Open Source Software

Many companies and government organizations today are embracing open-source technology for it’s affordability, customizability, and reliability to create the least expensive computing environment.
Enterprises today are looking at innovative ways to reduce system ownership costs and time to market by leveraging standards-based open source components. Open Source software has formed the backbone of the Internet and the World Wide Web since their inception. For a detailed list of popular open source software visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_software_packages

Open source Advantages

Better Quality
The open source development model encourages peer review of both code and design and authors take great pride in their work. Open source software releases tend to occur only when the software is considered ready. There is no marketing department dictating when the next version with those great new features (that you probably don’t even need) must be ready.

Reduced Risk
Availability of source code and the freedom to make changes gives businesses unparalleled control over the tools they depend on. Unreasonable price increases, unacceptable licensing restrictions and vendor demise or acquisition no longer have the impact they used to.

More Secure
Most experts agree that having completely open code is the only way to ensure security as opposed to the “security through obscurity” often employed by proprietary vendors. Moreover since the source code is available in open source, any security bug can be fixed easily.

Support
Access to good support channels is critical both during development and in the day-to-day running of services. Commercial support for well known open source products is available from various organisations and high quality, free support is almost always generally available via mailing lists, news groups and web-based forums. It is extremely likely that questions will be answered by the developers themselves or at least by people who use the product every day. In comparison, the support available from proprietary vendors can be quite expensive and anything other than simple questions are unlikely to get a satisfactory response.

Licensing and TCO
For many projects and start-up companies the cost of purchasing software can be prohibitive. Licensing schemes, particularly for server software, can also get quite complex! Most open source software is available for a nominal cost (often just the price of installation media or a download) and can be installed as many times as necessary, allowing capital to be spent where it matters most – realising the business proposition. Anything other than a recent version of a proprietary software product is often considered unsupported, forcing the customerinto a needless upgrade cycle often with no tangible benefits.

Open standards
Open source software largely defines the standards used on the internet so it should be relatively obvious that open standardsare considered extremely important. Open standards allow products from different vendors to work together but they can also prevent business from being “tied” to a single product from a single vendor.

Problems faced by open source software:

  • Compatibility Problems:

    • Because of the open source nature there will be many forks for a single application and it sometimes make that application tied to each flavor of Linux.

  • Open source is NOT plug and play:

    • The loading and installation of the software’s can be a major hurdle for many users.

  • Difficult to use:

    • Open source packages tend to be written by engineers for other engineers and for many of them it is accepted that ordinary function will involve creation of configuration files, writing scripts, or actually editing the source code and recompiling.

  • Poor Documentation

    • Many Open Source applications have poor documentation.

Our Services

OmkarSoft offers best of breed open source solutions and services to help clients select the right open source components to fit their needs, based on their specific requirements, thereby freeing customers the risk of acquiring, implementing, and maintaining the open solution technologies. In addition, we offer our own set of open source tools that can dramatically reduce the time and cost of modernizing legacy systems.

OmkarSoft’s open source services can help clients:

  • Evaluate and select open source components

    • For companies who weigh on open source solutions, many are face with thousands of open-sources application and systems to choose from, as well as on how to best integrate, test, and validate all elements of the open source components for their business requirements.

  • Build custom applications based on popular open source products

    • OmkarSoft develops custom applications with various open source componets, to meet your particular business function needs.

  • Integrate open source components into an existing application infrastructure

    • Deploying open source components is more than just programming. It requires industry knowledge and technological discipline to successfully build, modify and enhance those components.

    We provide your organization with comprehensive development services, including testing and integration with your existing environment. When an off-the-shelf open source application won’t fit your requirements, we’ll develop a custom solution to provide your organization an effective open source deployment.

  • Linux/Windows Environment Integration

    • OmkarSoft provides integration of Windows and Linux so that they work together seamlessly and provide excellent business services for any infrastructure environments. We provide integration at the client-level and server-level,

  • Linux Platform Porting

    • OmkarSoft provides cost-effective, high-quality application-porting services from various platforms to Linux platforms. We also help you upgrade from older versions of the open source software to the newer versions.

  • Maintenance and Support

    • OmkarSoft is committed to provide the supports and maintenance you need for your open source technology deployment.

  • Thorough testing and QA
      We actively participate and contribute to the various open source projects, and also collaborate directly with the open source communities on open source technology.

    • We can thoroughly test and fix any bugs in open source software so that you can use it without any issues.