We spoke to a service provider, a couple of distributors and two users. From these chats stems this insight...

According to S. Sriram, chief operating officer at Accel ICIM Systems & Services, "Industry surveys say that Linux has shown a 64 per cent growth in the server segment in the year 2002-03 while Windows grew 16 per cent, worldwide. They also indicate that at this rate of growth, Linux will overtake Windows in three years."

Interestingly, the spread of Linux is not as widespread on desktops. It is yet to reach a sizeable number. Sriram says, "In four years, it should cross 10 per cent of the total installed base in the desktop operating systems market."

Industry watchers attribute this tardiness among desktops to two factors: first, if business desktop users are used to a software tool, companies prefer to continue with those systems and change only the server software for the time being. Second, a home user still isn't sure what hidden costs there would be if he gets a Linux system for free. And there is no adequate installed base for him to evaluate and help drive those fears away.

Central Bank of India is one company that went in for a revamp of software but predominantly on the server side. The end users continue with software that has been on their machines for a while now, while Linux rules the server space in that organisation. Since there are still some branches not connected to a central location, most branches have a server each.

N. Tirkey, AGM-IT, Central Bank of India, says, "We chose Linux mainly because it was cost-effective." According to him, "the cost of using Linux is 25 per cent of what other software would have cost us. We also found that Linux is less prone to virus. These were the two main advantages which compelled us to use Linux since the other benefits are also given by Windows operating system."

He says that in this project, 1,100 branches of CBI would be migrating to Linux and of this, 50 per cent would be new branches. According to him, "The process itself started 18 months ago and should end in a month or two."

LIC of India opted for Linux across servers as well as desktops. It has 2,048 branches. On average, there are some 10 PCs to a branch. The company also has about 2,500 servers across the country. Accel-ICIM helped LIC's internal IT team that managed the migration to Linux. For Accel, it was a Rs 70-crore project.

How much do you save?

Few among those we spoke to would comment on actual costs savings. And even if they did not want to sound diplomatic, their first response would be: "It depends." Actually, it depends on what you want to do with Linux. If you want it as a desktop operating system on your home PC, you could get a really good deal.

Says Javed Tapia, director at the Indian arm of Linux distributor, Red Hat, "The operating system, software for word processing, spread sheets and e-mail would all come to you in a CD for Rs 1,000." Saravanan K.S., who made the presentation to the media for Accel ICIM, revealed to us at the end of the session that the presentation software came from the open source movement, meaning free. Truly, it worked just as well as other software that you might have paid more for.

Sriram says that typically, savings would be 90 per cent using Linux and related software compared to competition from the open source movement. A source in LIC's IT department agrees that this is true generally for a Linux application. According to Tapia, the estimate of 90 per cent savings using Linux is too conservative. He says, "A spreadsheet software (that is not from the open source movement) alone would cost you in excess of Rs 10,000 in the market place. So savings using Linux and related software are more."

Let us take the case of LIC. D.D. Singh, IT manager at LIC, refused to comment on savings. "It was not so much the cost factor since both software and hardware upgradation was inevitable. The entire process was completed in three months."

However, here are a few numbers that lead to our inference. LIC has about 23,000 machines (PCs and servers) across the country. If LIC as a whole is considered a "community", then it could well buy one copy each of the Linux operating system and all the office-related tools indicated before and copy it across locations. Here are two assumptions: that the Linux operating system and related office software cost only Rs 1,000; and that the 90 per cent savings estimate is accurate. Given these, LIC would have spent at least Rs 10,000 per PC. Across the company, it would have had to spend at least Rs 23 crore. So, savings for companies with enormous IT assets could run into several tens of crores of rupees.

A source inside LIC's IT team adds for good measure that the company conducted comparison tests (or benchmark testing) and Linux came out tops.

But there is a flip side to the savings bit. So far, we were referring to Linux on the desktop. Says a manager in one region of the Central Bank's IT department, "Linux on the server could run into several tens of thousands of rupees depending on the agreement you arrive at with the service provider. We chose Linux despite the cost because of its performance. One brand of Unix could actually have cost us less per server, but we preferred Linux."

Small firms love Linux

Small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) are bound to start looking favourably at Linux compared to other software. That belief has driven Novell - which acquired SuSe, a Linux flavour - to target SMEs. In India, its implementation partner is Onward Technologies. Ashit Panjwani, National Sales Manager at Onward, says "Linux and the entire open source model is best suited for the SMEs as it meets most of the requirements. With Linux, the total cost of setting up the network or the Internet infrastructure is lesser compared to other networking solutions."

While Panjwani was reluctant to cite numbers on user base, revenues from Linux and the like, he says that it is only logical that SMEs - that want good software at a lesser cost - prefer Linux. "Novell has identified the SME segment as key (to future growth)." He says that the immediate priority is to increase awareness of Linux' benefits. "We are conducting customer-facing activities with our channel partners. We are also looking to partner with independent software vendors and for porting their applications on Linux. This would again target the SME segment."

Basics at a glance

Linux is a example of Open Source Software. The source code is available free of cost. But software service providers, who promise service and other applications on Linux, charge you a fee for those. Each such provider tends to change the look and feel of the free operating system to give it a different `flavour'.

You are free to copy and distribute Linux within your community without having to pay anybody anything. You are also allowed to change the code as you wish.

The free software foundation (FSF) is a movement that aims at giving free software to every user in the world. The movement, from which come Linux and other free software, allows you to improve upon existing source code. It believes that this helps the community of users and developers.

The movement believes that support is unparalleled since a community of numerous experts addresses an unsolved problem.

`It's like building a place of worship'

IF a community of developers contributes to the development of Linux, how do they feel about a set of distributors using that code to make money?

Saravanan K.S., who heads the Linux competency centre at Accel ICIM (which provides Linux implementation and migration services), has an interesting analogy:"If someone wants to build a temple, or any place of worship for that matter, he goes around collecting donations. Even if the trust or the individual has all the money needed to build it, tradition has always encouraged public contribution. This is done to ensure that no single entity gets the feeling of ownership of such a place of worship - it's meant to belong to the public. Likewise, Linux belongs to everyone and to no one individual in particular.

Sure enough, the train of thought goes: then, when a temple is complete, business springs up around it. You find small vendors of betel leaves, priests working for a fee inside the temple, office bearers for administrative purposes, and so on. Explains Saravanan, "Several people benefit from a place of worship. Visitors may make offerings of cash voluntarily. But if they choose not to, that's just as fine and nobody prevents them from entering the premises because they did not contribute." Likewise Linux too has a forum of developers. And any business organisation could use source code written by them to add value and offer services. And, any user can choose to buy or ignore those services. At the same time, the user has access to the core code free of cost.

Some FAQs

JAVED Tapia, director, Red Hat India, responds to frequently-asked questions on the Linux battlefront:

If several developers write Linux, is integrity an issue? What if one of the developers is a hacker and inserts some malicious code? That could easily spread to users.

The fact that Linux is an open source software leads to transparency about the source code. A huge community of developers - who do not know each other - is working on the codes, for one common purpose as opposed to a bunch of people working on one software that is not accessible to anyone else. So far there have been no reported instances of such malicious codes within the (developer) community. And if one does occur, it is easier to correct. Security issues will exist but a threat is less in Linux than in say Windows for the above reason.

How does the revenue model work? How do developers react to other distributors making money from software written for free?

We do not charge for the source code itself. Users can download our applications for free but we charge them for support and services offered. This is a subscription model that does not work like a licence model. In the latter, one user pays for one licence. In our model, the rate of subscription would also depend on the location, what the user wants and the like. The subscription model is usually based on the number of servers.

We understand that if a user buys Linux, he can copy and send the same to friends and relatives and to those within his `community.' What does that `community' mean? For a business user, would that be a branch or an entire company?

Under the general purpose licence (GPL) agreement of Linux, a user can download the software and copy it for use by the community which would be the users. In the case of LIC, it freely downloaded software from RedHat while opting for RedHat's support services — which includes technical help.

Picture by Bijoy Ghosh

bharatk@thehindu.co.in

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