After the recent event by local linux users group we had some interesting discussions with newcomers about language choice of open source developers, why we're doing such event etc. And there was thought provoking question, which is 'Is open source green?'. Quick answer is yes, yes for sure. But how? Here I want to discuss how is it green.
Usually people write code to solve a problem or to accomplish something. If the code is open source we'll just use it to solve same problems elsewhere, or similar problems with a slight change. If it's closed we would write code from scratch or reinvent the wheel. That would require electricity to power a computer, time to write a code. Or maybe we need to work to make a money for a license. Using open source software and contributing to it you are saving your and people time, money and saving the Earth. So open source is so green for sure.
Now, I'll try to prove it by some numbers. According to Wikipedia, David A. Wheeler studied Red Hat version 7.1 which was released in 2001. He found that it consists of 30 million lines of code, which would have required 8,000 man-years of development effort and would have cost over $1 billion to develop. A similar study was made of Debian version 2.2 and found 55 million lines of code, which would have required 14,005 man years and $1.9 billion. So Debian version 5.0 is 324 million lines code or 6 times larger than 2.2 version. And it's safe to assume that it would have required 84,000 man year and $12 billion. Do you know how these numbers are changed in 2011?
Man year is a estimate amount of work that would take a year for a average worker. Then it'll take 84,000 years for a developer to make Debian 5.0, or 84 years for 1000 developers. Open source today is a result of small contributions from millions of people. And it's available to you free of charge for every purpose. You can even change the source code. It allows us to save millions of watts electricity, such an amount of coal and save everything. So are you convinced that open source is GREEN and SO GREEN?
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Knowledge saturday
In Mongolia, we have local FOSS community since 2007, and we've been organizing events for non-FOSS users and beginners. But some members of our community were asking for real and practical knowledge sharing than mailing list, forum, wiki etc. We've been discussing how to fulfill this demand, which was more than required to become more attractive for non-beginning users. Now, we have Knowledge Saturday.
Knowledge Saturday is event where volunteer members teach about 3 or 4 topics and it's hold on last Saturday of the month. And within 2 hours will have grasp and practical understanding of 4 topics. First event held on 23th Oct 2010, and the topics were 'How to install Ubuntu 10.10', 'Git - version control system', 'Python 101'. Last was on 26th Feb 2011, and topics were 'Unix file system basics - File owner, group, permission', 'Drawing with Inkscape', 'Symfony - web development framework'. And we're preparing for March 2011, which will be held on National University of Mongolia.
First steps were a bit difficult, because we needed to volunteer speakers, venue and some technical resources. We didn't had chance to record talk during first few events, now we're trying to record talk and make them available on Vimeo. Now it's getting a lot easier because people understand how it's important to have open knowledge, open knowledge sharing. People want to share their knowledge.
Knowledge Saturday is event where volunteer members teach about 3 or 4 topics and it's hold on last Saturday of the month. And within 2 hours will have grasp and practical understanding of 4 topics. First event held on 23th Oct 2010, and the topics were 'How to install Ubuntu 10.10', 'Git - version control system', 'Python 101'. Last was on 26th Feb 2011, and topics were 'Unix file system basics - File owner, group, permission', 'Drawing with Inkscape', 'Symfony - web development framework'. And we're preparing for March 2011, which will be held on National University of Mongolia.
First steps were a bit difficult, because we needed to volunteer speakers, venue and some technical resources. We didn't had chance to record talk during first few events, now we're trying to record talk and make them available on Vimeo. Now it's getting a lot easier because people understand how it's important to have open knowledge, open knowledge sharing. People want to share their knowledge.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Mongolian Karmic testers
With release of Ubuntu Karmic Alpha 5 version some community members switched to it. Some of them just did fresh install, and others upgraded from Jaunty. All of them really like how it's fresh and looks good. But they encounter problem, discuss about them in mailing lists. For me, it's just nice too see how they are developing. learning how to test software, report bugs and collaborate on a problem.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Software Freedom Day 2009
Yesterday, we've celebrated SFD 2009 and Linux InstallFest 2009 event with help of 2 professor's team from School of Computer Science and Management. For short, it was real success with more than 400 attendees.
During the event we gave 5 talks about Linux and it's history, migration from windows, open source development, localization and our Linux user community. After localization talk people were asking about how to participate in it, how they can help and so on. Soon we're going to restart localization effort and doing preparation work. In the end, we gave away Ubuntu CD's to every attendee and showed how to install it on their computer.
Thank you FSF, thank you Linus, thank you GNOME project, thank you KDE, thank you Ubuntu. Without you all, there wouldn't be such event.
During the event we gave 5 talks about Linux and it's history, migration from windows, open source development, localization and our Linux user community. After localization talk people were asking about how to participate in it, how they can help and so on. Soon we're going to restart localization effort and doing preparation work. In the end, we gave away Ubuntu CD's to every attendee and showed how to install it on their computer.
Thank you FSF, thank you Linus, thank you GNOME project, thank you KDE, thank you Ubuntu. Without you all, there wouldn't be such event.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Moving Ubuntu mirror server
Most of GNU/Linux users of Mongolia use Ubuntu. Because it's easy to install, use, and because we have our local mirror server here, which makes package installation and updating process more than ten time faster. It's up and running since 2006, and hosted by Adsolux Mongolia LLC. Up until now it was running on HP server, but now it's running on more powerful Dell server. This upgrade made it possible to serve more Ubuntu users, and support FOSS community here.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Why do you use linux?
A member of our local community today asked me 'why do you use Linux?'. I was thinking about it to find some useful answer for him, but no luck. I use it everyday, every hour and every minute. It's just became part of my life. It was very strange, but very thoughtful question for me.
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