Imagine a world where all knowledge is free. Where absolutely anyone is welcome to learn the greatest or smallest secrets of the state. Where no knowledge is classified or off-limits. Where innovation and creativity are encouraged, and improvements always sought. This is where humanity can reach its zenith. This is where scientists, artists, technologists, and sociologists come together to utilize human knowledge to its best. There is only one kind that is unwelcome here, and that is the business type. The rule here is: take all the knowledge you want, twist or skewer it as you desire, but don’t profit from it. This utopian place is the open source world. Some of its children are Wikipedia, Wordpress, and Linux.

For those who are not very familiar with linux, wikipedia is a good anchoring point. As the wiki philosophy goes, any person of any qualification may contribute to a singular resource as long as they can backup their claims with credible sources. This is essentially the definition of rational thought. This way, no science/art goes stale by being constantly led in a linear direction. A communal effort always keeps a check on where things are headed, and reprimands the field if needed. This is also the birthplace of new ideas. The human mind produces new ideas by performing various logical operations between older ideas. The more data (relevant or not) you look at, the more new ideas you will produce. This is the process of ‘brainstorming’.

If we restrict a science/art to a laboratory or a corporate office, it will begin to go to stale. There will be little innovation and subsequently lesser yearning for innovation. On the other hand, you have different fingers!…lol no I’m joking. On the other hand, if we allow contributions from a wide variety of sources, the subject remains fresh and dynamic. The same philosophy is used by linux.

I’m not asking you to abandon your operating system and switch to Ubuntu right now. But I think it is important to realize what supporting proprietary software means. The end goal of Microsoft and Apple (love them or hate them) is not to improve computer technology, but to make money. I’m not referring to individuals like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Regardless of their personal intentions, the very nature of their corporate beasts prioritizes money over innovation. Look at the iPhone for example: enormously popular, its ‘terms and services’ gives the rights to any piece of software developed for it directly to Apple, along with permission to further use and distribution as they wish.

This might seem like something trivial, that someone makes a thermometer app that becomes popular, and Apple attaches a 99 cents price tag to it and makes a few thousand dollars of it. That, though objectionable, is not the central problem. The problem is that such a system hinders development. Apple forces all iPhone software to be downloaded only through the iTunes distribution system. Moreover, it has to be “digitally signed” to be installable. What this commercialization does is put money in the front, and development in the backseat. Since the product is commercial, it now comes with a “life-cycle” and various do-s and don’t do-s. Given the forced profit, its developer is now concerned with making money, over actual innovation.

There is another such problem that applies to both Microsoft and Apple. This is of cost. Most people in the first world can (though grudgingly) afford $300 – $600 for Vista, or pay excess of $1500 for a Mac laptop. Those who pirate their copies of OS have the benefit of high speed Internet (also expensive by global standards). The rest of the world – the developing world, cannot afford such prices, let alone the hardware. So in a world without linux, new generations of children in Africa, India and Brazil will have to be introduced to old, painfully bad software. This about insures they will not easily be able to secure a job in the IT industry, or make contributions to its growth. This is another reason the proprietary model is unsustainable. It is very unfriendly to a non-capitalistic market. If we imagine that computers are going to revolutionize humanity forever, and for the better, surely all humans have to be given a fairer chance.

If you’ve been using computers for at least the last 5 years, ask yourself this: why do you look forward to every periodic major release of a software to see new features? Aren’t your needs changing in those few years between the releases? Aren’t developers and artists maturing new ideas into features in that time? Is so, why wait long periods to get them all in one go? This way you’ll hardly use all the new features when they do come out, as most will be hidden behind the more prominent ones, and at least some of the work that had been put in by the developers will go to waste. If your thoughts are fluid, so should be research. The very nature of BIG software disallows this.

Linux is growing right now, yes, but it needs more users. With its current market-share, it is hardly taken seriously by software producers. If you want software/computers of the future to be capable of serving humanity better, for all the reasons listed above, give linux a try. The more attention it receives, more software will be developed for it. It will evolve faster, more humans will be able to add their input to it, and we will move towards a cheaper and more reliable computing model. This will open new technologies to us, which will help us achieve our long term goals on this planet.

I think this is a good time to introduce Ubuntu (Oo-buntu) to new users. It is a distribution of Debian (a distribution of linux) that was released in 2004. Its philosophy is everything written in this article and more. More specifically, it says “I am who I am because of those around me…”. Ubuntu itself comes from a Zulu word loosely translated to “humanity”. Ubuntu has been revolutionary because it makes linux easy for average users. All things required for general usage are automated, and more advanced users can customize every aspect of its functionality to suit themselves. Even the Wikimedia foundation runs off Ubuntu. Sure, your windows or mac might have a cool feature that Ubuntu does not have yet, but all you have to do is suggest it to the very large user community, and if feasible, you will get your wish in the next release (every 6 months).

Ubuntu has also been made ultra-easy to install for inexperienced users and after having used both Vista and Mac, I can’t imagine what a person would find lacking in it. Yeah, for the software you use at work, you would have to go back to your other OS, but again, no specialized software is going to be exported to linux unless there is a user base for it. So create the demand, and contribute to the society. Linux needs designers, artists, managers, testers, and new ideas as much as it needs programmers. So even if you know nothing about computer, explain your problems or ideas to the community, and you will certainly get some output from it. Even if you end up disliking linux, at least you’ll have learned something. Wiki Ubuntu to find out more or just check out their website. Also, if you went through this article with no understanding of the words “development” or “innovation”, give linux a shot, you’ll see what I mean.