Open Source Software...

[shadow]

read some articles about this today...what are the advantages, disadvantages?
aside of course of it being free, stable ba siya? compatibility to other programs etc...

Open source should be supported, promoted--CICT chairman
By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 18:37:00 06/24/2008

MAKATI CITY, Philippines -- Open source software should be promoted as an alternative to more expensive proprietary software, the chairman of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) said during an open source summit.

"Within our country however, there is still a lack of awareness and support for open source software, or OSS, and its benefits. With its significant cost advantage, OSS provides users with a compelling alternative to proprietary solutions," CICT chairman Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua III said in a speech he read during the first Philippine Open Source Summit in Cebu.

He pointed out that the "more common option for many users is the purchase of pirated copies of proprietary software."

"There is therefore a need to bring OSS to the awareness of users as a legitimate option and to provide the required support for its implementation," he said.

While the CICT is still advocating "freedom of choice" of software, Chua said that the agency has been using open source software in various projects it leads.

The agency's e-Governance in Local Government Units, or eLGU project, which intends to establish of community eCenters in the country, use software applications developed using open source. Among the e-government applications developed under the project include the Real Property Tax System, Business Permit Licensing System and the Treasury Operations Management System, he said.

"We believe that the marketplace should decide the use of proprietary software versus open source software. We just need to make sure that there exists a fair marketplace and that the consumer is fully informed of the available choices. Currently, government agencies decide on their own on whether to use proprietary or open source software," he said.

CICT has also been using open source software in its iSchools and eSkwela projects.

"These projects provide users the opportunity to enhance their learning experience through the use of PCs and the Internet. Our decision to use OSS in the implementation of these projects is driven primarily by its cost-effectiveness relative to proprietary solutions. Put simply, cheaper computer labs mean more computer labs that we can roll out," he said.
This month, CICT and Intel launched a low-cost computing program that introduced affordable PCs for consumers. They come with open source software.

"By combining our efforts, we will slowly but surely make Filipinos aware of the many benefits that OSS has to offer and that they have a cost effective alternative to proprietary solutions that does not involve software piracy," Chua said.

Copyright 2008 INQUIRER.net. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Microsoft to developers: ‘Open source is a choice’
By Lawrence Casiraya

• MANILA, Philippines -- At the Cebu open source summit, Microsoft was telling developers it is ready to help them go "primetime."

Microsoft's presence in the summit drew quite an impact, if not harmless ribbing. In a presentation by noted IT entrepreneur Winston Damarillo, mentioning indicators that open source is ready for primetime deployment, one answer reads: "The number of times in a month Microsoft says: ‘We support open source.’"

"My answer to that was: ‘We should have done it earlier,’” said Abet Dela Cruz, Microsoft Philippines platform strategy manager, narrating Monday's panel discussion at the Cebu summit.

Dela Cruz represented Microsoft in the panel along with representatives from IBM and Red Hat.

"It took IBM about 10 years to be at this stage and it is only now that Microsoft is going in the same direction," said Dela Cruz, who is still in Cebu attending the two-day summit.

IBM has been a staunch supporter of open source although the tech giant does sell its own proprietary software.

"Open Source is a broad worldwide phenomenon. There are specific technologies that plug into it, and some of them compete with each other like (Microsoft) Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris and IBM," Dela Cruz said in an interview with INQUIRER.net.

"But overall we see it (open source) as a long standing movement that will continue," he added.

Dela Cruz noted that within the SourceForge developer community, there are more than 77,000 listed applications that support Windows, more than half the same number of apps that work on Windows alone.

He noted that Microsoft has opened up APIs (application programming interfaces) on some of its core products such as Windows that enable developers to build applications on top of its platform.

Dela Cruz admitted not too many people recognize open source projects within Microsoft.

"At the end of the day, Linux or Windows were built not for the sake of having an OS alone. My job was to tell developers that they have a choice," he said.

[Altis6453]

If the Philippine Government is truly serious about using open source software, it should start migrating all its PC operating systems to Linux and begin using Open Office applications.

Also, all subsequent invitations for bidding for the supply, installation and maintenance of software in government agencies like the BIR, SEC, LTO, SSS, etc. should now specify the use of open source codes.

[Jun aka Pekto]

At first I thought I thought MS and open source can't fit together in the same sentence. But looking at my own applications for Windows, a sizable chunk is open source/public domain/freeware although the majority are still commercial (and zero pirated) software. So, I guess MS is right in that aspect.

[1D4LV]

abet dela cruz was a college professor. hehehehe.

its a choice actually. for the office, since we handle volumes of MS office files, much better kung MS ang gamit mo. napaka tedious kasi if you are to convert pa from Open Office to MS Office. And besides, most of the time, nawawala ang formatting. Same goes for databases. The only open source program we are using is Mozilla.

Pero dito sa house, masaya na ako sa Ubuntu/Open Office/Mozilla combo.

on your stability questions, i have been using Linux variants for more than 5 years already and mostly are on server implementations. One thing i can say, they are really stable. In fact, in my previous company, we only restart a Linux based server, if there are no patches applied, once a year. Hindi kaya yan ng microsoft based servers. On the desktop level, its more responsive too. Kaya nga lang, maninibago ka in some point.

on compatibility, as long as you are willing to convert (some minor conversion, some major conversions), ok lang. But most are compatible. Maninibago ka lang din how Linux names its programs....

one issue i see. If you are not trained in Linux, medyo mahihirapan ka mag administer. Pero kung simple desktop user ka lang, may onting adjustment lang.

[artpogi]

+1,000,000 sa sinabi ni Bossing Vladi

Open Source/Linux FTW

[CtrlAltDel]

Another happy GNU/Linux OS user here I agree with 1D4LV about the usability of a Linux OS on the desktop. Here's a screen capture of mine.


This is a Made-in-Turkey Linux distro called "Pardus 2008 Kurulan." According to accounts it enjoys the support of the Turkish govt. Armed to the teeth with multimedia codecs out of the box, the default media player Kaffeine is playing the HBO version of Pacquiao vs Diaz boxing match in a screen I can set to show no borders. I have yet to throw a video format it cannot play. Same goes with Amarok which plays FLAC, Ogg, mp3, wma, wav, etc...

I am glad that I spend the time to discover open-source and Linux. For home use, I never had to buy any commercial pc application (fake or legit) again. A free Linux distro lets me enjoy clean, legit computing once again. OpenOffice is simply gorgeous.

PS... Of course, what you download is another matter. Like, what's that ripped Stop-Loss on DVD doing on my desktop? Ayaw ni Edu Manzano ng ganyan

[CtrlAltDel]

By the way... Pardus 2008's bad-ass CD/DVD burning application, called K3B, totally rocks! It is also available in any KDE-based distro.

[Jun aka Pekto]

Another happy GNU/Linux OS user here I agree with 1D4LV about the usability of a Linux OS on the desktop.

Linux is a viable desktop OS for anyone so long as it meets their needs. I'm familiar with Linux enough (all the way back to Slackware 3.4 in 1995). It's been quite usable for me since Mandrake 6.0 back in 1999. Even the progress made from 1995 to 1999 was a lot. But, there's still little things, little niggly things that sometimes frustrate me enough not to use Linux all the time.

For one thing, many distros still don't have an easy access PPPoE interface. Someone point me towards the right direction if I'm wrong. But, when I set up an Ubuntu pc for a friend, he had Quest DSL instead of Cox Cable broadband. I was surprised to find a lack of a graphical setup tool for it. I had to resort to a terminal window and use pppoeconf.

Then, the big majority of distros still don't have the proper codecs. A few like the aforementioned Pardus 2008 and Linuxmint (Ubuntu media-oriented subdistro) do have a complete suite. But, not all have them.

One personal beef I have is a lack of a simple desktop icon auto-arrange on all the X-interfaces. Be it KDE, Gnome, or Enlightment, there is no icon autoarrange. There's also no "hide all icons" option. Maybe I've missed a setting somewhere. if I did, someone please point me towards it.

That brings up the biggest issue I have with Linux which is a lack of uniformity among them. I mean it's nice to have Linux as very customizable. But, I think there should be some uniformity of the basics.

One last beef I have with Linux in general is the lack of a stable video editor. It's been two years since I attempted video editing in Linux. I've tried several including Cinelerra. All I can say is that it made Moviemaker 2 for Windows XP and Vista look rock-solid. Maybe it's better now. But, I haven't made any attempts lately at running Linux except for Linuxmint.

[CtrlAltDel]

*Jun aka pekto,

I agree with most of what you said. You have more experience on Linux than I am (barely 5 months=). One reason why although I am very enthusiastic about Linux for my own use but not enthusiastic enough to drag people to it is that I know enough of the expectations of Windows users vs the different way Linux works.

For the "average user" (meaning one who simply wants to browse the Net, email, chat, maybe shop online, download multimedia files and play them, do some research using OpenOffice, organize and edit pictures) he can find distros that can do that out of the box. Trouble comes when a newbie got one of those that cant, jumps to a general conclusion, becomes frustrated and leaves Linux for good. For example, Ubuntu cant play mp3 by default; it needs to connect to the net to pull codecs, extra work which is a piece of cake by the way. And then their are distros that are not easy to install for a newbie. I have the latest Gentoo and Slackware, but I have yet to dare myself to install them.

As for the lack of uniformity... I think this is the side effect of the software being open source. It has very liberal public licence to copy, modify and distribute as you wish. I read somewhere there are organizations who try to "standardize" some GNU tools. But for the most part, yep, Linux distros are so diverse.

Linux requires patience on the part of the new user, because its different. You know this already of course=) But the rewards for anyone taking the time to learn it cannot be under estimated. The knowledge is yours to keep and apply to more new distros to come. You can also teach your kids common open source applications (OpenOffice and Gimp for instance) and they never have to resort to pirated software unless money is no object to buy legit of cource. And linux distros are free (there are commercial ones though.) For me, I truly appreciate the work of open source developers. Microsoft and Adobe wont be making any money from me anymore... they can continue milking my employer though, from XP to Vista to Windows 7 to Windows 8... to Whatever.

My advice to the original poster... Try Linux safely using "Live CD" distros (like LinuxMint 5 r1, Knoppix 5.3.1, Mandriva 2008.1 and Sabayon 5.4. They are loaded with codecs and NTFS support.) A linux experience is very personal and only you can truly say whether it meets your needs or whether you're better off with Windows, or with a Mac. Let no one take your freedom to choose your OS

Here's a link to more choices:
http://distrowatch.com/

[Jun aka Pekto]

For instance, my own enthusiasm with Linux intrigued my colleagues well enough to for them try several distros I have in my collection: Mint 5, Knoppix 5.3.1, and Puppy. Their verdict: Puppy is the easiest and friendliest. I can guess why. Puppy always runs on root and can put the whole of itself to RAM for tremendous speed boost without installing to hard disk. Despite its obvious size limitation (Puppy is only 80MB or so) users arent bothered with "denied permisssions" and similar stumbling blocks. Whats more, Puppy can read and write to Windows partitions without any second thoughts. Try running live cds of Fedora, Zen, Centos, and the like and see if you can peek inside your Windows partitions. You cant unless you do some terminal work by hand. Of course, you know this already=)

Hmmm. I haven't tried Puppy yet. I'll have to give that one a go. Linuxmint can also access Windows NTFS partitions.... I think.

My point being that for the "average user" (meaning one who simply wants to browse the Net, email, chat, maybe shop online, download multimedia files and play them, do some research using OpenOffice, organize and edit pictures) he can find distros that can do that out of the box. Trouble comes when a newbie got one of those that cant, become frustrated and leaves Linux for good. for example, Ubuntu cant play mp3 by default; it needs to connect to the net to pull codecs, extra work which is a piece of cake by the way. While I have the latest Gentoo and Slackware, I have yet to dare myself to install them.

Linux distros should provide some "hand-holding" or a least a checklist of what's needed for newbies on a "Getting Started" screen. That should make transition much easier. The average users are of the Windows or OSX variety as said earlier. They expect nothing less than what they're used to. The burden falls on the distro maker to ensure that's the case. Unfortunately, I haven't seen that yet. Maybe if more OEM computers came preloaded with Linux, that would go a long way.

As for the lack of uniformity... I think this is the side effect of the software being open source. It has very liberal public licence to copy, modify and distribute as you wish. I read somewhere there are organizations who try to "standardize" some GNU tools. But for the most part, yep, Linux distros are so diverse.

The distros could at least come together and have a common preloaded set of codecs similar to most distros having KDE/Gnome.

There are aspects of the way Linux works that requires patience on the part of the new user. But the rewards for you taking the time to learn it cannot be under estimated. The knowledge is yours to keep and apply to more new distros to come. And linux distros are free (there are commercial ones though.) For me, I truly appreciate the work of open source developers. Microsoft and Adobe wont be making any money from me anymore... my employer will.

The free part is what will attract most users. The technical aspects of Linux is what will turn most users off. I guess Linux will have a much bigger following if most open source software are available only for Linux. Unfortunately, open source software such as Open Office, VLC, Firefox, Celestia, and even Gimp are also available for Windows. It's simply easier to have Windows as the OS and use open source software with it.

I still have a Linux pc, though. I'll stick with Mint for now....


Hmmm. That images window is from my XP NTFS partition.