So it has got to this, I am the new Sys Admin here at Quirk. And as most people know us technically minded individuals do not have the knack for writing any sort of articles, blog posts or user manuals and tend to think in binary rather than in ‘human speak’.
So here goes:
I was born in Durban, Natal where I grew up and matriculated. After school I decided to study electronics and three years later I had my N6 national diploma. After that I headed to Cape Town where I studied developing (MCSD.Net) and discovered the wonderful world of Open Source.
So what’s been the big hype about open source over the past few years?
Well, the very first thing that comes to everyone’s mind is that it is either free or cheaper than commercial software. Look a little deeper and you will discover the ease of updating software when it becomes available, 24 / 7 online community support, access to source code and the ability to customise, bug fixes are implemented quicker and it has more security compared to commercial software.
Added to this, the cost of hardware is significantly cheaper as an open source based system generally uses less resources than closed vendor software (application specific).
A survey undertaken monthly by Netcraft showed that in April 2008, Apache's (an open source Web server) market share was 54% with +/- 34 million active servers followed by Microsoft (IIS) with a market share of 35% and +/- 23 million active servers.
With recent developments in the desktop arena, open source is becoming more of an everyday term. One distribution – Ubuntu headed by South African Mark Shuttleworth is fast becoming the Desktop OS of choice. A basic installation will leave you with a complete package, which includes office tools, the ability to send and receive email and to browse the Internet. All this opens doors for many new users who could not afford the added cost of software.
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Welcome Grant W! We are really looking forward to our systems running smoothly.
How about writing a little more about Open Source? I must say I haven't given open source much thought but it all sounds very interesting.
Posted by SuperSanti on 2008/05/15