Open Source: The Bigger Picture

It's no longer about Open Source vs closed source, commercial vs free. Today, it's about using a mix of both to suit your requirements. We bring you the bigger picture surrounding this hot industry buzzword
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There has been a lot of noise around Open Source software lately, but the buzz this time is not about how Open Source software is better than closed source software. This time, the buzz is around how to truly use Open Source software in a business environment. It's about how to integrate it with the rest of your setup, and how to use it for the benefit of your organization during the economic slowdown. In essence, it has a much larger role to play than ever before. All the fanaticism surrounding Open Source seems to be disappearing to bring out some really useful solutions to everyone's problems.

That's why our Open Source story this time is also very different. It doesn't get into a battle of Open Source vs Closed source, nor does it talk purely about Linux. Rather, it talks about how to use Open Source software to resolve some of the most practical problems everyone's facing today.

Our story is broken up into three parts. The first part is about the feasibility of using Open Source software during the current economic crunch. We've heard a lot of CIOs talk about shifting to it, but does it really make sense to do so in trying times? To find out, we surveyed 126 CIOs from leading Indian enterprises, and got some very interesting results.

The second part of our story deals with another practical issue that most organizations are toiling with today-interoperability. Most organizations today have a heterogeneous IT infrastructure with multiple Operating Systems, databases, and applications all running on different platforms. Some of it might be running on Microsoft technologies, while other parts could be on Open Source and Linux. For instance, your messaging platform might be on Microsoft Exchange, while your database is MySQL. While this is done with the good intention of ensuring that the IT infrastructure has the best and most cost effective solutions that are around, it has its limitation. The limitation is that of ensuring you have an integrated environment where different applications can talk to each other irrespective of the platform they're on. What if you want to deploy Joomla content management system on Linux, but your setup is completely on SQL Server and Active Directory? What if you need to create a C# application, but you only use Eclipse IDE for software development? What if you want to introduce an Open Source application like PHPBB in your IT setup, and would like it to authenticate the users from your Active Directory Services? These are all practical problems that many organizations might be facing today-that of bringing together two disparate worlds of Open Source and Windows.

Thankfully, the trend is gradually changing with both sides trying to come together and offer feasible solutions to users. That's what we've covered in our interoperability part of the cover story. You'll find lots of articles on how Open Source software can work with both Windows and Linux.

The last part of the story is of course what most of our readers anxiously wait for year after year-PCQ Linux 2009. For the past couple of years, we've been focusing on giving serious Linux distros for an enterprise environment. This year, we decided to be very different. So PCQ Linux 2009 has something for everybody-be it an enterprise, a working professional, or even a home user.

Basically, we've taken away all the complexity associated with PCQ Linux and made sure that you get more time to play around with all the neat applications and learn how to use them instead of toiling with the installation and quitting mid-way with frustration because it has messed up your entire system.

There are four live distros we've given with PCQ Linux 2009, which you can run directly off the DVD. Plus, there's a ready to use cloud computing virtual appliance that enterprises can play around with.

Lastly, to give you a true taste of choice, we've given two DVDs with this issue. One has PCQ Linux 2009, while the other has a really good collection of Open Source and free software on Windows. Both are collector's editions. Most of our stories in the pages to follow are based on software provided on these two DVDs. How's that for freedom of choice? Have fun!

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BY Anil Chopra
Source：CIOL

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