Tech n Fun

BOSS, Bharat Operating System Solutions- the Operating System Developed by C-DAC in collaboration with NRCFOSS, Department of Information Technology, Government Of India. It is a GNU/linux based OS derived from Debian for promoting the use of Free/OpenSource Software through India. The other key features of BOSS are :

• It supports both Intel and AMD x86/x86-64 architecture.
• It can be used by home user and as Advanced Server as well.
• It can be configured to function as a Web Server, Proxy Server, Database Server, Mail Server, Network Server, LDAP server etc.
• It comes coupled with both GNOME and KDE Desktop Enviornments.
• It supports almost all Indian languages including Assamese, Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Telugu, Maithili, Manipuri etc.
• This language support promotes non-English users to be computer literate.
• It comes with pre-installed basic Softwares (known as packages) commonly used in Offices and for Internet purposes.
• The Advanced Sever version is well comprised with administration tools such as PHP, myAdmin, PHP LDAP Admin etc.

Have a glance of the BOSS,

The integration of Indian Languages may promote BOSS to be used in Indian Govt. Offices and attracts you to use it at the prima facie. The NRCFOSS provides nation wide support, you can check here which one is closer to you. Though, the website of Boss itself could resist you to move forward with it as its very slow. I suggest you to have some patience while downloading the OS image and browsing the support/documentation pages, devote your weekend for this adventure.

Being on the OpenSource platform, you can also contribute to make it more enticing. There are forums, IRC Channels and Online Chat too to help you in any situation while being on BOSS. If you are not comfortable with downloading it, just call 1800 4250 455 to request for a CD/DVD and any kind of help.

Though today, Open Source is fascinating the whole world and is not afresh, its a very good move to promote it in India. But CDAC & MCIT (Ministry of Communication and Information Technology) has a very long way to cover up and they must publicize it so as more and more people get aware about it. I am ending up here with a task for you apart from trying the BOSS: Catch the Advertisement of BOSS on TV channels which is rarely aired.

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The concept of Open source Software and GNU started back in 1983, by Richard Stallman at MIT. He wanted to continue the sharing of software as was in earlier days of computing and in 1970s. But by the 1980s almost all software was proprietary , which means that it had owners who forbid and prevent cooperation by users. This made the foundation of GNU Project in 1984.

GNU Project is basically only the name of the project for the movement of free software and its usage and Mr. Stallman chose this name due to three reasons :

• It was a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not Unix", and
• It was a real world, and
• It was fun to say/sing GNU (actually he likes to sing the song/poem Gnoo and then derived Gnu).

The idea or motivation behind the GNU project was to provide the people freedom of computing, let people use computer. The term "free" here does not mean with price, it pertains to "freedom". Freedom to

1. Copy the program and give it away to your friends and co-workers.
2. Change the program as you wish by having the full access to source code.
3. Distribute an improved version and thus help build the community.

This Freedom led the GNU project to Open Source Software. The Open Source Software (OSS), sometimes loosely speaking as Open Source (the methodology behind OSS) refers to software in which the source code is freely available to all.

Officially or strictly OSS is defined by two bodies, one by the GNU Project and free software foundation and the other one by the Open Source Initiative.The main points of the OSS definition by the OSI are:

• The software and the source code must be freely distributable.
• All must be able to modify the source code and create derived works.
• To maintain the integrity of the original author's work, the license may require that changes to the code be provided in patch form and must include the earlier authors name.
• The license must be nondiscriminatory with respect to persons, groups, or fields of endeavor; it must be free of restrictions that can limit the license.

[The full Open Source Definition by the OSI can be viewed here.]

The definition of OSS or rather "free software" (term used by the GNU Project) is a four point theory which emphasizes on the "freedom", to understand the concept you should think of "free" as in "free speech". Moreover the freedom of these:

• The software must be freely executable for any purpose.
• The source code must be available so that others can study how it works.
• The software must be freely redistributable.
• All are free to modify the software.

[The official doc can be viewed here.]

The free software foundation, a group created to fund the GNU Project, started with a free Operating System because the base of a computer is an Operating system. The Operating System was targeted to be Unix based (compatible), being the advantage of portability.

By the 1990, all major components was either found or written except one- the Kernel. Then Linux, a Unix like kernel, was developed by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and made free software in 1992. Combining Linux with almost completed GNU system gave birth to(resulted in) a complete operating system: the GNU/Linux system. Apart from the core, the Kernel the system's basic components include the GNU Compiler Collection(GCC), the GNU binary Utilities (binutils), the bash shell, the GNU C Library (glibc), and GNU Core Utilities (coreutils).

As of now, there is a huge market of GNU/Linux and used not only by professionals but also by home or normal users as during the progress of OSS and GNU/Linux a wide range of free applications are available and continuing to be develop including the Graphical Desktop (GNOME). You can check yourself the huge Free Software Directory (or here). And yes, you will be no more pirate using these free software.

The world is Open !!!

[P.S : Leaving a comment or a simple thanks will always motivate one to work on Free/freedom, freedom of knowledge.]

 

[Source of this post can be found here and here.]

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