My New Blog

I have started to write on my new blog at http://publicmind.in . Keep checking for some technical blogs as well as my experiences.

Open Source Software and Licenses

For most computer users, there is not much difference between freeware or open source. After all, you can install both freeware and open source program for free and use it for as long as you need. But for computer programmers, there is a huge difference between them. While freewares never provide you with their source code, open source programs give you full (read 'limited') privilege over their source code. You can modify the source code, re-distribute ( or sell) it without seeking for any permissions from the original author. This seems like a free beer but you won't always drink it even when you are thirsty, and various open source (OS) licenses makes this sure.

There exists a long list of licenses which try to protect the rights of the original authors over their work. Most of these licenses are incompatible with each other, which means that you can not include the source code of a program into your software if it has a license which is different from the license under which you intend to release your program. This creates a big mess in the open source community. Various academicians and programmers hold different views for different licenses, so they release their work under the license they like. And because these licenses are not compatible with each other, same piece of code is written by several people having different licenses. I encountered this same problem while I was writing a module for Drupal, which releases its content under GPL and I wanted to include (not copy, !!) a script which was released under BSD license. Even though these two licenses are compatible, the drupal community rejected to release my module. I have already justified my act to them but if they still reject it, I will have to write the same code again. (here I would have preferred paying a small fee for the script)

So, you see even if the source code is available to you, you can not use it in your work without infringing copyright. This creates a plethora of programs doing almost the same thing released under different licenses. I wonder, is OS community really open and productive. I may be wrong in concluding that to flourish OS, it must go beyond restrictions which licenses like GPL proffer. But thats only my thought, if you have something else to say I am "all ears".

Good things always have an "END"

Whenever I used to think about the courses we were studying, only word that came to my mind was "USELESS". I always used to find it difficult to survive till the end of the semester but this semester flew like a rocket.

This ( 5th ) semester was the best in terms of the courses we studied. I liked all the courses (except the usual maths one which always gives me a tough time) but I enjoyed Operating systems, Databases and Data Communications (Yeah, I know Nandi sir sucked but the course was interesting ) the most. I am really not worried about the grades this semester as I studied regularly( I swear !!) and I know grades will reflect them. Now I know how people like "Mukund" , "AA" are so calm and composed all the time.

and now when the semester has ended what I am missing my courses so much that I have started reading the rest of the silberschatz. I am hoping for the same kind of courses (enjoyable ones) next semester.

Note : I know it looked like a geeky one but it was short guys, please don't complain. Okie, next post on hypocrisy (Attention GS!!)

Create ER diagrams from SQL

I needed to make a schema for my recent database project. I already had the sql tables, so I decided to try making the schema an easy way. The following procedure was followed on my ubuntu machine.

Step 1: Install sqlfairy

sudo apt-get install sqlfairy

Step 2 : Install mysql or oracle(if you don't have it already)

apt-get instal mysql-server5.0

Step 3 : sqlt-diagram -d=MySQL -o=hmc.png hmc.sql --color

This will create a colored image, hmc.png taking table details from hmc.sql, where -d=MySQL specified the MySQL driver.

Easy, isn't it...

You can read more about sqlfairy from the link provided. It provides a lot of other magical features.

Trip to Gangtok - Part 1

Gangtok: We were on-board with 2nd class tickets. Thanks to Pranay who got us seats and we had a (relatively) comfortable journey.

As Lewis Carroll said:
"If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there."


This trip was probably the best trip of my life mainly for two reasons:

1. The trip was fully unplanned, so no worries of booking hotel, tickets or things like that.
2. and I celebrated my B'Day at a height of more than 17000 ft., that was amazing.

As soon as the train left the station, we again started with our cards, though pranay was feeling sleepy and went on the first floor soon. We three kept on playing 3-2-5 game for as long as I can remember. The train was running at its top speed and we reached NJP in just 7 hrs. There we headed for a dhaba as we all missed our dinner. After that we took a cab for siliguri and from there to Gangtok.

The climate was calm. It rained during most of the journey, needless to say I loved it ( my love for rain is evident from the fact that I never attend a class on a rainy day).

The rest of the trip was more adventurous and exciting than I thought. Driving through the terrain with no roads,chatting with an army man of my village, drinking through-out the journey( I drank 1/2 wine, a quarter of rum and some breezers in a single day and luckily did not get any abdominal pain ;) ) and I driving Thakur crazy with the line "Thakur haath kyun nahi utthatey".

Time to go, OS assignment is waiting for me and I don't want to make you more jealous. Ha Ha...


P.S. : Once again, Thanks to Thakur for making my 20th BirthDay a memorable one. Thakur rocks maxxx....(IIT-G communiy style).

Trip to tawang - Part 2

The worst and the best part of the journey was that it ended before it could start. Yes  guys...we all left the campus with dreams of tawang, snow and beautiful valleys in our mind and guess what, on reaching the bus stand we came to know about the curfew in Tezpur. Still we waited for 1 hr at the bus stand, looking at each other like asking what to do now? Actually no one wanted to go back to the rooms we left with so much hope and excitement. 

Soon Ashish came up with the idea of visiting shillong and Pranay appended it with "bikes". But that too was not acceptable to God, and we could not hire the bikes we wanted. Now again we started to stare at each other. And this time, we decided Gangtok to be the destination. We flew to the railways station at once. There we came to know that the train to NJP(West Bengal) is at 10:30 p.m. and it was only 4 p.m. . So we purchased the tickets and decided to roam in the city till then. 

So we kept the luggage in the cloak room of Vishal Mega Mart ( free as well as safe ;) )  and passed out time playing cards at the station, eating delicacies at Pizza hut and waiting for the train.

This was by far the most undecided and unplanned journey of ours.

Trip to Tawang - Part 1

The white snow is the second thing that fascinates me after Cinderella. Also It had been long when we went on a trip together. So I and kamal decided that we will go somewhere these holidays even if its 2 k.m. away. And the opportunity came knocking at our door when ashish asked us to join him on a trip to tawang. We will be leaving in the evening today though we don't have the passes yet. Listen what pranay has to say on this:

"chalo yaar, tezpur tak chalteey hain. passes miley to theek warna ghoom phir k waapas aa jaayengey".

Anyways I am too much excited to see those beautiful valleys. I just hope we get to enter Arunachal.

Note: Please bear with me for my better future.