Migrating

All the future posts will be at this blog on my personal website.

The Car Analogy

The Car Analogy: "What if buying a new car were like using nonfree software?"

This article describes the dis-advantages of non-free software with the most practical example.
I am sure no one would buy such a car. Then why buy such software?

Peace One Day Logo Badge

Drowning in Six Inch Deep Stream!

With so much brouhaha happening over which operating system commands how much market share, I thought I should add this quote on how much statistics can be relied upon.

"Then there was the man who drowned crossing a stream with an average depth of six inches."
-W. I. E. Gates

My Introduction to Open Source

The first time I bumped into open source was when I used Mozilla's Firefox web-browser that was installed on one of the computers at a client's office (I might have installed a couple of open source utility programs on Windows, but they never made the concept so clear). That was way back in 2005. It was only then that I came to know that there was an alternative to Internet Explorer. Later that year, I came across a RedHat Linux Desktop at another client's office, and it was then that I came to know that there was an alternative to MS Windows. I found Firefox interesting, and I installed it on my computer. Thus I had my first rendezvous with open source. Firefox became my window to open source programs. A little googling on Mozilla, and I had a snapshot of open source philosophy. The ease of use, and flexibility of Firefox made it an instant hit for me. I wonder if I would have even known about tabs and add-ons and other cool stuff like that had I not come across this amazing piece of software then.

Until a little more than a year ago, just as the majority of us, even I believed that Linux is used only on servers, or for computer geeks who are good at using commands. Then I read this article about Linux in a newspaper. That spiked my interest in Linux. Again, I asked my good friend Google, and it directed me to this website which gave the basic background and a little encouragement that I needed to probe further. I also found another website which hosted screenshots of most of the Linux distributions. Kubuntu looked very much like what I was used to to see in Windows. That plus a few bling-bling videos on youtube.com encouraged me a little more. Furthermore, it also gave me an option to request for CD to be shipped to my doorstep free of cost! I requested one as the my internet connections was very slow. Though the site mentioned a shipping time of 4 to 6 weeks, it reached me before 3 weeks. I put the CD into my computer, and the romance started!

Open Up!

From the kind of links that I keep sharing on this page, one could easily make out that I am a open source supporter. But why do I support open source? To sum up in Star Trek lingo - Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.
While I was writing, I came across this really good article which reflects the advantages of open source (it significantly reduced the need for me to explain a few concepts here). As this article quotes Mahatma Gandhi's words "Means are more important than the end: it is only with the right means that the desired end will follow".

I absolutely agree with the open source philosophy, that the user should be in control of what he/she wants. Developer should make the software as modular as possible and release the code, so that the user can build upon it to suit his needs/preferences and in the process, create more scope for improvement. No body should be forced to use what developer deems fit. You would say that no casual user bothers about changing the software. But how many of us keep the default wallpaper that comes with our operating system (and given an option, we would like to customize every small detail of look'n'feel and behaviour of our favourite system). It is not about whether you care to modify, it is about your right to modify - your freedom to use it as you like. Open source provides me that freedom.

Why this blog?

I am no tech wizard or anything but just a 'layman geek' who keeps scouting for information and opinions on technology that we use in daily life. I keep reading so much stuff on technology.... that I have myself formed opinion on some. It is always good to jot down these ideas to concretise them. Hence this blog. I hope the geek within you would like to read this.