S.R.S.D. Memorial Shiksha Shodh Sansthan, Agra, India UGC Sl. No.64431

INQUISITIVE TEACHER

A Peer Reviewed Refereed Research Journal ONLINE ISSN-2455-5827 Volume V, Issue II, December 2018, pp. 25-30 www.srsshodhsansthan.org

Open Source and choices for system and publishing work: A safe way Vishal Rohilla Assistant Professor, Department of Instrumentation Engineering-SOET, HNB Garhwal University (A Central University), Srinagar Garhwal

Abstract

These days piracy, copyright infringement and Intellectual property rights are common term.

Very often we listen that using pirated software for research work and publications is an illegal and

should be prohibited. Present era is an “Era of Internet” everyone is connected with each other through

internet and information like which operating system and other software are installed on that connected

system whether they are authentic or pirated, it can be easily known. Knowingly or unknowingly the

people get attracted to the lower priced computer/ laptop that have pirated operating system and other software installed and become the copyright infringer their authentic work may be forfeited because of the reason of piracy. Aim of this article is to sensitize the readers about different choices of available free system software and software for publishing work. By using them they can avoid

themselves to become copyright infringer and can make their work more authentic and unquestionable.

Keywords:- Free open source software, free desktop publishing software,Linux Introduction It is not a bold claim that the present era is an” Era of Internet”. Internet had provided largest possible means of knowledge sharing. Daily, one can find new applications and software that provide platform to share our knowledge. If we analyze the situation we will find an avalanche of people who are using internet is increasing according statistical data of World Bank group US in year, 2009, only 5 percent of Indian population was using internet. By the end of year, 2016, it has reached to almost 30 percent (1) .Out of 460 million Indian people who use internet, about 137 million people use internet with the help of desktop computers/laptops (2). As a mission to increase IT literacy of the Indian public so that they can contribute to IT industry, a leading sector, Indian Government has permitted the Government of Uttar Pradesh to run the world’s largest government sponsored laptop program. One of the leading laptop manufacturing companies HP has provided 1.5 million Laptops installed with open source free software Linux distribution Ubuntu. (3). Besides this, Out of 137 million computer/ laptops users IT, Vol. V, Issue II, December 2018 ISSN-2455-5827 only 2424 are registered open source Linux (Ubuntu and others) users (4). To Which operating system software they migrated and using then. How they are migrated to other operating system. Obviously, some technician who knows how to install the operating system. Possibly they are using Microsoft Windows? If so, this means they are using proprietary paid software cost of such operating system ranges from Rs. 9000 to Rs. 23000. (5). But most of that technician install pirated version of that . This is usual practice that can be observed in India. The unregistered Computer/laptop sellers’ in order to cut cost sell them without the licensed operating system and on the users demand install the unlicensed office productivity and other software also. Knowingly or unknowingly the people get attracted to the price and buy such computer/ laptop and become the copyright infringer. In most of the cases Educational institutes including administration, teachers and students may become the victims of such situation because they are unaware about this fact. Aim of this article is to sensitize the readers about the difference between proprietary paid software and free open source software, different choices of available free open source system software and software for publishing work. By using them they can avoid themselves to become copyright infringer. Open source software: Open source software are the computer programs whose source code that is generally hidden for the end user is made available at no cost any one on the internet can download read, modify as per need, redistribute and use in any field of application. According to terms and conditions stated in different license types. More on this can be found in reference (6). Computer/laptop is programmable, a program is ordered and meaningful set of instructions run by the computers in order to perform a task. Programming a computer/ making a program is not a simple task it needs expertise and needs lots of time and money. That’s why most of the software companies sell their software with proprietary conditions. Proprietary software: By the definition proprietary software is software that is copyright/patent /intellectual property of the developer without paying charges or without his permission the distribution of software and its productivity cannot be used in anyway. For most of the proprietary software user has to obtain a paid key from the source. The list below provides an overview of the possible choices of open source software to which one can opt and become an authentic and unquestionable author of the published work. Operating systems/ system software for computers and laptops: Ubuntu desktop Open source operating system based on Linux; user interface that is controls, keys and icons are very much similar to proprietary paid software of Microsoft Windows. A user, experienced with windows operating system can easily learn and operate Ubuntu without need of intense training. Ubuntu is distributed under GNU and GPL license. Its Installation media already contains drivers for most of the computer hardware parts. Third party software can be installed easily through software centre (7).

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Fedora workstation for computers and laptops: Community-supported Linux distribution, sponsored by . Have GPL and GNU License (8) comes with default open and free software LibreOffice and other software, fedora has default GNOME desktop environment others environment can be installed easily. In comparison to Ubuntu, it needs some practice to operate and install other third party software.

Open SUSE Tumbleweed for computers and laptops: It is also a Linux distribution under the under GNU and GPL license. Released and maintained by German company previously at that time it was known as SUSE Linux. It comes with KDE and GNOME desktop environment user can opt any out of them during installation. Other desktop environments and third party software can be installed but needs some practice and guidance for first time users. (9) One can find a long list of such free downloadable operating systems for the computers and laptops on internet and choose the best one for their needs.

Open Source software for desktop publishing and office work Desktop publishing means creating documents in text, graphics and pictures on paper using printer and computer/laptop. It needs specialized software. Below mentioned software are freely available can be found integrated into the several Linux distributions. Alternatively can be downloaded for free and use under GNU and GPL license. They can be a good choice alternative of proprietary Microsoft office software for which license need to be renewed yearly bases most of the times. Cost of which ranges for Rs. 360 per month to Rs. 3,629 per year (10).

LibreOffice : LibreOffice is free to download for different platforms like Linux and a Windows. It can be used to create professional documents like spreadsheets, presentations and word documents; it is compatible with Microsoft Office. That means you can open and edit files like Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations .it can also convert them into PDF format (Portable Document Format) (11).

Apache OpenOffice The Free and Open Productivity Suite: It is free to download it can be installed on Microsoft windows, GNU Linux with GNOME 2.10 or higher. One can do word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics and formula editing. It stores the data in international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages like Microsoft office user can convert files in to PDF (12).

Scribus Open source Desktop Publishing: Scribus is another choice for desktop publishing works it is free to download page layout program for GNU Linux and Microsoft Windows. It has feature inbuilt to recover damaged documents easily (13).

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Open source free software for other productivity work: Thunderbird: It is free email application software from Mozilla. One can easily log on to the email account through thunderbird and can store emails for offline access. It has address book, attachment reminder, calendar and multi channel chat in built like talk, facebook and twitter (14). Gimp: Gimp is a GNU Image Manipulation Program like Photoshop. It is used for image editing like professionals and publishes them with the above mentioned desktop publishing software (15). Kdenlive: Kdenlive is open source free video editing software. It is capable of producing industry standard videos. It has intuitive user interface. Advance visual effects can be incorporated into video files. It can be downloaded and installed on Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE and many other Linux based operating systems. First time user needs some practice and homework (16). Sr. Operating Based License Minimum system Integrated open source No. System type requirements for smooth software operation 1. Ubuntu Linux GNU 2 GHz dual core processor LibreOffice, Firefox, desktop and 2 GB RAM (system memory) Thunderbird (email GPL 25 GB of hard-drive space application) license VGA capable of 1024x768 Gimp and Inkscape screen resolution, Either a (photo editing) CD/DVD drive or a USB port PiTiVi (video editing) for the installer media VLC ( video player) 2. Fedora Linux GNU 1 GHz processor LibreOffice, Firefox, workstation and 1 GB RAM (system memory) Thunderbird (email GPL 10 GB of hard-drive space application) license VGA capable of 1024x768 Software centre(for screen resolution, Either a more software) CD/DVD drive or a USB port for the installer media 3. openSUSE Linux GNU Pentium 4 processor LibreOffice, Firefox, Tumblewee and 2 GB RAM (system memory) Thunderbird (email d GPL 10 GB of hard-drive space application) license VGA capable of 1024x768 Software centre(for screen resolution, Either a more software) CD/DVD drive or a USB port GNOME 3 for the installer media Table 1: A brief summary of alternative open source system software choice and their features

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Discussion: Free and open source software provides a better chance to learn about the computers and uses of the software on which we are working. Instead of following the others user is provided an opportunity to choose best one for him. There is plenty of software available at no cost by choosing them for the work users can make their work more authentic. a new computer/laptop with free open source operating system and other free will have low cost in comparison to propriety paid counterpart e. Open source software have been proven as safe and secure from the viruses since source code is open for all and any one can fix bugs as they are found, thus have better stability as well. Open source software does not depend on the company or the author who had created it. Since source code still exist and user or community working on it can develop it by own even if, the releasing company get closed. Despite having several before mentioned advantages open source software have disadvantages too. The Way of using Open source software is not straight forward it involves more efforts than proprietary software. Because development of the user interface depends upon the developers wish his aim may not be making software more users friendly. A developer involved in making of open source software is usually not a hired programmer so if any user raises some bug or needs modification according to him then his request may or may not be entertained immediately. Conclusion: By adopting the open source software one can reduce its spending on buying the computer/ laptops and desktop publishing software also can shield him from public embarrassing situations that may arise due to copyright infringement. There is a need of making teacher, students and researchers aware about the available choices of free and open source software. Workshops, seminars, symposium, training and other methods can be adapted to provide them hand on experience. References: (1) International Telecommunication Union, World Telecommunication/ICT Development Report and database. (5 June, 2018) retrieved from, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/IT.NET.USER.ZS?locations=BD-IN. (2) The Statistics Portal. (5 june,2018) retrieved from , https://www.statista.com/topics/2157/internet-usage-in-india/ (3) . (4 December 2013) retrieved from, https://blog.ubuntu.com/2013/12/04/ubuntu-helps-millions-of-indian-students-to- learn?_ga=2.23975225.2050695525.1528128731-1223492176.1528013649. (4) First Colo. (5 june, 2018) retrieved from, https://www.linuxcounter.net/statistics/countries/100. (5) Microsoft. (2 june, 2018) retrieved from, https://www.microsoft.com/en- in/store/b/windows?icid=IN_Home_leftNav_2_windows_26042017. (6) Open source initiative. (5 June, 2018) retrieved from, https://opensource.org/osd

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(7) Windows club. (11 May 2012) retrieved from, http://www.thewindowsclub.com/open-source-operating-system-list (8) Documentation team fedora project. ( 2 June, 2018) retrieved from, https://docs.fedoraproject.org/fedora-project/project/fedora-overview.html (9) SUSE LLC,Imprint. ( 2 June, 2018) retrieved from, https://www.opensuse.org/ (10) Microsoft. (2 june, 2018) retrieved from, https://products.office.com/en-in/office-365-personal (11) Libreoffice. ( 9 May 2018) retrieved form, https://www.libreoffice.org/ (12) Apache software foundation. (30 December 2017) retrieved from, https://www.openoffice.org/why/index.html (13) The Scribus team. (April 2018) retrieved from, https://www.scribus.net/ (14) Mozilla. Org (25 January 2018) retrieved from, https://www.thunderbird.net/ (15) The Gimp Team. (20 May 2018) retrieved from, https://www.gimp.org/ (16) Kdenlive Team. (11 May 2018) retrieved from,

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