Lessons I learnt from Linux Asia 2006

1. Lessons learnt from Linux Asia 2006
“OSS on your resume makes it to be put on top of the piles.”
- Zaheda Bhorat (Google)
Linux has a market capturing potential much higher for Unix Systems but not as much
for the Desktop systems. Linux has excellent features for time critical applications.
"Linux is Dell's Unix"
A new web specification has emerged which is totally based on open and community
interation methods. It is formally to be called as Web 2.0.
OSS has excellent contributions for Enterprise level developement applications like
J2EE. Tools include Eclipse, GCJ, Ant etc.
OSS has provided with a host of successful Security Tools which are worth using in
the Enterprise Segments. These include SNORT, NESSUS etc.
Patents are a great hurdle in the path of OSS movement. Patents basically "curtail the
right to knowledge".
CDAC has produced a customized version of Linux called Abhigyan, which has
almost complete localization for Indian Regional Languages.
Often a company invests too much to hide the code they steal from OSS projects,
rather if it would have paid the OSS developers the the cost should have been
considerably lower. Moreover such acts lead ethical violations but helping the OSS
community is benificient both the parties.
Linux is diving deep into the roots of Embedded Systems. It provides succinct
features which the hot new gadgets and gizmos really require and leads to low
developement time.
Linux has affected the consumer electronics market too in significant manner. The
RealTime Linux Extensions are a great boon for the industry.
The computing indusry leaders viz. DELL, IBM, ORACLE, SUN MICROSYSTEMS,
HCL, HP, NOVELL, GOOGLE, REDHAT and many many more have very well
based many of their fortunes on the OSS platforms.
Contributed by:-
Saleem Ahmed Ansari
JMILUG