The open source (OS) software initiative has gained significant momentum over the past 12 months, to the point where it has firmly entrenched its position in the business community in South Africa.
This is according to Inus Gouws, a senior information management (IM) consultant at Computer Associates Africa, who says OS software is now readily available and is fast gaining marketplace acceptance because of a number of advantages it enjoys over proprietary alternatives - not least of which is its low cost of acquisition.
"OS software is definitely making inroads into the real world," he says. "In addition to the e-commerce industry, OS software systems have proven themselves conclusively in major global database server and Web server applications.
"Even at desktop level there are many OS applications in every-day use, such as Ximian Evolution. This package can access MS exchange servers and has advanced groupware features, such as meeting requests, personal information management facilitating links with PDAs as well as Windows CE devices," says Gouws.
"Open Office is another package gaining in popularity because of its ease of maintenance and - more significantly - its ability to shrug off virus attacks."
Although not the only OS platform on the market, the widespread acceptance of Linux in this arena is a fact, says Gouws.
"Linux supporters come from a broad cross-section of the business and commercial sectors. They include systems technologists, financial experts and business systems consultants. Each group has its own reasons for backing the OS movement.
"One of the most prevalent is that Linux applications can run on older, often outdated machines. This is an important benefit for cash-strapped organisations, particularly those in the public sector."
Gouws says this ability alone is motivating a fundamental shift in the operating system and business software landscape.
"Because of this and other advantages aimed at a broad spectrum of end-users, OS software systems are being seen in a new light today," he stresses.
"They have vindicated the long held beliefs of the OS visionaries that the rapid evolutionary processes that characterise OS software development do produce better products than those of traditional, proprietary models."
Significantly, Gouws says the OS software movement needs to free itself of the "free" label with which it has been tagged for too long.
"This has either cheapened its offerings in the commercial world - where good value always carries a price tag - or created a misconception that application development, installation, support and maintenance by OS professionals come without a price.
"Neither is true. OS software is `free` only from the perspective that licensing fees do not have to be paid to the authors. Nevertheless, this results in significant savings over proprietary options as has been realised by the South African government," says Gouws.
"For example, the State IT Agency is driving the implementation of OS alternatives because it stands to save around R3 billion a year on licensing fees - according to quotes from the agency`s chief information officer Mojalefa Moseki.
"Some industry watchers have pegged the true cost of proprietary software to government at around R9.4 billion per annum, with support and upgrade costs included."
Gouws says that many joint public/private sector projects designed to channel the efforts of more universities and private companies into setting up resources centres to help develop OS programming skills are adding weight and credibility to the OS movement.
"There is a sizable pool of software programming talent in South Africa that could be expanded even further with the right incentives in place," he says.
Turning to the proprietary software vendor community, Gouws says many long established organisations are being challenged to define open standards and OS as approved platforms.
"Many vendors are responding positively to this challenge," he says. "Computer Associates, for example, has placed the Ingress relational database solution at the centre of its OS strategy, to the extent that Ingres has been released to the market under the `CA Trusted Open Source Licence` banner.
"CA is a proponent of OS technology and believes the OS development approach can take appropriate software programs to unprecedented levels of quality, growth and innovation," adds Gouws.
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