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Letter from the President
Join the Linux Revolution
by Dr. Francisco Nemenzo

The big multinational software companies have local agents
to “smoke out” users of pirated and unlicensed computer programs. Their targets are schools, companies and government offices. Those they catch are charged and heavily fined for violation of intellectual property rights. One private university is reportedly paying Microsoft millions in an amicable settlement.

It would be extremely embarrassing for any academic or administrative unit of UP to be caught because we are now taking steps to protect the technologies developed in our research laboratories. This is why the Board of Regents recently adopted the
“Acceptable Use Policy for IT Resources of the UP System.”

We have licenses for MS Office 97 and 98. But Microsoft keeps upgrading this program to line the bulging pockets of Bill Gates. We need approximately P12 million to license the new MS Office 2000 in the entire UP System. In addition, we have to pay P8 thousand per computer for the latest Windows operating system. This enormous amount might as well be used to buy more computers.

I have therefore reiterated my appeal to install the Linux operating system and use OpenOffice or StarOffice for word processing, making powerpoint presentations, spreadsheets, data bases, etc., sending emails, and accessing the Internet.
SUN Microsystems (a tenant in the UP-Ayala technology incubator) has donated hundreds of CDs for StarOffice with permission to reproduce them as many times as we wish. Walang bayad ito! Our Computer Center is also distributing OpenOffice and other Linux-based programs for free.

StarOffice and OpenOffice have all the features of Microsoft Office. Having tried both, I assure you that they work just as well. It only requires a little effort to shift from the familiar programs. If you learned computing earlier with WordStar, it is like going back to the good old days. StarOffice and OpenOffice are less user-friendly, but you can modify them to suit your peculiar work style. By contrast, a user-friendly program like Microsoft forces you to adapt to the manufacturer’s style, unless you have the patience to tinker with the incomprehensible codes in the “registry.” Of course, you can choose from an array of options, but what you want many not be among those options.

I started writing with WordStar and later graduated to Amipro, both DOS-based word processors. It took sometime before I moved on to MS Word because Windows 95 and later versions do not allow me to use the style I prefer. It was with enormous misgivings that I eventually yielded to Bill Gates when all new programs adopted Windows.
Linux was invented and developed by rebels to combat the big corporations who have turned computer-users into captives and making billions in the process. This operating system is so designed that no one can lock it up and it is less vulnerable to viruses. All Linux-based programs are available for free. And Linux-users propagate the gospel of software liberation with the zeal of political activists.

I just finished reading an extremely interesting history of Linux by Glyn Moody entitled Rebel Code: Inside Linux and the Open Source Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus Publishing, 2001). The core program was written in 1991 by Linus Torvalds, a master hacker who was then a sophomore student in computer science in Helsinki, Finland. He placed the source code in the Internet. Since then thousands of devoted programmers have contributed to make it the powerful operating system it is today. And several thousands more have written useful programs based on Linux.

What motivated them is not greed, the dream of becoming multimillionaires overnight but the desire to subvert the concept of proprietary programs. They believe that computer power should be accessible to all, that one’s invention should be shared, and others may contribute to its improvement.

The students and faculty of our departments of computer science and electrical electronics engineering have been programming with Linux. CSSP has also shifted to Linux.

Let us all join the Linux revolutionary movement. Good-bye, Bill Gates.