| FOSS keeps us connected |
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| by Sam Varghese | |
| Friday, 01 December 2006 | |
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In many ways, the opposite is the case with free and open source software - in many businesses, crucial operations would not be possible without FOSS. Yet it is the proprietary applications, with all their eye candy, that appear to be the stars of the show. Take internet access, for example. High-speed access is today seen as vital to business prospects. Many daily tasks can be easily carried out online if one were able to access what was needed. Yet little thought is given to the way in which we get access to the internet. The internet was built on open standards and today it is no different, despite the efforts of many companies to subvert them. Commercial ISPs depend on FOSS because it doesn't make sense to go any other route. What would be the average individual's reaction to an operating system that on booting up displays the message: "--- comes with absolutely no warranty, to the extent permitted by applicable law"? Yet this operating system, GNU/Linux, is the one that is in wide use across the ISP industry. Take the case of Australia's third largest ISP, iiNet, for example. All their servers run Debian. Ben Turner, operations manager, says that after using Red Hat for a while, they switched to Debian as they found the updating process easier. The company's network operations and surveillance centre also runs the same operating system.
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