Laying Tracks With Open Source

摘要

One Thing That Sold Union Pacific Railroad on open-source Web server software was that it let the company's developers roll up their sleeves and write their own code for the company's new Web infrastructure. Union Pacific is building a new generation of intranet and customer applications based on Web technology. At the heart of the strategy is open-source Apache Unix Web servers, which let developers add to the server software as needed or write their own modules for legacy interfaces and other features, rather than having to wait for a Web server vendor to distribute a new service pack or release. "We can take matters into our own hands," says Tom Lantry, the Web team leader and technical product manager for the Apache program at Union Pacific Rail- road, an operating company that's part of the $11.9 billion Union Pacific Corp. in Omaha, Neb.