osOpinion: Open Source and Open Industry Standards: Why we should use them to our advantage

[ Thanks to Kelly
McNeill for this link. ]

“Excuse me while I bring some common definitions to light.
Internet standard E-mail… POP3… IMAP… LDAP… Novell
Directory Services (NDS)… SSL / Certificates… PKI (Public key /
Private Key Infrastructure)…”

“Red Hat Linux has performed absolutely perfectly in the last 6
months with 0% (Zero percent) downtime. It has passed the test
while transferring every piece of e-mail from our domain. There is
no reason not to employ this over any other OS product, including,
NT, Novell, or any other UNIX’s. Cost is another factor. This has
been a very strong point in favor of Linux. While we would still be
stuck in budget talks and cost-benefit analysis, we can instead
focus on the technology that would benefit us.”

“Open source software is not only free as in the cost,
but programs can be made available as source code, making adapting
(adding and removing components) possible. This is simply not
possible with pre-compiled binaries unless the programmers have
made explicit provisions in the code for users to select options
for installation. This allows us to fine-tune applications to
interact with each other seamlessly. One example is a Web server
(Apache), SQL database, and the PHP application server. This would
be analogous with NT and IIS web server running MS SQL and ASP, but
with far more control over the final product, and with no licensing
hassles.”

Complete
Story