Linux crashes corporate gates

Open-source software, long favoured by hackers and hobbyists, is finally winning mainstream converts, KEVIN MARRON reports


By KEVIN MARRON

Special to The Globe and Mail

Friday, November 15, 2002 – Print Edition, Page B11

Canadian National Railway Co. has a new platform for its software.

The Montreal-based transportation giant is using the open-source operating system Linux as a vehicle for a railway signalling database -- and thus is joining a growing number of companies enjoying a free ride on software developed by volunteers and available for anyone to download, copy and share.

Created in the early 1990s, Linux is a product of the open-source software movement, a loosely organized group dedicated to the principle that software should be free and open for all to use. It was developed by the Finnish programmer Linus Torvalds with the help of computer experts from all over the world collaborating over the Internet.

Linux has long been the darling of computer hackers, hobbyists and -- as IBM Canada Ltd.'s Chris Pratt puts it -- "guys with long hair, sandals and something to prove in the academic world."

But this free software, with its anarchic background and idealistic aspirations, is now gate-crashing the corporate information technology world, where it is promising revolutionary reductions in operating costs and challenging the domain of established software vendors.

John David, president and chief executive officer of Ware Solutions Corp., a Calgary-based provider of physicians' practice-management and medical-record technology, says Linux-based solutions are just what the doctor ordered for a cash-strapped health system. "We can offer physicians a rock-solid application that's affordable for them."

Mr. David says customers were skeptical at first when his company began offering a high-volume transactional processing system using free software. "In the early days, they looked at us like we were way out there on the fringe," he recalls. But, now that people have had more opportunity to compare prices and investigate the technology, they are finding they can save thousands of dollars. And, he says, they are coming to understand "that it is not that risky a solution and it performs better."

As an operating system, Linux provides the underlying software infrastructure that lets applications communicate with hardware devices. It was designed to give users a freely available alternative to proprietary commercial products from companies such as Microsoft Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc.

Now many established vendors, including Sun, IBM, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Oracle Corp., have jumped on the bandwagon and are themselves offering customers Linux services and support.

"Linux is moving more and more mainstream every day and it is getting ready to make another big jump," says Jack O'Brien, manager of Sun's Linux business office in Santa Clara, Calif.

Unlike rival commercial operating systems, Linux can be downloaded over the Internet and used for free, though in practice, users generally pay fees to distributors and service providers who offer packages, add-ons and tools to help manage and maintain it. Mr. Pratt, who is Linux manager with IBM Canada, says many of the company's corporate customers are replacing proprietary technology with Linux because they believe it will give them better performance at lower costs.

Not surprisingly, traditional software developers disagree. Kevin Hunter, senior product manager for .NET servers at Mississauga, Ont.-based Microsoft Canada Co. disputes many of the claims made on behalf of Linux.

He agrees that the open-source operating system may make sense in some niche marketplaces, but maintains that large enterprises and small businesses alike will find that Microsoft still offers solutions that meet their needs better.

Mr. Hunter says the Microsoft paradigm helps organizations reduce total cost of ownership by offering tools for managing technology, "giving them more time to run their businesses, freeing up resources and reducing cost."

Nonetheless, CN says it is pleased with its decision to switch. Linux runs on 20 to 30 computer systems in its Calgary rail traffic control centre, and about as many more in each of three other control centres.

"The bang for the buck is good," says David Livingstone, a senior operations officer at the railway. He says Linux provides a stable and reliable platform for an Oracle database used to gather maintenance information from trains while they are on the move, and to send orders out to crews.

"We're seeing a trend of more and more of our businesses moving their software platforms onto Linux," says Brent Chin, national solutions manager for technology for Oracle Corp. Canada Inc., noting that Linux appeals to companies trying to cut costs.

International Data Corp. of Framingham, Mass. is projecting that worldwide spending on Linux-related software will grow at a compound annual rate of 28 per cent to $280-million (U.S.) in 2006 from $80-million (U.S) last year.

Mr. Pratt says IBM has seen an even bigger increase in Linux use this year, in keeping with a more aggressive prediction by Gartner Inc., which called for 50-per-cent Linux growth in 2002. According to Gartner, nearly 6 per cent of all servers sold last year were running Linux, up from less than 1 per cent in 1999. Gartner reported earlier this year that Linux server sales rose 79 per cent to $235.9-million in the first quarter.

So far, only 9 per cent of the world's 3,500 largest companies have completed a Linux implementation, but there are now strong signs that Linux is ready for prime time, says Joshua Walker, an analyst with Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research Inc. "Key milestones have been reached that make Linux a stronger alternative," he concludes in a research brief published last month, noting that these milestones include: support from major vendors, such as Oracle and IBM; the key role that Linux is playing in Sun's software initiative and its battle with rival Microsoft; and Linux endorsements from big companies, including Amazon.com Inc., which says it has saved $10-million by moving its shopping site from proprietary technology to cheaper servers running Linux.

Evan Leibovitch, president of the Toronto-based Linux Professional Institute Inc., an international body that provides certification programs for Linux programmers, says it is impossible to do a head count of Linux users around the world, since no one is tracking how often the software code is downloaded over the Internet or passed on from one user to another. He says his program, which began in 2000, now certifies more than 1,200 programmers every month and that number is rising continually.

IBM's Mr. Pratt says Linux is now widely used on Web servers, computers that manage on-line content. It is also a popular operating system for major research projects in which several computers are joined together in clusters.

The digital-animation industry has adopted Linux en masse and it is now being used in various embedded devices, such as digital set-top boxes, according to Mr. Pratt. He says it is popular for point-of-sale applications and other situations where companies must deploy a huge number of simple computing devices and can now save a lot of money on licence fees by using Linux.

A key difference between the open-source Linux operating system and proprietary platforms from companies such as Microsoft is that all Linux software code is made freely available to anyone who wants to see it or use it, whereas proprietary software code is shared only by agreement with preferred partners or developers. What this means, according to Mr. Pratt, is that users with the right programming skills can adapt the software and write new applications to meet their needs, while they also have access over the Internet to the expertise and resources of thousands of other programmers, all of whom are able to work with the same code.

"We can be our own masters," says CN's Mr. Livingstone. "Linux gives you an environment where you can do whatever you want. You can look at the source code to figure out what's happening. You can manipulate the code to do what you want to do and you can understand