Noulakaz

The blog of Avinash, Christina, Anya and Kyan Meetoo.

Mauritius

Mauritian Obama?

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Americans want Barack Obama to become their 44th President. If he is elected, America will teach to the whole world what being progressive really means. It’s pathetic that in 2008, we, Mauritians, can only think of electing a Hindu Vaish as Prime Minister (except for Bérenger’s brief spell…) But, to put things in perspective, even France is not yet ready for a black or arab President.

Of course, no one can be 100% sure that Obama will be President as the election is done by an electoral college. To paraphrase this succinct and precise article:

It’s the Electoral College that matters in presidential elections.

It’s a collection of electors chosen by the Democratic and Republican parties in each state who then choose the president; 538 electors are spread across the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Each state and the District of Columbia gets a minimum of three. Larger states are given more, based on their total number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. You can calculate each state’s electoral votes by adding two (the number of senators) to a state’s number of House members. California, the most populous state, has 55 electoral votes. Wyoming, the least populous, has three (along with six other states and the District of Columbia).

But

The newly elected House would vote for president on Jan. 6, with each state’s delegation getting one vote. Because Democrats are likely to maintain their majority, the House likely would elect Sen. Barack Obama. The Senate would vote to elect the vice president, likely Sen. Joe Biden.

 

Whether Obama wins or not, I would like to see a change in the way we, Mauritians, think of politicians. We tend to forget that politicians are elected by us to implement whatever they announced in their electoral programmes. They should be held accountable. If they are not performing, they should get a proper kick in the backside.

But, first and foremost, they should not be chosen because they “represent” a specific ethnic group but because of their competence, vision and, for the old ones, their track record. Young people should be given a chance to do things instead of being only crutches.

Any early signs of Mauritian Obamas yet?

Should the Government promote open-source software?

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A few days ago, a student from the Faculty of Management of the University of Mauritius sent me an email with a list of questions on open-source software. She was going to participate in a debate competition but didn’t know a lot about OSS. She was going to support the motion that the Government of Mauritius should promote OSS. Naturally, I was keen to help.

I quickly replied to her (mostly mechanically) but today I realised that the questions and answers (even though imperfect and incomplete) would make a nice blog post. Here they are:

> The fact that the source code are available, is OSS insecure?

No. In fact, it’s the opposite.

Linus’ Law states that “Given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix will be obvious to someone.”

This means that as the source code is publicly available, lots of people look at it and discover bugs (there are bugs in all software including open source software.) Better, as the bugs have been found, they are remedied rather quickly and, most of the time, by the same people who have found the bugs.

Compare this to proprietary software where only a few pairs of eyes can look at the source code and miss most of the bugs.

> Is OSS unreliable for companies as the programming is not done by professional bodies?

What do you mean by “professional bodies”? If you mean professionals, then you should understand that those reading the source code of open source software for fun ARE professionals (or else they won’t understand a thing.)

The only difference is that they don’t work for the company who had released the software.

Now, why would someone read the source code of a software if he/she is not being paid to do so? The only reasons I can think of are (i) for the fun of it and (ii) to make it better.

The argument can even be that those who are paid to write software generally do a worse job than those who do it for pleasure as money has never (and will never be) a strong enough motivation to do good.

> Will it be good for our Government to promote OSS in its activities?

Of course. Because of cost reduction, increase flexibility and increased reliability.

> Is the maintainance cost of OSS really costly than CSS?

What is maintenance cost? Do you mean support?

I would say that supporting OSS requires people who are more knowledgeable (and, consequently, more expensive) because, simply said, OSS has more features and offers more flexibility.

Maintaining an airplane is more costly than maintaining a car but you need to do both as sometimes you really need the airplane :-)

 

> Is it as user friendly as CSS?

What do you mean?

CSS is not generally user-friendly. In fact, most software is not user-friendly as their user interaction (and not only user-interface) has been designed by programmers instead of interaction designers (read Alan Cooper’s, the father of Visual Basic, book for instance. It’s called The Inmates Are Running the Asylum)

So user-friendliness is a result of the user interaction having been designed by someone knowledgeable in that field. And you’ll find user-friendly software both in the CSS and OSS scene. And lots and lots of user-unfriendly software too.

> Will young students have difficulties in learning OSS?

No. Provided they have a brain and are open to new things. Those two should be essential pre-requisites for entering a university.

> On what ground the general public will be convinced to use OSS as they already familiar with CSS?

The general public already uses Firefox which is OSS. The reason why is that Firefox and OSS in general empowers people to do more complex things.

So I believe that this is the way to convince people to make the effort to learn a new tool (which a software basically is.) You have to tell them that they’ll become more powerful ;-)

> Dear sir if you also have some other point of view that you would like to share with us conserning both the advantages and disadvantages of OSS in Mauritius, it will be of great help to us.

Advantages: Cost-effective, Flexibility, Reliability, Great online community
Disadvantages: Higher-learning curve.

A few days later after having, hopefully, digested the answers, she asked me some additional questions. Here they are:

> Sir can you plz explain how will OSS increase reliability and Flexibility.

(1) Reliability: this is a direct consequence of the source code having been “audited” by thousands of people. Bugs are caught very quickly. And, more important, they are corrected very quickly too. Thereby an increase in reliability.

(2) Flexibility: this is a consequence of most OSS being done by people who think the UNIX-way. In the UNIX world, instead of building one tool which does everything (badly), people tend to build a multitude of small tools which individually are simple but which can be combined in a pipeline in multiple ways. Have a look at UNIX pipes for instance. Consequently, UNIX-derived operating systems like Linux are extremely flexible and, hence, powerful but only to those knowledgeable enough…

> I have heard from a friend that in the year 1997 OSS was to be implemented but then Microsoft came with a better package towards the government? Can you confirm this Sir?

I don’t know for sure.

> And what are your opinion on the following: There is no guarantee that development will happen.

This is true for all software. Every year, a number of software are abandoned. In the commercial world, users are essentially doomed (as nothing can be done except migrating to another software.) In the OSS world, someone else (the end user himself maybe!) can continue development as the source code is available.

> It is sometimes difficult to know that a project exist, and its current status

You just have to ask the programmers themselves! In the OSS world, they are readily accessible. And there are lots of websites that monitor this kind of thing (e.g. Sourceforge and Freshmeat)

> Liability for intellectual property infringement

In the OSS world, one can technically-speaking audit the whole source code because it is available for free. I don’t know how one can audit commercial software with closed source. So, in the commercial world, it’s actually impossible to say that one software does not infringe any intellectual property except if you believe the vendor (but that’s not auditing…) Read about the SCO debacle for more information.

That’s it. Nothing much.

A small update: I wrote an article on the Linux User Group of Mauritius website a few years ago. It was called 10 reasons why Linux is better than Windows for the Mauritian School IT Project. It is still relevant today.

Barack Obama and Mauritian politics

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Everyone with half a brain want Barack Obama to become the President of the United States of America next week.

76 American Nobel Prize winners are convinced that

Senator Barack Obama is a visionary leader who can ensure the future of America’s traditional strengths in science and technology.

The New York Times editorialist writes:

The United States is battered and drifting after eight years of President Bush’s failed leadership. He is saddling his successor with two wars, a scarred global image and a government systematically stripped of its ability to protect and help its citizens — whether they are fleeing a hurricane’s floodwaters, searching for affordable health care or struggling to hold on to their homes, jobs, savings and pensions in the midst of a financial crisis that was foretold and preventable.

As tough as the times are, the selection of a new president is easy. After nearly two years of a grueling and ugly campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has proved that he is the right choice to be the 44th president of the United States.

The Economist also endorses Barack Obama:

America should take a chance and make Barack Obama the next leader of the free world.

The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he offers the better chance of restoring America’s self-confidence.

Even that bastion of capitalism, the Financial Times, wants Barack Obama to win:

A campaign is a test of leadership. Mr Obama ran his superbly; Mr McCain’s has often looked a shambles. After eight years of George W. Bush, the steady competence of the Obama operation commands respect.

Nor should one disdain Mr Obama’s way with a crowd. Good presidents engage the country’s attention; great ones inspire. Mr McCain, on form, is an adequate speaker but no more. Mr Obama, on form, is as fine a political orator as the country has heard in decades.

The challenges facing the next president will be extraordinary. We hesitate to wish it on anyone, but we hope that Mr Obama gets the job.

 

Of course, there are still lots of people with less than half-a-brain in America and they can still theoretically tip the balance towards the Republicans.

Personally, I want Barack Obama to win for a very selfish reason. If he wins, he is bound to inspire countless of intelligent, honest and hard-working persons over the whole planet to get into politics in order to make the world better.

What I really want is for such Mauritians to get into local politics. Mauritius deserves more competent people.

Alé Barack!