interface design and UX. This is the 

ultimate love affair between intuition 

and engineering. The huge impact of 

the computer industry on billions of 

people directly can be attributed to 

this synergy.

I’ve brought tens of thousands 

of people into the free and open 

source movement in India. How? 

By writing extensively about it in 

mainstream newspapers as well as in 

tech magazines, and by conducting 

countless seminars and public talks for 

the industry, government, academia, 

and the community. Besides, I was a 

core member of the Freed.in event, 

and helped to set up several chapters 

of Linux user groups across India. 

I ventured into consultancy, and 

guided companies on free and open 

source software. During my journey, 

I also contributed extensively to bug 

reports of a few GPL software in the 

graphics design space.

Establishing ILUG-D

I still remember one cool evening back 

in 1995, when a couple of us hackers 

were huddled around an assembled 

PC. Somebody was strumming a 

badly-tuned guitar, an excited pet dog 

was barking at new guests… This 

was the founding of the Indian Linux 

Users Group, Delhi (ILUG-D). This 

was also the first official meet at the 

home of the late Raj Mathur, founding 

member of the ILUG-D. That meeting 

shaped free and open source software 

as a movement, and not just a licence. 

Everyone knows what happened over 

the next decade-and-a-half.

The reality of open source 

adoption in India

Today, it is all about free and open 

source software, and of open 

knowledge, which for me is way 

beyond Linux. Honestly, I am not 

happy with the way open source 

adoption has happened in India. In 

this vast country, there is one and 

only one challenge—the mindset 

of people towards open source. 

What’s happening in India is ‘digital 

colonialism’ as our minds are still 

ruled by proprietary software, 

proprietary services and a lack of 

understanding of privacy. We lack 

the understanding of our ‘digital 

sovereignty’.  To address this 

mindset, I wrote two whitepapers 

and published them on my website, 

www.niyam.com, which became 

very popular. The first was ‘Seven 

Steps to Software Samadhi: How 

to migrate from Windows to GNU/

Linux for the Non-techie in a Hurry’. 

Published under the FDL licence, 

this initiative acquired a life of its 

own among the community. The 

second one was ‘Guerilla Warfare for 

Gyaan’, which was about bringing 

in free knowledge, especially in 

academia. Both were received well 

Your definition of open source: Muft and mukt is a state of mind, not software
Favourite book: ‘The Cathedral and the Bazaar’ by Eric S. Raymond
Past-time: Tasting the timeless through meditation
Favourite movie: ‘Snowden’ by Oliver Stone
Dream destination: Bhutan, birthplace of ‘Schumacher Economics’ that 
gives a more holistic vision to the open source philosophy
Idol: Osho, a visionary who talked about true freedom and how to exercise 
your individual freedom in your society

For U & Me

Open Journey

www.OpenSourceForU.com | OPEN SOURCE FOR YOU | JANUARY 2018 | 23