Chris Barton: Linux winner in open-source war

It's been a torrid few weeks for the open-source movement, but good news came last week when the local government in Munich said it would spend about 30 million euros (NZ$61 million) switching 14,000 computers from Microsoft's Windows and Office productivity software to the open-source Linux operating system and OpenOffice.

The news was a huge blow to Microsoft, which is so worried about the Linux threat to its dominance that it has set up a special Linux fighting fund to provide super-discounts to win contracts from schools and Governments.

The good news follows a bombshell legal claim that Linux was illegally infiltrated with Unix code.

The drama began in March, when the SCO Group sued IBM for US$1 billion ($1.75 billion). It accused IBM, which has thrown its considerable weight behind Linux, of code cheating - adding bits of SCO's Unix, previously used by IBM, to Linux.

SCO then sent letters to 1500 companies warning that other Linux distributors might also be violating their intellectual property rights.

IBM denied the charge, and the outraged purist Linux community vehemently rejected Unix contamination. There were a few more twists.

Microsoft got in on the act by buying SCO Unix licences. Then Novell, which had sold its Unix business to SCO in 1995, said it sold only licences, not the copyrights or patents, so SCO's claims were baseless.

Best quote of the week went to Linux creator Linus Torvalds: "Quite frankly, I found it mostly interesting in a Jerry Springer kind of way. White trash battling it out in public, throwing chairs at each other. SCO crying about IBM's other women ... "

The fracas shows just how serious an option open-source software has become. When lawyers get involved with billion-dollar lawsuits, you know something big is at stake.

To understand what that is, it's necessary to grasp the hugely disruptive nature of open-source software. It begins with the premise that software, by its very nature, is never finished and can always be improved on.

Anyone who has used Windows knows this truth. Microsoft's Service Pack 1, for example, released less than a year after Windows XP, included more than 300 bug fixes and security patches for the new operating system.

A year later, the fixes are still coming.

To deal with this never-ending fix-fest, open-source takes a revolutionary view of software source code - the underlying text written in a programming language, which is then compiled into a sequence of instructions that machines understand.

Unlike Microsoft, which jealously guards its source code as the secret to its success, open-source software is open for anyone to look at. Not only that, it's open for anyone to alter and improve on - as long as they make their additions open-source as well.

Which is exactly what thousands of mainly volunteer programmers all around the world do - resulting in thousands of open-source projects running atop the Linux core, such as the XFree86 graphics technology, the KDE and Gnome interfaces and the Apache web server.

In open-source, software is a social endeavour, not a product (or a service) made by a company or an individual. But the real kicker is that, because it's shared among many over the internet, the software is also pretty much free - although sometimes you pay a little to get it delivered on CD-Rom and with manuals.

Which is not say open-source programmers don't get paid.

There's still plenty of money to be had from installing, servicing and supporting the software - and even for development when an organisation asks for particular enhancements. But unlike Microsoft's Windows or SCO's Unix, open-source software itself doesn't have a monetary value.

What does have value is the innovation that comes from a growing army of programmers beavering away on solving software problems, posting their results for others to critique, and then beavering some more.

But sharing for a greater good is not just an idealistic vision, it's a highly efficient and pragmatic way of making good software.

The notion turns concepts of intellectual property and copyright inside out. Which is why Microsoft, SCO and others whose livelihood depends on ownership of proprietary source code are so opposed to its spread. Microsoft has adopted a classic FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) spreading tactic to undermine Linux.

In 1999 it attacked the software's performance and reliability via its "Linux Myths" website. In 2001 chief executive Steve Ballmer labelled the software a "cancer" because of the way it invaded intellectual property rights.

More recently it has lobbied Governments - especially our own - to increase their use of Microsoft software through bulk-buying discounts, and if necessary with super-discounts from its Linux fighting fund. It's not hard to see SCO's lawsuit indirectly supported by Microsoft as another weapon in the FUD campaign.

But despite the obvious advantages of open-source, New Zealand business, tertiary education and Government have been sloth-like in catching the wave.

Part of the problem is the "lock-in" to existing proprietary systems and the cost of unlocking. But it's also a locked-in mindset among chief information officers, educators and Government officials - most of whom adopt a risk-averse, conservative approach to IT.

Which is a shame because, as many organisations are finding, open-source has significant long-term cost and development benefits.

If our Government was really serious about "Growing an Innovative New Zealand" in the IT sector, support for open-source would figure large. Sadly, it barely registers.

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