FreeBSD in the travelling industry

[Matthew Seaman]

On Sat, Mar 13, 2004 at 04:58:46PM -0600, Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P. wrote:
> jsha wrote:

> >Are there anyone out there with experience in using Open Source
> >software on top of FreeBSD to manage a travel agency?
> >
> >I have searched through Google and Freshmeat without really finding
> >any decent Open Source booking systems. I was hoping someone could
> >give me any hints as where to start my journey.

> I wonder if there's a niche for this?
> 
> You could probably get some guys
> over at sourceforge interested in
> an app ... web based, perhaps?
> PHP?  Or Perl?
> 
> Heck, if I knew anything about
> the travel business .....

There are niches like this for all sorts of business applications --
Customer Relationship Management, Payroll, Account Books, Billing
Systems, Business Development Information Management, Trouble Ticket
Management.  The common characteristics seem to be:

    * That they are or can be generally structured as 3-tier systems
      (Data -- usually a RDBMS backend, Logic -- business logic middle
      ware: web based applications in Perl, Java or PHP are becoming
      popular in this role; and Presentation -- either a specialised
      'thick' client application or more and more often nowadays a web
      browser (the ultimate 'thin' client)).

    * Generally require a degree of bespoke work for each client -- if
      not writing the entire system from scratch, then assembling it
      from a library of modules and customising various parts to the
      clients specific needs.

    * Very rarely done as Free or Open Source projects.  About the
      only good example I can think of is the 'RT' Trouble Ticket
      management system: http://www.bestpractical.com/rt/ Usually such
      projects are done on a contract basis for each specific client.
      Most companies supplying such software will have a generic
      version available more as a shop window than as a serious sales
      proposition -- RT is towards the generic end of the spectrum.

This sort of software business is huge, and lucrative.  Up at the top
end, this is where the likes of Oracle and SAP make the majority of
their money.  But businesses of all scales need these sorts of
applications, and there are certainly opportunities for people willing
to exploit the freedoms (and lack of licensing costs) of open source
software.  If you can provide an effective and cost effective solution
to a small business, they aren't going to quibble too much about it
running on some weird system like FreeBSD that they've never heard of
before.  And you aren't going to have too many worries about costs and
OS problems and dealing with viruses etc. making it uneconomic to take
their money in order to provide a support service for a system running
on our favourite OS.

While such applications need not be 'free' in the free-beer sense, or
even generally published to the 'net at large, there's no overriding
reason for them not to be open source between the customer and vendor
-- in fact, that would generally prove a great selling point at the
low end: even if the vendor goes bust, the client is not left entirely
high and dry if they have access to the source code.

This is perhaps the next great opening where Free software can make
in-roads, after the 'generic server' market and the network appliance
market.  It's certainly a much more tractable proposition at the
moment than attempting to conquer the desktop market.

	Cheers,

	Matthew

-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
                                                      Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
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