Freedom: FOSS

It took me a while to adopt free and open source software. Glued on to proprietary software, not knowing how much the organization was paying for it, it was a “big” change to switch over to FOSS inspite of being a CS graduate. When I first learnt unix, me and my friends used to call it “visual unix” in the line of “visual c++” and “visual basic” etc, because the teacher just taught the commands and we used to visualize the output of those commands without getting the chance for hands-on experience.
The whole world now is turning towards FOSS. I was thrilled to see the number of add-ons Firefox has. It would be great if my students could develop a simple add-on for firefox.
Recently a group of faculty (that includes me) at my university organized a workshop “technology for social welfare”. The response was tremendous. The aim of the workshop was to give insights into using FOSS for the society.
It would be really good if students could take up FOSS projects and deliver them to the society. There are millions of Indians in the Silicon Valley developing millions of software. Very few of them have societal relevance. There are numerous people in India looking for basic medical facilities, a simple livelihood and a proper channel to exhibit their talents. If we could get together and develop simple solutions that could take care of these needs of Indians it would be a great contribution to the nation.
FOSS could help us develop simple applications for NGOs to collect and manage data; connect villagers over a network where they could share information related to climate, yields and agri-knowledge. FOSS could help us connect schools and create a knowledge network. When such applications are installed, localities could be trained to use them, thereby providing livelihood. Simple mobile based applications that could be useful in health care can be developed.
I feel students and youth are the backbone of such initiatives and FOSS with all its community support will revolutionize social service/work.