My Provost Submission

Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 17:24:22 -0500 (EST)
From: Michael Bonert
To: plan2003@utoronto.ca
Subject: Information Technology Strategy - Provost Plan 2003

Dear Dr Neuman,

Below is a proposal for the information technology strategy.

It is in two parts.  The first part is text I hope will be
in some form adopted into the 2003 plan; the second part
explains in some detail why the university should adopt
my recommendations.

Sincerely,
Michael Bonert

----------------------------------------------------
 Michael Bonert, MASc (Biomed Eng), BASc (Mech Eng)
 MD Candidate - Class of 2007

 University of Toronto - Medicine

 Email:
----------------------------------------------------


PART I
====================================================
Executive Summary:
Proprietary data formats and systems impede the exchange of information
and integration.  Therefore, they are associated with significant costs to
the students, the staff and the university and thus should be avoided
where possible. In addition, as an institution that is committed to open
and free society, it is important that the university uses software that
is open and developed in a manner that is consistent with its academic
mission and can readily be peer-reviewed.  Further, it is essential that
software at the university be secure from attack and viruses.  For
peer-review of software to take place and high system integrity, it is
essential that the source code is readily available to the university and
programming community at large.

Goals:
- The University of Toronto will use open and free standards in computing
where available and practical.

- The university will demonstrate to other institutions how one can
deliver superior information technology support for teaching and research.


Strategy:
Open and free software (e.g. OpenOffice.org, Red Hat Linux) will be made
available to the students and staff on physical media (CDs) for the cost
of the media.  In addition, the library will establish mirrors** of
popular open source packages and distributions (as other universities
already have) to allow users (students, faculty and staff) with high speed
internet connections to download them at no cost.
	Responsibility: University of Toronto Libraries/Computing
Division.

A transition period will be established in which free and open packages
are installed concurrently with
proprietary ones.
	Responsibility: Individual Faculties.

If proprietary software packages are chosen, their use (and their
additional costs) should be justified if open and free alternatives exist.

Study ways in which best practices and experiences can be shared between
faculties and departments.  Several divisions of the university (Faculty
of Engineering, Faculty of Arts & Science) already make some use of free
and open software.

-----
** A Web site that is a replica of an already existing site, used to
reduce network traffic (hits on a server) or improve the availability of
the original site. Mirror sites are useful when the original site
generates too much traffic for a single server to support.




PART II
====================================================
----
Note to readers unfamiliar with Linux and the open source movement: I
recommend reading the "Economist" article referenced at the end as
an introduction. 

http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1699434
---- 

While some faculties already make use of free and open software [22], many
of the information systems used at the University of Toronto are
proprietary.  

The following will demonstrate that the university should make greater use
of free and open software (for practical reasons).  Free and open software
benefits from open standards (and thus greater interoperability), lower
total cost of ownership and greater security.


Open standards:
Open (non-proprietary) standards in computing tend to establish themselves
and dominate.  This is illustrated by the development of UNIX in the
workstation market, which has almost completely displaced proprietary
vendor based operating systems [1,2].  Another example is the
establishment of the TCP/IP protocol; its proprietary competitors (X.25,
DECnet, and the ISO 7-layer stack) are now almost unheard of. [3, 4]  

Current trends suggest that the (free) Apache project will displace
Microsoft from the web server, it has twice Microsoft's market share and
is growing at Microsoft's expense. [21]  Computer industry leaders, like
Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, have predicted Microsoft's will be wiped-out of
the data center by the Linux operating system. [5]  A British Medical
Journal editorial has predicted that open standards will be the future of
tomorrow's software systems in medical care and that Linux is the logical
basis for this. [8] 

Governments and companies around the globe are embracing the idea and
understand why being reliant on one vendor is a risky and
costly. [18].  The German federal government has gone even further in its
embrace of openness and is directly funding some open source development
work in computer security. [23]   IBM has invested billions into Linux
projects. [24]


The costs of proprietary systems:
Closed systems favour the vendor, have a tendency to lead to vendor
lock-in, higher prices and poor service. [1]  Microsoft has acknowledged
that lock-in is their strategy, in a series of leaked internal
reports. [7] Further, they admit it is difficult to compete with open
standards and actively must (1) "decommoditize" protocols (2) break
standards and (3) hinder interoperability, if they want to maintain their
monopoly position and profitability. [7]


Security:
Windows is poorly designed for security, a normal user can modify
operating system files. [16]  Other major operating systems (UNIX, Linux,
FreeBSD and Mac OS X (based on free UNIX variant)) do not have this design
flaw.  Viruses and worms are much more prevalent and severe on Microsoft
systems than UNIX systems, Linux systems, and systems derived from free
UNIX variants (like Mac OS X). [14, 15, 20]


Usability:
Most office software is available on Linux and usability tests have shown
that productivity, when compared to Windows environments, is not
significantly affected. [13] OpenOffice.org is considered equivalent in
functionally to Microsoft Office, is free and has a high interoperability
with Microsoft formats. [12]  It is generally considered more stable and
in some instances out performs Microsoft Office; it can generate PDF files
without any additional costly proprietary software.  It would be ideal for
beginning the transition to open and free software; it is available for
Windows, Linux and OS X.  Large migrations away from proprietary desktop
products have started.  Munich, Germany's third largest city, is currently
equipping all of the 14,000 computers in its public administration with
Linux and other open-source office applications. [11] 


Cost and reliability:
Open solutions not only have no licensing fees, but also a lower total
cost of ownership, because of lower maintenance costs and greater
reliability. [25 ,26]  Further, Linux is commercially supported by a
number of companies [19], and because the source is open and the
differences between different Linux distributions relatively small,
relatively immune to vendor lock-in (if commercial support is desired),
and amendable to a high level of customization.  


Conclusion:
Companies, governments and universities are increasingly adopting open and
free software solutions for many reasons.  It is time for the University
of Toronto to officially embrace open standards in computing and
demonstrate to other institutions how a university can deliver to its
community superior information technology support for teaching and
research.

====================================================
References:

1. "Twilight of the proprietary systems"
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1107-981854.html

2. "How Linux Smashed Windows"
http://betula.br.fgov.be/SCIENCE/INFORMATICS/doc/lastdino.html

3. "The Jargon Dictionary: TCP/IP"
http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/t/TCP_slash_IP.html

4. "A Short History of Internet Protocols at CERN"
http://ben.home.cern.ch/ben/TCPHIST.html

5. "Ellison: Linux will wipe Microsoft out of the data center"
(Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle -- Computer World)
http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/linux/story/0,10801,79951,00.html

6. "The Cathedral & the Bazaar" by Eric Raymond
Software Development Strategies - Discusses Economics of Software
Development
http://tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/
Raymond E., The Cathedral & the Bazaar, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.,
Sebastopol, CA, 2001, ISBN: 0-596-00108-8

7. Leaked Memos from Microsoft - Acknowledges the strengths of Linux
and discusses the tactics they are using to promote vendor lock-in
http://www.opensource.org/halloween/

8. "Medical Software's Free Future" (British Medical Journal)
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/321/7267/976

9. GNU (Free Software Foundation) explains various software licenses
including GPL and the concept of "free" software:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html

10. "European open-source enthusiasts are welcoming moves by French
officials to encourage the use of open standards and open-source
software in electronic-government applications." (CNN)
http://edition.cnn.com/2001/TECH/industry/11/27/french.open.source.idg/

11. "Munich chooses Linux over Windows" (Computer Weekly)
http://www.computerweekly.com/Article122160.htm

12. "OpenOffice.org versus Microsoft Office" (ZDNet)
http://www.zdnet.com.au/itmanager/technology/story/0,2000029587,20270300,00.htm

13. "Linux closes on Windows in usability tests" (ZDNet)
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5060709.html

14. "Linux vs. Windows Viruses" (The Register)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/56/33226.html

"Ballmer Says Commercial Software is Better Because Someone's Rear End is
on the Line"
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20031022014413296

15. "Linux Security from a Windows Security Expert's Perspective" (Linux Security)
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/feature_stories/interview-avi-2.html

16. "Microsoft Windows: Insecure by Design" (Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A34978-2003Aug23Found=true

17. "B.C. lab cracks suspected SARS code [using Linux cluster]"
http://www.bcgsc.ca/bioinfo/SARS/
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2003/04/12/sars_code030412

18. Who's running which OS (Netcraft) http://news.netcraft.com/
 Governments & Companies running Linux:
  - The Whitehouse - http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.whitehouse.gov
  - Amazon.com - http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.amazon.com
  - Saskatchewan Government - http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.gov.sk.ca
 Some Universites that are running Linux:
  - McGill University - http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.mcgill.ca
  - Johns Hopkins University - http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.jhu.edu
  - McMaster University - http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.mcmaster.ca

19. Linux Supported at a Professional Level
- http://www-1.ibm.com/services/e-business/linux.html (IBM)
- http://www.redhat.com/services/consulting/deployment/ (Red Hat)
- http://www.suse.com/us/private/support/ (Suse)

20. "Software developers say Linux is safer than WinXP"
http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=890870231&fp=16&fpid=0&

21. Apache Market Share
(Netcraft.com) http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2003/10/01/october_2003_web_server_survey.html

22.  Linux Servers at the University of Toronto
  - Univ. of Toronto (ECF) - http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.ecf.utoronto.ca
  - Univ. of Toronto (Arts & Science) - http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=www.artsandscience.utoronto.ca

23. A project to improve and commercialize the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG)
http://www.gnupg.de/presse.en.html

24. "IBM bets 2.9 Billion on Linux for semiconductor manufacture"
http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/news/semiconductor.shtml

25. "Total Cost of Ownership for Linux in the Enterprise" (IBM)
http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/RFG-LinuxTCO-vFINAL-Jul2002.pdf

26. "Samba beats Windows" (VNUNET)
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1144289


General Reading:
"The rise of Linux is dividing the computer industry into winners and losers"
(The Economist)
http://www.economist.com/business/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1699434

"How a ragtag band of software geeks is threatening Sun and
Microsoft--and turning the computer world upside down" (Business Week)
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/03_09/b3822601_tc102.htm

Migration Guide: A guide to migrating the basic software components on
server and workstation computers (German Federal Ministry of the Interior)
http://www.kbst.bund.de/Anlage303777/pdf_datei.pdf