Now even I am a Proud User of Ubuntu

I have embraced Open Source software with open arms. This began after reading Linus Torvald's "Just for Fun" where his appeal for supporting open source software was convincing (I think). I installed Ubuntu on my PC and this blog post was typed and published on a Linux platform.

Have I told you about my new passion for programming and learning more about computer software? I have started learning C++ and also Linux. Windows is all good but I need to learn Linux because it is open source and thus offers flexibility to its users. Plus I am one of those guys who believes in open source, individuality and dislikes corporate control over intellectual property or strict regulation of copyright laws. You got the point.

Anyway, I will share an interesting troubleshooting story with you. After installing Ubuntu, I wanted to use Opera browser instead of Firefox. Don't even mention Internet Explorer, that's for old generation people who still live in dark ages. Do you ever think why people still use hotmail and yahoo while Gmail is available and it's free? I guess they might be afraid of giving too much control to Google that will link their browsing history with Gmail content. Or maybe they are just indifferent. One of my friends suggested Opera and have been using it in conjunction to Chrome. I realized Flash videos didn't work with Opera on Ubuntu. I also have Opera on Windows 7 so I checked if flash worked. It did. Flash also worked with Firefox on Ubuntu. So Flash only didn't work with Opera on Ubuntu. What a niche, you might think. A fraction uses Ubuntu and out of that even a tiny fraction uses Opera. So, maybe no one cared to fix the bug.

I decided to fix this problem because I thought it would be a good practice to start learning Windows-Linux interoperability. This was certainly a start among several other incompatibility problems to pop-up in the future. I went online to seek a solution. Adobe forums did not have anything about it but Opera forum seemed to have a thread on this because other Opera users on Ubuntu platform seemed to have the problem too. The solutions were very geeky with detailed descriptions of using terminals to open directories, locate files and then moving files around. I tried this option but commands for displaying files in the directory did not work on my terminal. I could have been putting wrong commands. So, I tried to adopt the second route: locating system files and manually copying and pasting into plugin directory of Opera and Mozilla from Flash. Unfortunately, the system denied permission for me while trying to paste the required file into Opera and Mozilla plugin directories.

I did not know how to fix the problem. I was scratching my head. I mean dreadlocks. When I looked at the clock, it was 6:50 pm, and suddenly I realized that in ten minutes Coates (food cafetaria at Trinity) would be closed. I grabbed my Tiger card and ran out of room towards Coates. I made just in time but the guy at the grill certainly wasn't happy to see me. More work for him. After eating, I made my way to the room still thinking how to fix the problem. I opened up Opera again and loaded youtube site and magic- flash player started working. I laughed ecstatically sharing the joy with myself. Now I am sharing this joy with you all readers.

After reading this you might realize I am aiming to become a proper geek now. 

Trinity should be ashamed of itself

                  “Trinity should be ashamed of itself”.

These are not my words. These are the words of Richard Stallman, the famous and most vocal person advocating the need of free software in the world. Why did such a person of international fame, who played a critical role in the development of GNU/Linux (do not simply say Linux, he’ll come after you) say such unkind or rather strong abusive words towards the reverent and the most unwired campus, Trinity University? His arrogance is definitely a good candidate to be blamed on. Please take note that he said this phrase not once, not twice, but for a total of maybe five times or possibly more. The source of his wrath in this case was neither Microsoft nor George W. Bush (for whom he had special distaste), it was our ITS.

It is no secret that ITS (Information Technology Services) of Trinity University maintains a log of the IP (Internet Protocol) addresses each Trinity student uses while surfing the web. (I am not sure if ITS maintains a record of even the websites that each student visits.) Richard Stallman fiercely debated against this policy of Trinity University to keep a record of each and every student whenever they surf the internet and rendered it as acting against the spirit of an educational institution. Richard Stallman stated flatly that by doing so, Trinity University indirectly hands over those students over to the RIAA (if such thing exists, he said). He further said that Trinity University is not obliged to keep any record about the students’ web behavior. Trinity University should be ashamed of itself since it prevents the rightful share of information since software should be free. He said that peer-to-peer sharing of information is good since sharing information acts for the welfare of humanity. By preventing this, Trinity University is not doing a rightful thing.

His arguments do carry some weight since many of us would agree that sharing of information is not bad and also that software should be free instead of making us pay ridiculous amounts of money. Richard Stallman rightly also pointed out a very critical point that every institution should consider about the use of proprietary software that are provided at a subsidized rate to the institutions. He aptly linked this to the case where drug dealers first give out drugs for free but once the drug-in-takers become dependent, they start charging high amounts of money. The main motive of proprietary software developers is to make students dependent so that once these students enter labor market, the same software can be sold to fetch high prices. Those professionals who gained familiarity with only that particular software as a student would have no alternative but to buy it through their company paying exorbitant prices. These ideas must have struck some minds earlier too; he acted to remind us of that gloomy possibility.

Richard Stallman presented himself as a staunch supporter of free software and his commitment to this can be seen from the fact that he did not hesitate to humiliate Trinity University in its own ‘home ground’. His arrogance and despise for monopolies like Microsoft and Apple emanated from his every sentence, explicitly or implicitly. But I was rather surprised that he discouraged us from using Google’s free word processing software, Google Doc. He was too hard bent on GNU/Linux but he was very passionate about free software ethics nonetheless. It was very sad to see that man of his stature auctioning GNU mascot, starting from a bid of 40 dollars which no one wanted to buy even for 40 dollars. With his talent, his few programming lines would be worth few hundred dollars in the least, so why would he spend time selling $2/$3 stickers, $20 mascots or bidding $40 mascots which no one wants to buy?