Head Resist

Of all the open source operating systems, LINUX heralded an era of freedom from licensed softwares and signalled the end of the road for monopoly softwares from the giant Microsoft. With the arrival of LINUX and its many versions, users got themselves liberated from the shackles of Windows operating systems and soon found that they could edit and tinker with LINUX to generate new versions of the famous OS. Linux has gained an unexpectedly large amount of interest in the home market over the past two years. This could be due to any number of reasons including, it’s both free and open source, almost all applications are free and open source, the stability is unsurpassed, the code is constantly revised, updated and added to by a numerous amount of programmers across the world. Linux is undisputable a giant in the OS world, with just the name Linux being a symbol of stability and security. With the interest in Linux growing, many new distributions have surfaced offering easy installation and configuration. Well-established distributions such as Redhat are also striving to meet the same goals.

Linux is an operating system and therefore is the basic set of programs and utilities that make the computer run. Some other common operating systems are Unix (and its variants BSD, AIX, Solaris, HPUX, and others); DOS; Microsoft Windows; Amiga; and Mac OS.Linux is Free Software. In a nutshell, software that is free in the sense that Linux is distributed along with its source code so that anyone who receives it is free to make changes and redistribute it. Users are free to make copies of Linux and give them to friends, it’s also fine to tweak a few lines of the source code.The only catch is that the user who modifies it has to necessarily make available the source code to all users. Linux is not owned by anyone. One misconception many first-time Linux.com readers have is that this site, Linux.com, is similar to Microsoft.com, which is owned and controlled by the company that produces the Windows operating system. No one company or individual “owns” Linux, which was developed, and is still being improved, by thousands of corporate-supported and volunteer programmers all over the world.

Users are generally provided with Linux distribution that contains not only the basic Linux operating system, but also programs that enhance it in many ways. Anyone who wants to put together his or her own Linux distribution is free to do so, and we know of more than 200 different Linux distributions that fill special “niche” purposes. But we advise new users to stick with one of the five or six most popular general-purpose Linux distributions until they know a little about what Linux can and can’t do. You can get Linux from a number of online software repositories, including the official Web sites for each distribution. It helps to have a fast connection and a CD burner so you can quickly download an .ISO image of the distribution and burn it onto a CD. You then can load the bootable installation programs that lead you, step by step, through the process of getting Linux on your computer.

The more popular distributions are available in many computer stores and directly from each distribution’s publisher. The convenience of a distribution on CDs, including manuals, generally makes your first installation so much easier that it is well worth the money.

Linux boasts of some of the best free online support for its operating system.Take advantage of some free, expert technical support: the Linux Users Group, or LUG. The heartbeat of Linux support, and of Linux itself, is the LUG. There are LUGs in almost every country in the world, where you can get Linux advice and help from people who live near you, speak your language, and are willing to donate their time so that new users can learn about Linux without going through any more head-scratching than necessary.Each LUG operates independently and has its own style and meeting schedule. Note that if there is no LUG close enough for you to conveniently attend meetings, most LUGs maintain email lists you can join and use to get answers to any Linux questions you have.

The best-known corporate GNU/Linux distribution is REDHAT. Mandrake Linux

was the first Linux distribution that worked hard to make Linux easy for ordinary desktop users. Freely downloadable version available; commercial versions have pre-integrated sofware packages and are easier for first-timers to set up than the download edition. There are other distributions like Fedora, Debia, Knoppix,Suse, Slackware, MEPIS, Gentoo and so on.

There have been several discussions propagating open source software and its benefits, and in this fashion, downplaying software patents and its necessity. Using this theory as a foundation, many promote the hypothesis of an open source market or free economy. This sort of discussion has questioned the need for a patenting system in such an economy.

The truth of the matter is that the patenting system was created not only to give the original inventor his due rights to the use of his creation but to establish a system in the field of intellectual property where an individual or a group of individuals could own intangible property and the creations of their mind. This ownership of property must not be taken lightly and the propagators of the free economy must soon come to realize that purging another’s right to own and use their property is nothing but blatant disruption of the economy as we know it.

From the very beginning of the creation of patent law, in 1791, the French law stated that “All new discoveries are the property of the author; to assure the inventor the property and temporary enjoyment of his discovery, there shall be delivered to him a patent for five, ten or fifteen years”. The rationale behind creating patent law was to give the inventor property in his discovery. Today, propagators of an open source market advocate against the patenting system arguing that benefit to society should be the focus of all innovation. What they and many others fail to understand is that benefit to society was always the focus of innovation under patent law. Patenting law only seeks to encourage inventors to innovate by giving them monopoly for a limited period of time. In fact, society benefits a great deal further as more inventors are confident to innovate knowing that they can enjoy ownership for a period of time and not fear that their hard work will automatically fall within the public domain.

The position of most inventors is to create new and useful inventions. Nevertheless, the suggestion that after several years of hard work and large amounts of investment, the inventor would not possess ownership rights of his invention and obtain a return on his investment, even for a limited period of time, will not encourage him to innovate further. This can only be detrimental to society as opposed to beneficial.

Another issue that such propagators fail to explain is with the millions of intellectuals contributing to an invention, which of them is to be held liable in the event of an error. Safety becomes an issue that is undervalued in this version of thought. The idea that a prototype would be released to the public to modify and use to their requirements, does not give the ordinary consumer any guarantee as to the efficiency of the product. If all new products were created in a similar way, what benefit would that be to society?

Some may advocate that this new portrayal of innovation is inevitable with the changing times but in such a case, the entire system of law will need to be revamped in order to adapt to this change. Consider the millions of inventors and companies that will directly be affected by the new system and the billions of dollars lost. But more importantly, consider the impact on the economy when billion dollar research companies are unable to patent their inventions or when government patent office all over the world loose billions in application filing fees. The world as we know it will be drastically changed and it may very well not be for the betterment of society.

My techie friends take pride in displaying the latest addition to their list of programs that run on their Linux installation.  ‘Open source is the way of the future’ they tell me, ‘Microsoft’s days of monopoly are numbered’. I smile. No I am not employed by the big M at Redmond, nor do I foresee Mr. Gates making me a subject of his charitable contributions. But the fact remains that even when my tech friends are busy gloating over their newest open-source acquisition, they still have a multi-boot system with Windows as the other OS.

            I agree that Open Source is a more level playing field where everyone is free to make their important contributions to technology without being hindered by the time consuming processes of large organizations. Most of the new path-breaking technologies in the market were developed in an open source environment. Yet, in that environment they were only restricted to being used by the techies and geeks of the world. The world only came to hear of it once this concept was taken out of its open source womb and placed, kicking and screaming, for sale in the commercial market.

            Everyone loves a free ride, but how many of us would take up such an offer? The uncertainty of where you will end up is the biggest problem with open source. When you pay for a piece of commercial software, you know that it has undergone rigorous testing to eliminate any bugs, before it is brought out. Even if something goes wrong, there are means and methods for you to get a refund on your investment. Take the example of Windows Vista. Microsoft may limit its financial liability for Vista Pre-Release Candidate 1 testers to five US Dollars, but at least that is a sign that it acknowledges that it may be held financially responsible in the event of a malfunction. Who will provide this sort of a guarantee in the open source market?

            The other issue is that of ease-of-use. I may whole-heartedly support the development of open source software, but when my boss is pressurizing me with deadlines, and the IT department is pressurizing me to calculate and submit my returns, I just want software that works for me with minimum effort. It is simply not worth the effort. Commercial software provides its manufacturers with monetary returns, so they are interested in making sure that as many people as possible buy and use it. To this end, they make sure that their software runs on all the popular platforms and compares favourably with the best in the market. Open source developers are not faced with these constraints. This allows them to chart esoteric new paths but they couldn’t be bothered if not a single person bought it, because they’re not selling in the first place.

            New advancements in software will continue to take place in the open source segment because of lesser restrictions. However, once the necessary technology has been developed, these products will have to be tested and distributed as commercial software in order for them to truly reach a large audience. Open source simply does not provide an individual with the necessary resources for marketing a product, no matter how ground-breaking the product may be.  

            Open source software has a niche market. It is very popular in college campuses and as of now a lot of hardware vendors are also offering open source operating systems bundled with their computers to bring costs down. I recently bought a Compaq Presario and it came bundled with FreeDOS. I was delighted at the savings I had made. But searching for compatible drivers for all my equipment and my fancy graphics card proved to be a nightmare. Even HP did not provide driver support for the FreeDOS that they bundled with the system. At the end of the day I ended up shelling out money for Windows XP Professional.

            My techie friends give me mean looks. ‘Traitor’, they hiss under their breath. Well guys I love fooling around with strange new open source software as much as the other bloke. When I have the time, I indulge myself in trying out the latest open source OS variant on the net, and sometimes end up crashing my computer. It is an exhilarating experience. However, when I am rebooting and re-installing an OS, it is usually the same old, boring, commercial Windows.