Asian-African countries committed to using open source software

Jakarta, (ANTARA News) - Indonesia and other countries in Asia and Africa are determined to strengthen their commitment to using Open Source (OS) software instead of licensed software which was mostly being monopolized by big companies, a research and technology official said.

The resolve to use OS software would also be reaffirmed in an Asia-Africa Conference on Open Source (AAOS) to be held November 18 to 19, 2008 in Jakarta, Prof Dr Engkos Koswara, a senior advisor to the research and technology minister, said here Thursday.

"Twelve countries including South Africa, Vietnam, Malaysia, India, Iran, Japan, Austria, the US and Germany have confirmed their participation in the conference. The participants themselves will have different professional backgrounds as they are academics, observers, members of the OS community," he said.

Among the foreign participants in AAOS would be Jaijit Bhattacharya from Sun Microsystem India, Aslam Raffee from South Africa's Science and Technology Department, Van Hoai Tran from Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology of Vietnam, and Kazuhiro Oki from the Center of the International Cooperation for Computerization.

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Linux powered Yoggie goes open source

Yoggie Security Systems has today released the source code for its Linux-based mini-security computers to the developer community, and aims to release the source code to most of the applications on the Yoggie Gatekeeper system in due course.

The Yoggie Gatekeeper Card already caused quite a stir when it became the first computer designed to be installed inside another computer for security purposes

The more familiar product, however, remains the tiny USB key sized device. The Gatekeeper Pico is actually a Linux-based mini-computer that offloads the security requirement from the host computer courtesy of its built-in security applications.

These include firewall, intrusion detections, anti-virus, anti-spam and multi-layer security agents. Now, with the release of the Open Firewall PicoT, it has morphed into an open source hardware firewall.

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Taking productivity lessons from open source

Even if your organization doesn’t produce software or work with open source development, you can still take some lessons from open source communities — in particular, how to get work done with fewer meetings and less real-time.

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols covers some of the things that outsourcing companies can learn from open source, but this really applies to any organization — whether it has remote locations or not. But they’re particularly useful for organizations with a distributed workforce with non-English speakers. In particular:

• Don’t have a meeting when an email will do. Coordinating schedules is an often unnecessary headache when an email exchange would provide the same information.
• Any method with an “audit trail” is better than a phone call or face to face meeting for those who may need to catch up later. (It’s also far better for remembering who has what action items, and what has been decided.”
  

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Is Sun open source storage play too late?

Sun has laid the hammer down in enterprise storage, with an “open source” offering that really does pass the savings on to the customer, as they must be passed.

Enterprise storage costs more than what you have in your home. My son is a gamer who has 850 Gigabytes of storage. The low end of the new Sun line is 2 terabytes for about $11,000. I’m certain the Sun price is worth it.

As Larry Dignan notes, Sun hopes open source developers will rally round the flag, boosting storage sales from $25 million to a hefty share of its $3 billion total revenue base.

But as ZDNet also noted yesterday, it may be too late. Sun had to take enormous writedowns in the last quarter, posting an eye-popping $1.67 billion loss.

What really makes a downturn like the present one brutal is its ruthlessness. If companies fear doing business with banks that are on the brink (despite insured deposits) how you think they like dealing with vendors suffering the same perception?

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Microsoft 'Not Against' Open Source

The division between proprietary software vendors and open-source providers is not as clear as some industry players perceive it to be. As more enterprises consider adopting open source technologies, even traditional software vendors such as Microsoft have taken steps in responding to such customer needs.

"Open source is not a product but an approach to software development," said Matthew Hardman, platform strategy manager at Microsoft Singapore. "Microsoft does not compete with open source, just as Nike does not compete with running."

Hardman said the software giant seeks to provide the 'best possible platform' for open source applications to run. "We believe that enterprises and vendors should have a choice of software development methodology, and open source is one such choice."

The platform strategy manager noted however, that Microsoft will compete with open source-based providers, just as it also competes with other proprietary vendors.

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Open source technology casts new perspective on China's development

A senior official of a world leading IT company said recently that open source technology stands as a significant opportunity for China's development.

Crawford Beveridge, vice president of Sun Microsystems Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA), said that open source software, the source of which can be used, modified and published by public, and other open IT standards are cheaper, more stable and flexible and are new ways to ensure local and sustained growth.

Its characteristic of openness can prompt the creation of indigenous innovative companies, regardless of macroeconomic or other international challenge, Beveridge said.

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