I am by no means the advocating type for anything. I don't tend to spread my ideals and way of life to other people actively. I don't take part in rallies or events meant to spread awareness for anything. Needless to say I am not the extrovert type, I am proudly and quietly the regular run of the mill introvert. But when pressed I am not ashamed or too shy to tell you what I am thinking or how I feel. So with this post I tend to change some of that. So here goes my first big step into the world of advocating something I do feel rather strongly about in recent years.
When I first started out with computers I think I was about 13 or so. I remember my mom got us a Packard-Bell PC with Windows 95 on it. I have fond memories of America Online. Listening to those little rings and chirps as you were connecting to the outside world. We weren't the richest family growing up so we had to make do with all those free 24 hours Cd's America Online would put out in the mail. I would burn through those in just a few days. I was amazed at how it all worked and how I could find stuff way easier and faster then trying to go find a book that had what I was looking for in it. Needless to say it was love at first sight for me. Don't believe me just ask the wife or anyone else that knows me now. I am proudly the resident geek and overall computer and tech gadget go to man.
After the newness wore off of just browsing the web or playing freecell, I started to explore deeper. I remember the first time I saw source code. It was confusing as all hell but something about it perked my interests. It's like a whole different world that most people just pass by everyday and never even realize it is there. Most people that use computers today have no knowledge what so ever about how they work and most could care less. Every computer today operates on binary code which is just a bunch of ones and zeros. And they can do nothing that they are not told ahead of time how to do. This is where programming languages come in. At this current time there are more than 50 different languages one could use to tell a computer how to deal with certain things. I myself know a little of about 5 different ones. They all have different strengths and weaknesses, but that is a completely different post to itself.
Back to the original idea I was after is every computer you use has some type of software running on the hardware to get the job done. You have tons of different types of software ranging from Operating Systems, standalone applications, web apps, phone apps just to name a few. All of these has at one point a person or team of people sit down and write all the code for it to work. But overall every piece of software falls into one of two categories. Free (as in free speech) and open source or propriatary (closed source) software. Just as an example just about anything from Microsoft or Apple is closed. Which means you pay them for the right to use their software and you have no right to change or in most cases even see the source code. You have to agree to use it the way they want you to and you give all rights away to do so. If you have ever spent the time to read one of those terms of service you will see what you are really giving up to use the software. In just about all cases even though you pay for it you do not own anything.
Now to the other side of the coin, enter Open Source software. Things like Linux, FreeBSD, Unix, and a mega ton of other software fall into this side. Most of the Google apps you use to things like Android on your phone to FireFox web browser are all examples of open source.
So why should you care, I hear you asking? Well for starters most of the Open Source stuff is free. But even better you don't end up signing away your first born child for the right to use it. And to take it one step further if you wanted to you could look at and even change the software to your liking if you were so inclined.
I have been using Linux as my main operating systems for about 5 years now, and every chance I get I find a open source app to get the job done instead of using something else. This is the main reason I have an Android phone rather than an Iphone. There is usually and equal or sometimes better open source solution for every closed source one. The benefits are really beyond the scope of this post, but I would be glad to help anyone to better understand the situation if they wanted to know. My intentions for this post was just to get the word out that there is a better way then what you may be using now to free yourself from the chains that bind you to the money hungry companies. More stuff will follow in further posts to start to teach people how to take back control of the stuff you pay your hard earned money on.
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