Tag: Open Source

Linux has been a passion for me a long time, and I do try to advocate it whenever possible. Guess what, people ARE waking up to the possibility of a world without Windows. That’s after the Windows Genuine (Dis)Advantage program they started. Some firms classify THAT as spyware. In fact, I came across this amazing article Windows Is Free. A highly non-technical, easy-to-understand language article which partly explores why Windows has a larger market share. I’ve loads of views on this too, but it’d take a whole book. Click here to download the article Windows Is Free (PDF).

One common misconception that people have when I speak to them is that Linux is difficult to use, or does not have a proper graphical user interface (GUI). That’s bullshit. You have as many Linux user interfaces as there are Ben & Jerry’s ice cream flavours (and probably more) that you can choose from according to your needs – KDE, GNOME, Xfce, FluxBox, WindowMaker – there’s so much to choose from! And talking about the distributions (‘distros’) of Linux, there’s one for everything that you can think of – media editing distros, scientific distros, gaming distros, live distros, small distros, PlayStation distros, distros which run on some of the world’s fastest supercomputers, distros which run on the world’s oldest computers – there’s so much variety to choose from! So MANY of the Web’s servers are powered by Linux, because it’s so much more stable and secure. Have a look at the following desktop screenshots…

Freespire Linux with the KDE interface

A really cool Ubuntu 6.06 GNOME desktop screenshot I came across

My humble no-frills Ubuntu 7.04 desktop screenshot – yes, you can have plain vanilla too!

Back to GUIs, even if some people have the notion that Linux DOES have a GUI, they think that anybody with lower than 10 brains can’t decipher them. WRONG. Take the two major environments for example – KDE and GNOME. KDE is a complete Windows clone, down to settings control, menus, stuff like that; with more configuration abilities thrown in, and loads of built-in eye candy. GNOME on the other hand goes for the older Mac OS styles, and is geared towards simplicity and lower end systems.

So what some people say, Windows Vista with its Aero interface and Flip3D surely must leave Tux the penguin (the cute li’l Linux mascot) with his jaw dropped? Wrong again. Linux has had this stuff for quite some time now, and boy do you have variety there too! You can choose between XGL, AIGLX, Beryl, Compiz, Compiz Fusion – and most these projects are overlapping to some extent. Want to know what these can do? Have a look at this video by the major Linux distro maker Novell using Compiz…

Anyone still likes Vista Aero? What’s more, you really don’t need a supercomputer with multitudes of graphics and gazillion dozes of RAM to run the Linux stuff either, unlike Vista which starts crying for updates from day 1.

Comments and questions are welcome.

People who’ve been following open-source happenings lately would have known about the big debate which had been going on over the standardisation of M
The point is, we already HAVE the OpenDocument format which has been standardised by the ISO long back. So what’s the need for another format from a company well known to tie down stuff to its own software? Sure, people will say it gives more choice; but it’s important to note that will the OpenDocument specification is just 860 pages long, the OpenXML specs run into 6000 pages,
s OpenXML format. For those who don’t know, here’s what was happening: Microsucks was trying to push its new OpenXML document saving format for standardisation by the ISO. OpenXML is the default format used by MS Office 2007, the files with an extension like ‘.docx’, ‘.pptx’, etc. Winning this vote would have made OpenXML an official document standard, and loads of trouble along with it. Fortunately, they fell short of the two-thirds majority in a vote of ISO member countries needed to pass the resolution.

The point is, we already HAVE the OpenDocument format which has been standardised by the ISO long back. So what’s the need for another format from a company well known to tie down stuff to its own software? Sure, people will say it gives more choice; but it’s important to note that will the OpenDocument specification is just 860 pages long, the OpenXML specs run into 6000 pages. It pretty much seems intentional – because although theoretically Microsucks can claim that it’s an ‘open format’, the huge bloated specs will guarantee that any independent software developer will find it a big task to create applications using it. Which basically means that even with an apparently ‘Open’XML, not many beyond Microsucks programmers will find it cost-effective to use it. Also, translating between the two codes will become a major headache.

I hope that all countries remain in their senses and reject OpenXML when it comes up again for voting next year in February. What good is it when in the end when OpenXML will remain Microsucks’ baby after all?