The flock's getting bigger .. and bigger

Rukmini Priyadarshini

A RAPT tech audience - average age 25 - that does not seem to have heard of the slowdown, earnest young speakers alternately rude and funny, long-haired geeks and 'wireheads' - Bangalore Linux 2001 has all of them. And more: Each tight-packed lecture hall in the conference bears witness to the bright, motivated and highly charged Linux community in Bangalore.

Certainly, the current enthusiasm in India regarding Linux is past the 'Linux advocacy' stage and, for an operating system that could have taken 8,000 years and $1 billion had it been commercially developed, there is sufficient acceptance in the country - students, developers, Governments, institutions and corporates as well have recognised the value that Linux offers. So, is Linus Torvalds' view of world domination for Linux in sight after all?

''Linux is on wristwatches, mobile phones, small and large PCs. It is used for everything from wordprocessing to mainframe computers, spacecraft control to pension administration,'' says Kishore Bhargava, Link Axis Technologies.

Linux is making inroads into governments internationally. That is because most governments perceive Microsoft as an American company and are uncomfortable with that, according to Bhargava.

In fact, the European governments have just agreed to go open source for all their technology needs.

Linux is also credited with bootstrapping Indian science. Increasingly, Indian educational and research institutions are adopting Linux as computing becomes cheaper. It is not enough that computing becomes faster and faster - the cost of such speed could keep it out of most institutions. Linux, on the other hand, enables the creation of clusters for high performance computing at remarkably low costs, said an academic.

It is clear that bioinformatics and physics, and any other area requiring cheap computing will increasingly rely on Linux. ''Changes have been made in the Linux kernel to suit such clustering,'' says Bhargava. ''Linux clusters are fast replacing the supercomputer: Even SGI/Cray use Linux clusters.''

There is faster adoption of Linux not only because is it eminently usable now but will continue to be so in the future: ''Linux also adopts new networking protocols and security features rapidly and is the first platform for new technologies to be deployed on,'' says Madhu M. Kurup, Yahoo Web Services, India. For instance, the new Intel Itanium processors were booted first on the Linux operating system.

Possible future applications for Linux include the human genome project, datamining, secure computing and embedded systems.

These high-tech and sophisticated applications apart, Linux is also maturing as an operating system, says Atul Chitnis, CTO, Exocore Consulting. ''Worldwide, more and more common people are looking at Linux because it delivers.''

Today, Linux is seen as Microsoft's primary, nay, its only competition, Chitnis asserts. IT companies worldwide adopt and deploy Linux - be they 5-man companies or 1,000-man corporates.

Considering that Linux for the desktop was the butt of jokes - even among the Linux community - it is now enterprise-ready says Bhargava. Of course, this acceptance and readiness is only over the past couple of years, when large corporations - HP, IBM, SAP, Compaq, Oracle, SAP, Dell - backed it.

One requirement of the Linux OS is high availability and work is being done on that by the community. The other issue, Bhargava says, is database applications. ''Be it Ingress, Sybase or Informix, there are Linux versions for all.''

The roadmap for getting enterprise acceptance for Linux includes ensuring high availability, making it suitable for the really big take-off that embedded Linux promises to be and ensuring acceptance for Linux thin client networks, he says. ''The Power Grid Corporation of India, for instance, has recently set up 150 Linux-based thin clients who can work either from home or from the office premises.''

Chitnis says Linux for the corporate desktop is a reality and that hurdles for its acceptance range from the perception that ''free is no good'' to assuming it has no applications or that there is no support. ''This perception is by people who have never used Linux before,'' asserts Chitnis. "Linux has a data-compatible office suite, standards-based e-mail client, compliant Web browser, PDA support, streaming video/audio, instant messaging, commercial and non-commercial graphics and application programmes, CAD packages and K-Develop and offers a more friendly development environment than C++,'' it is claimed. It meets a corporate user's needs and offers a cheap, scalable alternative to the licensed environment. Support is prompt and more satisfying than offered with licensed software and the best of all is that it is a bug-free and safer environment, say supporters.

priya@thehindu.co.in

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