Monday, February 23, 2004
Read an article today on Debunking Common GNU/Linux Myths
It's a good read, generally recommended for anyone who wants to know more about Linux and free software.
Reading the section on "7. Free Software is Communism. Free Software promotes a gift economy and is anti-capitalist. Free Software will kill the software industry and hurt the economy", I recalled a time when I was first introduced to Free Software and really thinking about how it all works out of the benefit of the community and economy. I was doing my Honours year in Economics at the time and had I know earlier, would've loved to write a thesis on the economics of Free Software.
Anyway, some of my thoughts and ideas came back to me as I read the article and I think they'll add to the arguments of the author. A good way of illustrating how Free Software can actually benefit the community and the economy is drawing a parallel with academic research. There's really a lot of similarity between academic research and Free Software. Published academic research findings (excluding patented inventions) are public domain and other academics can build on earlier research done by other people as long as proper accredition is given. In doing so, academics don't have to re-invent the wheel when they're doing research, and can instead add on to what others are doing. At the end to the day, this framework works together to advance the state of science and technology at a rate never possible if research was closed and scientists in different institutions had no access to the findings of their compatriots in other institutions but instead had to do everything from scratch. A terrible waste to society indeed!
The basic premise as to why it is good and beneficial for academic research to be open is because academic research covers areas that are widely applicable to society and economy. Sufficient to justify government and community funding to further the "greater good". Enterprises benefits hugely from this free and open pool of knowledge. They are the ones who will use these knowledge to further develop, commercialize and exploit the knowledge for commercial gain. Can you imagine if enterprises do not have access to basic R&D and have to discover the Theory of Gravity all over again, all by themselves?
The role of the community is to further basic, widely applicable knowledge and technology, while the role of the enterprise is to build on this knowledge provided by basic R&D to build innovative new products. Sometimes things become commoditized and/or accessible to the common folks and the enterprise has to move on to innovate in new areas, instead of stagnating, growing fat and living off the rewards of yesteryear's innovation.
In today's world, there are huge similarities between academic research and software, especially for basic infrastructure type of software such as Operating Systems, Web Servers etc. When a particular type of software has a big enough user base and a wide-enough scope of applicability, Open Source development makes much economic sense. When that happens, enterprises no longer need to build every piece of software in their system stack. They can leave the underlying systems such as the Operating System to the community and focus on what makes them real money, innovative, differentiated products that people will fork out money for. This is happening, with IBM, Novell, Sun and many other companies leveraging Free Software on top of which they are building their innovative and differentiated products. Rather than hurting the software industry, Free Software is helping it by encouraging enterprises to not sit on their laurels and continue to innovate, while leaving what's most cost-effectively done by the community, to the community.
If academic research is "non-communist", if academic research benefits enterprises, and if academic research benefits the economy, so does Free Software. Anybody condemning Free Software as "non-communist", "Anti Capitalist" and "Hurts the Industry" will need to first prove that all the good work being done by scientists and academics all over the world is hurting the world economy, which is of course just plain absurd.
Read the article here
It's a good read, generally recommended for anyone who wants to know more about Linux and free software.
Reading the section on "7. Free Software is Communism. Free Software promotes a gift economy and is anti-capitalist. Free Software will kill the software industry and hurt the economy", I recalled a time when I was first introduced to Free Software and really thinking about how it all works out of the benefit of the community and economy. I was doing my Honours year in Economics at the time and had I know earlier, would've loved to write a thesis on the economics of Free Software.
Anyway, some of my thoughts and ideas came back to me as I read the article and I think they'll add to the arguments of the author. A good way of illustrating how Free Software can actually benefit the community and the economy is drawing a parallel with academic research. There's really a lot of similarity between academic research and Free Software. Published academic research findings (excluding patented inventions) are public domain and other academics can build on earlier research done by other people as long as proper accredition is given. In doing so, academics don't have to re-invent the wheel when they're doing research, and can instead add on to what others are doing. At the end to the day, this framework works together to advance the state of science and technology at a rate never possible if research was closed and scientists in different institutions had no access to the findings of their compatriots in other institutions but instead had to do everything from scratch. A terrible waste to society indeed!
The basic premise as to why it is good and beneficial for academic research to be open is because academic research covers areas that are widely applicable to society and economy. Sufficient to justify government and community funding to further the "greater good". Enterprises benefits hugely from this free and open pool of knowledge. They are the ones who will use these knowledge to further develop, commercialize and exploit the knowledge for commercial gain. Can you imagine if enterprises do not have access to basic R&D and have to discover the Theory of Gravity all over again, all by themselves?
The role of the community is to further basic, widely applicable knowledge and technology, while the role of the enterprise is to build on this knowledge provided by basic R&D to build innovative new products. Sometimes things become commoditized and/or accessible to the common folks and the enterprise has to move on to innovate in new areas, instead of stagnating, growing fat and living off the rewards of yesteryear's innovation.
In today's world, there are huge similarities between academic research and software, especially for basic infrastructure type of software such as Operating Systems, Web Servers etc. When a particular type of software has a big enough user base and a wide-enough scope of applicability, Open Source development makes much economic sense. When that happens, enterprises no longer need to build every piece of software in their system stack. They can leave the underlying systems such as the Operating System to the community and focus on what makes them real money, innovative, differentiated products that people will fork out money for. This is happening, with IBM, Novell, Sun and many other companies leveraging Free Software on top of which they are building their innovative and differentiated products. Rather than hurting the software industry, Free Software is helping it by encouraging enterprises to not sit on their laurels and continue to innovate, while leaving what's most cost-effectively done by the community, to the community.
If academic research is "non-communist", if academic research benefits enterprises, and if academic research benefits the economy, so does Free Software. Anybody condemning Free Software as "non-communist", "Anti Capitalist" and "Hurts the Industry" will need to first prove that all the good work being done by scientists and academics all over the world is hurting the world economy, which is of course just plain absurd.
Read the article here
Saturday, February 21, 2004
Obsession with Getting Listed on Google
It seems it could take some time (up to a month before this site will appear on Google), after learning how Google's crawler works. Read this.
Meanwhile, I also realized that I can submit the URL to Google as well, through this link:
http://www.google.com/addurl.html
It seems it could take some time (up to a month before this site will appear on Google), after learning how Google's crawler works. Read this.
Meanwhile, I also realized that I can submit the URL to Google as well, through this link:
http://www.google.com/addurl.html
Friday, February 20, 2004
Come Google Me!
Just 24hrs since I started this blog and it's still not showing up on Google's search yet. I wonder how long it'll be till Google finds me.
Talking about Google, I had a real good laugh today over Booble. Remeber to check out their "Sense of Humor" link.
Today in Java, the debate between Sun and Eric Raymond heats up. I've said my piece at TheServerSide and I really feel that a lot of facts need to be established before we can even have any form of meaningful debate over this. Exactly what kind of powers Sun has over Java and what kinda power has been opened up the community needs to be opened up for public debate for us to have a good and meaningful solution to this matter.
As it stands, I feel that Open Source Java is alive and well with Java being one of the most popular languages for Open Source Project. This kinda put some of Eric Raymond's claims into question.
With JDKs, Java IDEs and documentation widely available and free of charge, it's gonna be really hard for any Open Source implementation to gain any kind of decent traction.
Just 24hrs since I started this blog and it's still not showing up on Google's search yet. I wonder how long it'll be till Google finds me.
Talking about Google, I had a real good laugh today over Booble. Remeber to check out their "Sense of Humor" link.
Today in Java, the debate between Sun and Eric Raymond heats up. I've said my piece at TheServerSide and I really feel that a lot of facts need to be established before we can even have any form of meaningful debate over this. Exactly what kind of powers Sun has over Java and what kinda power has been opened up the community needs to be opened up for public debate for us to have a good and meaningful solution to this matter.
As it stands, I feel that Open Source Java is alive and well with Java being one of the most popular languages for Open Source Project. This kinda put some of Eric Raymond's claims into question.
With JDKs, Java IDEs and documentation widely available and free of charge, it's gonna be really hard for any Open Source implementation to gain any kind of decent traction.
Souping Up My Blog!!
Well well well, just when I was wondering how good it would be to have Comments and SiteStats for my blog, turns out that free ones are available with HaloScan and SiteMeter.
Cool!
Well well well, just when I was wondering how good it would be to have Comments and SiteStats for my blog, turns out that free ones are available with HaloScan and SiteMeter.
Cool!
Thursday, February 19, 2004
Getting Chinese Input to Work on Redhat 9
Well, this is the technical issue that inspired me to start blogging. I spent a couple of hours getting it to work and what I can find on the web didn't help very much. Maybe because I didn't search in Chinese but how could I have done so if I don't have Chinese input in the first place?
Well anyway, there's quite a bit of outdated information out there on the web. After running around a few circles, Chinese input does work for Redhat 9 without ever having to install anything outside of what's installed in the distro. Well I chose the "install everything" option when I first installed the OS (including ALL languages). Don't ask me why, I just thought doing so may save my life some day.
For a while I have been using cxterm for Chinese input. Well if my experience is anything to go by, it's horribly out of date and doesn't work well with Redhat 9 at all. The screen gets corrupted all the time and you can only edit in a terminal. To transfer it to another window you literally have to save it and then open it with another program. Just so you know, there is a better way.
Much of the available English info on the web says recommends using the "xcin + crxvt" combo. Now just so you don't try it again, that's outdated info. The best way to perform Chinese input under Redhat 9 is to use the built in capabilities of the OS.
Change the locale to the Chinese version you want, and then login to X Windows. To activate the input method (Here's the clincher that I discovered only by chance), press "ctrl-space". The default input method works for me so I can start using that to input chinese into everything I use, from the browser, to the email client, to Gaim and even the terminal.
But of course it was a lot of trial and error and when I was just hammering away at the keys, I would somehow unknowingly change the input method to something else I don't know how to use (I only know how to use pinyin). Now by trial and error I realized that the following method helps reset that. Again I dunno why but it just works, maybe someone can explain that to me.
I executed the following on the shell:
export LC_CTYPE=zh_CN.GB2312
xcin &
Then I think I restarted X Windows, and it was all fine and dandy again. Pinyin seemed to be the default input method for this locale. I don't know how to change the input method so if someone knows please tell me.
I won't go into step-by-step details, so this is pretty much it. For those of you who live in the English speaking part of the world and needs to use Chinese input for Linux from time to time, there is hope.
Well, this is the technical issue that inspired me to start blogging. I spent a couple of hours getting it to work and what I can find on the web didn't help very much. Maybe because I didn't search in Chinese but how could I have done so if I don't have Chinese input in the first place?
Well anyway, there's quite a bit of outdated information out there on the web. After running around a few circles, Chinese input does work for Redhat 9 without ever having to install anything outside of what's installed in the distro. Well I chose the "install everything" option when I first installed the OS (including ALL languages). Don't ask me why, I just thought doing so may save my life some day.
For a while I have been using cxterm for Chinese input. Well if my experience is anything to go by, it's horribly out of date and doesn't work well with Redhat 9 at all. The screen gets corrupted all the time and you can only edit in a terminal. To transfer it to another window you literally have to save it and then open it with another program. Just so you know, there is a better way.
Much of the available English info on the web says recommends using the "xcin + crxvt" combo. Now just so you don't try it again, that's outdated info. The best way to perform Chinese input under Redhat 9 is to use the built in capabilities of the OS.
Change the locale to the Chinese version you want, and then login to X Windows. To activate the input method (Here's the clincher that I discovered only by chance), press "ctrl-space". The default input method works for me so I can start using that to input chinese into everything I use, from the browser, to the email client, to Gaim and even the terminal.
But of course it was a lot of trial and error and when I was just hammering away at the keys, I would somehow unknowingly change the input method to something else I don't know how to use (I only know how to use pinyin). Now by trial and error I realized that the following method helps reset that. Again I dunno why but it just works, maybe someone can explain that to me.
I executed the following on the shell:
export LC_CTYPE=zh_CN.GB2312
xcin &
Then I think I restarted X Windows, and it was all fine and dandy again. Pinyin seemed to be the default input method for this locale. I don't know how to change the input method so if someone knows please tell me.
I won't go into step-by-step details, so this is pretty much it. For those of you who live in the English speaking part of the world and needs to use Chinese input for Linux from time to time, there is hope.
Alright, this is my first ever weblog. I'm new to blogging, and I really wonder where this will lead me.
What inspired me to do this? Well I'm a techie and I know that blogs are very useful for sharing information. I've found answers to technical questions I have by reading other people's blogs and I just thought it would be a good idea for me to post whatever answers I may have that's not easily available to others online.
What inspired me to do this? Well I'm a techie and I know that blogs are very useful for sharing information. I've found answers to technical questions I have by reading other people's blogs and I just thought it would be a good idea for me to post whatever answers I may have that's not easily available to others online.
