Open source to run 50% IT infrastructure in 5 years: MAIT

Information technology industry watcher MAIT has predicted that within five years, nearly 50 per cent of the software infrastructure could be taken up by open source software.

According to MAIT, the open source software position will grow the fastest among small servers and its penetration will grow from its near-zero position in large servers and corporate desktops to become a viable option within 2-3 years.

The Linux-initiated open sourcing wave began in 1999 and has since been heralded as a big threat to proprietary software such as Microsoft products.

It has received support from global hardware vendors and software majors such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, RedHat, SuSE, Oracle, SAP, Computer Associates, Hitachi etc.

But in spite of the backing from these IT heavyweights, open source software has covered only a poor 9 per cent of the global desktop market.

"The open source software offers a number of advantages such as reliability, scalability and openness. The total cost of ownership is 44 per cent lower than its competitors. But there are a number of myths surrounding the technology such as lack of support, immaturity of products, lack of applications etc," said Karthik Chandrashekaran, project manger of Wipro Technologies.

In India, both the acceptance and the development of open sourcing technology has been very slow. There are a number of focus groups in India to drive the growth of open sourcing in the country and they have undertaken projects such as adapting Linux for local language interface.

But top techies in India admit that Indian software companies and developers contribute very little to the open sourcing revolution.

"We have been a country of free-riders so far. The Indian developers do not have the maturity to work with something as intricate as open source software yet," said Gautam Shroff, head-architecture and technology consulting at Tata Consultancy Services.

Ashish Khushu, general manager, strategic business development, Sun Microsystems, also confirmed the viewpoint and said, "The open sourcing philosophy says 'use and contribute', while in India we have only been using the software but there has been no contribution. India is 2-3 years behind on every open sourcing debate in the world."