running Debian
version 5.0 and two laptops 1500km away in Hungary, both running Ubuntu version 8.04 and both used
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by non-computer literate, non-English-speaking users. All four of these remote machines are controlled
and upgraded remotely via ssh207 (secure shell).
Ubuntu-family Linux has made migrating to Linux relatively straightforward for Garf Technology.
However it has not been without its issues. For example there are difficulties obtaining drivers for
peripheral equipment such as film and document scanners. In order to resolve these issues, Garf
Technology is currently experimenting with XSANE208 scanning software.
Its few essential Windows-only applications, such as ThumbsPlus, Adobe PageMaker and Microsoft
Access will all run adequately on Linux by using the WINE-based CrossoverOffice from Codeweavers,
as detailed earlier.
All its other data can be handled adequately using the pool of free, open source software applications
currently available in the Ubuntu Linux repositories. For example:●
OpenOffice replaces Microsoft Office for all but the most complex tasks.
●
Gwenview largely replaces ThumbsPlus and other thumbnail software for bulk management of
photographs and other bitmapped images.
Amarok replaces MediaJukeBox and Windows Media Player for playing and tagging audio
●
files209.
Kaffeine, replaces WinDVD and PowerDVD and a miscellany of other proprietary video media
●
software for playing DVD's, watching TV via a Freeview DVB-T card and for playing all other
MPEG2 and xVID media files. Due to recent improvements in the Linux 2.6 kernel, many DVB
cards & USB sticks will simply plug-and-play via Kaffeine often with no additional drivers210.
The only remaining difficulty is obtaining the refund to which the business is entitled from its supplier
eBuyer for unused Microsoft licenses. The Microsoft Vista EULA (End User License Agreement) 211
states:“By using the software, you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the software.
Instead, return it to the retailer for a refund or credit. If you cannot obtain a refund there,
contact Microsoft or the Microsoft affiliate serving your country for information about
Microsoft’s refund policies.”
The dispute is ongoing.
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Observations
Garf Technology is a self-confessed lifestyle business and is therefore not typical of all small businesses.
In addition, its owner enjoys learning and deploying news technology. Thus many of the costs of
deploying open source that other businesses face, were hidden in this instance. Therefore it is not
surprising that deployment of open source software was successful in this business, both in terms of cost
and functionality.
On the other hand, its owner believes that if open source software becomes more popular then the
market for those capable of developing and supporting it will also grow. Moreover, the avoidance of
possible privacy and security issues is important to this business. So is the ability to use a wide range of
software on whatever machine happens to be available. Therefore the migration to open source has
ultimately been very beneficial to the business – though it is hard to place a financial value on it..
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blackPanther Linux and its dispute with the Hungarian Government
Background
BlackPanther [sic], is one of the biggest home-grown, Hungarian-language Linux distributions. Its
owner and key developer is Hungarian developer
Charles Barcza. Not to be confused with a version of
Apple's OSX operating system with a similar sounding
Illustration 57: blackPanther Linux logo
name, Charles chose the name blackPanther for similar
reasons to Torvalds – simply because he likes panthers. blackPanther is based heavily on Mandriva
GNU/Linux. Whilst blackPanther was primarily intended for the Hungarian market, it also available in
other languages, including English. The blackPanther operating system is now supplied as standard on a
range of “tough and reliable laptop PC's” manufactured and marketed in Hungary by Charles'
company212.
Business Model
I was interested to learn how this open source-based business functions and to discover any problems it
was facing. So I journeyed to Hungary to interview Charles. On 2007-06-12 we met in Pécs, a pleasant
Roman town about the size of Southampton, 200km south of the Hungarian capital, Budapest. In the
interview, translated by my Hungarian-speaking partner, Charles explained that his blackPanther
operating system had an estimated 120,000 downloads.
Illustration 58: A small, light, robust, low-power consumption blackPantherpowered laptop in its native environment: in a bar flanked by couple of Pécsbrewed Szalon beers
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Interview with Charles Barcza, CEO blackPanther
APEH's tax return files do not work on any other platform, not even using
WINE or CrossoverLinux – a fact I verified by experimentation prior to
conducting the interview. This dependence on Microsoft Windows
infuriated Charles. He explained:“No one likes paying tax. But being forced to pay an additional
'Microsoft tax' just in order to pay one's statutory tax is
Illustration 59:
blackPanther CEO, Charles
Barcza
fundamentally unjust. Moreover, what sensible business person would
install an OS that cannot be used to complete one's compulsory tax
returns? It is one of the worst examples of government-sponsored
Microsoft-lockin one can imagine”.
However, Charles has commissioned the services of Dr. Csilla Radovics, a well known and respected
Hungarian lawyer to advocate his case213. If he wins, he believes that his case will have serious
repercussions throughout the EU, including here in the UK. He explained that having suffered forty
years of communism, Hungary is becoming a vibrant trading nation once again. He added:“The right to trade was incorporated in the Hungarian Constitution after the revolution in 1989.
APEH forcing business people to use Microsoft Windows was severely restricting his ability to
trade and is therefore unconstitutional.”.
“Moreover, there was a very fundamental human rights issue here too. Why should a Hungarian
national and EU citizen be forced to buy proprietary American software in order to communicate
with his Government? There are many ways that a government can collect data on-line without
forcing its citizens to buy expensive and unreliable foreign software.”
Current situation
Almost two years have passed since our meeting. In that time, Charles has submitted a petition to the
Hungarian Constitutional Court and to the Ombudsman. He approached the Ombudsman because of a
particularly bizarre data protection issue. Seems that APEH's initial response to Charles was that
business people who don't have Microsoft Windows should go to their local “Telehaz” - a sort of free,
community-based internet café214.
Laudable as the Telehaz movement is, Charles argues that the notion that business people should take all
their financial records to a Telehaz is ridiculous. Not merely is it very inconvenient but it raises some
significant privacy and confidentiality issues too. The case is currently proceeding through the
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Hungarian Courts.
Observations
blackPanther as a company relies heavily on open source. Its hardware products have been constructed
around the free blackPanther OS and its consumer price-point relies heavily on the company not having
to pay for licenses fro proprietary software. My albeit limited examination of blackPanther's product
indicate they are very good indeed. However, it seems the company's future is seriously jeopardised by
poorly thought-out government policy.
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The XO Laptop project
Background
Illustration 60: XO Laptop, showing key components [from the Wikipedia]
The XO laptop (AKA the $100.00 laptop, AKA the OLPC -One Laptop Per Child project), is the
brainchild of Nicholas Negroponte from MIT and former United Nations Secretary General, Kofi
Annan.
Business model
It is designed for children in the majority world. Negoponte's vision is to make these for under $100 US
each and make over 100 million of these available to children all over the planet. The first machines
started rolling off Quanta's (its manufacturer) Changshu (ROC) production line 2007-11-07. These
machines use all FOSS. The emphasis has been on toughness, low power consumption and actually
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engaging its users in the computing process215. It is not designed to make a profit. Indeed the project is
constantly looking at ways to obtain funding, including its “Give one, get one” scheme. During the
programme, affluent western donors paid USD 399 for two XO laptops, then kept one whilst donating
the other to the programme216.
Its “Sugar” operating system is a special version of Linux, based on Fedora 7 code, by Red Hat. This
will run on microprocessors that require comparatively little electricity compared to machines running
say Microsoft Windows Vista. The screen has a special monochrome mode so it can be seen clearly in
strong sunlight and in this mode it uses hardly any power at all. They have no mechanical hard disk.
Instead data is stored on a chip similar to a camera card. This cuts the power consumption considerably.
The machines can be powered by a number of different sources, including a hand crank. The “Sugar”
user interface arranges programs in a doughnut shape so that users can see clearly how much memory is
left. The little so-called “bunny ears” on the side of the lid form part of a peer-to-peer wireless
networking system. From a developer's point of view, one of its most intriguing features is the special
button allows children immediately to view and edit the source code of all the main software217.
Being open source, its owners have decided to make the XO's operating system freely available to the
public. It can be downloaded as a free live-cd *.iso file218 from Red Hat's download site.
Critique
The plan has its critics. For example, the Indian Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD), the
government ministry responsible for the development of human resources, is critical of the project. In a
statement to the press HRD said, “India must not allow itself to be used for experimentation with
children in this area.”219
The costs are far higher than Negroponte had hoped. Back in 2007 OLPC's news site reported that the
$100 (US) laptop is now the $150 (US) laptop220.
It is also under fire for alleged patent infringement. Nigeria-based Lagos Analysis Corporation (Lancor)
has filed a lawsuit claiming that the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) foundation, has copied its
multilingual keyboard with its set of four shift keys221.
Lancor's CEO, Ade Oyegbola said, “OLPC illegally reverse-engineered the company's patented
keyboard, which, with its four-shift keys, allows computers to better handle multiple languages.”
Meantime, in 2008, chip manufacturer Intel pulled out from the project after only six months, after
OLPC suggested Intel should abandon its own mini laptop project called the Classmate222.
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Then there are political issues. For
example, some people believe there are
more important things to spend money
on for poor children than computers.
Nigeria's Education Minister, Dr Igwe
Aja-Nwachuku told the BBC in a recent
interview223,
“What is the sense of introducing One
Laptop per Child when they don't have
seats to sit down and learn; when they
don't have uniforms to go to school in,
where they don't have facilities? We are
more interested in laying a very solid
Illustration 61: Asus eeePC [from advertising material].
foundation for quality education which
will be efficient, effective, accessible and affordable.”
Current situation
In a move that seems to contradict its open source roots, the latest XO will also boot to Windows XP. Its
current production of 50,000 per month is rather less than the hundreds of thousands of units per month
that Negroponte had hoped for.
In contrast to the XO, the tiny but in many respects similar Asus eeePC that ships with a very friendly
Xandros Linux, has sold over 2 million units between August 2008 and its launch in January 2008224.
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Illustration 62: Distribution of the XO laptop throughout the world, based on data from OLPC February 2009, fed to
Google Maps. “G1G1” refers to laptops donated by the “Give one, get one” programme.
Observations
It would seem that whilst the XO laptop itself is not quite the success that its creator had hoped, it is far
from a failure. Moreover it seems to have spawned a number of tiny ultra-mobile PC's many of which
run open source Unix-like operating systems and software225. I would be reasonable to conclude at this
stage that there is a very strong case for free open source software on relatively cheap or low powered
hardware.
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Government-funded organisations that are moving to
open source software
In contrast to the small businesses already discussed, it is probably helpful to look briefly at a handful of
large, publicly-funded organisations that have announced plans to adopt open source software. Whilst
government usage accounts for less than 10% of Microsoft's business 226, it is nevertheless an important
customer base. Moreover, it could be argued that if government-funded organisations start using open
source then the companies that support them or depend on them may move in that direction as well.
The projects discussed below are large, ongoing migration projects and in most cases it will not be
possible to assess their success or failure for several more years. Moreover, information regarding the
current state of their various migrations is very hard to find. The main purpose of discussing these
organisations, albeit in a somewhat cursory manner, is to demonstrate that it is not just geeks and
obscure lifestyle businesses that believe there could be a business case for open source software.
EU
In 2002, the European Union started investigating the possibilities offered by open source
software227. A report entitled “Free/Libre and Open Source Software: Survey, Final report
International Institute of Infonomics, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands and Berlecon Research
GmbH, Berlin, Germany” recommended changes in government policy and regulatory environments
with regards to its deployment of open source software.
City of Munich
In 2003, City of Munich decided to remove Microsoft Windows from
all 14,000 of its city workstations and is replacing it with Linux &
OpenOffice.org228 in an ambitious project called LiMux. The project
was delayed until 2006 due to patent law concerns. However the
project is currently under way again. According to the project
Illustration 63: City of Munich's
adaptation of the Tux logo.
director Florian Schiessl, whilst it will be impossible to migrate all
city workers to open source, 80 percent would move across by mid-2009229.
The project's English-speaking website says that currently there are230:●
1,200 work stations migrated to LiMux.
●
12,000 work stations using OpenOffice.org
●
100% work stations using Firefox and Thunderbird.
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City of Vienna
Vienna has gone further than Munich and has released its own version of Linux called
“WIENUX” designed for local government users231. Based on Debian Linux and office
software provided by Sun Microsystems, WIENUX was developed primarily for the
administration of the City of Vienna. However, having developed it Vienna took the
view that it may be helpful for other municipal authorities. A fully working version of Illustration 64:
WIENUX is now available as a free download from its site.
Vienna's
adaptation of
the Tux logo.
However, recent reports suggest that Vienna's attempts have gone rather badly wrong.
One of the difficulties faced by Vienna is supporting its own Linux distribution232. However it would
appear that another problem was that an important language training application used by local children
currently only runs on MS Internet Explorer. It seems that a version for Firefox will not be ready until
later this year233.
It would appear that Vienna is considering Windows Vista, though senior council members insist that it
will continue to use open source for some applications234.
French Parliament
Following decisions by the French Gendarmerie and the Ministry of Culture, the French
Parliament voted in 2006 to migrate to open source software. Starting in June 2007, 1,154
French députés' (MPs) office PC's have been migrating from Windows to Linux, coupled with
OpenOffice.org, Firefox browser and an open source email client235.
UK Government
British Government is flirting with the idea of open source, aided by US software
corporation and Microsoft arch-rival IBM236 The British switch to Linux is spurred on by
similar moves in Germany according to IBM's Linux strategy Manager, Adam Jollans.
In 2004, the UK Cabinet Office published a paper, which stated:●
UK Government will consider OSS solutions alongside proprietary ones in IT procurements.
Contracts will be awarded on a value for money basis.
●
UK Government will only use products for interoperability that support open standards and
specifications in all future IT developments.
●
UK Government will seek to avoid lock-in to proprietary IT products and services.
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●
UK Government will consider obtaining full rights to bespoke software code or customisations
of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) software it procures wherever this achieves best value for
money.
●
Publicly funded R&D projects which aim to produce software outputs shall specify a proposed
software exploitation route at the start of the project. At the completion of the project, the
software shall be exploited either commercially or within an academic community or as OSS.
Quoted from “OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE Use within UK Government”, 2004 October237.
Since then, the move towards open source software has been gaining momentum. In February 2009,
Minister for Digital Engagement, Tom Watson MP said that the British Government would put open
source software on “a level playing field” with proprietary software such as Windows. Open source
software will be adopted “when it delivers best value for money”. Some open source protagonists claim
that the shift from proprietary software to open source could save the UK Government £600 million a
year238.
UK local authorities
Back in 2003, two UK local authorities Newham in London and Nottingham City Council, started
feasibility studies with regard to the possible migration all their 11,500 staff desktop computers from
Windows to Linux with open source desktop applications239.
UK NHS
Parts of the UK's NHS is looking at Linux 240. The NHS in England will continue to test free open source
software, despite paying to run Microsoft software on its estimated 550,000 desktop computers.
Connecting for Health said in a statement forced by the Freedom of Information Act on 2005-07-14 that
whilst none of its main contractors were currently providing solutions based on Linux, the situation is
likely to change in the future. In 2006 Connecting for Health announced a 21.8m agreement with open
source software and services supplier Novell which could save the NHS up to £75 million over three
years, compared to previous arrangements241.
US Army
Perhaps the biggest publicly-funded defection so far from the Microsoft camp is the United
States Army242. Part of its $26 billion Future Combat System.
Announced back in 2003 and described as “the greatest penguin migration of all time”, this move to
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Linux has not been without its problems. This is mainly due to compatibility issues with legacy
Microsoft-based systems. Linux-based systems have a limited ability to communicate with Microsoftbased systems. Potential interoperability problems are very undesirable in conflict zones zone.
However, sources such as the then Program Manager, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Gallop cite similar
reasons to move as those of the lifestyle businesses discussed earlier, namely lower costs, better
security, easier to customise, access to the source code and avoiding dependency on the products of just
one corporation. According to Lt Col Gallop, this is part of a broader move towards Linux by the US
Army: “Evidence shows that Linux is more stable. We are moving in general to where the Army is
going, to Linux-based OS.” 243
At the moment it seems the US Army is running Linux and Windows based systems side by side. It has
chosen Red Hat because it feels this gives the best interoperability. However, this is an interim solution
because eventually all of the Army's networks will be Linux-based244.
US California State
In 2004, the State of California announced
that all its departments should evaluate open
source
software
before
purchasing
proprietary software, as part of its $32
billion cost-cutting plan245. Moreover, the
concept of open source may be used to fix
flaws in California's electronic voting
system. It is thought that Americas new
electronic
voting
systems
which
have
appeared since the 2000 election may in fact
be unreliable.
Illustration 65: Diebold Election Systems, Inc. model AccuVoteTSx DRE voting machine [from the Wikipedia].
According to California Secretary of State
Debra Bowen, the software that designs ballots and operates electronic voting machines needs better
scrutiny. As Secretary of State, she is able to examine the code of proprietary software under special
non-disclosure agreements. However, this information is not easily accessed by the general public or
many of the local authority workers in charge of actually choosing and purchasing these voting
machines.
Bowen said, “I have a separate set of documents that only I can see, that tell me what some of the flaws
are related to proprietary software.” Arguing, “It would be better to disclose all the details of the
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software through an open source model.”246
Meanwhile, the COSTP (California Open Source Text Book) project is well under way. Started in 2002,
COSTP is a collaborative, public-private undertaking created to address the high cost and consistent
shortages of textbooks for primary and secondary schools in California 247. In 2002 California was
spending more than US$400 million annually so called “K-12” textbooks. With K-12 enrolments
projected to rise in the coming years, the cost of textbooks and other curriculum materials in California
will increase proportionately. It is hoped that COSTP will save California State Government around
US$200 million per year248.
Observations
It will be interesting to see if this has any sway with risk-averse IT managers. Perhaps for example,
when learning that the US Army is deploying Linux in a truly mission-critical context, they might
conclude, “If it's good enough for the US Army, then it's good enough for us”?
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Open source and global recession
On 2009-01-23 official figures from the UK National Statistic office confirmed that the UK was
officially in recession. Gross domestic product fell by 1.5% in the last three months of 2008 following a
0.6% drop during July to September249. But how is this likely to affect investments in IT in general or
how IT providers will manage the crisis?
Initially the problems were with financial institutions only, but increasingly these issues are affecting
almost all companies. Nevertheless corporate IT budgets on average are still expected to grow in 2009,
albeit rather less than normal, according to recent research from Gartner250.
Projections
Gartner had originally expected budgets to grow 3.3 percent in 2009. Following the economic turndown these estimates were revised downward to a growth ranging between 2.3 percent to 0 percent.
This is not surprising because IT is no longer a disposable appendage to business. Today IT is integral
and many businesses could not survive in a very competitive environment without effective IT. This is
because:●
Internet usage has increased continuously over the last fifteen years and it is unlikely that
consumers will cancel their broadband subscription or reduce their time spent on-line. The
contrary will happen, more bandwidth and more time in front of the browser, to carefully select
the right products at the cheapest price, to find jobs, to network with colleagues and friends, etc.
●
Many companies understand that on-line communication with their customers is vital for
business. Excessive cost cutting in this area would seem very foolhardy indeed. In fact, many
companies, especially those involved with retail will probably want to shift activities from the
real world to the virtual one because it is so much cheaper to operate an on-line shop than a real
one. 251
Open source and the internet
Open source plays a very significant role on the internet. It is not only companies that arose during the
so-called dot-com boom such as Google, Yahoo or YouTube that are basing their businesses on open
source software. More traditional businesses such as those in the media e.g. BBC 252, and those involved
with telecommunications e.g. British Telecom253 are opting for open source for their internet presence.
Low-cost content management is almost dominated by open source CMS's (content management
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systems) such as Joomla254 and Drupal255. Programming languages such as Zend PHP, Ruby on Rails
and Python along with database engines such as mySQL & PostGres provide coding and data storage
and retrieval mechanisms behind many popular websites. Moreover, transaction type sites are often
created using free open source products such as osCommerce 256 on-line shop and JBoss257 application
server.
Cutting costs
One of the driving forces behind the adoption of open source is cost-cutting According to Business
Week magazine, as the recession puts pressure on technology expenditure, many companies are turning
to open-source software to manage an increasing number of IT-related tasks258.
Open source projects components are offering an enormous potential both for business expansion and
for cost savings. Business solutions can be assembled in short time-frames at low cost259. In other words
it is not just that open source is basically free, it is that large project can be started and developed for
relatively low cost that is attractive to businesses.
The end of independent open source
Red Hat has seen a 29 percent increase in revenue this past quarter compared to the same time period
last year260. Nevertheless its stock value is falling – as is the case for many open source companies. This
could mean that small independent open source companies get bought up by larger ones. Examples of
this of this include the proposed takeover of Red Hat by database giant Oracle261 and the recent
announcement that Oracle is to takeover Sun Microsystems262.
Other things that might adversely affect open source
With all of the big technology companies being adversely affected by the ongoing recession, this means
that open-source developers have also been forced to scale back on costs. For example, Sun
Microsystems had 34,900 employees at the end of its last fiscal year in June 2008. Lay-offs announced
in November 2008 will mean Sun will shed between 5,000 and 6,000 workers over the next financial
year263.
Open source companies are still technology companies and economic downturns can hurt them as much
as any other company264. No commercial organisation is immune from the dangers of this recession.
Open source projects that rely on volunteers may not be immune either. Any business model that relies
on volunteers could see interest decline as times get tough. There are a lot of open source projects that
rely on people working for them for free because their developers earn their wages from a paid day-job
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elsewhere. If these people loose their paid jobs then their efforts are likely to focus on finding paid work
rather than spending time on unpaid work265.
Observations
It is impossible to predict how a recession will turn out. However it does seem reasonable to assume that
free, open source software will be attractive to businesses during a time when money is in short supply.
Therefore, it also seems reasonable to expect slow but steady gains in the open source market. But the
recession will do its part in killing off weaker companies, including firms based upon open source.
Moreover, as the economy contracts, the customer base for both closed and open source software will
shrink.
Switching a business to open-source will not automatically save it from bankruptcy. Maintaining a
strong customer base and providing the products that one's customers want to buy, at a price they can
afford are what keeps companies afloat during financially difficult times. However, taking advantage of
the cheaper investment opportunities created by open source might give a business a competitive edge
after the recession. Moreover, open source developers might find their potential market is considerably
enlarged once money starts flowing again.
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Conclusions
There are a number of imponderables surrounding the case for open source software. Several fiercely
fought debates surround open source software and particularly Linux, with no really conclusive
evidence on either side of the debate:1. Is Linux more or less secure than Windows? Having studied the arguments on both sides it is
hard to hard to find conclusive proof on ether side of the argument. It would seem plausible that
for users prepared to engage in the security process that open source can be more secure than
proprietary products. Calling on personal experience as a person that does try to engage with
security issues on his systems, I have suffered a lot of viruses and other security issues with
Windows and proprietary applications such as Internet Explorer. Whereas, I have virtually none
with Linux and its associated open source applications. However just because it works for my
business, one cannot conclude that it would necessarily be the case for every other business.
Nevertheless, there is a strong argument to suggest that a properly configured Unix-based system
is probably more intrinsically secure than a properly configured Windows one. However this is
not related to its being open source – there are plenty of relatively secure Unix-like operating
systems that are not open source, e.g. Apple Macintosh OSX and Sun Solaris. The security is
achieved by Unix's rigidly enforced file permission.
2. Privacy. The closed source model allows potential abuse of privacy via collection of data from
users machines using hidden back doors created by the software manufacturer. In particular,
Windows Genuine Advantage and the information leaks in Internet Explorer are quite
unacceptable for my business. Unfortunately this was omitted from the user survey. Therefore I
am unable to gauge the depth of feeling or whether others would consider this to be part of a
business case.
3. Is Linux a disruptive or an established technology? This seems to depend on one's point of
view. For my business and for many of those who responded to the User Survey, it appears
Linux is an established rather than a disruptive technology. However for companies that have
invested heavily in proprietary systems, a move to open source could prove very disruptive,
particularly if existing proprietary suppliers have enforced any sort of vendor lock-in.
4. Is open source software really cheaper to run than proprietary software? It has been for
cheaper my business. Our software costs are zero. I maintain my systems myself and enjoy doing
so. It seems that many of the respondents to my survey agree. However, I was unable to conduct
any studies at a large corporate level. Moreover, even for small businesses, finding someone to
Page 99 of 117
maintain open source systems might prove a lot more expensive that finding people with
Windows skills, simply because there are more Windows experts around. Therefore I am of the
opinion that TCO really depends on the business and therefore calculations need to be done on a
case by case basis.
However it seems there are some reasonably firm conclusions one may draw:1. Diversity of business models. Clearly not all businesses are the same. Not merely do they vary
in size but also in the products they make and sell, and the rationales behind their businesses.
Some companies are purely in it for the money. Others care little about profits and state that their
aim is to “do good things”. Some even enjoy the the spirit of cooperation and camaraderie that
defines the open source community.
2. Software for business. Open source software has improved greatly in recent years and my
research suggests that for many businesses there is perfectly adequate open source software for
both the Linux and Windows platforms. The User Survey established that open source users are
already using a much larger variety of open source software than I envisaged. This could mean
that proprietary solutions will increasingly be limited to niche professional markets where there
may be no free open source alternatives.
3. Hardware issues. For business considering abandoning Windows altogether and opting for
Linux instead, there may be additional issues regarding software and drivers for specialist
applications. In particular, image scanning seems particularly problematic. On the other hand,
newer Linux kernels have many hardware drivers per-compiled into them. Consequently, a lot of
hardware that was unusable on Linux at only a few years ago is now recognised and works
without any installation of special drivers.
4. Politics. Whilst government purchasing is a relatively small part of over all software purchasing,
the influence of government should not be underestimated. For example, in the blackPanther
case study, I explored the damage done to the blackPanther Linux project as a result of the
Hungarian Government adopting a Windows-only system for filing of business tax returns.
Fortunately for British users, HMRC has adopted a platform-independent solution. Consequently
in this instance British businesses are a lot freer to choose software that best suits their business
models, as I demonstrated in my study of GnuCash. Moreover it would seem from my albeit
cursory examination of government-funded organisations, that an increasing number are looking
seriously at adopting open source. Of course, it may be some time before the ramifications of
their decisions become apparent.
Page 100 of 117
5. Environmental. Linux can be compiled to run on much older hardware. This means that lowspecification but serviceable hardware no longer needs to be scrapped simply because it will not
run the latest version of Windows. The Riddings Cybercafe case study demonstrated how a
perfectly adequate teaching suite could be created using machines that could not run a modern
version of Windows but that could run a modern version of Linux specifically designed for
machines of that vintage. Moreover, projects such as the XO laptop demonstrate how Linux can
be compiled to have a relatively low power consumption too.
6. Recession. We are currently in a serious economic recession. It seems logical that many
businesses will be attracted to free open source software in order to keep costs as low as
possible. However one should not look on open source as a universal panacea because open
source projects themselves will be affected by the recession too.
7. Human factors. There are human factors such as risk aversion and familiarity to consider.
People are still scared of using free software because there is no one to blame if it goes wrong.
Closely allied to these are legal and patent issues. Whilst no users have actually been taken to
court by Microsoft for using Linux and its case is at best dubious, this has nevertheless sewn
seeds of doubt. Interestingly in the user survey no open source user actually expressed any
concerns about patents.
Gazing a little into the future, I think it is likely that common applications will move from desktop to
server or simply become become platform-agnostic. For example, multi-platform open source
applications such as GnuCash, GIMP, OpenOffice and mySQL will become increasingly robust and
capable for all users and will run on a variety of platforms. This could mean that the Windows platform
itself could become less relevant than it is today. Meantime I think it is reasonable to expect a mix of
proprietary and open source software in many businesses.
So it seems reasonable to conclude that there is indeed a business case for open source software.
However, the strength of this case is far from homogeneous and it varies significantly from one business
to another.
Page 101 of 117
Apendices
Appendix 1: Formats of dates and times
All dates and times are expressed in UTC and in ISO 8601 format, i.e. ccyy-mm-dd hh:mm. This is the
preferred method of the Worldwide web consortium266.
Appendix 2: Weights & measures
Unless otherwise noted, this document uses SI metric units throughout.
Appendix 3: Frequently used abbreviations
API = Application Programming Interface.
CMS = Content management System.
CVS = Concurrent Versions System.
DVB = Digital Video Broadcasting.
EULA = End User License Agreement.
FLOSS = Free Libre Open Source Software.
FOSS = free open source software.
GIMP = Gnu Image Management Program.
GNU = Gnu’s not UNIX [recursive acronym that started life when the Unix market was dominated by
vendors of proprietary Unix operating systems].
IEEE = Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.
ISO = International Organisation for Standardisation.
IT = Information Technology.
KDE = K Desktop Environment [recursive acronym].
MS = Microsoft.
OLPC = One Laptop Per Child project.
Page 102 of 117
OO.o = OpenOffice.org.
OSS = Open source software.
OSX = Apple Macintosh Operating System version 10.
PC = Personal Computer.
PHP = Pretty Hypertext Preprocessor.
PDF = Portable Document Format.
RFC = Request for Comments [documentation used by the World Wide Web consortium to establish
technical standards].
SI = Systeme Internationale.
SQL = Structured Query Language.
SVN = Subversion revision control system.
SWF = Shockwave Flash.
UMPC = Ultra Mobile Personal Computer.
UTC = Universal Time Coordinated.
VM = Virtual Machine.
W3C = World Wide Web Consortium.
WEEE = EC Directive on Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment.
WINE = Wine is not an emulator [recursive acronym].
WWW= World Wide Web.
XSANE = Scanner Access Now Easy (for X11 windowing system).
Appendix 4: The “Tux” email
Re: Linux Logo prototype.
Linus Torvalds ([email protected])
Thu, 9 May 1996 17:48:56 +0300 (EET DST)
.
Somebody had a logo competition announcement, maybe people can send their
Page 103 of 117
ideas to a web-site..
.
Anyway, this one looks like the poor penguin is not really strong enough to
hold up the world, and it's going to get squashed. Not a good, positive logo,
in that respect..
.
Now, when you think about penguins, first take a deep calming breath, and
then think "cuddly". Take another breath, and think "cute". Go back to
"cuddly" for a while (and go on breathing), then think "contented".
.
With me so far? Good..
.
Now, with penguins, (cuddly such), "contented" means it has either just
gotten laid, or it's stuffed on herring. Take it from me, I'm an expert on
penguins, those are really the only two options.
.
Now, working on that angle, we don't really want to be associated with a
randy penguin (well, we do, but it's not politic, so we won't), so we
should be looking at the "stuffed to its brim with herring" angle here.
.
So when you think "penguin", you should be imagining a slighly overweight
penguin (*), sitting down after having gorged itself, and having just burped.
It's sitting there with a beatific smile - the world is a good place to be
when you have just eaten a few gallons of raw fish and you can feel another
"burp" coming.
.
(*) Not FAT, but you should be able to see that it's sitting down because
it's really too stuffed to stand up. Think "bean bag" here.
.
Now, if you have problems associating yourself with something that gets
off by eating raw fish, think "chocolate" or something, but you get the
idea.
.
Ok, so we should be thinking of a lovable, cuddly, stuffed penguin
sitting down after having gorged itself on herring. Still with me?
.
NOW comes the hard part. With this image firmly etched on your eyeballs, you
then scetch a stylizied version of it. Not a lot of detail - just a black
brush-type outline (you know the effect you get with a brush where the
thickness of the line varies). THAT requires talent. Give people the
outline, and they should say [ sickly sweet voice, babytalk almost ]"Ooh,
what a cuddly penguin, I bet he is just _stuffed_ with herring", and small
children will jump up and down and scream "mommy mommy, can I have one too?".
.
Then we can do a larger version with some more detail (maybe leaning
against a globe of the world, but I don't think we really want to give
any "macho penguin" image here about Atlas or anything). That more
detailed version can spank billy-boy to tears for all I care, or play
ice-hockey with the FreeBSD demon. But the simple, single penguin would
be the logo, and the others would just be that cuddly penguin being used
as an actor in some tableau.
.
Linus
Page 104 of 117
Appendix 5: Bibliography
For web based documents, the reference comprises of the following elements:●
Author(s).
●
Year.
●
Document title.
●
[Journal] Format.
●
URL.
●
Date accessed.
For home-page style web documents the reference format differs slightly:●
Organisation.
●
Date.
●
Title of homepage.
●
Format.
●
URL.
●
Date accessed.
Other notes:1. URLs are in the standard defined in RFC1738267 I.E. http (or https in the case of secure sites)
://domain.tld/directory/file.extension.
2. For clarity, parameters are delimited with the pipe “|” character.
3. Dates are formatted in ISO 8601 format as clarified in Appendix 3.
Page 105 of 117
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Is there a business case for open source software?

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