F.O.S.S !!

Hi, people)

So, following up on my last post, this time we are gonna delve deeper in the open source and more specifically what is the process that makes it work i.e. the ground level details of how a package is processed once it leaves the developer and before it is made available in the main software repository.

BTW, still wondering about F.O.S.S ?

    Hey, don’t blow all the steam up on this acronym, F.O.S.S stands for Free Open Source Software, see, easy !

So, let’s say you have an idea and you want to show off your coding skills ( plus doing this is worth yet another reason, as the process is really enlightening ). You convert that idea in your head through blood, sweat and toil [ Okay, Okay, nothing that dramatic=) ] to a code. Now you want to take over the world using that little idea [ Evil-Genius alert !! ].

During the development process you need to take care of the coding as well as the entire flow of the program. You need to think both as, to use the economic tags, consumer and the producer for the product to be successful.

As a developer you really need to take care of the fact that, what you have made would be available to all the people inspite of the minor/major differences in the platforms or variants of the OS they are using. So, it might be a good idea to use the most standard of language libraries and most common OS features so that the product is not relevant or usable to only a fraction of people. Of course, it’s true that products built  for Mac OS-X systems would still not run for Windows and vice versa as the underlying principle ( which means even if you have the same graphical theme and the same hardware, duh ) are quite different. But while we are discussing as beginners let us not look too far ahead, so for now let us stick to the various variants (or flavors ) of the Linux-based distributions, which in turn are again divided into two major systems. Namely, and I am only gonna name the most famous instances, Cent OS and Ubuntu.

BTW, this is only limited to the free software that are available to one in the respective OS. So, if you are inclined to make money off of your very first app, well, Merry Christmas to you !! =)

Traditional Linux distributions are built around packaging systems like RPM [Cent OS] or dpkg [Ubuntu], and an organization model where upstream developers and downstream packagers are relatively clearly separated: an upstream developer writes code, and puts it somewhere online, in a tarball. A packager then grabs it and turns it into RPMs/DEBs. The user then grabs these RPMs/DEBs and installs them locally on the system. For a variety of uses this is a fantastic scheme: users have a large selection of readily packaged software available, in mostly uniform packaging, from a single source they can trust. In this scheme the distribution gets all software it packages, and as long as the user trusts the distribution all should be good. The distribution takes the responsibility of ensuring the software is not malicious, of timely fixing security problems and helping the user if something is wrong.

So, if you have persevered this far, which I am sure you have, take a deep breath ‘cos the most nerdy part is almost over.

Now, let’s talk about why people really contribute and collaborate on projects that they hardly expect to make off a living. Well, think of it as a giant canvas, you can’t really paint a masterpiece the very first time you pick up a brush so you develop your skills first and get your feet wet, so to speak. You make the idea more concrete, it’s like writing down a story  which you yourself started in the first place but then somehow the status quo changed, and now it’s the story that’s guiding you, revealing itself to you page by page, bit by bit and in our case code by code=)

You remember me talking about an Idea-Obsessed hobbyist. Well, recently I came across a brilliant quotation which goes something like this

“ Man is most himself, when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play”

So, with this food-for-thought I am going to call it a post and meet you guys the next time with something interesting to say.

Till then,

This is Himanshu Sharma

Signing Off=)

Debian

Hi everyone.

Hey, I am all the more excited about this blog entry because in this one I am gonna talk about the Debian distribution , though I think that it is quite difficult to try and explain this wonderfully versatile and lively project in a single blog post, such is the beauty and the ambitions of the Debian project.

So, I have decided to narrow it down to a few aspects, namely in three time-lines i.e. Past, Present and the Future of Debian. But first let us talk about why is it that this project sets so many hearts throbbing.BTW, I am gonna build upon my previous posts so now and again there would be references to what I have previously touched upon or written about in-depth. And another thing, this blog is by a beginner ( perhaps, a would-be geek! ) and for the beginner, so I am gonna take the liberty to give full forms and all other such nitty gritty details which are generally taken to be “understood”, so never mind me explaining things away.

So, Debian was born as a result of the open-source philosophy i.e. the idea that software should be free, free as in you-are-free-to-do-what-so-ever-with-it. Be it modify it, change it or even use it as an engine to build upon for your own implementation or a software. So, the need was felt for a free OS (Operating System) in accord with this philosophy. There came, Ian Murdock, still an undergraduate with his romantically named distribution. Debian actually stands for Debra+Ian, Debra was the name of his girlfriend at that point of time.

I wonder how come so many successfull projects, especially in IT, are started by students. Perhaps it’s the restlessness and the idealism of the age. Another example being Linux kernel, which again was initiated by a student, Linus Torvalds. We will talk more Linux in coming posts.

So, this Debian project caught attention of the legendary Richard M. Stallman ( rms) , who started the entire Free Software Foundation (FSF)  and Debian ended up being sponsored by the FSF’s GNU project. From then onwards the entire thing took off.

Today Debian is the foundation for many mainstream (well known) distributions of the Linux like Ubuntu (with it’s own derivatives ), Mint and one of my favourites Kali-Linux. The latter one is used for penetration (hacking) testing and proofing. So, this is one of the reasons that I believe, Debian really really rocks, as in übercool.

You know what amazes me the most about this entire culture, it’s the idea of collaboration. An open-source and as-honest-as-you-can-be collaboration. Of course, there are always some people with malevolent intentions but the overwhelming majority of people are learning to rely upon and trust these open-source systems after all the only thing more dangerous than a hard-core professional is an idealism-obsessed hobbyist.

Well, you might be thinking that giving everyone an opportunity to do anything with the data might be a bad idea. Of course, it would be, but the real power and the well-founded faith in open-source comes from the fact that the standard version is always peer-reviewed, so putting in a bit of code which could potentially compromise your privacy or security is next to impossible.

Think about it for a minute does Wikipedia not work, or let’s take Mozilla Firefox for example or even Google’s Android. You can actually swear by them, that’s how well they work. This peer-reviewing strategy is the master-stroke of the entire philosophy of Free Open Source Software ( FOSS) .

Oh boy, I have so much to say. Well, wait for it ! We will explore this realm together.

So, till next time,

This is Himanshu Sharma

Over and Out =)

Figuring out the LINUX revolution

So, finally at long-last, I decided  to really check out how deep this entire open source oriented and the much talked about non-window and non-mac platform really is. What am I talking about ?

Well of course, LINUX. We use it, hear about it  every single day but somehow it still stays hidden in the shadows. According to a net-survey it has claimed the heart of about 70 of the top 100 supercomputers all over the world. But let’s leave these supercomputers to the peculiar beings, whom they call The Computer Scientist.

Let’s just look around and again what do we see ?

Either a Linux derivation ( Android) or an iPhone. Okay, let’s talk about these handy laptops, well, to be honest - windows is the most common one that I come across. But I am

really beginning to question this “norm”. Who amongst windows users hasn’t seen the dreaded “Blue Screen of Death”. Or the near-constant hanging up of the system and god-only-knows-what background process and update.

But from what I have read and experimented with LINUX I am already quite impressed.

God, this thing is the brainchild of geniuses and that too far safer than the windows environment. Plus apart from being a haven for the programmer, it’s quickly gaining up the lead in the trendy UI revolution with Ubuntu coming up on the mobile phones.

I discover more interesting things by the minute like GNU( the full form is a typical case of programmer’s witty humour ) and the entire  Free Software Movement.

So, this blog is about this exploration and I would most certainly keep you updated about these awesome things that I come across.

So, till next time,

This is Himanshu Sharma

Over and Out =)