Sunday, July 15, 2007

Wife and Husband

Wife : Why do you always criticize my parents?

Husband : I have so much anger. To reduce it, I have to show that on someone. So, I am showing it on your parents.

Wife : In that case, I also have so much anger. On whom should I show it?

Husband : Show it on whomever you like.

Wife : I like you.

Friday, July 13, 2007

I Hate GPL

Those whoever worked with me for quite some time, will be definitely surprized by this heading. Yes. I hate GPL. The only two open source licenses, that I don't like among OSI (Open source initiative) approved licenses are GPL and CDDL license. I don't like CDDL, and I hate GPL. But, I love LGPL.

CDDL: I don't know why this is an OSI approved license. With this license, I cannot change the code and give it to my friend. What freedom do we get by this license?

For those who do not know about GPL and LGPL licenses,

GPL: You will get source code, you can modify it, and you can distribute it for free. If you modify it, or use this code in some other application, the modified code, and the new application also would be under GPL. Those whoever gets it, they get whatever rights you got.

LGPL: It is similar to GPL, but, if you are using this code in different application as a library, then the entire application need NOT be released as LGPL, but, only the library has to be released under LGPL.

For those who cannot understand the minute details of these licenses, they may think both are almost same. But, they are like North and South.

Let's take an example.

The most popular logger for java is log4j. If this has been released under GPL, nobody would have used this library. Because, if anybody uses the log4j library in their application, they have to release the entire application as GPL. So, NO COMPANY will use log4j in their application. But, on the other hand, if it is released under LGPL, then everyone would use it. Because, for LGPL, we have to release only that library under LGPL. We can release the entire application with whatever license we want. (Of course, log4j is released under Apache Software License, the most flexible license, you can modify the code, and sell it for money without granting any permissions on the modified code).

The success of open source is because of the contribution from more people. If more people are using the software, then the no.of people who develop/support also will increase. If we stop selected people from using the software, then we are reducing the developers/supporters of that application. If we stop industry to use a software, then we are stopping the industry to develop/support the software. Actually, industry is the one which has more money, and time to do this development. If we give one good basic application which is very useful for the industry, then industry will start developing it. And, all normal users will get the advanced features for free without any effort.

LGPL makes sure that the developments on that application will come back to open source community, and still industry can use it.

GPL makes sure that industry cannot use this application, and will take so much money and time from normal poor people, and will never kill proprietary softwares.

GNU.org contains one article on using GPL and not LGPL. obviously, that is the most ridiculous article. The link to that article is,

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html

Thursday, July 12, 2007

Salary and concessions for MPs

Salary & Govt. Concessions for a Member of Parliament (MP) per month


Salary: 12,000

Expense for Constitution: 10,000

Office expenditure: 14,000

Traveling concession (Rs. 8 per km):48,000 (e.g. For a visit from Kerala to Delhi & return: 6000 km)

Daily DA/TA during parliament meets: 500/day

Charge for 1 class (A/C) in train: Free (For any number of times) (All over India)

Charge for Business Class in flights: Free for 40 trips / year (With wife or P.A.)

Rent for MP hostel at Delhi: Free

Electricity costs at home : Free up to 50,000 units

Local phone call charge : Free up to 1,70,000 calls.

TOTAL expense for a MP [having no qualification] per year : 32,00,000 [i.e. 2.66 lakh /month]

TOTAL expense for 5 years: 1,60,00,000

For 534 MPs, the expense for 5 years: 8,54,40,00,000 (nearly 855 cores)


AND THE PRIME MINISTER IS ASKING THE HIGHLY QUALIFIED, OUT PERFORMING CEOs TO CUT DOWN THEIR SALARIES.....


This is how all our tax money is been swallowed and price hike on our regular commodities.......

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Can I live without google?

Around 10 years back, without power, I could do nothing.
After few years, without computer, I could do nothing.
After few years, without internet, I could do nothing.
Now, without google, I could do nothing.

I am so dependent on many google services inlcluding google search, gmail, orkut, blogger, calendar, docs/spread sheets, google reader. If tomorrow, google says these services are not free, then I may pay money to use these services. Yahoo provides many of these services. But, it is terrible. I hate to open my yahoo mail account, because it eats up my system resources, and I cannot do anything till I close that. If anybody sends mail to my yahoo account, they can be assured that, I will never reply.

Is there anybody who is going to beat google in the near future, or will it become another indispensable? I hope it won't become like microsoft and yahoo, and provides all it's services for free with the same efficiency.