I believe that the Free Software movement has changed the way in which people think and do things. Examples are of course, the large set of powerful and freely available softwares and the most widely used encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
I believe that both these are signs of a dramatic change that is happening now in human society. Perhaps, even one decade ago, people used to say that no one will do anything unleas he or she stands to "benefit" from it, where "benefit" normally meant direct financial benefit. No one can say that today. Because the cost of building in the traditional manner all the Free Software available today would easily come to several billion or trillion dollars. Yet, people just built them and gave them away free of cost. Add to that the cost of building an encyclopedia like Wikipedia, with a million articles in English and many more in another 250-odd languages. All that together could possibly compare with the entire production of a large developed region like Europe or the US! And, Free Hardware (or Open Source Hardware as it is commonly called) is making a huge impact on industry. Wikipedia says that "Open Cores", which makes available designs for integrated circuits created by several contributers is used by most of the industry today. And we have very successful examples of open hardware like Phoenix, Reprap, etc. becoming very popular. In the circumstances, who can say that such open hardware will not become the norm in the future, like publicly built Wikipedia has run the established Britannica out of business?
I am, therefore, moving to a community organised email server at autistici.org and to community-supported wordpress for my blog. Hence, I request my loyal readers to go hereafter to swatantryam.wordpress.com to read my posts on freedom in future.
I believe that both these are signs of a dramatic change that is happening now in human society. Perhaps, even one decade ago, people used to say that no one will do anything unleas he or she stands to "benefit" from it, where "benefit" normally meant direct financial benefit. No one can say that today. Because the cost of building in the traditional manner all the Free Software available today would easily come to several billion or trillion dollars. Yet, people just built them and gave them away free of cost. Add to that the cost of building an encyclopedia like Wikipedia, with a million articles in English and many more in another 250-odd languages. All that together could possibly compare with the entire production of a large developed region like Europe or the US! And, Free Hardware (or Open Source Hardware as it is commonly called) is making a huge impact on industry. Wikipedia says that "Open Cores", which makes available designs for integrated circuits created by several contributers is used by most of the industry today. And we have very successful examples of open hardware like Phoenix, Reprap, etc. becoming very popular. In the circumstances, who can say that such open hardware will not become the norm in the future, like publicly built Wikipedia has run the established Britannica out of business?
I am, therefore, moving to a community organised email server at autistici.org and to community-supported wordpress for my blog. Hence, I request my loyal readers to go hereafter to swatantryam.wordpress.com to read my posts on freedom in future.
