Open Source and Free Software

Open Source Software (OSS) does not provide a solution for every computing requirement, nor always an optimal solution, but it is a well established part of the computing ecosystem; playing critical roles in Internet and business infrastructures.

Our staff have decades of commercial experience with Open Source Software, Free Software and their precursors in the early Unix and Internet communities. We like to think that this experience gives us an advantage when it comes to identifying which open source software applications and toolsets provide the best means of achieving specific business objectives.

In this section of the site we intend to use our experience to provide background, summary and interpretive information about some of the key issues in the commercial deployment of Open Source Software.

Within this discussion we will try to answer questions like: what is Open Source software?; what is Free Software?; what is the relationship between open standards and open source software?; Which open source operating system (e.g. Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, OpenBSD, etc) provides the best platform for running a particular service? What are the key differences between Linux distributions (e.g. Red Hat, SuSE, Debian, Mandrake, Xandros, Linspire, etc.)?; Which Open Source/Linux applications provide similar functionality to current Windows/Unix/Mac applications; Which is the easiest/cheapest to install/maintain, etc ...