From Licensed To Open Source

For years I had been a user of the Windows OS. I came to know about the concept of Open Source only during my late schooling days. That was thanks to a chapter dedicated to Linux in my 11th which explained in great detail about the commands used in Linux. For someone used to doing stuff by click-and-point actions I was not very impressed by this new idea. Hence my first impression of Linux was that it was not user-friendly.

As I started my college, the words "Open Source" and "Linux" seemed to pop up everywhere. Hence I decided to check out this non-user-friendly difficult-to-use (or so I thought) Linux . Enter Ubuntu. I was asked too many questions during installation. At one point I was so confused I gave up installing it half-way.After few days and some advise from friends, I successfully installed Ubuntu in my PC. A feeling of satisfaction filled me :D

In the next few days, I struggled through the ways of Ubuntu. The GNU available was the only familiar thing compared to Windows. I found myself using the Terminal more and more ( I haven't used DOS for more than ten minutes totally in all my life). Yet in those few days I learned more than what I had learned from all the time I used in Windows. Soon the only reason I logged into Windows was to play FIFA which being an EXE file would not normally run in a Linux Distro.

After all this I began to wonder why the Open Source softwares where not widely used. The migration seemed too slow considering the lucrative offer Open Source was. I discussed this with my brothers - all working in big multi national companies - and found out few reasons for this lack of migration.

• Most of the companies have such large storage of data that the migration would take months - valuable time which cannot be wasted in this competitve world.
• The lack of technical skills available when it comes to handling Open Source applications. Most people feel comfortable with Windows rather than Linux.
• The muscle power of the big multi-national companies. These companies can simply buy off - thanks to their huge revenue - the smaller Open Source softwares.
• While Open Source is a collection of ideas from all over the world, the Licensed products comes from a single source.This means the latter has much greater unity compared to the former.
  

But then all this does not mean Windows is inferior to Linux. Far from it. Windows does offer much more features compared to Linux. The only problem is that it curtails the freedom of the end user. The whole point of Linux is 'free' - free as in the user is allowed to do whatever he wishes to do with the product.
The basic difference between the Windows and Linux can be best explained by this example. Windows is like an automated car - you don't need to do much but lose the control over the system and Linux is like a geared car - you have much to do with which comes full control. It is upto the people to choose between the two.

Thungo Mogo Juku Juku Opai ;)

I recently read an article in The Hindu saying that India tops the list of countries with maximum number of endangered dialects. This caught my eye for the simple reason that my mother tongue is Saurashtra and I wondered if it was included in that list. Thankfully, after googling I was happy to find out that my language had not been pushed to that state yet.

In the six years I spent in Chennai I had people constantly asking me what language I spoke. It came as no surprise when they gave me a blank reaction when I replied saying it was Saurashtra. Not many people are aware of the existence of such a language given the fact that the only place where there is significant population of Saurashtrians is Madurai.

Like the word 'Sangrail' can be split in two ways to give two different meanings (the meanings can be found in the Da Vinci Code), so can the word be Saurashtra be split in two ways. Split as "Sou"(meaning 100) and "rashtra"(meaning region) it can be understood as the "province of 100 regions". But split as "Saura" ( meaning Sun) and "shtra"(prefix word) it may mean "Worshippers of Sun".

Geographically Saurashtra refers to that part of Gujarat which is a peninsula. The highlighted portion in the picture gives the more accurate description of the region.

It is believed that the Saurashtra speaking people originated from this part of India. This explains the close resemblance the language has with Marathi and Konkani, both Indo-Aryan languages of Western India.

As the region lies on the Arabian Sea, most of the Saurashtrians followed waeving as their occupation. This remains true even now for most Sourashtrians still depend on weaving for their livelyhood.

There is no actual historical evidence as to how or when these people - my ancestors - migrated to the Southern part of India. But it is generally accepted that the Saurashtrian people were forced to leave their homeland due to continuous invasion of their land which led to much suffering and loss. Hence they migrated in large groups to Southern India bringing with them their maginificent skill in weaving. Since then many Saurashtrians have entered other fields and excelled in that(T.M. Soundararajan is a good example).

For a long time I had believed that Saurashtra was only a dialect for I had never seen any writing in that language. But I was proved wrong during a recent visit to a temple in Madurai where I found slokas written in the actual Saurashtra script. Yet sadly the language is not taught in any schools and the script would have been lost but for the magnanimous effort of few Saurashtrians.

Here are a few helpful quotes in Saurashtra that are worth learning...

*Avo - 'Come'

*Thungo mogo juku juku opai - 'I like you very very much' :D

*Thora nav kayo? - 'What is your name?'

*Thora number kayo? - 'What is your number'

*Bharad jayengan ya? - 'Wanna go out?'

*Jaara pisa - Podaa loose

*Tho atho kai paje? - 'What do you want'?

*Thoro kaam seeli jaa - 'Mind your own buisness'

For more translations pls comment and I ll translate em ;)