With opponents like Microsoft and supporters such as IBM and HP, the open source software movement seems to have an exciting future ahead.

It was in the 1990s, at the height of the technology boom that open-source software became a rage. Programmers across the world contributed to the movement by writing free programs; venture funds were poured into the open approach; open-source firms mushroomed and their IPOs broke all records. Today with the burst of the dotcom bubble and the economic downturn, many open-source firms have died an early death. But the open-source movement continues to survive and is also gaining favor with budget-conscious companies buoyed by performance improvements. It is emerging as a threat to the proprietary interests of big names like Microsoft and Apple who have for long controlled the operating system arena.

Till about a few years ago computer consumers had a very limited choice of operating systems. They could select between the Mac OS run on the relatively pricey Apple computers and Windows, which drove all other PCs. But now a third operating system, Linux, seems to be emerging as a cheap and reliable alternative. Linux, the result of the open-source movement has been available for free since Linus Torvalds created it in 1991. It was created as the people's software, free and open for use, in an attempt to halt the commercialization of technology. Developers usually write `free software', which is not controlled by a corporation, using Linux, paving the way for using low cost or free substitutes for expensive programs such as corporate e-mail managers.

But for years Linux eluded the mainstream market because of its complexity. Though it is still complex and requires specialized skills, it has nevertheless steadily gained popularity largely among Microsoft's opponents. Linux owns just a share of the desktop market with a meager 1% as compared to Microsoft, whose Windows operating system enjoys 84% market share and Mac operating system's 15%. And it hasn't fared any better in the enterprise software market, where people opt for either Windows 2000 or Sun's Solaris. However, it is poised to garner more slices of the pie. Last year one in five servers sold in the US ran on Linux and this year the software is expected to gain more market share as corporations accept that they can benefit from cost savings without sacrificing reliability, at least for some tasks.

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