Open source software is used by millions every day, but we're still unsure what it is, writes John Collins

There is no doubting that open source software is now widely used. For evidence look no further than the Firefox web browser, the widespread adoption of which has prodded Microsoft into the first major revamp of Internet Explorer for almost five years. In the business world, open source products such as the Apache web server or Spam Assassin e-mail filtering program are leaders in their field.

But despite the fact that open source products are used by millions every day and are being used to run some of the heaviest workloads in major corporations, it is fair to say that the model is still not widely understood.

Often confused with free software, open source software means that anyone can look at the underlying lines of computer code that make the programme work. If any user decides to make improvements to that software they are asked or even obliged to share them with other users. As a result communities of programmers build up around open source products which means there are more techies developing the products than in even the largest software companies.

No doubt figuring it makes sense to harness the power of those communities, almost all major technology companies have now embraced the open source model to a greater or lesser degree. Last week in London two of those companies - Novell and IBM - briefed journalists on their approach to open source and why some of their biggest customers are adopting it.

Novell has been using the open source operating system Linux as a way to cross-sell its other software products since its 2004 acquisition of SUSE Linux.

IBM has probably benefited more than any other company from open source as it generates billions in consulting revenue by implementing the software.

The two companies now collaborate on a number of open source initiatives including Blue Alert which encourages customers to move applications to IBM's Z series mainframe computers running Novell's SUSE Linux, pre-integrated Linux offerings for mid-tier companies and the inclusion of SUSE Linux on IBM's price list - the first non-IBM product to achieve that.

All of this is a far cry from when the open source approach began to be championed by hardcore programmers, many with a political agenda, back in the early 1990s. But there is still a significant groundswell of techie support for the approach. IBM re-invigorated its mainframe business thanks to the availability of Linux for the massive corporate computers. But Adam Jollans, IBM's worldwide open source and Linux marketing strategy manager, admits that far from being a top-down executive decision Linux was ported to the mainframe by programmers in one of IBM's German labs who said "wouldn't this be neat - let's try it and see".

Perhaps it's because of that lingering image of the bearded vegan programmer in sandals but both IBM and Novell executives admitted it can be difficult to get customers to discuss publicly how they are using open source.

"Europe is well advanced in terms of the adoption of Linux in data centres; it's just not that well publicised," says Phil Zamani, Novell's vice-president with responsibility for sales and business development of open source products.

He says many large customers such as banks are now looking to move databases and other applications off more expensive Unix platforms, which run on high-end computers like mainframes, and migrate them to Linux running on commodity x86 servers.

"What they are looking for is whether they can do this on x86 platforms from AMD or Intel and can we manage the risk for them.Unfortunately there is not a lot of this in the public domain."

It probably hasn't helped that the pro and anti-open source lobbies have tended to adopt almost religious stances on opposing sides of the debate.

However, that kind of approach doesn't cut it with the chief information officers (CIOs) of massive companies with multi-million euro technology budgets.

"We are not coming to this saying 'open source is the answer, what's the question?'," says John Palferyman, worldwide open source executive with IBM's services division.

"It's really about understanding the customers' business challenges and combining open source and traditional where appropriate. So there is services revenue to be made but there is an awful lot beyond services."

Critics suggest that IBM and co are able to make massive services revenues from Linux due to the complexity of working with the software. That may have once been the case but both the community and commercial companies have put massive resources into producing tools that make the software easier to deploy.

Jollans also stresses that IBM has identified seven or eight different business models around open source such as the ability to sell additional hardware or the reduction of development expenses by including open source products in a package.

It's also no secret that shrewd CIOs, under pressure to deliver more services to the rest of the business but with the same or reduced budgets, have no qualms about using open source as a bargaining chip to get the best deal on commercial software.

"A good example of that is the desktop," says Zamani. "In the last two or three years there have been a number of statements about local government doing well with desktop pilots. Very few of them resulted in a pure desktop deployment around Linux. Often it's been used to force Microsoft into offering better value or more software and services."

Zamani believes that is changing and large businesses are now proceeding with significant projects to move parts of their infrastructure to open source platforms. The major Irish project that was referenced is AIB's new banking platform, the total overhaul of its IT systems which makes significant use of open source components.

It's also worth noting that AIB still has a significant base of Windows users but is deploying Linux and other open source products where it believes they deliver a significant advantage. So tellers in almost 400 branches throughout Ireland are moving to a Linux desktop to access applications that no longer run locally but are on servers in a central data-centre.

"Novell and IBM are of the opinion that this mixed source model is going to be here for quite some time," says Jollans.

"We don't subscribe to this view Red Hat has that everything needs to be open source from wall to wall. There may be some companies - a small retailer with 50 stores - that could run the whole business on pure Linux and open source, but in the enterprise co-existence is going to be there for quite a while."