15Z010 – Open Source Systems

Dr.S.Suriya Associate Professor/CSE 1

 Economics of FOSS
Synopsis

Definition
Zero Marginal cost
Benefits of FOSS
Income generation Opportunities
3 Problems with Traditional Commercial software
Internationalization
Localization

Dr.S.Suriya Associate Professor/CSE 2


Definition
• Non profit corporation
dedicated to manage and
promote open source
Zero Marginal Cost
• Refers to cost of making
additional copies of an
information.
Dr.S.Suriya Associate Professor/CSE
Benefits:
1. High Quality software with zero
marginal cost.
2. Software can be customized for
specific needs
3. Direct user inputs drives
development
4. Quick response to security
threats
5. Minimize development time
6. Minimize vendor lock in
7. Decreased time to market
3
Income generation Opportunities
FOSS provides
(i) Generates in-house savings
(ii) Consulting opportunities in installing, training, customization

Problems with Traditional Commercial Software

(i) Frequent updates due to fluctuating demands of market and customer
needs.
(ii) Closed nature – copyrighted product
(iii) Vendor lock-in (makes customer dependent on a vendor for products and
services)

Dr.S.Suriya Associate Professor/CSE 4

Internationalization Focal points

It is the process of designing a 1. Language,

software application so that it 2. Alphabets/Scripts,
can be adapted to various 3. Spelling variants of same language
languages and regions without spoken in different countries,
engineering changes. 4. Date/Time format,
5. Formatting of numbers,
Localization 6. Time zone,
7. Currency,
8. Symbols,
It is the process of adapting a
software for a specific region 9. Names & Titles,
or language. 10. Telephone numbers.
Dr.S.Suriya Associate Professor/CSE 5