Open source computing is becoming a practical alternative for many local organizations, and its adoption has risen sharply in 2005, fuelled to a large extent by the efforts of open-source developer Mark Shuttleworth, the Go-Open Foundation and other open source protagonists.

According to Inus Gouws, a senior information management (IM) consultant at Computer Associates Africa, they have succeeded in raising awareness for the open source movement, by challenging software vendors to define open standards and open source as their default platform.

"Many vendors are responding to this challenge," he says. "Computer Associates has, for example, placed the Ingres relational database solution at the center of its open source strategy, to the extent that Ingres has been released to the market under the "CA Trusted Open Source Licence" banner."

"CA is a proponent of open source technology, and believes that the open source development approach can take appropriate software programs to unprecedented levels of quality, growth, and innovation," says Gouws. "CA is committed to building a strong, vibrant community for Ingres, and is working with partners, ISVs and the open source community to rapidly grow the use of Ingres on a global basis."

Gouws says that, internally, Ingres has become the standard database for CA products, and is bundled with many CA solutions, because it offers a practical solution to leveraging information resources across a wide range of platforms, including Linux, Unix, Windows and OpenVMS. "CA is providing support and services for Ingres, and now includes indemnification against claims that the software infringes on third party intellectual property rights," he adds.