White and Wild by wilshire|oneLinux Lib - You can and must understand Linux now
With apologies to Ted Nelson
Introduction
So you have a busy life and a computer running Microsoft Windows. Why should you care? Why not carry on pirating software and just limp along with that latest piece of ad-ware that installed itself on your system?
One Word. Freedom.
This blook is called ‘Linux Lib’. The ‘Lib’ stands for Liberation.
We’re talking about Liberation from:
a) Paying for software
I’m going to start with the financial aspect of all of this, because that seems to be the part that interests most people. As the saying goes, Free Software is Free as in Freedom, not necessarily as in Beer. What does this mean?
The point here is to make a distinction between the two different meanings of the word ‘Free’. Yes, it is true to say that all FOSS can be obtained for no money. It is also true that many companies make money from selling it.
How can this be?
The existence of GNU/Linux owes much to goings on in the dim and distant past of computing. Many years ago, a young man named Richard Stallman (RMS) worked as a researcher at the MIT AI lab. Richard was a member of one of the very early examples of a ‘software community’ in which members freely exchanged ideas and software source code in a generally libertarian atmosphere. Although things worked well for a while, the advent of commercial software licenses that expressly forbade the copying of software and the sharing of source code eventually put paid to a way of life and annoyed Richard Stallman enough to go on and provide the philosophical and idealogical foundations of GNU/Linux. One of Richard Stallman’s greatest innovations is something known as ‘The General Public License’ (GPL), the license that covers most software in GNU/Linux and dictates that anybody may modify, copy, sell, or give away copies of the Licensed work on the condition that all copyright and license notices remain in place and that the person(s) receiving said copies retain the same rights under the license.
A few years after RMS was enjoying his freedoms in the MIT AI lab, as the computing scene slowly began to move out of academia and into the mainstream, a young man named Bill Gates co-founded a small company to provide software for the nascent personal computer industry. Bill Gates and his partner Paul Allen worked hard and built some of the original software to run on personal computers, and when they began to notice that lots of people were using their software without paying for it, Bill got upset and fired off a now famous open letter to computer enthusiasts. Inherent in the letter is Bill’s insistence that every copy of a program must be paid for, just like any other product, thus laying the foundations for his future billions. Another difference was that this commercial software was shipped in ‘binary’ form, without the necessary source code needed to ‘see inside’ the program and make changes. Indeed, the accompanying licenses stated that it was forbidden to make such changes. Henceforth, the user was expected to wait and see what features the creators deigned to include in the software. At best, users had to implore the creators to add features on their behalf. This has been one aspect of commercial software that has alarmed many large organisations, including governments, who had something to hide. How could they be sure that software did not contain secret ‘back doors’ that allowed hostile forces to see data, when they themselves did not have access to go through the source code with a fine toothed comb?
There is a clear difference in the motivation of the two men. RMS is coming from an academic and idealogical point of you. Bill Gates is looking at it as a commercial opportunity, but there is a third way. Lots of companies are now selling FOSS for money. They usually add value in some way, such as adding training and support, or supplying printed manuals and attractive presentation cases. This is why FOSS is sometimes not free as in beer. Never mind. People who actually pay for FOSS still have the right to do whatever they wish, including modifying the source code, under the terms of the GPL.
So, to get back to the point of liberation from paying for software, GNU/Linux is usually available as something called a ‘Distribution’, which is really just a collection of pieces of software that together form a complete operating system. A distribution usually consists of a set of CDROMs, or a single DVD-ROM. These discs can be purchased on-line, or better still, downloaded from the Internet for nothing. Even those most commercial GNU/Linux distributions must make the software freely available under the terms of the GPL license. Of course, the free version doesn’t come with the manual or telephone support.
Once you have downloaded your distribution (or ‘distro’) of choice, you can set about burning your CDs (or DVD). Once you have the discs, you’re ready to go ahead and begin the installation. Those discs hold all the software you need for most common tasks. They include office programs, graphics programs, web browsers, music programs and cd burners. All at least as good as their proprietary cousins. You are free to copy those discs and give them to your friends. You could even sell them if you wanted to. And you are not doing anything wrong. Read that last sentence again.
b) Piracy
Sure, all windows users rely on a little piracy to get them by, so what? What’s the harm of little Johnny handing out copies of Dad’s MS Office to his mates? I for one protest at being made to feel a criminal for just wanting to share some software with my nearest and dearest. I don’t like those threatening ads about piracy. I want to be free to get on with my stuff. GNU/Linux provides us free alternatives to those tools that have become essential to us to live our lives effectively. This stuff is important and now we can use it honestly.
c) Reliance on others for technical tasks
Although there is a learning curve to be overcome with GNU/Linux, it is not unreasonable to expect that even the most technophobic user will begin to feel more in control of how they use their computer within weeks of making the switch. GNU/Linux/KDE includes swathes of documentation, and the Internet is awash with support information. I hope to unmask some of the technophobic myths about computers by getting people to actually roll their sleeves up and tinker under the bonnet a little.
d) Annoying and damaging virii,spam and other pests
One of the main reasons that people wind up reading this book is the constant battery that windows users receive from the frightening array of virus/trojan/spy-ware/ad-ware/spam-ware on their computers everyday. There is the old idea that when GNU/Linux begins to become as popular as windows, it will be under the same level of attack as windows is today. Not true. The biggest problem with windows has been the lack of any meaningful enforcement of user roles, allowing the entire system to become infected when one user receives a dodgy attachment. There are virus checkers available for GNU/Linux, just not many viruses. GNU/Linux also provides a rich set of tools for fighting the spam plague.
e) Boredom
Learning to use GNU/Linux is not only ethical and useful, it also fun. Just imagine all those hours spent expanding horizons that could have been spent watching TV.
The philosophy of Liberation
In 1974, a young computer scientist called Theodore Nelson published a book called ‘Computer Lib’. ‘Computer Lib’ has on it’s front cover the image of a raised, clenched fist, printed on a piece of computer paper, with the legend ‘You can and must understand computers, now!. That image conjures a feeling of political imperative that sees the personal computer and computer network as potentially deeply liberating. This political imperative was inherent in the movement and events that eventually gave rise to the personal computer. That political imperative somehow got lost in the new doctrine of computers as business machines. Computers are now seen by a sizable section of the population as rather boring and annoying things that go wrong all the time and are under the control of some bloke that makes you feel stupid / tells you you can’t do what you want / wears a comedy tie / charges you a fortune to get nasty stuff off your computer so you can at least send emails. Liberation is about that old cliche: “Think Globally, Act Locally”. To ‘Act Locally’ effectively, you need the tools to do it. Whether you decide to fight a campaign against people using fertilisers on your allotment, or start a bike shop, or organise a public meeting, having access to good software and knowing how to use it will put you at a huge advantage. If you can work on your computer safe in the knowledge that it (or anyone else, for that matter) isn’t spying on you and know that your stuff is safe from prying eyes, you relax into it and make it your own. When you’ve relaxed and made the computer your own, good things start to happen. There is an old idea in computer science called ‘augmentation’. Augmentation involves augmenting the human brain to allow it to perform more effectively. This is what Linux Lib is about.
Continue to Chapter 1 – Access To Tools
