KA

KURA By Monil Adhikari

In Store for you today…..

• What is FOSS??

• History and Evolution of FOSS

• Why FOSS??

• Some successful FOSS projects

• FOSS Nepal Community and FOSS in Nepal

• A Final Wrap up.

WHAT IS FOSS?????

Two Major FOSS Philosophies

•Free Software Foundation (FSF) philosophy

•Open Source Initiative (OSI) philosophy

Free Software – FSF Philosophy

(The Four Freedoms)

• Freedom to run program for any purpose.

• Freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to

your needs.

• Freedom to distribute/redistribute copies so you can help

your neighbor.

• Freedom to modify, improve the program and release to your

improvements to the public, for the welfare of the community

Open Source Software – OSI Philosophy

• Free Redistribution

• Availability of Source Code

• Possibility of Derived Works

• Integrity of The Author's Source Code

• No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups

It’s a Little Bit Complicated!!!

• No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

• Distribution of License

• License Must Not Be Specific to a Product

• License Must Not Restrict Other Software

• License Must Be Technology-Neutral

BRIEF HISTORY AND EVOLUTION

Looking Back……..

In the beginning the software source codes were available/shared freely … only what charged

was for the hardware...However!

On the bright side….

• In 1984 - GNU (GNU’s not Unix) project started by

Richard Stallman to create a free UNIX- like OS.

• In 1985 - FSF was created to promote Free Software. GNU project

Created almost all the software necessary for an operating system

except the kernel.

Still looking on the bright side….

• 1991 - Linus Torvalds, a Finnish

college student created Unix-like

kernel called Linux.

• Linux combined with GNU

utilities resulted in

GNU/Linux operating

system

Most Importantly…….

“The Cathedral and the Bazaar”It’s is really worth a read

Interesting Current Developments in FOSS

• Open Web Application Security Project.

• Open Content.

• Wikipedia.

• Open Educational Resources.

• Open / virtual / online University.

• Open Culture movements.

• Open Daylight.

WHY FOSS????

Here’s Your Answer….

• Lower IT costs: Advanced servers, databases, web applications, etc.

• Better security: More secure than proprietary tools.

• Reliability/Stability: Have proved to be reliable and stable.

• Open standards and vendor independence.

• Ease in Localization because of open nature.

• Opportunity to Learn and Modify.

• Reduce / Stop being illegal.

Some Successful FOSS Initiatives

Lets have some fun…

Guess the project from the given Logo

A Penguin and a Wildabeast

GNU/Linux

A Penguin and a Wildabeast

A Feather what could that mean???

Apache Foundation (Web Server)

A Feather what could that mean???

A Dolphin……..

MySQL(Database Technology)

A Dolphin……..

A Big “W”… Maybe that’s a hint!!!!

Worpress (Blogging Platform)

A Big “W”… Maybe that’s a hint!!!!

Check Out Some More Projects!!!!!

• Nepalinux (This is absoulutely home made)

• Ubuntu

• Fedora

• Cent-OS

• Tiny Core Linux (It’s Total Size is 9MB, Seriously!!!!!!!!)

FOSS Nepal Community

Knowing about the community

FOSS Nepal Community is a team of FOSS enthusiasts in

Nepal and abroad

• Initiated by a few people in 2004 – 05

• Software Freedom Day 2005 turned out to be the turning

point!

You Can Join too… It’s Easy

• Slowly grew from a handful of people to quite a sizable number and still growing...

• Its a community of people who love to be Free and Open Source users/practitioners/ developers and many more.

The Most Important Thing….

A Huge and Active Community on Google Groups,

Facebook and Twitter.

Join Us, Get in the Loop…..

FOSS Here in Nepal

• Most of the ISPs are using FOSS like Linux, Apache,

MySQL/PostgresSQL, PHP, BIND, Sendmail, etc.

• Nirvakalpa – a collection of FOSS for Windows

• Nepal's first FOSS Training and Research Center established jointly

by FOSS Nepal, Help Nepal Network, and Brihaspati Vidyasadan

• One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) being implemented in 26 remote

schools in 6 districts by Open Learning Exchange (OLE) Nepal

Finally Wrapping Up…….

The concept of Free & Open Source has great promise, though we

primarily are the consumer of the free software. If we pool our

resources and collaboration, we cannot only be consumer but

Contributor to this movement...

Lets Enterprise, Lets FOSS!!!