Open Source has won precisely because we no longer notice it | Bangkok Post: tech

OPEN THOUGHT

Open source has won. Oh, how time flies. When I started writing in Database in May 2003, my first column was about how the ICT Ministry had got the budget PC programme all wrong. ICT Minister Surapong had announced his great success at negotiating the inclusion of Windows XP and Office XP at just 1,500 baht, a 90 percent discount. He saw it as success. I saw it as capitulation.

Back then, Thailand had a chance to lead the world in breaking the Microsoft addiction. Instead, we capitulated. Would it be considered a success to negotiate a 90 percent discount on cocaine?

In those days, Thailand was on the map in the open source movement. Mark Shuttleworth, head honcho of Ubuntu Linux and the world's second space tourist, came here a number of times to talk about how Ubuntu on the desktop was ready and talk with the Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa) on a number of things that did not end well.

Back then, we had Microsoft's Ballmer liking Linux to Communism. We had the Evil Empire sowing doubts about anyone allowing any GPL code in an organisation, telling its clients that it would spread like a tumour and that every piece of intellectual property it came in touch with would suddenly be property of the great unwashed masses.

No matter. Fast forward seven years and Linux has won. Open source is everywhere. The business model is well understood and no longer something for ultra-leftwing activists.

I was having dinner with the former regent of the Evil Empire the other day and his conclusion was totally the opposite. That the lack of headline news meant that the forces of convention had won.

Back in the day, Open Source was all about freedom. It had a "VW Camper van, make love not war" fuzzy warm feel to it. Today, that still exists, but so does a realisation that money can be made from it in a fair way.

The change in RedHat is a good story of what happened. RedHat was a very popular Linux distribution, but they found a business niche in providing support for what was inherently free. RedHat evolved into a big corporation with revenue from certification, training, support and management.

Because it is open source, RedHat had no control over the bulk of what it was selling. CentOs emerged as a "white box" version of RedHat that did not tie into the paid-for RedHat-only control and management tools. RedHat evolved into the server-side only as Linux grew and took over the Internet. As for the desktop, RedHat spun that off into Project Fedora (a type of hat).

Indeed, the model of providing something for free, then selling training, technical support and management around it has proven so popular that even Oracle has jumped on the bandwagon and offers Oracle Unbreakable Linux support to users basing their application stack on Linux.

Open Office is (just about) a credible Office replacement that is free and open source. IBM has taken Open Office and created Lotus Symphony. No, Big Blue is not doing it out of the kindness of its heart, but it has a business reason. By getting rid of the commodity Microsoft tax that is Office, IT departments can free up money for IT projects, projects that IBM wants a slice of.

Going further afield, there are open source packages such as Sucar CRM (customer relationship management), jFire and Open Bravo, a free, open source ERP (enterprise resource planning) and POS (point of sale). The basic module is free but the company sells add-on modules for compliance with specific industries or countries as well as support and even offers to host it for you, for a fee.

So that is the open source model today. Give it away for free, but time is money, and in many cases, buying expertise or hosting makes economic sense rather than hiring someone to do it yourself and waiting months for implementation. Everyone knows and understands it. Well, everyone bar certain military appointed ICT Ministers.

If you want a graphical touch screen-centric restaurant management system for free, Open Bravo can do that too. If you want it next week, you can pay for that.

If you want a phone OS, you can use OPhone, sort of a free Open Source fork of Android. If you want something that works better and is more polished, then sign up with Google for the whole bakery culinary experience that is Android.

If you want to run a huge database on an HP Itanium Superdome, yes IBM and Oracle have databases for you, but so does MySQL (which, unfortunately is now also part of Oracle).

Sun Microsystems had an entire open source stack from OS (Solaris) to Database (MySQL) to application framework (Java and Glassfish). But Sun did not survive and is now part of Oracle. In many ways, Sun moved too fast before the industry. Think SunFire thin clients _ perfect now in a world where virtual desktops run in the data centre but not five years ago. Or how about Sun Wonderland _ a virtual world for meeting and collaboration not that different from Avaya Live. Or indeed Java FX, an open source phone platform, not unlike Android.

But while the Sun sets in Larry's empire, many promising open source projects are popping up everywhere. Ubuntu has gone from strength to strength, no doubt helped by the financial stability of Mr Shuttleworth himself. Today, Maverick Meerkat is rock solid, fast and so much fun to explore. Then there is Ubuntu Ubuquity, a tablet user interface that could work wonders, Chrome OS, based on the Chromium open source project by Google (Android is for touchscreens, Chrome OS for keyboards) and MeeGo, the Intel/Nokia (and now AMD) smart phone OS.

It has been said that any technology succeeds when its use is implicit. Nobody gets on an aeroplane to fly to, say, Singapore any more. People fly to Singapore. Nobody uses an Open Source Linux kernel anymore, they use Chrome (on Ubuntu) or make a call on their Nexus One (on Android) or, when taking an order in a restaurant, on OpenBravo ERP. Open source is everywhere. It has won.

No, Mr Scotsman, the fact that nobody is fanatical about Open Source does not mean it has lost. It has won because the world is using it without fanfare.

Years ago, I started writing as an open source advocate in the corridors of power. Later, I named my column Open Thought because of its focus on Open Source. Seven years later, I rarely have to write about open source, as everyone in IT knows about it, but I still use Ubuntu every day and spend my weekends experimenting with new packages, many of which can now be installed with a couple of clicks. As Spock might say, infinite diversity in infinite combinations.