The UK GovTalk website, whose purpose is “to enable the Public Sector, Industry, and other interested participants to work together to develop and agree policies and standards for e-government,” has published an interesting 37-page article about the impact of Open Source software (OSS). The paper examines how the OSS movement could impact the UK Government's policy towards the worldwide market in software infrastructure and software applications, including a thorough analysis of the readiness and suitability of Linux and related OSS applications for both server and desktop use.

Quoting from the introduction . . .

“Open Source Software (OSS) is software whose source code is openly published, which is usually available at no charge, and which is often developed by voluntary efforts. This paper examines how the OSS movement could impact the UK Government's policy towards the worldwide market in software infrastructure and software applications.”

“OSS has leapt to prominence by starting to take a significant market share in some specific parts of the software infrastructure market. For example, since 1998 Linux has been one of the fastest growing server operating systems. Indeed, in a few important market segments, such as storing Web Pages, OSS software is far and away the market leader.”

“The software industry is very fast moving, and frequently throws up promising new developments that initially promise to make great changes in the marketplace, but which ultimately fail to live up to their initial press hype. Our first key conclusion is that OSS is indeed the start of a fundamental change in the software infrastructure marketplace, and is not a hype bubble that will burst. This is perhaps surprising because OSS does at first sight appear to be a bit of a paradox.”

“Given that OSS software is often developed by largely volunteer efforts, how can software, such as the Linux operating system, compete with software such as Microsoft Windows, which has had, and will continue to have, billions of dollars invested in it? In particular, how is it that the best OSS is perceived by many to be at least as reliable as market leading proprietary software? The body of this paper explains how this has happened. OSS s credibility has been established as market giants such as HP, IBM and Sun have thrown their weight behind it . . .”

And a few excerpts from the conclusions . . .

“1. OSS is indeed the start of a fundamental change in the software infrastructure marketplace, and is not a hype bubble that will burst.”

“2. Within five years, 50% of the volume of the software infrastructure market could be taken by OSS.”

“3. OSS's position in large servers (e.g. those managing massive multi-user databases), such as those that underpin many large Government procurements, will grow from its current position of near zero penetration, to a position where OSS is a viable option, within 2 – 3 years.”

“4. Within the developed world, we as yet see no sign that OSS will become a viable alternative to Microsoft Windows, for user's (general purpose) desktop machines in the corporate or home PC markets. However, OSS on the desktop may soon become a significant player in the developing world. For these reasons we recommend against any preference for OSS on the desktop, but also recommend that this issue be reassessed by the end of 2002, by which time early trials of the use of OSS desktops . . .”

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