| Is Open Source the future of the Enterprise? |
| Written by Cale D. Hollingsworth | |
| Friday, 22 July 2005 | |
 Several Tech VIPs gathered in Palo Alto, CA on Thursday, July 21 to
discuss the future of technology. One consensus reached by the
group was that open-source software would play a huge part in that
future.This consensus reinforces the conclusion reached by the panel at the AlwaysOn (AO) 2005 Innovation Summit: that the concept of open-source software would transform the entire software business. Some of the factors driving the movement to open-source software include relative stability and security. Critics of open-source software may argue that virus writers and spammers target the notoriously insecure MS-Windows platform, while ignoring the more obscure open source software. This assertion is untrue, however; Linux & Apache, both open-source projects, account for the vast majority of web servers worldwide and sendmail/qmail, also an open-source project, delivers the majority of the Internet's e-mail. All of those systems are in far wider use than Windows, but have a fraction of the known vulnerabilities. The bottom line is that open-source software is not going away and will continue to grow in use and acceptance. |