Why Open Source and Linux?
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Chirag
May 24, 2009, 8:52:10 PM5/24/09
to JUIT Linux User Group
Original Post: [http://rubenkwast.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/open-
source/] by Ruben Kwast
“Open Source.”
“Say what?”
“Open Source!”
What surprises me that people don’t really know what open source is.
Sure when they hear it, it rings a bell, but do they know what it
really is? I don’t think so. We live in a world with enormous
technological growth. Nowadays everyone has a cell phone, pda and
laptop, you can access anything, anywhere, anytime. We take it for
granted and hardly can do without. And people in the business know
this all to well and keep throwing new stuff at us that we, obviously
keep buying. And you know, that’s a good thing. Money has to roll,
even in times like these. But that doesn’t mean that we should be
spending $1,000 on a meal. And of course we won’t do that, most of us
are rational people and we know that $1,000 is way too much for an
omelet, no matter how much caviar it holds. But this seems only so
because we know that at home we can put some eggs in a pan and make
our own omelet for less than a buck. So let’s project this way of
thinking on the modern technology that we see every day. You might
say, “hell I can’t build computers!” or “I can’t write software!”. And
sure, you’re right, you probably can’t build our own computer.
Definitely not for the price they go over the counter for these days,
you simply can’t compete with mass production.
But what if I tell you you don’t need to write our own software? What
if I tell you thousands of people write and improve software for you
every day? What if I tell you that they write whatever you want? What
if I tell you that all that software is free? Free to use, own,
distribute and modify. To be sure you get this, I’m talking zero
dollar software here. Would you believe that? You might, but you might
also think “yeah well it’s probably software that is hard to use and
lacks the features I have on my Windows/Mac machine”. You couldn’t
have been more wrong.
At the beginning of this century, I would have agreed with you.
Windows was on a roll and computers started to turn up everywhere. It
was the way things went and everything was fine. In the meantime, the
people behind all the super computers and an occasional ‘nerd’, were
controlling their computers with complex looking commands and no one
really got why they were doing it. How could all those letters be more
useful than those nice clouds from Windows 98? Well those people
didn’t care about a nice graphical user interface (GUI), they just
wanted a solid system to run their super computers. And the occasional
nerd just wanted to tweak his system to his liking. “Well good for
them” you think. And yes, good for them. But nowadays, good for you!
Those people that worked with Linux made a nice solid system by making
their knowledge free to share with others. The guys in America told
the European people to do this and that to make things more secure and
the European guys replied by telling the Americans what they should
improve.
Having this free distribution of knowledge, some people said “well, I
want something that I could teach my mom to use, cause she really
wants to surf the Web”. And these people got together using the Web
and started making a GUI for the already existing systems. As they
released their distribution (or distro), more and more people started
to participate in this project. Pretty regular people with an interest
in computers, no nerds, people who know about the problems non-nerds
have with computers. Having this type of intel they improved their
distro for more commercial use. And as the community grew, some people
decided to make a different GUI, so they split up and started
developing their own distro. The community grew so rapidly because of
all these new distributions, which resulted in even more distro’s. Now
it has to be said, that for people who are not that known in the ICT
world, most of the distro’s are not that different from each other. So
don’t be too blurred by all the options, there are only a few you want
to use.
Anyway, having a huge community gave Ubuntu (a relatively young,
Debian-based distribution) the opportunity to become super user
friendly without loosing the essence of Linux (which is that you can
change everything to your liking). They had not only the all these
smart people working with scripts and complicated commandlines making
sure that everything ran smoothly and was safe to use for the
mainstream computer user. But they also had the on-line community.
These were normal people who had the guts to try out this Ubuntu
thing. They told the developers what they liked and what they would
like to see improved. So the developers improved and improved giving
people updates as soon as they had some. Other groups of people
decided that they needed an office suite, and wrote one from scratch.
Open Office was born. Other people wanted a secure Web Browser and
started writing that from scratch. Mozilla FireFox was born. And as
they improved their software, their own little community grew and that
community started to tell the developers what to improve. And so a
whole chain reaction started of people telling what to improve which
in turn resulted in an increase of the number of people telling what
to improve. And that my friend, is the strength of Open Source.
The great benefit of Open Source is that is has a community. There is
a certain demand for something, so people come together and realize
it. And they do it for free, so if someone else decides to modify it
to THEIR likings, they are free to do that. Also the best way to
reward the developers, is to distribute the software to other
machines. This increases the number of users thus the amount of input
from the community. And more input is more development. If you’re a
Windows/Mac user, this might sound strange. Sure they have a
community, but do the developers listen? And if they don’t, are you,
as an community, free to stand up and say “well if you don’t do it, we
will”? You probably can, but my guess is we’ll see you in court soon.
Windows and Mac cost money and if you take something that costs money,
duplicate and improve it and sell it for free, Windows and Mac don’t
get money so they sue you.
Anyway, I hope I’ve made the concept of Open Source a bit more clear
to you. You might still be a bit scared of using it and that’s not
strange at all. We live in a world where, when things are free, we
feel a certain suspicion. I mean, what would you think if I happened
to meet you on the street today and offer you an apple. Would you eat
it? Or would you think, why does he give ME this apple? You feel that
the apple is unsafe and throw it away just to be sure it’s gone. So
sad for that poor perfectly safe and tasty apple I gave you. And as
you walk along and you step into a supermarket, do you feel
intimidated by all those apples? No, of course you don’t. Because you
can’t just take a bite out of them and walk out the shop. They cost
money, so they have to be perfectly secure and safe apples! But if we
step back a bit to the point at which I gave you that apple, why don’t
you take a chance? It’s not like it’s gonna kill you, hardly you don’t
like the taste of it, but taste can’t be argued with.
Basically what I’m saying here, is that if you’ve got a computer
laying around or if you’re going to buy a new one in the future with
Windows 7, put Linux on your old one. Just say “what the hell, I’ve
got nothing to loose!” and try it. The flavor might surprise you! And
if it does, but in a bad way, no worries, it’s all free.
»»» Ruben Kwast
PS: If the step to a Linux Operation System is to big for you, just
try Open Source software that has been developed for Windows/Mac.
Think about Open Office, FireFox, The Gimp, Pidgin, Miro, Thunderbird,
VLC, Azureus, etc. There is lot’s on the Web about this topic, just
Google if you want to know more!
PS2: This blog should not be considered an historic correct telling.
The facts as told here are loosely based upon actual facts and are
meant to illustrate and promote Open Source. I strongly suggest to not
use this blog as factual reference. This said, I would like for you to
not react in depth on any of the facts as stated.
source/] by Ruben Kwast
“Open Source.”
“Say what?”
“Open Source!”
What surprises me that people don’t really know what open source is.
Sure when they hear it, it rings a bell, but do they know what it
really is? I don’t think so. We live in a world with enormous
technological growth. Nowadays everyone has a cell phone, pda and
laptop, you can access anything, anywhere, anytime. We take it for
granted and hardly can do without. And people in the business know
this all to well and keep throwing new stuff at us that we, obviously
keep buying. And you know, that’s a good thing. Money has to roll,
even in times like these. But that doesn’t mean that we should be
spending $1,000 on a meal. And of course we won’t do that, most of us
are rational people and we know that $1,000 is way too much for an
omelet, no matter how much caviar it holds. But this seems only so
because we know that at home we can put some eggs in a pan and make
our own omelet for less than a buck. So let’s project this way of
thinking on the modern technology that we see every day. You might
say, “hell I can’t build computers!” or “I can’t write software!”. And
sure, you’re right, you probably can’t build our own computer.
Definitely not for the price they go over the counter for these days,
you simply can’t compete with mass production.
But what if I tell you you don’t need to write our own software? What
if I tell you thousands of people write and improve software for you
every day? What if I tell you that they write whatever you want? What
if I tell you that all that software is free? Free to use, own,
distribute and modify. To be sure you get this, I’m talking zero
dollar software here. Would you believe that? You might, but you might
also think “yeah well it’s probably software that is hard to use and
lacks the features I have on my Windows/Mac machine”. You couldn’t
have been more wrong.
At the beginning of this century, I would have agreed with you.
Windows was on a roll and computers started to turn up everywhere. It
was the way things went and everything was fine. In the meantime, the
people behind all the super computers and an occasional ‘nerd’, were
controlling their computers with complex looking commands and no one
really got why they were doing it. How could all those letters be more
useful than those nice clouds from Windows 98? Well those people
didn’t care about a nice graphical user interface (GUI), they just
wanted a solid system to run their super computers. And the occasional
nerd just wanted to tweak his system to his liking. “Well good for
them” you think. And yes, good for them. But nowadays, good for you!
Those people that worked with Linux made a nice solid system by making
their knowledge free to share with others. The guys in America told
the European people to do this and that to make things more secure and
the European guys replied by telling the Americans what they should
improve.
Having this free distribution of knowledge, some people said “well, I
want something that I could teach my mom to use, cause she really
wants to surf the Web”. And these people got together using the Web
and started making a GUI for the already existing systems. As they
released their distribution (or distro), more and more people started
to participate in this project. Pretty regular people with an interest
in computers, no nerds, people who know about the problems non-nerds
have with computers. Having this type of intel they improved their
distro for more commercial use. And as the community grew, some people
decided to make a different GUI, so they split up and started
developing their own distro. The community grew so rapidly because of
all these new distributions, which resulted in even more distro’s. Now
it has to be said, that for people who are not that known in the ICT
world, most of the distro’s are not that different from each other. So
don’t be too blurred by all the options, there are only a few you want
to use.
Anyway, having a huge community gave Ubuntu (a relatively young,
Debian-based distribution) the opportunity to become super user
friendly without loosing the essence of Linux (which is that you can
change everything to your liking). They had not only the all these
smart people working with scripts and complicated commandlines making
sure that everything ran smoothly and was safe to use for the
mainstream computer user. But they also had the on-line community.
These were normal people who had the guts to try out this Ubuntu
thing. They told the developers what they liked and what they would
like to see improved. So the developers improved and improved giving
people updates as soon as they had some. Other groups of people
decided that they needed an office suite, and wrote one from scratch.
Open Office was born. Other people wanted a secure Web Browser and
started writing that from scratch. Mozilla FireFox was born. And as
they improved their software, their own little community grew and that
community started to tell the developers what to improve. And so a
whole chain reaction started of people telling what to improve which
in turn resulted in an increase of the number of people telling what
to improve. And that my friend, is the strength of Open Source.
The great benefit of Open Source is that is has a community. There is
a certain demand for something, so people come together and realize
it. And they do it for free, so if someone else decides to modify it
to THEIR likings, they are free to do that. Also the best way to
reward the developers, is to distribute the software to other
machines. This increases the number of users thus the amount of input
from the community. And more input is more development. If you’re a
Windows/Mac user, this might sound strange. Sure they have a
community, but do the developers listen? And if they don’t, are you,
as an community, free to stand up and say “well if you don’t do it, we
will”? You probably can, but my guess is we’ll see you in court soon.
Windows and Mac cost money and if you take something that costs money,
duplicate and improve it and sell it for free, Windows and Mac don’t
get money so they sue you.
Anyway, I hope I’ve made the concept of Open Source a bit more clear
to you. You might still be a bit scared of using it and that’s not
strange at all. We live in a world where, when things are free, we
feel a certain suspicion. I mean, what would you think if I happened
to meet you on the street today and offer you an apple. Would you eat
it? Or would you think, why does he give ME this apple? You feel that
the apple is unsafe and throw it away just to be sure it’s gone. So
sad for that poor perfectly safe and tasty apple I gave you. And as
you walk along and you step into a supermarket, do you feel
intimidated by all those apples? No, of course you don’t. Because you
can’t just take a bite out of them and walk out the shop. They cost
money, so they have to be perfectly secure and safe apples! But if we
step back a bit to the point at which I gave you that apple, why don’t
you take a chance? It’s not like it’s gonna kill you, hardly you don’t
like the taste of it, but taste can’t be argued with.
Basically what I’m saying here, is that if you’ve got a computer
laying around or if you’re going to buy a new one in the future with
Windows 7, put Linux on your old one. Just say “what the hell, I’ve
got nothing to loose!” and try it. The flavor might surprise you! And
if it does, but in a bad way, no worries, it’s all free.
»»» Ruben Kwast
PS: If the step to a Linux Operation System is to big for you, just
try Open Source software that has been developed for Windows/Mac.
Think about Open Office, FireFox, The Gimp, Pidgin, Miro, Thunderbird,
VLC, Azureus, etc. There is lot’s on the Web about this topic, just
Google if you want to know more!
PS2: This blog should not be considered an historic correct telling.
The facts as told here are loosely based upon actual facts and are
meant to illustrate and promote Open Source. I strongly suggest to not
use this blog as factual reference. This said, I would like for you to
not react in depth on any of the facts as stated.
Shashank Singh
May 26, 2009, 3:09:17 PM5/26/09
to JUIT Linux User Group
Dude,
thanks for this cool link :)
explains a lot about open source
thanks for this cool link :)
explains a lot about open source
Chirag Anand
May 27, 2009, 11:10:34 AM5/27/09
to juit-linux...@googlegroups.com
On Wed, May 27, 2009 at 12:39 AM, Shashank Singh <shashank...@gmail.com> wrote:
Dude,
thanks for this cool link :)
explains a lot about open source
Yeah, I read it and just couldn't resist to post it here. I hope everyones read it and have learnt something. :)
--
Regards
Chirag Anand
4th Year, B.Tech
Computer Science Department, JUIT Solan
Blog :http://techfreaks4u.com/blog
Linux User: 476783
anything weird is worth a try...
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