The value of ignorance

Ignorance should not be considered a negative quality. Indeed without it the world will be dull and without drive. Most of the greatest advances in the world came about because people with great minds understood their ignorance and went out looking for answers. When they did, sometimes they found answers that had little to do with the original question that set them going!

Our spiritual leaders also went out looking for the truth, because they were aware of their ignorance. Thus it is quite clear that searching for ignorance is as important as searching for the truth. Studying ignorance is as important as studying knowledge – the answers. Ignorance is explored by the clever questions – more importantly – the correct question. The wrong questions will only lead to more ignorance and waste our time.

Ignorance is the cause of all the problems we face, particularly spiritual ignorance.

Standards are important – sometimes. Interoperability – always.

The LSB 3.0 was released this month by the FSG. The Free Standards Group is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the use of free and open source software by developing and promoting standards.

The Linux Standard Base (LSB) is a core standard for the Linux operating system that encourages interoperability between applications and the platform. It includes a written binary interface specification, a set of test suites for both distributions and applications writing to the standard, and a sample implementation for testing purposes.
The OpenI18N Standard (formerly Li18nux) is the internationalization standard for application developers writing for Linux and other platforms. The OpenI18N Workgroup has led the development of an open framework for internationalization and localization, including a written specification and test suite.

Many of the popular Linux distributions support the standards. The importance of standards is to allow software developer, vendors and users to easily develop/sell/use software, without too much worry as to how it will perform in a particular linux platform. There is also no need to develop the same software for different platfoms. This will save money and time for developers and Independent Software Vendors (ISV).

Much more important than all this is that, standards will allow interoperability to reallly work . This will give the freedom to exchange information between any two applications that are based on the standards. The restrictions imparted by standards provide the freedom to share!

It is also crucial for the free and easy distribution and use of middleware, such as ObjectWeb

But interoperability is the area where FOSS can really score, and thus standards are a must for FOSS to leap ahead.

Free and Libre

GNU/Linux and open source software is being promoted quite actively in our country as well as around the world. There have been many instances where the word free has become confusing to those getting to know FOSS. Free software is something you do not pay for, it does not ensure that the source code is also made available. You cannot change it either. Such software exists. Open source software is when the source code -the way the program has been written – is made available. This does not mean the software has to be free of charge or that you can share it with your neighbour or friend.

Free and Libre are used to signify freedom to the user, the community, the country and perhaps the world. The problem is that advocacy may fail to stress this very important area, and miss the whole point of the concept to newcomers. The term OST (Open Source Technologies) is now widely used and is of concern as the F is out of it. It should be FOST (Free Open Source Technologies).

People like Richard Stallman did not create FOSS just to allow cheaper software or free of charge software. They did not just want source code made available. They wanted to produce something which would belong to everyone; to build, share, improve, join, distribute, copy, criticise and yet safeguard, with the freedom that all deserve to have. This will not only ensure equality, reduce the digital divide but will allow for people to work together and share together, without worry about legal issues, like patents and copyrights. Making money out of it is part of the freedom!

If people do not undertand this freedom, then the whole purpose of advocating FLOSS fails. If it is a trade off between prorietary and cheap or free of cost software or just open source software, it is just a matter of money and how curious and IT literate you are. You will realise the restrictions of these only when you want to share, improvise and work together, and find it restricted. This is not your software. It belongs to others. They make the rules.

As always, preserving freedom is a life-long battle. The way not to lose, as always, is by education, knowledge and wisdom within the growing community of software users.

In a world growing with ICT, as the levels of ICT literacy rise, the freedom of FLOSS will make its own statement.

Tiddlywiki

In a previous post I was thinking about a way of keeping a jotter to write down ideas. While this is not as spontaneous as a dictaphone or notebook, this tool is one of the best bits of software that I have seen. Jeremy Ruston, thank you!

I have two folders, each with a wiki, and some pictures. Keeping notes was never as fun as this way. One is all about HIT stuff and the other on my other job.

The variety of the offshoots (adaptations) of TwiddlyWIkis is another revelation (one runs in Zope called Ziddlywiki!). Whatever your job, you have a customised Twiddlywiki to write your twiddlers and read them! The nicer way to do this is to use plugins after starting from the basic tiddlywiki – a file called called empty.html about 145K. There are hundreds of Macros that can be added to automate many differernt tasks. These are easy to add too. You can make your own

RSS feeds can be added easily.

Did I mention it is free to download and use? It is open source!

For the latest news about TiddlyWiki, see:

* Osmosoft, Jeremy’s blog TiddlyWiki
* TiddlyForge, an independent news site from DevonJones
* TiddlyWiki discussion forum and developer discussion forum

Everyone needs one……..

FOSS in HIT to the world

OSHCA is an important organization, but has only a small international presence. It needs to grow and become incorporated as an official enterprise type organization. This will give it a stature in the international government/business/IT/health sectors, that will allow the furthering of initiatives to FOSS based HIT. The organization should be able to handle funds, organise conferences, collaboration, set open standards, motivate people and governments and educate them. IT could also forewarn them about legislature that can harm the development of FOSS.

To promote FOSS in HIT a strong organization such as this is needed. Organizations like IOSN could also play an important role here. Instead of creating several organizations under many banners, it is best to form one large umbrella under which the others can work. To do this communication between these international groups are a must.

We need a go-between……

Favorites old and new

Starting with Redhat Linux 2.0 then to mandrake 7.0 and to Debian to Knoppix and Mepis. Then I picked up my little distro DSL. Now my favorites are Ubuntu to install (maybe until Taprobane comes with a good installer) and Puppy linux as the live distro. Puppy is truly amazing! I also found that Ubuntu server is excellent for LAMP/Zope stuff ( I haven’t seen Taprobane 4!)

I am not sure if I will have to change to Kubuntu in case I don’t like GNOME. However the fact that the MAIN Ubuntu distro is based on GNOME and the KDE version is just a – well – another variant distro, may make all the diference to GNOME’s future.

However Mark Shutleworth is using Kubuntu on his desktop .

Since I am also more familiar with KDE, I may join him. Whatever happens……

Thanks Mr Shutleworth!

The stupidest species -us??

Human beings need a conscience. Without it we do the stupidest things. Despite being the most intelligent, knowledgeble species in the planet, we seems to be lacking in both wisdom and conscience for our deeds.

Having explored space and landed in a few planets, we are all excited with our own cleverness. We have failed to take the most important point of our findings – that we do not have another habitable planet anywhere. We have learnt to control our immediate little environment around us – the buildings, houses and clothing materials – and not realised that we are destroying the environment of our planet. Indeed, we are well on the way to destroying our own species, but thinking that if we die, the whole planet will be destroyed, somehow!

Homo sapiens is a new, young species and our worldly experience is incredible brief when compared to so many animals around us, not to mention the most important living thing on the planet – plants. These species have survived for such a long time and are evolutionary success stories par excellence.

The great religions of our world have taught us how to live wisely in this world, but we do not follow this advice. They tell us to “share”, “give” and “let-go” and not to grasp in greed. They tell us to live and let live and to respect the environment.

When we want to kill others in our own species and we choose a weapon that will destroy everything, and the environment in that area we drop our bomb into becomes inhabitable for those who drop it; the conquerors conquer what?

We eat all the wrong foods, do not exercise, pollute the water we drink, food we eat and the air we breath so we get ill and to cap it all, our sperm counts are dropping all over the world. Our males are going sterile. The stupid young species may soon be no more!

When will our conscience stop us? When will wisdom come to our rescue? After destroying many species or both flora and fauna, if we are the endangered species now, will the other living things in our planet help us survive?

museums old and new

The excavations done in the ancient cities of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa in the recent years have resulted in some great new finds. The best place to see them is to visit the sites, but to understand them, walk into the museums.

The Jethavanaramaya museum in Anuradhapura is well worth a visit. I was facinated by the things found there. Elaborate marble carvings to those in stone, beautiful bead necklaces and also minute work in gold that would have needed working under a small microscope!

The coins that were found there were over 1600 years old, but still looks good.

But the most interesting piece there was something of special interest to me. More about this later.

..and to prevent, hopefully.

It is time to take preventing things more seriously. It seems to me that all of us are letting things happen to us which we could prevent or at least, put off – like the inevitable, that is. This is taken very seriously in the airline industry, for example.

The disasters that hit various parts of the world, showed how unprepared we are and how, we failed to prevent or minimise damage almost in all instances. Irrespective of what work you do and where, home or office, prevention is not getting enough of our attention.

Anything that has to be taught, is best started in school and the home. Thus it maybe worthwhile starting to teach and bring awareness to these things. This is environmentally friendly, cost-effective, political-savyy advice. So why the lack of effort?

When we consoider our own health, almost every common disease and/or it’s complications, are preventable or minimisable. In a patient, any disease he presents with can be affected by other diseases/illnesses known and unknown within that person. This must be always considered regards the common diseases like heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, prostate enlargement, osteoporosis and cataract related blindness. Thus it is best to look for these whatever else the patient actually presents with, particularly those over 40 years of age.

Be aware. Plan to prevent!

This should be the main thrust of 21st centuary education…..

Nature’s architects

I was always facinated by the variety of things that are made by mother nature, and the efficiency of the architecture or structure. The feathers of birds, leaves of trees, birds nests, bees and termite nests are some examples. I used to think there were lessons for us there. I read a couple of years ago, for example, how the structure of the lotus leaf had inspired new types of synthetic materials, including glass, which may not need cleaning.

Therefore I was most interested in a program on BBC , which showed how some architects had made use of nature to study new ways to make more efficient structures and even eco-system like developments. This is indeed heartening to note. It is amazing how efficient, energy saving, pollution preventing, recycling and thus waste contriolling these are. And they are cost effective too.

The strange thing is as to why they are not part and parcel of city development all over the world.

see http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/tv/bionic_buildings/gallery.shtml

See the remarkable secret of the lotus leaf

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa003&articleID=00088C40-BE58-1E5F-A98A809EC5880105