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Free software
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The cover of the March 15 CIO Magazine warns that if you don’t have an open source plan today, you will be paying too much for IT tomorrow. In simplistic terms, Open Source Software is free software that is freely licensed. The General Public Licensing structure gives users the latitude to run the software for any purpose private or commercial, to study, modify, improve, copy or share it without paying royalties to the developers. The open source movement began about 20 years ago but really didn’t come into public prominence until around 1998. The sudden late interest was due in large part to greater acceptance and wider use of the Internet and the increased use of free software such as Free BSD, Linux and Apache to host websites. Recognizable companies like Yahoo and Google have always used these OSS programs to operate their sites at significant savings compared to commercial software. Others—like NASA, the city of Kenosha, Wis., and Omaha Steaks International—have recently recognized the value of OSS and have incorporated it into their operations. The idea of giving away business software is radical, and revealing the source code is even more radical. Many corporate executives and IT people question how good software can be if it’s free. The answer, in some cases, is that OSS is actually better than its commercial counterparts. Accomplished programmers trying to satisfy a need that has been overlooked by the industry develop many of the OSS programs. Once in the public domain, other programmers who share that original need improve the software. Today, there are thousands of OSS programs that perform the same functions as commercial software yet cost nothing. One need only to go to a single site like www.freshmeat.net to find categorized programs of all types that can be downloaded, installed and run. Several months ago the IT committee sent out a brief survey to determine whether and how AASCIF members are using OSS. Only one respondent reported using OSS web server software. The lack of positive responses challenged the IT Committee to do additional research on OSS and present the findings at the IT workshop scheduled for September in Las Vegas. Members of the IT Committee will discuss construction of a data warehouse using a Linux/Oracle combination, evaluate the Open Office suite on Windows as an alternative to the Microsoft Office suite, and further explore how Open Source Software might help member funds keep technology costs down and increase collaboration within AASCIF. Author Ray Everett can be contacted at REverett@scfaz.com or (602) 631-2489. Download complete newsletter in PDF format |
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Ray
Everett
