The LAMP stack has been around for years, Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP/Perl/Python/Parrot?

It is a stack built on free software that drove a significant phase in the growth of the internet around 2000.

Linux, a free operating system.

Apache, a free webserver

MySQL, a free database, a friend described it to me as, "faster than a very fast thing*.

P, free languages, many beginning with P.

At the time this stack became popular I was working in the corporate finance world.

The company was looking at future tech choices and looking for a database.

There were basically two candidates, MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server.

The LIMP Stack

The company already had a heavy investment in Microsoft and was starting to use SQL Server more and more.

Many key products they depended on also uses SQL Server.

In the end this swung the decision. Oh and a belief that MySQL was not ready for prime time.

The company was already running some of its internal modelling on Linux. It was a natural migration from proprietary Unix that had been used previously. It worked.

But they were short of free software expertise and understanding. And the main advocate in the company was sick with an (as yet) undiagnosed neuro-muscular disease as well as mildly bi-polar.

So the company went with Linux, IIS, Micrsoft and Python.

I call it the LIMP stack, but you have to walk before you can run.

But working cross platform is harder for everyone. I was delighted to be able to use python and linux. I knew I was way more productive in that environment.

I knew that it would give us flexibility. It would allow us to use cheaper hardware and get more out of it. It would future proof us through the freedom that the free software licenses were granting.

It allowed us to understand at every level, how the software was actually working.

Most of all, it allowed others to do the same. And they did. And just by using this stuff they helped make it better.

Now just this week I read that NSA built is key infrastructure on top of free software. The GPL license gives them the freedom to use the software how they want.

It trusts that, people will in general use it for good purposes. Defining good is just too hard, so it does not try.

I just blogged about Mandela Day. Mandela used to be described as a terrorist. Now he is recognised by the United Nations as a relentless campaigner for freedom, justice and democracy.

Perspectives change.

But the free software community is full of people with good motives. If they feel a project is going in a bad direction, it may be forked into a new project.

Forks cause some harm, as their is division of effort. Eventually, one project wins out. More often than not projects will rejoin.

There is currently a fork in the MySQL project. Oracle own the MySQL code (they acquired it from Sun), but it is published under the GPL.

The original authors of MySQL have started a fork project, MariaDB.

I expect these projects will one day re-unite.

Then there is the postgres database. It has a special Geographic Information System sister project called postGIS.

The neat thing is that switching databases in many projects is not too hard, particularly if you are going from one free database to another.

For example, the django web framework supports multiple backend databases.

It is the same story wherever you use free software.

LIMP was a very bold choice at the time and it served the company very well. It was a great place to work, a very open organisation.