http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/21058.html
By By Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier
NewsFactor Network
March 21, 2003
Often, when people think of Perl, they think of Unix. But Perl runs on just about any modern operating system, including Windows.
Many CIOs may like the idea of open source software but may not feel ready to champion a switch to Linux or one of the BSD operating systems. Fortunately, plenty of open source and free software applications run on Windows, which is ubiquitous in nearly every IT department.
For example, Windows users can find everything from office productivity suites to high-performance Web servers in the open source world. Compilers, scripting languages and tools to make Windows more like Unix also are available.
Why Open Source?
Of course, myriad proprietary tools are not only available, but also more widely used than their open source counterparts. Why might an IT manager consider using a combination of Windows and open source applications? According to William Rowe, Jr., a senior software engineer at Covalent Technologies and an active member of the Apache Software Foundation, IT employees might face a mandate to run Windows even if they are more comfortable with open source offerings.
Rowe told NewsFactor that open source's benefits include freely available source code, the ability to fix bugs without waiting for vendor patches, and supportive communities.
Open Your Office
Another reason firms might look at open source, according to Sam Hiser, co-lead of the OpenOffice.org marketing project, is "just to leverage Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) down on license fees." If companies can prove to the software giant that they have alternatives, Microsoft may, in theory, be more willing to negotiate.
However, Hiser said this is not the best reason to migrate from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice.org. "That's a logical short-term goal, but it really misses the point about productivity gains they are going to achieve running the universal, open XML file format with its amazing implications for data mining , management and repurposing across the business," he told NewsFactor.
Motivations aside, the OpenOffice.org office suite is probably one of the best-known open source projects that runs on Windows. In fact, as a cross-platform suite, it allows companies to standardize on a single set of applications across Windows, Linux and Solaris. The project also is working on a port for Mac OS X.
Some may think that most OpenOffice.org users are running platforms for which Microsoft Office is not an option. But Hiser said that is not the case. "Our user survey, [with] over 71,000 responses, indicates 63 percent [of users are on] Windows."
Next Best Thing
Another popular free software application for Windows is Cygwin. This program is a Unix environment for Windows that provides Unix API functionality, plus a collection of tools commonly used in the Unix world.
Rowe told NewsFactor that Cygwin is popular with Unix system administrators who have to work with Windows because of departmental mandates. "You have Unix shops who might adopt Win32, based on availability of Win32 administrators [or for other reasons] ... who have no desire to lose their established tools." Those shops, according to Rowe, are "good Cygwin candidates, since some of those users are Unix-savvy already and want to work in a Unix-like shell and development environment."
Developer Tools Galore
There is also a rich selection of open source software for developers -- and most of the open source development tools that are available for Unix and Linux are also available for Windows. Take Perl, for example. Often, when people think of Perl, they think of Unix. But Perl runs on just about any modern operating system, including Windows.
Java , Python, PHP and Ruby, all open source favorites, run on Windows as well. The GNU Compiler Collection (GCC), which includes compilers for C, C++, Fortran, Java, Ada and Objective C, is included with the Cygwin environment.
Database developers, too, can find open source solutions for Windows. The PostgreSQL and MySQL databases are available for the Microsoft OS.
Everyone's Favorite Webserver
Though you may not hear it trumpeted from the rooftops, the Apache Web server also has a Windows port. Rowe noted that the 2.0 version of Apache is fairly popular among Windows users. "It is very interesting that about 1 percent of users had moved from Apache 1.3 to 2.0 last month on various Unix platforms. However, 7 percent had made the move to Apache 2.0 on the Windows platform," he said.
IBM (NYSE: IBM) supports Apache on Windows with its WebSphere Application Server. Bill Stoddard, manager of IBM's Apache Web Server Development and a member of the Apache Software Foundation, told NewsFactor that Apache on Windows can be effective when a company primarily has Windows administrators. "The preferred solution is to deploy Apache on Linux or AIX," he explained. "However, if a company is heavily invested in Microsoft products, it would make sense to deploy Apache on Windows to leverage existing OS admin skills."
Good for Standards
Stoddard also noted that the ability to run Apache on multiple platforms is good for standardization. "If a shop contains a mix of Linux, AIX or Windows machines, it might make sense to standardize on the Apache HTTP Server, especially if the shop is trending away from ASP and .NET and toward Web app development using Java technologies."
For users who worry that the Windows version of Apache may not measure up to the Unix or Linux flavors, Stoddard said, "Apache 2.0 on Windows is comparable in quality and performance to Apache 2.0 on the other operating systems that Apache 2.0 runs on." In contrast, he added that although Apache 1.3 is reliable on Windows, "it is not best of breed in terms of performance."
Rowe agreed that Apache for Windows has matured a great deal between the 1.3 series and 2.0 series. "Apache 2.0 is about one order of magnitude faster and more efficient, because much of Apache 2.0 was redesigned to be efficient irrespective of the platform, or conditionally optimized for each platform."
Share and Prosper
There will probably always be a better selection of open source and free software for users of Linux and Unix. And Rowe told NewsFactor that some communities are less helpful to Windows users than others. "Some OSS [open source software] communities are downright hostile to Win32 users attempting to port and use OSS on the Windows platform."
He noted, however, that developers rarely lash out at potential users. Instead, hostility usually springs from "a strongly biased user community around established Unix software."
That attitude is, however, not the norm. Many open source projects have Windows ports, and many free software and open source developers are happy to spread the benefits of their software to any platform. In the future, perhaps enterprises will seem more like OS melting pots than isolated "shops." Increased choice of applications could boost the bottom line by enabling CIOs to select low-cost alternatives to proprietary software. And that is an attractive prospect in a difficult economy.
