Virtusa, an IT services company founded in 1996, was using proprietary version control and collaboration systems to develop software for its clients until Sri Lankan founder Kris Canekeratne decided that a custom solution built on open source components was a better fit for internal use. As a result, the company ended up saving millions of dollars on licensing fees and acquisition costs.

It was as a satisfied consumer of the Drupal content management system that Bachana first realized the business success potential of moving away from proprietary licensing structures. “When we made a decision to do more interactivity on our Web site, we determined that it made the most sense for us to implement a content management system on an open source platform.” Bachana began hiring what he calls “open source gurus,” and he found their enthusiasm for community-based development contagious. “They evangelized within the company about the merits of open source. Having some new people in this environment, which had always been traditionally Microsoft-based development, well, they were sort of getting people excited about what could happen.”

It didn’t take Bachana long to connect the benefits of open source content management, such as drastically reduced capital requirements and greater flexibility, to meeting the needs of his clients. “I get really excited about solving business challenges,” he says, calling consulting a “buffet lifestyle. You get to solve challenges in lots of different businesses. We found a number of our customers didn’t have the budget to purchase licensed products. In university settings, or museum associations, or even more recently media companies, there’s been some issues around decelerating of their revenues. They just couldn’t afford [proprietary]. For us it was a logical next step to offer those customers open source.”

Bachana says DPCI also began getting requests from clients specifically for open source solutions. “They asked us to go out and recommend platforms in the open source world that we could help them implement and customize. When we first started nine years ago, we were either building custom solutions from scratch, or we were implementing proprietary solutions from big-name companies.”

Moving to open source inside and outside the company has benefited DPCI in more ways than one. “Rapid deployment,” Bachana says, is the biggest benefit. “Not only within the framework of Drupal, but other open source modules and components that we can integrate. And we work in a LAMP environment, so it is quick for us to implement new functionality that we want internally.”

Using open source software also benefits DPCI from a business strategy perspective. “One of the drawbacks of consultancies is that there are typically a lot of solo practitioners that can’t do the bigger projects. We use a team approach, and by matching this with open source, we think it gives us a strategic advantage, because the team can implement changes very quickly [for] our customers. That’s been a terrific benefit for us.”

Bachana says the challenge in open source is putting all the pieces together. “The market is not fully mature,” he says. “There are pieces to the puzzle that we’d like to see, like customer relationship management, accounting — all the different pieces you’d see in managing a business. There’s still a lot of satellite initiatives that haven’t converged yet. The disconnect is that there’s no one entity or group or central place where people are thinking about how all the pieces snap together. I’d like to see that happen, but we’re not big enough to effectuate that. We can snap the pieces for our own benefit and for our customer, but that still isn’t doing justice to the whole world. If there was some kind of roadmap, you’d see a lot more companies buying into the open source vision, in the same manner that they’re buying into Oracle or Microsoft.”

Bachana recommends starting your company’s open source journey at the Web level. “There’s plenty of resources out there where you can get information on the different platforms available. Implement Web servers first. Hire a couple of really great developers that know the LAMP environment and task them with getting a roadmap for the back office using open source. If you start that way, you could map all your needs to readily available open source solutions out there. But it starts with getting at least one person who is a technologist that could support them in the back office.”

Kuhn says a Lindows insider tipped the FSF off to the possibility of missing source code. Lindows insiders are those who have registered and paid a $99 fee to receive beta releases of LindowsOS and other non-public information. LindowsOS is a distribution based on the Linux kernel, which is licensed under the GNU General Public License. The GPL states, in part, that the program instructions in their original form as written by the programmer (source code) must be available to users of the program. The GPL also requires that users be allowed to copy, modify and redistribute the program freely, but they must in turn provide the source code.

Robertson does not deny that the source code for LindowsOS isn’t included in either of the two beta releases. “It’s a work in progress. We’re hopeful our first release will happen around the middle of the year. When we release an official version, all the GPL pieces will be properly distributed.”

Robertson doesn’t appreciate the negative attention focused on the Lindows project, likening it to “eating your young.” He says he is surprised that “some in the Linux community are quick to cast aspersions, with no facts.” Robertson points to his contributions to the Open Source community as proof that he has its best interests at heart, beginning with his career at MP3.com.

“We battled for the consumer at every step. We battled for open formats. We fought against secure music schemes. And we made contributions to Open Source software, since MP3.com was entirely LAMP based.”

And now that he’s working on making the Linux desktop a reality, Robertson says his dedication to Open Source continues. “We’ve joined KDE League at the highest corporate level. We hosted and sponsored Wineconf 2002. We worked with the project leader to identify the top 25 contributors and paid for roundtrip airfare for all of them, from as far away as South Africa and Norway, to San Diego. There was no registration fee. We also sponsored LPBN.org to broadcast the event.

“We’ve agreed to sponsor the upcoming Debian conference. Our sponsorship included funds to pay for an awards banquet for all attendees, as well as travel support for some. We’ve made a large investment in an Open Source company; we’ve also paid about a million dollars to get code produced … We’ve paid these funds to companies as well as individuals.”

And, he says, support for Linux and the Open Source community will also come by way of ingenious marketing. “If we can get to 5% market share, an ecosystem of healthy Linux companies will emerge which will be around for the long run. Look at the incredible things that would happen. Hardware manufacturers will ship Linux drivers for their peripheral devices, in the box. Computer stores will dedicate sections of their store. Major OEMs would ship computers with Linux. It’s a travesty you can’t walk into major retailers today and buy a computer running Linux.”

And while the code is important, that is not what it will take to get Linux to “20 million desktops.” Robertson says to help more people understand Open Source, better marketing and lobbying is needed. “And yes, battling Microsoft and their huge coffers which influence OEMs, retailers, politicians, and the press in ways you only understand if you talk to them personally, which I have.

“Hopefully, Lindows.com will contribute on each of these fronts, but it will take more than one company. It’s a shame that virtually every commercial Linux company has abandoned the desktop. Our goal is to build a company that will give consumers a choice for their operating system. At the same time, we’re committed to being a good corporate citizen and being a supporter of Open Source for the long run.”

Robertson seems dismayed by the FSF’s attempt to enforce the GPL. “No wonder there’s virtually no healthy Linux companies. The community seems to attack them when the real focus should be elsewhere.”

Robertson says that many of the critical pieces of GPL code that have gone into Lindows have been distributed back to the community already. “Where do you think that Codeweavers got their code for Crossover Office?” he asks.

A high level source at Codeweavers confirms that Lindows has indeed contributed an “enormous amount” of code to the Wine project. But while Crossover Office contains code that was created in conjunction with Lindows, it has also been built on code that was around before Lindows existed. According to the Codeweavers source, Lindows returned modifications to the Wine codebase only because it was persuaded by Codeweavers staff to return it. The Codeweavers/Lindows association was terminated in part because Lindows wanted to be able to keep its Wine modifications private.

SimpleCenter gets shipped with some digital audio receiver products, such as the Motorola simplefi, and it is also downloadable from SimpleCenter.com. SimpleCenter was originally produced by SimpleDevices, which UEI acquired in 2004 as part of its product line expansion. UEI offers a premium version of SimpleCenter for $30 with a proprietary license; it features video transcoding, some remote access and photosharing, and other sync options that run from proprietary codecs, Hersch says; it can’t be released under the GPL.

“Our focus with SimpleCenter is to give consumers the ability to access all their media and devices,” says Michael Hirsch, director of product development for UEI. “Most of the time they have to use different applications for every device. It’s cumbersome and confusing.”

With UEI’s ongoing efforts to expand and enrich SimpleCenter’s feature set, it began to explore new avenues of research. “One of the things we’ve been struggling with is being able to have access to all the devices we want to support and the ongoing testing that is necessary,” says Randy Fish, the lead engineer for SimpleCenter. “We’ve always been a small team, and it’s not possible for us to test every MP3 player and cell phone out there.” Fish discovered the possibilities of interacting with an open source development community watching what happened with another SimpleDevices product, Omnifi, after it was no longer manufactured or supported. “Some users developed a community around it and they were adding features that we never really thought of.”

UEI thought open-sourcing SimpleCenter might be a way to leverage the interest and participation of developers in the community. “We’re up against some big players with big budgets,” Hersch says. “The idea was, how do we compete against that in a way that gets us a product that’s more in line with what users actually want.” In August of 2006, UEI released SimpleCenter as GPL software and set up a project page at SimpleCenter.org.

Fish had no experience with open source software before SimpleCenter was GPLed; in fact, no one at Universal Electronics had ever worked with anything except proprietary software. “This is a new realm for us,” Fish says. “We’re learning as we go how best to work in the open source environment.”

There has been no shortage of interested developers, Fish says, but the challenge has been to persuade those who make changes or add features to give those changes back. For instance, he says, one developer has written code to enable SimpleCenter to run on Linux, but he just hasn’t gotten around to submitting the patches. “They’re on their own timeline,” Fish says. “Obviously, we can’t force them to check anything back in. But we’re trying to figure out ways to incent them to contribute the code back.” UEI is considering offering small rewards like free universal remotes to entice coders to share their enhancements.

One of the biggest challenges UEI is facing is “having the community know that we’re out there,” Fish says. “Getting them to want to contribute. We’re still working toward that, and just getting the word out there that we are open source is one of the first steps. One thing we did think of that might be hard to facilitate is to have some sort of contest for contributions.” Fish says UEI hasn’t hired any open source developers yet, but the company would consider it. “A contest winner would be a solid candidate” for any possible job openings, he says.

Fish says that UEI will probably save some money on research and development as a result of opening the code, but that wasn’t the initial motivation for GPLing SimpleCenter. “We really just want to throw as wide a net over people as possible. There’s a strong analogy to our core remote control business: we capture infrared codes, but we really rely on end users to provide some of that data back to us.” Hersch adds that having a community surrounding SimpleCenter “allows us time to focus on core features that will enable a better experience. If the community feels a certain feature is important, then someone will add it, or motivate us to add it.”

Andy Morsell, the founder of Spatial Integrators, has been working with MapGuide Open Source since the beginning. “My company has been around for about four years, mostly focused around GIS consulting and integration,” Morsell says. “As part of that, I was doing quite a bit of development using Autodesk. When they began announcing that they were going open source about a year ago, I followed along with that.”

Morsell uses MapGuide for solutions used in-house by his clients, not published openly on the Internet. “We use it in our projects for customers looking to develop their own GIS systems and distribute them using a Web mapping interface.” MapGuide takes raw map data and helps users formulate that data into custom stylized maps and then publish them online, either on a public site like SpokaneMaps, or a company intranet, or for passing along to customer networks.

When MapGuide became open source, it was Morsell’s first experience with non-proprietary software. “Most of our business was based on commercially available packages. There weren’t many open source projects in the GIS world then. This has helped open my eyes. We are looking at using a lot more open source software.”

MapGuide Open Source has allowed Morsell to offer his clients Linux server implementations, something that wasn’t possible with the commercial version of MapGuide. “Building a Linux server from scratch is a much easier process than starting with Windows Server 2003,” Morsell says. “The footprint is small, it is faster, and it doesn’t eat up your system resources. It’s very simple to get something up and running quickly. I was pretty blown away.”

Linux and MapGuide Open Source have opened a new revenue stream for Spatial Integrators. “We found a way to make money off of open source,” Morsell says. “People who don’t have experience themselves now have a lot more alternatives, and we are able to offer something much more affordable. Our services tend to be the same, with the same hourly rate, but for them to download MapGuide Open Source at no cost, as opposed to $10,000 for a competitive product — it’s a substantial savings.”

Morsell says the only obstacle he has had to overcome is clients’ concern that they will not have the same kind of end user support with an open source product. “It’s a valid concern, but we’re assuring them that the community is active and a lot of people are willing to help.” Still, some clients refuse to go with open source. “They feel much better having a commercial entity behind the product.”

Morsell says that from now on, he’ll keep open source in mind as an alternative whenever he is considering a new software application. “I’ll look a lot more closely at it internally or for my customers. We’ve always been commercial, but there’s a realization now that there’s an alternative out there and communities are doing this kind of thing. If I’m looking for new software, like a PHP editor, I Google it and find something quite viable to use, instead of looking for a commercial product right off the bat.”