What's Linux about?

When our first son was born, Veronika and me, to avoid senseless and subtle struggles, agreed on building an as neutral ground as possible for our kids, and thus decided to start by not choosing for our kids names that were Spanish (me) or Austrian (Veronika).

Since we met in Finland, we agreed on having a Finnish name. We checked some names and known characters, and, in the end, Linus Torvalds, the Finnish man father of the operative system Linux, seemed like an interesting person plus the name itself, Linus, sounded nice to us.

But it was much more for his being Finnish than for being Linux-related.

As a collateral effect though, I did think that I should at least try and see what Linux is about, for it would be a shame not to ever leave Windows having my son named after Torvalds.

I know that there is a lot of sectarianism on this whole business, and that, as a rule, cool people like Macs, people who don't like computers very much like use Microsoft Windows, and people with suspenders and populated beards like Linux.

I am none of them. I like computers, the Mac's aura of coolness for money discomfort me, and people with suspenders and long beards intimidate me.

Let this be then: Linux according to Kymmenen.

Of course, if I have to choose between, say, Microsoft Group Corporation or Linux based OS Ubuntu, founded and funded by the philanthropist Mark Shuttleworth, I choose the latter. But as I said, I don't want to be sectarian, and I beg you not to be so either. I know this whole topic doesn't sound that exciting if you are not a geek, but trust me when I say that that's not the case.

I want to discuss merely the architecture, concept and values attached to each of the operative systems (OS) without making it a matter of affiliations.

Before I really started using Linux just some 6 months ago now, it must be said, I knew very little about the whole thing. On the Microsoft Windows Vs. Linux debate, I had my preferences of course, but they were based rather on sympathies than on anything else. The core of it, the true meaning of the debate, sounded like 普通話 to me and it wouldn't bloom in front of me, awakening me to a bright new dimension and understanding of a lot of things until now.

As for expectations, like for most people, I think, I expected Linux to be complicated to use, a slightly more pain in the ass and time consuming than (the already pain in the arse and time consuming) Windows, a somewhat complicated business that wouldn't offer me the usability I got in Windows.

No, sorry for those image links, I want this to be neutral. I just couldn't resist.

So, when I found out Ubuntu, a project known in the internet as "Linux for Human Beings" instead of just for geeks, and I read on their website that YOU could just download it, or even order as many CDs as you want to be delivered to your home for free to try it out and/or give it to your friends, my scepticism turned into curiosity.

To put it short, in these months, I have learnt that Linux is not about Linux. Linux is about Open Source, which it uses and promotes, as opposed to Windows which doesn't use nor promote it.

And, please, believe me here, Open Source is no geek thing, it's a really big thing that goes beyond computers and not only questions our economic systems, societies and life styles, which it does with such a great convincing power, but, at the same time it proposes and presents an already existing and working model.

Windows'

I think you might be familiar with this. If I make a fresh install of my Windows OS, the process usually goes together with installing all kind of programs, from programs to open text files, pdf, a music player, an image editor, antivirus, firewall and a long etc.

For every and each of these programmes, in theory, I would have needed to pay painful amounts, although, it must be said, I never paid a niquel.

I either got those programmes from softonic, (although then I had still to roam the internet to get working license keys), I used P2P download programmes and looked for the programme in question together with a license key AND hoped for it not being infected with viruses, which was the case sometimes, or asked a friend to give me a CD with the program I needed which he most likely got using the above mention methods.

In any case, it must be known, it was all very illegal, but that's the way it goes in most cases, because no one is really gonna pay a thousand euros in licenses and there is no other way to go about it.

Or is there?

Open Source's

As I said, the main point of Linux being Linux, is that it uses Open Source. And what's that? Well, briefly, it means that anyone can see the insides of it, and modify it at will.

I didn't know this, but the implications are huge.

It doesn't only mean that by being available to everyone, there can appear people willing to develop and improve the software further AND who want to distribute it for free, BUT, the main difference is, and this is what blasted my mind, that those new applications and operative systems, being deprived of profit-driven principles, can be made in a way which they serve the user's interest and no one else's.

I didn't think of it before!

Our software and computers (and for extension, our societies and economies), are designed by profit-driven organisations, and, yes, they proclaim to be more efficient, but as a side effect, their main interest, open and clearly, is to make profit. And THAT has implications too.

Imagine a shareholder committee of a pharmaceutical company taking the decision on a drug research plan to cure a new disease. The research team offers two work line possibilities, one of them works on developing a prolonged treatment, making substantial profits, and the other one would develop a possible single shot treatment, making people immune forever, although profits would be evidently lower.

What do YOU think the decision of the committee would be?

Imagine that a group of people made a programme which could open and create text files, just as Microsoft Office does, and decides to offer it for free to everyone. Being free and available, would the Microsoft Corporation include such free programme in its operative system, telling you that there is no need anymore to pay the more than 150 US dollars for THEIR programme?

Would Microsoft improve the usability of Windows by adding such a programme to it, or, things being that way, providing their previously pay-for MS Office now for free? What do you think, would they, or would they just try to be very silent and squeeze out as many dollars as still possible?

What if someone thought up a way to design operative systems that would make them incredibly safer and virtually immune to virus attacks? Do you think that Microsoft and the computer safety software companies would promote such idea and to implement it?

Again, what is it that you think they would do?

I don't know if I can convey to you the feelings I had while browsing down and down the built-in application in Ubuntu which lets you choose from a fat "central library" lots of applications which you can download for free, with the guarantee of it being a trusted source, and which do exactly what the other pay-for applications do in windows, only that using Open Source and for free.

I couldn't believe it. Text editors, audio players, image editors, dictionaries, compression applications, what do I know, Office, Sound & Video, Internet, Education, Accesories, even Games, everything!

I think I recall really repeating "I can't believe this".

And, I couldn't believe it, not only because they were for free, but mainly because, by being free, Microsoft could also offer them together with Windows and they do not. The fuckers do not.

Do you understand?! They simply do not because it is contrary to its corporative interest to say, "hey, someone is actually doing all this stuff for free, you know?".

What do you think its corporative interests say to their developing teams instead?

It says, "for god sake, by all means, make the new Microsoft Office incompatible with the text documents created in that free programme". And so they just do.

On the other end, in this example, the developing team of OpenOffice, sees no inconvenient in making possible to open and edit and work with files made by MS Office, and even adds the option to save your files as Microsfot Office files to solve their being a bunch of fuckers the problem.


Even more, they, like all Open Source software, have a forum where, among others, people can say what they would like to have. For example, someone said "Hey, isn't possible to have a button to export my text files as pdf? I find it a pain in the arse having to get a different programme to do so", then someone reads it and says, "Well, actually it is not that difficult, here you are, convert-to-pdf button."

Meh! Was it that easy?

This has been a revelation for me, as I say, in a broader and really powerful dimension. I see with raged eyes the kind of crap world we are building for ourselves THEY are selling us.

I have found out, in awe, a new meaning to the terms user-friendly, community made and community oriented. I see with happy and grateful eyes a flourishing world where not only people help people, but also where things and ideas too are made to help people, to serve them in the best possible way, encouraging everyone to join in and participate with their opinions and feedbacks, to be critical, to put ideas together to co-operate for better and more efficient solutions, in spite of them making absolute no profit.

If there exists an alternative, I cannot think now of ever using a proprietary software again, with the ugly values its ugly little teethed mouth spreads and its soul-less rigidity.

You are still reading 'till here? Wow, I'm impressed. Draw nearer, my dear friends.

This is my message then. It is not a matter of affiliation or sectarianism. I still know the very little I know of computers and I don't use suspenders.

People are gathering. Something hopeful and bright stirs amidst the masses. Haven't you hear it? Word is being spread, although great interests do all in their hands to silence it, to keep it away from your ears.

You know that they won't tell you, so, what is it that YOU say.

All I can say, is that Ubuntu, for me, is a place where, for a change, feels nice to be. And I say this not only from a computer related perspective.

It feels nice to know, use and support it as a human project, a project that puts an end to the madness and contradictions that a profit-driven world view has choked down our throats for already too long.

Open Source is more than some geekish thing, it is a philosophy that promotes sharing, community and cooperation. A world view that announces that, contrary to what we have been told, there are loads and loads of people willing to help making things better, to work hard, hand in hand with all kind of people without distinction, people with and without suspenders who are willing to share the results of such work with the whole of the humankind, without dirty lies and for a reason well different than filling their pockets, full-hands, with money.