Motivation for the application of open source software (OSS)

Micromata is motivated to use and actively support open source software because of the:

Free choice of components due to open standards and interfaces

Manufactures of commercial software have an interest in selling more products to clients. The compatibility of products of one manufacturer is often made possible with interfaces that are not open and proprietary. Hence, the system integrator has no opportunity to choose freely amongst system components of various manufacturers.

Open source software works differently. Different open source projects are inclined to cooperate with each other. Through keeping standards as well as opening of interfaces and data formats the integrator – and hence the user – has got a free choice as to which software to apply. As a consequence the best available solution for the case at hand will be selected.

Endless possibilities and open borders with open source software – expansions are doable

The range of both commercial software as well as open source software meets limitations. In the event that a particular case is not covered, a customised solution needs to be found. In the case of commercial software, there are isolated applications. An expansion of open source software is passed back to the community (provided that the client agrees). This bears advantages for the user:

With a little bit of luck more users are found. Now the user community can share costs for the maintenance of customised solutions.
Developers of fellow projects take the interfaces of the solution into consideration. Consequently, the customised solution merges more and more with the open source software landscape.
The client can consult further or other system developer from the open source software community.

Very positive experiences in support areas

Requests for support with open source products are usually responded to much faster and more competent than for commercial products. In Particular, there are clear question and answer sources, which do not hide weaknesses of the products.

Security flaws are closed with so-called patches. These are small source code snippets, which administrators can build in. These snippets are only a few bytes large and immediately after the identification of a security hole they are distributed via a mailing list. Commercial products are delivered in a binary format. Patches would have to be built in by the manufacturers, and updates and service packs need to be designed. This is far more invasive and has to happen using greater care. Ensuring the same level of quality, security holes are closed within weeks with commercial software – within ours with open source software.

No dependency from manufacturers

The application of open source software frees from the dependency from manufacturers. With open source software no sudden price increases or amendments of the licence regulations are to be expected.

Positive experience in the interaction with Open Source Software

In open source projects the most important design feature is the ability to interlink commercial products. This pragmatic approach has been pursued consequently for years. Hence, it is easier to integrate Windows, MacOS etc. into Linux than vice versa.

Stability and security though Openness

Within the OSS developer community there is a high degree of consciousness for stability and security. In the event that open source software is not completed or tested, a minor number (e.g. 0.99) is assigned to it in order to document the incomplete status. Commercial software on the other hand often is declared as completed if the marketing, sales or finance department of a company so wishes. The user has to deal with faults and security holes until the completed software is released (often as version 2.0 at more costs). The user’s productivity is decreased tremendously with such a tool.

conclusion

Open source software will and cannot replace commercial software in all cases. However, through open source software applicants have the free choice to make use of previously unknown quality features. The combination of open source software and commercial software will result in an increase of efficiency for applicants. More and more commercial companies (SUN, Oracle, IBM, HP, Siemens, …) adopt the idea of open source software and close gaps for the benefit of the applicants.

Open Source in Use at Micromata

Server

80% of Micromata’s internal service field is open source software. Most servers are of the make Linux. The file server offers file services for instance to Linux clients, Win32 clients, Solaris-Clients and MacOS clients. The user administration allows for emails to be handled with IMAP and POP via the mail server. A proxy sever makes available the WWW and FTP services for clients.

Already after a very short period of time only the choice of open source software on the server proves successful. OSS uses standards much more intensive than commercial software. Through the adherence to standards a change over as well as the integration of rather unusual customer systems could be processed very easily.

The following open source operation systems and services are applied:

Open source operation systems
Linux (various distributions such as RedHat, SuSe,), Know-how since 1993 (KERNEL version 0.13)
FreeBSD
Filesharing
Fileserver (nfs, samba, Atalk)
Backup, data security, availability
LVM, RAID Systeme, Amanda-Backup-Software, rsync, CVS (version control)
Security
ssh (with tunnel from VPN to Laptops), SmoothWall GPL (Firewall on CD), iptables, ipchains
Client administration
Disk images for automated client installationsn, xntpd, dhcp, bind
User administration Printer
NIS, NIS+, LDAP, CUPS, lpd
Datbase
PostgreSQL, MySQL
Communication
www.projectforge.org as groupware or project administration and customer communication,
Email (postfix, sendmail: IMAP, POP3), news (nntpd)
WWW- und FTP-Proxy (Squid)
Webserver Apache, Jakarta-Tomcat

Exceptions

SUN Solaris test computer for various customer projects
Oracle databases for various customer projects
Win32 systems for various customer projects

Client

Depending on the project developers prefer to use Linux on about 60% of the PCs and on about 70% of the laptops. Other operational systems are applied if the customer wishes so. Also the administration field mainly works with Linux. (On the client) The skilful combination between commercial software and open source software is the basis for maximum productivity with costs increasing linearly with the number of clients. Again the high degree of standardisation is an advantage of open source solutions, which scale very elegantly.

Operating systems
Linux, KDE/Gnome
Document management
OpenOffice / StarOffice, XML (with XSLT-Rendering), version control with CVS, LaTeX, PDF
Software development
GNU-Utilities (Unix tools, C/C++-Compiler, emacs, ...)
CVS, WinCVS, Java (JDK, Jakarta-Projekt, alphaworks)
Scripting: Shellscript, Perl, TCL, PHP
Debugging: gdb, ddd
TORA (open DB-Tool for Oracle under Linux similar to TOAD)
Communication, security
KMail, Mozilla, ProjectForge, News, VPN, GnuPG