In this paper, I outline why I think Open Source (Linux & its distros) has many benefits; this was written
to help clarify what the business benefits were for a system that I had installed for a multi-tenant
building client:
This is the
BUSINESS CASE for Beckford Law’s choice of Linux/Asterisk/FreePBX
as a platform for their Voice over Internet Protocol Phone System with the Internet Protocol Public
Branch Exchange Server (VoIP/IP PBX System).
The following paragraph was the first explanation of the benefits of the Linux/Asterisk/freePBX Platform
afforded by using it as the foundation for their Voice Over IP Phone system, which includes the IP Public
Branch Exchange Server, as opposed to having chosen one of the other numerous proprietary solutions
available. This information was contained in the Cover Letter describing the installation of the system.
Below, following the referenced paragraph, I have created what I hope is a less technical description
resulting in a clearer delineation of the businesses benefits in this choice.
Original description:
As opposed to purchasing a turnkey solution out of the continuum of today’s proprietary offerings
and panorama of closed variations of predefinition and unchangeable parameters and
compatibilities, this completely open-ended, universally compatible platform involved more
programming, complex scripting, custom creation of dial plans (and much more), that is, low level
configuration of every component, but allows the most flexible and unlimited path for business
growth and telephony integration with future business services (e.g. automated phone call tracking,
in and outbound based on caller ID, with billing of clients generated automatically in a database that
can be ported to an accounting program). This is just one example of unlimited possible application
and usage. Any hardware can be supported and any communication protocol in use which translates
to true Universal Communication (UC) inter-connectivity potential. The concept of UC has a ways to
go still, but is rapidly changing as we all know. You can rest assured that you have the foundation to
take advantage of whatever comes along that can benefit your business (including integration of
personal MIDs into the workspace – called BYOD, a growing and cost saving trend). You did not fall
into the trap of trying to pay less with an easy, proprietary solution, offered either by vertical
solution vendors, or by CLECs (i.e. new phone companies) or the incumbent phone company where
there are many caveats and dead ends usually discovered too late. The investment now will only
continue to pay off. And this doesn’t even consider the fact that there are no monthly costs (as in
the case of the alternative) for this communications server and your phone system. Your only ongoing costs are for the telephone lines themselves. You can choose when you want to invest more
money to pay one-time for a new feature vs. having to scrap an entire system because it won’t do
that one thing you want it to…
Getting as quickly as possible to the actual business benefits of using an Open Source Software Platform
is my intention, however, touching on the history and philosophy beneath these benefits gives one the
understanding of the soundness of these benefits and the scope to which they can be taken. An
approach that includes an appropriate educational element always affords a richer outcome (both
intellectually, and I believe, monetarily). A deeper, stronger foundation allows the building of a much
more secure, larger and multi-useful building, as a master builder might say; and are not business
owners a sort of master builder?
Computers use an operating system (OS -- e.g. Windows, Linux, or Mac OS) in order for
programmers to have an almost infinitely easier time creating programs which provide practical, useful
functionality that we all have become more reliant on for both business and personal pursuits. The
astronomical rise of the Smartphone App is singular example of this. Ever since operating systems and
programs have been around there has been a division, at times even a battle, between dominating,
dividing, centralized and almost exclusively ownership/profit driven perspective approaches verses free,
open source, shared, distributed, comprehensive, 360 degree perspective approaches.
Indeed, this has been a philosophical controversy since the dawn of civilization, and one would imagine
that business itself, seemingly being the quintessential model of first approach would fit much more
naturally, easily, and practically with this divisive, competitive approach. After all, if business needs to
make money, why would we want to undermine other elements of the business marketplace and the
mutual reciprocity of the business transaction, by using “free software”? Why, this question may even
evoke accusations of or associations with socialism and communism or at the least make us tacitly
uncomfortable.
These issues may be much more easily resolved than one would imagine, and our current use case
scenario actually affords us a quick, concrete example to do so. But first a short necessary history to
afford a glimpse into the forces that were, and still are, battling for our legacy which as Americans are
becoming well aware will play into the future of our sustained success as a nation in the economy of the
world, and the health of our planet and home.
Back in the 60’s and early 70’s, starting in the exclusive educational institutions on the East and West
Coast, with scientists and scholars, where almost all innovation and technology starts (sadly, on a global
level, we have a lot of work ahead of us to bring back this culture of leadership) there was a
phenomenal, creative, passionate development of software spurred on by the realization of the
seemingly infinite scope of useful things that could be done. Early on, there began to be a separation of
camps between Bill Gates and the rest of the illustrious developers. The surprising initial depth and
voracity of this schism is unknown to many people but is clearly exposed in the movie “Revolution OS”.
Out of the ashes of this impasse of immovable prodigies came some unprecedented syntheses of
apparently irreconcilable positions, one being the book by Eric Raymond, “The Cathedral and The
Bazaar”. Another was the birth of the GNU movement led by Richard Stallman from MIT, distinctly both
a philosophical and technological phoenix. GNU stands for Gnu is Not Unix. Unix being the epitome of
the Dominating approach, which GNU is not (a G-new formalizing of a technological hermeneutic).
Another essential, infamous, piece in the philosophical/business nexus of this revolution was the paper
entitled “Open Source Definition” by Bruce Perens. Propitiously, just as everything was reduced to
almost nothing except the slowly rising, revolving, revolting, revoluting conception, Linus Torvalds
stepped into the dimming light from the remaining embers reflected off the wings of that distant
phoenix, the engineer extraordinaire that put into place the final piece that was to truly create what has
become a persistent revolution in the world’s most potent and inextinguishable leading edge technology
in all known time, the computer. It was born in community. The name of this new revolutionary OS,
Linux, comes from the portmanteau of his name, Linus, and, due to the fact that in their very real, yet
esoteric world of playful passionate genius, and necessarily, their unique vantage to perceive in no
uncertain terms the unavoidable conflict with the kingdom of UNIX and its bid to move across the land
like a dark shadow, the X in UNIX, to trumpet the stand they were to take as an equally powerful, real
and legitimate OS. Thus, LINUX. The import of these things in the real world was shockingly revealed
when a distribution of Linux, called Red Hat, went public on August 11, 1999, achieving the eight-biggest
first-day gain in the history of Wall Street. (Wikipedia)
You had my curiosity, now you have my attention (from “Django Unchained”).
Free software does not refer to price, but to freedom. It’s not free beer, it’s free
speech. Yes you don’t pay for the software itself, but you do pay for the configuration of the software by
someone who is trying to do the best job possible since, unlike proprietary software support, anyone
can offer this service.
Support, do we want monopoly support or free market competition support? When a
company has a monopoly on support (e.g. Microsoft) we all know how bad the resulting support can be,
not to mention the ridiculousness of help files. If software is open source, anyone can distinguish
themselves to provide you that support, and you can find the most timely, cost-effect and quality
support possible.
You might choose to, or feel you have to, pay for on-going support and development. But you have the
freedom to allow your own schedule of business growth to determine when financial resources will be
allocated and invested in further development, a process that can be much more conducive to your own
ambitions and allow much more flexibility of response to market conditions that are local to your
business. It is individual freedom. It is community freedom.
A moral dilemma; a way out. What business owner, for that matter, what
person, doesn’t have some programs on their computer(s) that they have not paid for, or have not
relicensed when the license expired? (Coincidentally many times these are Microsoft programs). But we
justify this because we just want to accomplish something useful that we want or have to do. Our semiconscience justification is supported by our obvious feeling that doing something useful is inherently
good. But we all have finite financial resources. And we believe, no, we desperately adhere to (a
quintessential American principal) the fact that the harder we strive to do useful things, and actually
accomplish useful things, the more financial resources we will acquire, to do more and greater useful
things for ourselves and others (if we get big enough, it may even trickle down to others). We are so
close to achieving this, in so many little ways, we just need to use this software for free, for now… With
open source software the moral dilemma vanishes.
SPEED!!! & PRICE !!! The first implementation of Linux was 1 and ½ to 2
times faster than UNIX on the same Sun Spark stations. These workstations with UNIX cost $7000 per
workstation. Having a Sun Spark Station with the Linux OS cost only 1/3rd, or even 1/4th the price (only
paying for the hardware). It still remains astoundingly faster than Microsoft or other commercial OSes.
Reliability. Server up time, for just one example, is measured in the months and years,
instead of the days or weeks.
Flexibility to make changes, add any functionality, distribute to other business partners,
collaborate on juxtapositions of business ideas and visions. You get the benefits and so do your business
partners which is may be a competitive advantage over others bidding to win that business. Enable you
to form and/or utilize any level and type of formal and informal community support. You can make
improvements and share or publish them for anyone if you desire.
COPYLEFT verses COPYRIGHT. Open source software is not unlicensed. It is licensed to
protect against and insure that the idea behind open source, and the open product itself is not taken
advantage of by proprietary ambitions. Companies can’t just make a little change and then claim they
own it and then after gaining a market share control the use (and usefulness) of software they now own.
Quicker deployment: Don’t have to be encumbered by all the problems
of intellectual property, having to negotiate contracts every time you buy a piece of software, having
lots of professionals involved. You can get to the business of getting the software to work, integrating it
into your work flow, bringing new services to market and closing sales. You can be quick to leverage new
opportunities into new services.
Cross industry Benefits. Because other businesses are trying to get
the software to accomplish business tasks, you benefit from their implementations of this functionality.
Everyone can contribute whether on the programming level, the innovation level or the helping level.
USEFULLNESS. When you use open source software you are not kept from doing
useful things.
Communism or socialism: Under totalitarian systems sharing is not a choice, the
State mandates who you want to collaborate with, when you want to gather and for what purpose, and
what you want to share. And they mandate this under the threat of prison or death. Open sharing is
actually a fundamental pillar of the free market system. And free speech is a fundamental principal of
our Constitution.
Greed has no compulsion about harming others in the pursuit of desire. Greed has no
compulsion about dominating and excluding others. Domination frustrates and humiliates and creates
an environment conducive to greed. Greed has no problem frustrating the passion of making useful
things work and causing assets, human, material, or natural to go sadly unused or to waste.
Greed sees no reason to be troubled with creating structure and environment that is conducive to,
facilitates, and creates equal opportunity, support, growth, innovation, community, leadership in idea,
actionable usefulness and on- going, sustainable Concerns, on the local, State, National and
International levels. Greed is not forward thinking except when the possibility of manipulation and
covert advantage exist. Greed reduces politics to the bargaining of beggars (The Pillars of the Earth
miniseries).
Greed is not an inalienable right of our constitution, but it is a fundamental danger of the human
condition and society. Greed needs to be checked and balanced with concern for the good of everyone
within a system where people can strive to reach ambitious goals. The most fundamental goal being to
create and do what is useful to us and to others. The licensing structure of Open Source software allows
the use and sharing of this product, but it does not allow the monopolization of it.
Open source is founded not in greed, but in the even more primary human condition
that is the spirit of life & growth. Open source is born of curiosity of the mind, and passion of the heart.
Business that is based on these practical expressions of the spirit of life is healthy and will grow strong
and prosper.
It is time for American culture and society to become clear about the distinction between greed and
freedom. This will open the door to our place in the global community and root our efforts in a
sustainable, innovative, globally equal, healthy future.
Having chosen Linux, Asterisk and freePBX, for you Voice over Internet Protocol telephone solution at
Beckford Law is one definite step in that reality.
Unified Communications allows you to connect to anyone and
anything, and it allows you to choose the least expensive method and medium to do it. Unified
Communications is a dream and a standard under increasingly rapid development which really started
with scientists, the IEEE, the IETF over 20 years ago. However, everyone is now trying to claim their role
as pseudo-creator on some level they relatively see as primary to the market. I have seen a surprising
array of embarrassing articles on the web where the big players try to implicitly imply that they are the
cornerstone of this new venture. Whenever a phenomenally big money opportunity occurs, there will be
a gold rush epiphenomenon. It pays to heed the advice to proceed cautiously. Everyone wants to sell
you the stake to their (proprietary) claim. When you buy into their claim, you find yourself with
nebulous promises, tools that are broken or simply absent, a dead-ended mine, and the feeling you have
been taken while they are a little more well-off with your hard earned money. By choosing the Open
Source platform you have gotten in below the ground floor, you own a piece of the ground itself and all
the rights that exist with it, and have can have no liens or claims of illegitimate ownership leveraged
against you. Your only concern is to build well upon this most quintessential of investments. In other
words, you now have the platform that, currently, and as new communications technologies are
created, will allow you to connect to anyone (e.g. personal, business, corporate, industry [including
legal] government, International) whether they use proprietary systems or not, and will allow you to add
any new ways of communicating, at any time, and, using the least expensive method (e.g. telephone,
Internet, Cellular, Satellite, Interplanetary???)
Robin Hood, CWNA, MCSE+I, CCNA, BA
P.S. It is funny that most of the top corporations in the world, including almost all the Fortune 500
companies, use Linux and Asterisk in some significant way toward the stampeding movement toward
total integration of communications in the world (Unified Communications). These corporations that are
so steeped in the traditions of domination, exclusion, greed-based advantage taking, know a good deal
when they see it. If we take advantage of this approach also, and for the right reasons, someday a
critical mass will be reached and there will be a significant shift toward a more healthy reality.