March 26, 2009 7:17AM  |
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There has been a lot of press on cloud computing applications. Cloud computing delivers a single application through the browser to thousands of customers using a multitenant architecture. On the customer side, it means no upfront investment in servers or software licensing; on the provider side, costs are low compared to conventional hosting.
 In the early days of computing, you couldn’t run an IBM System 34 program on a Digital Equipment Corp. VAX mini-computer. Software had to be written for a specific operating environment, which often included hardware . In today’s business world all that has changed thanks to the influence of IBM and later Microsoft with the advent of the IBM PC standard and Microsoft DOS/Windows.The traditional software model involves developing source code (program instructions) that is protected by a legal patent (intellectual property) so that no one can use, copy or modify it without purchasing or licensing it from the author. Now there is a shift from proprietary software to open software (which allows you to freely use, copy and modify) and standardized software (which runs on any platform). This trend is driven by companies such as IBM, Novell, Google and Sun and by the power of the Internet and innovative developers around the world. A good book on the subject is The Cathedral and the Bazaar, by Eric S. Raymond. It is amazing how so many divergent contributions and inputs can result in such high-quality products. But it seems to work. (For a sampling of these programs check out GPLPedia, www.gplpedia.com/#GPL.) Linux The original open source philosophy was espoused by U.S.-based Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation for the promotion of free and open source software and creator of computer operating system GNU, the first free and open operating system, based on Unix. Many people are familiar with open source software from the Linux Operating System developed by Finnish engineer Linus Torvalds. It is very popular on servers, desktop personal computers and as a free alternative to Microsoft Windows. Many Linux distributions have proliferated. The three most popular ones are from such companies as Red Hat, Novell and relative newcomer Ubuntu (the company behind it is Canonical). Ubuntu is an interesting story about a South African software developer turned multimillionaire turned Russian astronaut named Mark Shuttleworth. He decided to give back to the open source community that helped him build a security certificate company, Thawte, and sell it for $500 million. He formed Canonical, based on the open source model, and pledges to give away its main software product and keep it free and open. Its slogan is “Linux for human beings.” The distribution is freely available on its Web site. (continued…) © 2009 CA Magazine under contract with YellowBrix. All rights reserved. |
