I don't falter (for some obvious reasons) to accept that open source philosophy has always motivated me and have provided me with opportunities to learn. It has always been something that pushed me to know things and has put my time in doing some useful things. I thank our senior, Sandeep Sahu, who was the first guy who introduced me to Linux and open source and got me started. It was back in second year of my Bachelors when he conducted after-school lectures for those who are interested, just to spread awareness...and it was inspiring!

It started with installing and getting used to the new operating system. I was having a shell account for internet connection during my high school and I was given a Unix-like prompt with pine, lynx and ircii. I didn't had a clue what system I was using...for me it was just a means of getting on the Internet. (It was a student account with a dial-up connection, and while purchasing one..I didn't had any idea that it will be adding to my phone bill as well ;)) So this was the background I had when I started with Linux, it did helped to some extent but not a great deal.

After tweaking around for a while...experimenting with all the eye-candy stuff (which I still do)...I started user-level programming (gtk, qt, shell, php), and then some kernel-level stuff too. Was fun...there was no one to teach..it was just the forums, online tutorials, man pages and IRC. Once I started that..I felt (as usual) that I started late. But nonetheless at least I got started! When there are lots of things that help you learning new things, you feel like learning. There were/are resources which help in learning things, especially when it comes to open source...they won't spoon-feed you, but will at least provide you with pointers. And many a times that is how it should be.

Am not anti-closed source, but I feel knowledge is there to be shared..that is how all scientific developments have taken place. Without reinventing the wheel, learn what others have done in the past, try to improve it if you can..and if you do, don't forget to pass on what you learned. That simple is the philosophy of open source. It is powerful, motivating and most of all, it works!

I'm glad that I'II be around such environment for some time now. And would be a good summer experience at Red Hat, Inc. *wink*

Time is fleeting fast..already at the end of second semester...will finish off coming fall fast with a pleasing feeling of going back home in December, and then MS almost over. So fast, so swift.... But yet theres lots to learn and lots to earn (apart from money). May the Source (in every sense) be with me like this forever.

And may the Source be with everyone too!

Ok, gotta go...me need to find a place to hang my hat ;)