This is no self-advertisement, but more to inform folks that some of us are actually concerned about open source, or, shall I say Free and Open Source. Read on to know why:
Deccan Herald, Cyber Space Darwinian or Marxist? L Subramani What do you think of piracy? Richard Stallman, considered the father of the free software movement, provided an amusing and thought-provoking answer to this question. "Piracy," Stallman said during his public speech in Bangalore on Saturday (December 13), "is totally wrong, because it is wrong to attack ships on sail." If the person posing the question happens to get smarter and asks specifically about software and music piracy, Stallman gave an even better answer: "Pirates never attack ships with software and music, they do it with guns." In Stallman's opinion, piracy is one of the terms invented as a means of attacking freedom and "social solidarity" of a community that needs to be rejected. "Breaking any agreement isn't the right thing to do, but if a software vendor compares your urge to share things you like with your friends with attacking a ship, the idea deserves to be denounced," Stallman declared during his public speech, to the applause of the crowd. Without doubt, the idea of 'free' software is to think about software development/distribution from the user's point of view. The freedom to run, to study the source code, to modify and to share and distribute the copies with others would make sense to a user. But to what extent such things can be demanded in an era of branding and 'big money' technology is a question that still lingers after all the convincing arguments. For a fact, Stallman himself doesn't oppose the idea of doing business by selling software, but he wants those developing/selling software products to follow the 'freedoms' stringently. Perhaps his contention that people are so occupied to buy something that can run on their machines that they forget their rights, could be valid. But you can't help asking if it is so wrong for certain product vendors to monitor their user's system in order to learn how best they can customise their product for them or to prevent copies from being distributed without license-the only way he can ensure the sales of his software. As Stallman himself observes we may not be caring too much since we often don't understand the implications of software licensing. Until recently, it never occurred to many people the implications of selling their old PCs without making sure private data doesn't remain in the machine's hard disk. Experts have also pointed to the dangers of signing 'privacy policies' of web services without giving a good reading. But should we be so 'extremist' in our response, as Stallman suggests, to the extent of rejecting proprietary software and embrace fully the free software? The answer came that same evening from Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, the largest knowledge source in the world. Wales has provided the best working model of Stallman's idea by making Wikipedia an open platform to freely create, share and modify content. Though Wales confesses to be more of a "Stallmanist" in his approach, he agrees he isn't so radicalist in developing the online knowledge system with contents from more than 200 languages that rivals the much powerful encyclopedias such as Britannica. "Free software is an approach to creation and distribution of software/soft content," Wales said. "There is often a tension existing between the two (free and proprietary software) . We can no longer imagine, for instance, that an individual would create a software system that would be purchased for millions of dollars. This is as absurd as saying large vendors would make software systems totally open source. So somewhere they should learn to co-exist." And there are reasons to think that free and proprietary software models can co-exist. It is hard, for instance, to reject Stallman's argument that school children should be taught in free software so that they are not made undue dependents on just one proprietary system. Just how they learn about leaves of plants by closely examining them, they can learn about how a software works by studying its source code, which is possible with a free software system in place. But it is also hard to think of software development advancing without a proprietary model. What most users can do perhaps is to insist vendors to be less intrusive. Stallman argues that businesses should do more than protecting their interest. "Businesses must give products which are of use to people and should not hold them for ransom by unacceptable practices," Stallman said. "Today software products install spy programmes to see what a user is doing and vendors force users to create content on their programmes, instead of selling a copy of their software to them. Such things compromise user's rights and we must insist our rights with such vendors." To what extent vendors would listen to that is anyone's guess. http://www.deccanherald.com/CONTENT/Dec172008/cyberspace20081216107137.a sp -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Viraj Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 9:36 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AI] Nasty computer worm In fact, there has been disscussions on Linux open source and Ubuntu in our list earlier, if I'm not wrong. To say that we don't talk about them at all would not be quite appropriate I guess. But of course why we remain reluctant to switch to Linux open source or its other distributions, despite their easy and free-of-charge availability, remains a pertinent question. Probably because we have been trained to use proprietary softwares ever since our initial phase of computer experience and as a result we have become obsessively accustomed to them? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Thahir P C" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 1:45 PM Subject: Re: [AI] Nasty computer worm > friends, > i don't understand why we access indians do not talk about open source > linux distribution named ubuntu and the associated free screen reader > called orca. why don't we try to understand and weigh and evaluate it? > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Subramani L" <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Friday, January 23, 2009 11:41 AM > Subject: Re: [AI] Nasty computer worm > > >> You are right. Security in Linux based server platforms remain very good >> and are generally praised by industry insiders, but unfortunately Linux >> developer communities often don't have the money power to advertise or >> pitch their success as much as proprietary developers do and as a result >> we end up reading more about proprietary software systems and also the >> viruses and other malware troubles they bring with them. Also, when we >> say Linux we must understand that certain companies who offer Linux (I >> don't want to mention names) do it more or less similar to commercial >> offerings. So we must be clear in mentioning that this is open source >> Linux that we are talking about. >> >> Subramani >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: [email protected] >> [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Thahir P C >> Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2009 7:22 PM >> To: [email protected] >> Subject: Re: [AI] Nasty computer worm >> >> dear subramani, >> have you ever heard of linux operating system being attacked by any >> computer >> virus or malware? have you thought why the most popular google server >> remains unaffected by viruses? not only google but most other important >> servers in the world run on linux without fearing viruses and bacteria. >> i don't understand why do we ignore linux. >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Subramani L" <[email protected]> >> To: <[email protected]> >> Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2009 4:39 PM >> Subject: [AI] Nasty computer worm >> >> >>> Nasty worm wriggles into millions of computers >>> San Francisco, Jan 21 (AFP) A nasty worm has wriggled into millions of >>> computers and continues to spread, leaving security experts wondering >>> whether the attack is a harbinger of evil deeds to come. >>> US software protection firm F-Secure says a computer worm known as >>> "Conficker" or "Downadup" had infected more than nine million >> computers >>> by yesterday and was spreading at a rate of one million machines >> daily. >>> The malicious software had yet to do any noticeable damage, prompting >>> debate as to whether it is impotent, waiting to detonate, or a test >> run >>> by cybercriminals intent on profiting from the weakness in the future. >>> "This is enormous; possibly the biggest virus we have ever seen," said >>> software security specialist David Perry of Trend Micro. >>> "I think the bad guys are field testing a new technology. If Conficker >>> proves to work well, they could go out and sell malware (malicious >>> software) to people. There is a huge market for selling criminal >>> malware." >>> The worm, a self-replicating program, takes advantage of networks or >>> computers that haven't kept up to date with security patches for >> Windows >>> RPC Server Service. >>> It can infect machines from the Internet or by hiding on USB memory >>> sticks carrying data from one computer to another. Once in a computer >> it >>> digs deep, setting up defenses that make it hard to extract. (AFP) MRE >>> 01211534 DELHI >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> To unsubscribe send a message to >> [email protected] >>> with the subject unsubscribe. >>> >>> To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, >>> please visit the list home page at >>> >> http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.i >> n >> >> >> >> >> To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] >> with the subject unsubscribe. >> >> To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, >> please visit the list home page at >> >> http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.i >> n >> >> Email secured by TPML Raksha Checkpoint >> >> >> >> To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] >> with the subject unsubscribe. >> >> To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, >> please visit the list home page at >> >> http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.i n > > > > > To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] > with the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, > please visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.i n To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. 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