In a technology world long dominated by proprietary software, open source exists as a way for small and medium-sized businesses to acquire software tools and applications at affordable prices. With open source, one or more software developers write code to create a program and allow other developers to access the code; then, by sharing ideas and changing each other’s code, the program is improved or changes direction as more developers look at it.
Open source software, distributed with licenses that guarantee the right to freely use, modify and redistribute the code, offers benefits that make the approach equal — and, in many cases, superior — to traditional software offerings. This means that programs are more secure and software bugs usually get fixed faster. However, open source software can be user-unfriendly, and it’s not always as compatible as other programs.
Use the following descriptions of how open source can be used to determine how your company can take advantage of what it has to offer.
Office software
A range of desktop office tools — including word processing, spreadsheet, graphics, calendar, drawing and presentation applications — are available through open source. Most of these programs work on a variety of computers and operating systems. For example, OpenOffice from OpenOffice.org allows data to be stored in an international open standard format, and the program can read and write files from other common office software packages. Sun’s StarOffice is based on OpenOffice and offers additional usability and functionality enhancements. Other open source office systems include Corel’s Word Perfect Office and VistaSource’s Applixware.
Web and email
Instead of using the browsers and email systems packaged with traditional operating systems, many computer users turn to open source systems. Developers say these systems are more efficient and run faster. Features include tabbed browsing and downloadable extensions and plug-ins. Google Chrome, for example, allows users to drag tabs out of the browser to create new windows and use Web applications without opening a browser. Synovel Technologies’ Spicebird offers full-featured email functions, a built-in news reader, contact management, calendaring and task management. The Mozilla Foundation’s Firefox has tabbed browsing, spell check, live bookmarking and a download manager. Extra functions can be added through add-ons that are created by third-party developers.
Database development
Businesses wanting to create Web applications or data warehouses and reporting applications in an open source environment can turn to a variety of offerings, including full-text searches. PostgreSQL, for example, boasts features that include point-in-time recovery; a sophisticated query planner/optimizer; write ahead logging for fault tolerance; and compatibility with SQL, the standard database programming language. The software runs on all major operating systems, including Linux, and has native programming interfaces for C/C++, Java, .Net, Perl, Python and Ruby.
Another popular open source database development offering is Firebird. Like PostgreSQL, Firebird supports standard SQL features and runs on Linux and other leading operating systems. Sun’s MySQL is the world’s most popular open source database with more than 11 million installations worldwide. MySQL is the de facto standard for high-traffic Web sites because of its high-performance query engine and fast data insert capability. The software runs on more than 20 platforms, including Linux.
Operating system
The Linux operating system is arguably the best-known open source technology. Renowned as a stable, low-cost and highly efficient operating system, Linux can be used on everything from laptop and desktop computers to powerful servers. As one of the largest contributors to Linux and the associated GNU Project, Sun has a key interest in the system’s development. Additionally, Sun’s own Solaris 10 operating system provides source and binary compatibility for Linux applications. Other open source operating systems include FreeBSD, NewOS and Haiku.
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