By STAN BEER
Those outside the inner circle of "Free Software" digerati seem only ever to focus on the "free" component, mistaking it for software that is provided with no moolah changing hands.
And although the software is usually provided in its barest form for no or little fee, "free" has two meanings - and the one properly applied in this case is "free as in speech" not "free as in beer".
And, as I have painfully learnt on many occasions, nothing in life is "free as in beer" - including free or open source software.
Advocates such as Melbourne's Con Zymaris are the first to admit that the term "free" as applied to open source software does not mean for no money. What it is supposed to mean, they say, is freedom of choice. Mr Zymaris, who is the chief executive and founder of one the longest-running open source consultancies in the world, Cybersource, is testament to the fact that companies in the open source business are not averse to making money.
Cybersource is kicking up a song and dance about the milestone it reached this week - 15 years in business. Whether by luck or design - Mr Zymaris would say the latter - the two founding technologies upon which Cybersource focused its business were the TCP/IP-based internet and open source software.
Among other Australian firsts, Cybersource was the first business to offer internet-related technical services, the first business to offer commercial open source support services, the first to run a Linux business event, the first to offer Linux training, the first to found an open source industry cluster (Open Source Victoria, subsequently funded by the Victorian Government) and was also instigator and co-founder of the national Open Source Industry Australia.
"When we began the firm, in May of 1991, the internet was basically unknown to anybody in the business world," Mr Zymaris says. "And as far as open source software was concerned, it belonged in the domain of researchers and geeks."
During his career, which spans more than two decades, some have been tempted to pigeonhole Mr Zymaris as an anti-Microsoft open source fanatic. However, he is nothing of the sort. It soon becomes apparent, upon discussing open source issues with him for any length of time, that he is a realist. If you ask him whether Microsoft is going to shoot itself in the foot by releasing products late or whether Linux is going to take over tomorrow and rule the roost, the simple answer is no.
"In reality and based on history, Microsoft can bring out a desktop operating system up to five years late, like it did with Windows 2000, which was supposed to arrive in 1997, and it didn't impact them on the desktop," he says.
"What it boils down to is that if you could create a Linux desktop that is 10 times as good as Microsoft's desktop, that's still not enough to allow most people to jump across. The reason is that they're locked in to Microsoft and changing that is not going to happen overnight."
One can tell that Mr Zymaris knows his stuff and has worked in the real world merely by tempting him with the lures that some Linux and open source zealots use to try to win people over. For instance, Microsoft Office has come in for a bit of a pounding from Open Office.org zealots recently who maintain that there is no longer a business case for remaining with the Microsoft product because of the easy transition between the two product suites.
According to Mr Zymaris this is simply not true. "You would be surprised," he says. "I could send you a big, complex spreadsheet with a whole bunch of macros. We've carved out a growing niche for our products and services," he says. "We chose not to rely on a big-buddy vendor or venture-capital funding because we believed that both could damage our culture of providing innovative services and solutions."
Everyone's interested
It's nice to see the Australian Computer Society lobbying the Federal Government to look within Australia to find the expertise for the proposed billion-dollar Smartcard project. According to ACS president Philip Argy, he spoke last week with Human Services Minister Joe Hockey to seek the minister's assurance that the Government would first resort to domestic expertise before looking offshore.
Mr Argy said, "I am pleased to have the personal assurance of Human Services Minister Joe Hockey that Australian expertise will be the first resort for the development of the Smartcard."
Well, we should hope so! However, what Mr Argy didn't say (and what Mr Hockey didn't tell him) was that it would very surprising indeed in a billion-dollar open tender, which is what this will have to be, if the giant multinationals didn't get a look in.
Australian companies such as Keycorp have won large overseas smartcard contracts but always as part of a multinational consortium. You can bet your bottom dollar that with a billion-dollar contract at stake, Mr Argy's lobbying will seem like kiddie banter when the heavy artillery from the multinationals is brought in to thunder in Mr Hockey's ear.
Moving heads
Enterprise applications vendor Oracle, which scored JD Edwards as a bonus when it bought PeopleSoft, has appointed two senior executives in its Australian office for that side of the company's business.
Eugene McConville has been appointed general manager, JD Edwards Applications and Lloyd Perrin as business development director, JD Edwards Applications. Mr McConville previously worked at Symix as ANZ account and business partner manager and Mr Perrin started his career at Computer Associates.