Every IT educational institution proudly parades its graduates every semester. Many of these graduates are potentially good open source software developers. Unfortunately, exposure to the tools required for modern application development, notably those based on the web, are minimal if not absent. In some institutions, open source software development is not even introduced.

Most people are not aware that many of the popular software we regularly use on the Internet are developed using open source programming languages, databases, tools and libraries. Google uses Python, a popular open source programming language. Yahoo uses MySQL, the most popular open source database server. A subset of Facebook’s engine functionalities are available as open source software. Wordpress, a very easy to use blogging software, uses PHP, another popular open source programming language. Linux, the operating system that runs majority of websites, is open source. Yet many IT graduates may not even be familiar with these.

It is important that IT graduates are able to use open source applications and even more important that aspiring software developers are already proficient in these as the job market for software developers usually require skills in the LAMP platform. LAMP stands for Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (or Perl , or Python). Being able to develop in a LAMP platform allows the developer to simulate the application when it is deployed in a web server hosted in a data center.

The first step for any IT educational institution is to introduce Linux into the curriculum. Linux has the reputation of being “hard to use” but it is not really true. Most users are just not familiar with the user interface which is significantly different compared to a popular operating system. Once developers learn the tools in Linux, they will find that the Linux environment is the ideal platform for open source software development.

Our next several issues of TechTalk will focus on open software development tools, skills and tips to help aspiring software developers hone their skills and be ready to take on job opportunities in the near future. Keep reading TechTalk. If you miss an issue, don’t worry as these will be published online in www.techsier.com also.