Microsoft assailed by free open source software

By Richard Morochove

First published October 1, 1998

You'd figure the head of the world's largest and most influential software company wouldn't worry too much about the competition. With the near-monopoly share of Windows in the desktop computer market, Gates might concentrate more on defending Microsoft from legal actions launched by the U.S. Department of Justice than the threat of competition from any pipsqueak software upstarts.

But the latest threat to Microsoft comes, not from traditional competitors such as Apple Computer and Netscape, but from programming co-operatives that develop and distribute free software.

Web server software Apache and the Linux operating system are examples of a new model of program development, sometimes called open source software, that's taking the software world by storm.

These programs are developed by non-profit co-operatives, a group of programmers who improve a program for their mutual benefit. These programmers don't work for the lush rewards, the stock options and big houses doled out by the software giants. They work for the admiration of their peers, who admire the elegant hack or program improvement.

A recent filing by Microsoft with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed the software giant recently recognized that Apache and Linux represent a potential threat to the company. I don't expect to see Gates begging for quarters on the street corner anytime soon, but Microsoft's growth is already being slowed by the new competition.

Each month Internet consulting firm Netcraft systematically polls all the Web servers it can find on the Net. It asks for the name of the software running the server. In the September survey Netcraft received responses from more than 3.1 million Web sites.

According to the survey, Apache software ran more than 1.6 million servers, about 52 per cent of the Web servers in the report. Microsoft was a distant second with a 22 per cent share and Netscape came third with 8 per cent.

The number of Apache servers increased by more than 220,000 in just one month, more than triple the growth in Microsoft servers. After zipping past Netscape late last year, Microsoft's growing share of the Internet server market has stalled and lately, started to decline.

Apache isn't used only by small sites that can't afford to purchase server software. Some of the largest Web sites run on Apache, including Yahoo.

Microsoft's freebie e-mail service Hotmail and its Web TV unit also depend on Apache. If Gates can't persuade his own employees to use Microsoft server software, what does that say about its competitive threat?

Apache was initially developed by adding enhancements or program patches (a-patchy, get it?) to another server for the Web site of Wired Magazine. Now it's run by a programming co-operative based at the Apache Web site. It's not the only freebie software that has Microsoft concerned.

In 1991 Linus Torvalds was a 21-year-old enrolled at Helsinki University, tinkering with a new version of the UNIX operating system. He posted the software source code on an Internet server and a few people downloaded it. Soon, some users sent back program enhancements.

Interest in the new operating system, dubbed Linux, mushroomed. In 1996, U.S. computer trade magazine InfoWorld named Linux the world's best desktop computer operating system.

Today a legion of 10,000 programmers freely donate their services to improve the operating system. According to one estimate, there were 7.5 million Linux users as of March 1998, just seven years after Torvalds posted his software.

Unlike some other operating systems, Linux is very stable. Computers regularly run Linux for months without a system crash or requiring a re-boot.

Now Linux looks poised to enter the big time. It's expected that Intel and Netscape will soon announce their investments in Red Hat Software, which makes an easy-to-install version of Linux.

Corel, Oracle and other developers are coming out with popular software applications, such as word processors, that run on Linux.

Earlier this year, Netscape flirted with the free software camp when it made the source code for its Web browser available. Less than a month later a new version was posted on the Net, with security and other add-ons contributed by outside programmers.

If you don't consider freeware for your computer, you're cutting yourself off from some of the best software around.

Freebie software will never completely replace commercial software. However, it's an interesting alternative method of producing programs. Popular freebie software can marshal an army of eager programmers willing to work on improvements at no cost. That's something that even formidable Microsoft will find hard to beat.