[Ilugc] Take on Minix & Linux by Girish
- From: rs2003@xxxxxxxxx (R.Subramanian (RS))
- Date: Wed Aug 30 14:05:29 2006
On 8/30/06, Rajagopal Natarajan <rajagopal.n@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 8/30/06, Kenneth Gonsalves <lawgon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
strangely enough, although philosophicaly i dont agree with Girish,
in practice, in the Indian context I do. The problem here is the
'scratch my itch' philosophy,
I understand your concern for FOSS. Students may do FOSS
projects for their own interest but not for their final year project,
which
should be a project of academic interest for the wellbeing of the student.
Taking this debate in a more generic level :
Is contributing to Foss good for a IT Professional / aspiring IT
professionals....?
My view on this:
I see this something similar to paying taxes.
Sure , we all have hesitation in paying taxes. Particularly when we see most
of our tax money is going waste in mindless projects.
So naturally any sensible person will raise this question: When my hard
earned money and my hard efforts are only going waste why the hell should i
pay taxes and contribute ...?
I would not advise a person contribute to a foss project which is either
repetitive or not of any real use and is just of some academic interest.
It is like advising some one to honestly pay his taxes, when no convincing
benefits and envisaged.
Therefore it is very important that the Foss efforts and Foss project
initiatives have to be really well thought ones. Foss projects, at the end
have to be addressing real issues and be providing really
useful solutions to issues.
Having said that i would like to also point out the dangers of not
contributing to common causes like the tax and the foss.
a bit of history :
In the 9/10th century a few ministers to the king of northern India ( fore
fathers of the pritiviraj-samyukda) proposed to build a strong wall,
completely closing the kiber pass.( something similar to the the great wall
of china) .
The ministers advised the kind to levy a special "wall tax" on the people
for the construction.
But the people agitated and refused to pay the "wall tax". After some time,
the tax proposal and the wall project was dropped.
Many years after drooping the proposal Ghajini Mohammed was planning to
visit india and found the kiber pass to be the effortless way to enter. He
succeeded and looted all the wealth and returned .
He used that route to repeatedly visit india in the 9th/10th century. In a
span of 20 years he made a total of 17 visits. Not even once he failed.
Every time he went back with tones and tonne of gold snatched from the
public.
When the brilliant ministers proposed to completely close the kiber pass by
building a strong wall, all the people should have contributed immediately
and should have completed it .
unlike the thousands of kilometer length of the great wall of china, this
wall needed to be just a few kilometres long . The money and effort needed
to build the wall was not even point one percent of what was lost for not
contributing the construction of the wall.
The morel of the story : Contribute for the right common cause.
( btw this is not a story.
this is a recorded history of india)
So, both for Foss development and tax payment, after understanding
the dangers to him on non - contribution , one has look for tangible
benefits of his contribution to himself and others, and then contribute
developing the project.
Invite opinions in academic interest :-)
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