Technology blogs by Professional Snails!

I have put an article on my other website, in special relation to 14th August, the independence day of Pakistan. This is the url. The text is below.

Independence day special

Start thinking… Better start acting…….

Another 14^th August has arrived. And instead of going forward, instead of progressing, we are moving towards past. We keep making the same mistakes. The countries who got freedom from british rule with us, have the currency value twice powerful then ours. Yes, I am talking about India. Their work-force more known in the entire world than ours. Their products more in verity and more wide-spread. Take an example of Malaysia. They got their freedom one decade later than Pakistan. Today, Malaysia is an Asian Tiger, with currency value of twenty times the value of Pakistani Rupee. Why? They focused and achieved what they set out to achieve. It is a long story and a debatable issue and I better be focused on my point as well.

We need to have freedom in our IT infrastructure too. We need to get freedom from the microsoft rule / closed-source rule, the same way we got freedom from british rule. One of the key factors that can help us achieve that is awareness. Know what these companies are doing by creating Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) in hearts and minds of everyone related to IT, from top to bottom. By creating this FUD, they sell their own products. Products which are in-efficient, poorly designed, crappy, buggy, full of unwanted stuff (e,g, easter eggs), easily effected by viruses and worst, in-secure. The licenses stop you from looking under the hood of these software.

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For a third world country like mine, Pakistan, taking away millions of dollars in the name of software licenses is just insane. In a country where people are dying of hunger, committing suicides with their families (YES, sadly, this is happening). Where prices of wheat, bread, simple vegetables like tomatoes, potatoes , simple food items like daal (lentils), and cooking oil has sky rocketed, does it make sense to throw away millions of dollars on the sake of software licenses. That to be on software which you do not need in the first place? DOES IT ? NO. IT DOES NOT.

It is just plain and stupid. Ninety percent of computer usage in Pakistan is just office automation, internet and email. That’s all. Why do you need expensive, crappy and overly bloated software to get that done? Are you too rich a country to do that? Are you too rich a person to do that? Look at the irony. The software companies always crying of having low financial strength and in-turn paying low salaries to their employees. On top of that they spend much more amount of time and effort trying to cope up with the virus and spam problems. If they would have used Open-Source Software in the first place, they would have saved sufficient amount of money, which , they can use to take care of their employees.

The point is save money on all levels. Increase productivity on all levels. Have better utilization of resources on all levels. Educate yourselves about Open-Source and educate the decision makers. Increase awareness and help others. Shun and boycott any corruption, bureaucracy, politics and bribery. We all have a goal to achieve. Make Pakistan independent and self reliant.

Just an assurance I want to give you all. Whatever you do on proprietary / commercial software, 99% of that is fully do-able on Open-Source technologies, with much more peace of mind, efficiency and security.

Most of you, I can safely say, based on my experience, never consult the technical support people of the software they are using (except “very few”). And when you do, you hardly get a timely sensible response from them. There are only a very few exceptional software companies, (microsoft NOT one of them), where I have seen a fast response with sensible solution. So why pay for expensive support, if you are not utilizing that support in the first place?

A little, technical note: When I ask you to stop buying microsoft and similar closed-source software products, I am not asking you to start buying RedHat products. That is again sending big amount of money outside the country in another way. I want you to have total independence from these vendors. I want you to avoid vendor lock-up. CentOS and Fedora are “exactly” as RedHat Enterprise Linux (in general terms). They are totally free. No support charges, nothing. If you have experienced linux professionals taking care of your infrastructure, you can easily use these products, with confidence. If you want independence from all RPM based distributions, you can use Debian and derivatives.

I fully understand that this conversion / independence will not come easy and will cause some pain and hurt, and at times sacrifice (not life of-course). Didn’t we (our elders) suffer from pain hurt when they were getting independence in 1947 on independence day? Even before, when the whole freedom movement was going on for years? Didn’t they sacrifice? They did. So in the same manner, you will need to run this software independence movement, until you get freedom. You will suffer at times as you are not used to Open-Source psychology. But as soon as you understand the psychology, you are free. And when you are free, you will progress and prosper. It is that much simple.

In the end, I will give reference of other countries. They all have stronger economies and wealthier companies and people owning various businesses. They also selected Open-Source Software for themselves. Because they wanted to make the right choice.

First one is our neighbouring India. Reference link :

http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/PMOs-email-system-infected-for-three-months/articleshow/4266663.cms

PMO’s email system infected for three months. (Times of India. 15 March 2009)

E-mail system of the Prime Minister’s Office was under the grip of a computer virus for three months last year forcing officials to replace the software. The technical glitch plagued the e-mail communication system of the PMO, which was based on the Microsoft Outlook Express, from February to April in 2008. Although the extent of damage was uncertain, the PMO said that most of the e-mails addressed to it were not received. The problem was detected only in late April after which the Microsoft Outlook Express email software was discontinued and replaced by another software – Squirrel mail.

From the following link, you can view the rest of the testimonials:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open_source_software

• In 2005 the Government of Peru voted to adopt open source across all its bodies.[8] The 2002 response to Microsoft’s critique is available online. In the preamble to the bill, the Peruvian government stressed that the choice was made to ensure that key pillars of democracy were safeguarded: “The basic principles which inspire the Bill are linked to the basic guarantees of a state of law.”[9]
• In December 2004, law in Venezuela (Decree 3390) went into effect, mandating a two year transition to open source in all public agencies. As of June 2009 this ambitious transition is still under way.[10][11]
• The Netherlands has an initiative called Open Source en standaarden in het onderwijs, “Open source and standards in education”. http://www.buseco.net/news/netherlands_open_source_7.html
• Vietnam – the Ministry of Information and Communications has issued an instruction on using open source software at state agencies.[13]
• Malaysian Public Sector Open Source Software Program launched in 2004 saved millions on proprietary software licences till 2008[14][15]
• The Government of India has set up a resource centre for Free and Open Source Software managed jointly by C-DAC Chennai and Anna University, Chennai. It has one of its node in Mumbai at VJTI College[16]
• The Ministry of Defence in Singapore began migrating its computers from Microsoft to free software in 2004, while South Korea, China and Japan agreed to cooperate in creating new Linux-based programs.
• In Germany’s federal state Thuringia the Ministry for culture and education has launched a project called “Linux für Schulen” (Linux for schools) which is intended to further the influences of Open Source software in public education.
• Munich city civil service in Germany, 2003 started migrating to free software. http://mis-asia.com/technology_centre/open_source/open-source-infiltrates-government-it-worldwide .
• In February 2008, the Dominican Republic passed a law to facilitate the migration of all public entities (government, education, etc.) to Software Libre, and to adopt open standards in the public sector.
• In April 2008, Ecuador passed a similar law, Decree 1014, designed to migrate the public sector to Software Libre.
• As of September 2008 there is a similar proposal, currently under debate in the Bolivian Congress, which stipulates the migration of the public sector to Software Libre.

So, my question from you all is: What is stopping you to claim your freedom?

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