Adding to the confusion are concerns of an unproven business proposition, the belief that the software is unreliable, along with technology, terms, acronyms and products which may seem unfamiliar to decision makers. The emphasis on “openness” in open source software has fostered the growth of a worldwide community of developers contributing to the evolution and improvement of a variety of software programs. While such a diffused structure for software development may seem chaotic, this approach is being considered as a more democratic alternative to monolithic single vendor initiatives. Our report provides background on these efforts and intends to bring the discussion to a wider audience.

Linux: Where much of the Focus

1 In 1991 Linus Torvalds, then a student at the University of Helsinki, started work on Linux as an open source operating system. In 1994 version 1.0 was released, based on a kernel he developed and code from the GNU project. As a result, Linux falls under the GNU General Public License. The current Linux version, 2.4, was released in January 2001.

The Linux operating system is used in many ways including support for networking, software development, servers and desktop platforms and is considered as a low cost alternative to other operating systems.

FUTURE SCOPE

Since Linux is free of viruses and it cannot be hacked easily so it is in great demand and it’s use may increase in future.

Since it is Open Source Software so modifications can be easily done as per the requirement of an individual or the company.

No Licence Fee is to be paid for Linux as in other operating system available in the market, so in order to reduce costs more and more companies have switched over to Linux such as WIPRO, IBM, SATYAM COMPUTERS and many more may switch in due course of time.

It,s future prospects can be estimated by the fact that till now there are only around 50,000 linux professionals in the country and the demand for them is increasing day by day.