Module 9 Blog

I am glad to hear of Brazil's decision to encourage open-source software. It's one thing to consider an end user deciding to choose the "de facto" OS, such as Windows, but it's another thing for buisnesses. I for one feel that any business that lacks a huge amount of start-up capital, especially tech-oriented buisness, are at a huge disadvantage because of esablished "norms" in the computing world, where their only viable option is to use a close-sourced OS that can cost upwards of $150.00! Linux is free, easily modifiable to suit the needs of a specialized buisness, and more stable (not only resource management, but malware and viruses too). Many of the computers in Brazil are old, even positively ancient! Linux is a fantastic OS because it's not hardware dependent. There is always a distro out there that can run on whatever hardware you have laying around.

If I were going to build a network to work the registers and keep track of the inventory in a Walgreens (I work there, so this is from experience), and I knew that the hardware owned by the store was 20 years old, I would research which version of linux could run on 66MHz Pentium 1 with 32MB of available ram and driver support for scanner, printers, and specialized cashier displays. Unfortunately everything must run Windoze! So these doddering old computers are being wasted running a weird version of MS-DOS. These were installed in a time without ubiquitous access to the internet, so it was difficult to get the word out about free, open-source software, let alone transmit it.

There is no excuse for the modern day monopoly on the operating system market.

Module 7 Blog (Week 5)

How to go about producing Opensource software:

To produce anything that could be considered "open source," it must have the proper license. The primary choice to ensure that our product is "free as in freedom," is to have it comply with the GNU GPL, or General Public License.

It is a copyleft license, which means that the initial product, as well as its derivatives are free to distribute and change by anyone for any reason. The GNU license is maintained by the Free Software Foundation (FSF). You can ensure that your product is considered open source but contacting the FSF for a copy of their license, or by using a modified copy of the GPL that does not mention GNU. The license is itself not copyleft, but anything bearing the the license is. 

I hope this clears up any confusion you may have had about open source software. Thank you for your time.