Questions Asked When Deploying Linux and Other Free and Open Source Software

A colleague approached me to find out what are the main issues in deploying Open Source solutions (and Linux in particular) in an organization. Here are the questions he asked and the answers that I provided.

Thank you very much for agreeing to help us out on this, alright here are these questions:

Not a problem! It is always good to know I can be of help to someone. Please note that some of these questions are too technical and the few sentences given as answers are oversimplifications of what actually is or happens.

When is open source free and when is it required to pay a fee?

Free in open source is a matter of freedom not fees. What this freedom means is that you get the source code together with the software (or you can access the source code without limitations). The freedom hence mean you can take the source code study, change, and improve its design and redistribute it to others. In addition, you can use it for any purpose. You may be required to pay for the software (if its not available for download) or pay for its customization to your requirements if you do not have the in-house capability of doing it.

With other operating systems, particularly Windows XP, they tend
to be very vulnerable to viruses, How is it that Linux is immune to
viruses?

What makes windows more vulnerable to viruses is its design especially on permissions management. Most users (including programs) can install software and also take control of the running of some software. In Linux, security and permission is king and installation of programs take a process and need change of rights. The implicit requirement to set user rights on Linux makes it less vulnerable to viruses. To some extent Linux might be vulnerable to malicious software, but since most of the control is on the user then the system administrator can control what specific users do on an installation.

How does one choose between the likes of Mandriva, Fedora, Ubuntu,
etc, when planning for deployment?

All this are blends. The rule of the thumb in choosing between them is closeness to support of a wider community using it. In case you need help or when you need to improve or do something extra with them. I use fedora because I like one or two things in it.

What are some of the utility programs available on Linux?

Utilities for? I don't understand.
But most of the blends or distros of Linux come with most of the basic software: Office Suite (open office), Email client (Evolution, Thunderbird etc), Package management (Yast, RPM,etc), Web servers (Apache). Depending on your installation choice/type, you can easily add on most of the applications that you need.

Threats to system security come not only from outside the computer
system but also from inside the community of systems users as
well. What are security measures that are taken by Linux on
unauthorised access to sensitive data by unauthorized users?

First, physical security is as important as software security. Linux-based system have the best user and user rights management system (Access Control Lists) that I know in an operating system. You can manage users to the point of what file the user (or group of users) can see, execute, or write. In short, the user access-level security is as good as you can set it to be as the administrative user.

How does Linux support kernel threads?

Much better than most of the other operating systems. Please see http://tldp.org/FAQ/Threads-FAQ/index.html for more information.

What are the most common problems that are experienced by Linux
users, or open source in general?

Mainly its a question of attitude and resistance to change. Otherwise, most of the people who have changed to using Linux and open source software have developed the right attitude towards them and get to know how to go about most of the things. Support for the users is therefore very important during the change (or introduction) phases of the software.

People are very much used to the windows environment, to make the
transition easier, what are the Linux basics that users must
familiarize themselves with?

Most of the desktop Linux distros now come with a graphical interface. Gnome and KDE remain the widely used desktop interfaces for Linux. To switch from an Ms Windows environment to a say Gnome environment, one just need to have the right attitude and perceptions and to learn the new terminologies.

How does Linux handle scheduling?

Linux scheduling does not differentiate between a task and a process e.i. Linux in its implementation does not differentiate between a thread and a task. All threads are implemented as processes that share resources among themselves based on time slices. Please check http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/linuxkernel/chapter/ch10.html for more information.

How does Linux support Ethernet, WAN & LAN through routers and
gateways?

There are a number of resources on getting information about networking in Linux and other Unix-based systems. For a quick start, please check "The Linux Documentation Project" http://tldp.org section on Networking: http://tldp.org/HOWTO/HOWTO-INDEX/networking.html

Hope this answers all your questions. Do not hesitate to contact me when and if you need more clarification on the issues.

Life after Blackboard

If home is where the heart is, then we should make our homes better places to live. An equity trend analysis by Forbes has shown that Blackboard Inc is on top of the chart of companies whose insiders are disposing off their shares. This clearly shows even the insiders have no confidence with Blackboard's future or at least it opens up avenues for speculations as to what its future holds. The speculation is favoring the view that most people are not living Blackboard they are leaving. It is no longer a place where hearts can be at home. Saddening, among those featured to have sold most of the shares in the recent past are Mathew Pittinksy -the chairman of the board and director of Blackboard Inc. If this is related to the latest move to do business in the court corridors, then the Blackboard's future looks dull. Is it time to prepare for life after Blackboard?

From Blackboard to Whiteboard

A walk around some educational institutions have shown that there is a great decline in the number of blackboards in use. Instead, most of the the educational institutions are using whiteboards. I do not know if the person who invented the blackboard had patented the various ways you could hang it up in a classroom, or the various types of chalk you could use. When I was schooling, in the times of blackboard and chalk, most of the teachers used to drink alcohol after work - to down the chalk dust. Nowadays, most of the whiteboard markers are made from alcohol. I do not have evidence that teachers no longer drink alcohol, or they now use another 'solvent' to down the alcohol. Isn't innovation interesting? History tells me that the first writing material was the scroll then the paper. I am wondering here if the paper inventor patented the art of writing or the paper itself. I am thinking of the billions of dollars that would have translated to. Well, this are just side thoughts and trying to picture how far we have come and yet to go with innovation - with or without Blackboard's Patents.
Stephen Downes in the December 2006/January 2007 issue of Innovate has presented a patent dilemma that has seen one Learning Management System transform itself to a Litigation/Lawsuit Making System thanks to Blackboard's patents. I would echo what he says in his last paragraph and I quote:

I have argued in the past that the thieves in our community are not the file sharers and the advocates of open source, but rather, those who use the nuances of the legal system to take something created by others and to make it their own (Downes 2003). I agree with Howard Rheingold: "Blackboard's actions are shameful, greedy, and bogus, and they have the potential for retarding the development of online learning throughout the world" (2006, ¶ 1).

BUT, like I have said before, online learning is an idea whose time has come, and NO action by the likes of Blackboard would stifle it.

Where does this Leave My Clients?

A few hours ago, our CIO issued a warning in a widely circulated letter that he will lobby for our institution to dissociate itself from any Novell software following the recent marriage between Microsoft and Novell. I do not feel obligated to comment about the bedroom matters of the marriage, but I wonder what two parties with a history of long court battles realised to seal the marriage deal. I personally feel betrayed by any move that would curtail the freedom I enjoy using Free and Open Software. I am also disturbed by the uncertainties that such marriages would bring on the face of the progress to more freedom. Is this not a betrayal of the people who have contributed to the success of the Novell applications? Or is there something am not understanding about the whole deal? Is this a genesis of more marriages of convenience? What is the next big news?

What is disturbing me the most is where decisions by organisations providing software applications agree on dining with the enemy, and the subsequent resolutions like the one our CIO is making leave the clients (the normal users of the services), who in most cases do not have an idea of what the marriage is all about. I wonder if the 6000+ users of our eLearning site know that it runs on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) - a Novell product. Happily there we are in the process of getting other solutions for the site and Novell products are definitely out of the equation. While for the server technology it might be easy to do a change over without the users' knowledge, I foresee hardships (that can be overcame) in changing the client technologies like the Novell Groupwise. I am also happy that for two months since I got SUSE 10 DVD, I have not brought down the Fedora Core 5 I use on my laptop and the Mark Webbink of Redhat has posted his criticism of the marriage. For now, I wait for Fedora Core 6 to be available on our mirror site for my next laptop!

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