FOSS, The Dead Loss

Finally I delivered the “FLOSS Dead Loss!” presentation today. Almost 3 weeks of hard effort, sleepless nights, and reading of nearly every page on www.fsf.org, www.opensource.org and various other relevant sites, I must acknowledge it was all in vain.

My theme was to show the benefits of FOSS by doing a comparative analysis of marginal cost, creativity and team based development approach. I managed a valuable research on a duopoly model to defend the point from Harvard Business School’s published paper—done a fantastic SWOT analysis of FOSS.

All theoretical aspects were looking smooth and promising.

So what went wrong?

First, the projector refused to recognize the signal. After checking the resolution I tried to change the setting to 800x600 format…and for my bad luck (or FOSS’s) I realized that Ubuntu supports only 1024x800 resolution. Gamindu (Gamz) came forward to help me out, and bang! Linux crashed! It simply refused to load the GUI.

After many unsuccessful attempts we decided to boot without the projector and save the open office presentation file in PowerPoint format and use windows [was not in the original agenda]. Alas, OpenOffice went mad, it started opening in the “recovery file mode” one after the other, and finally it froze!

All this time our audience was quietly and patiently waiting for the presentation. So we decided to boot one more time and copy the files in PowerPoint mode. This time things went alright, managed to copy the files in required formats reboot the system with windows and there you go! All formatting was gone for a six!

Anyhow, I managed to use the slide show to provide whatever I have had planned. But in the end, there were many sarcastic smiles on the faces…

So what’s the conclusion…? Interoperability and Reliability of FOSS desktop applications are still a question mark. Someone should seriously consider changing the development model as well as understand a basic rule “Applications are designed for end-users not for developers”.

Linux Tutorials

For all who like to re-capture good old unix, have a look at www.unix-tutorials.com its a good resource for both advance & new users. Have fun !

I FLOSS!

Ok, I was forced to talk about FOSS! I really don't know whether to talk in favor of FOSS or against! On one hand, I do agree with the concept behind FS, but on the other I never like the idea to exploit the creativity of young and budding programmers by "providing them experience of working on enterprise applications while studying". I feel its immoral and unethical at the same time I also accept the fact that there is nothing wrong with the model FOSS is following in terms of Capitalist Economic Concepts... I think I need to bang my head now. Have a look at the following article Differences between open source and free software. Anyway, it will be fun, there are already rumors that I am having a "Debate on FOSS" with a Monk!!!