" Careers in Open Source Technologies".

 Greetings MITians,

It gives me a great pleasure to talk with all of you. Open Source Technologies are emerging very fast in the industries. And in coming era, most of us will be the contributors in Open Source System. We will be the part of those systems.

Lots of us don't turn our ways towards Open Source Technologies due to no ideas and lots of myths. So I would like to share some of the points about possible careers in Open Source which I hope will be helpful to all of you

INTRODUCTION

[1] Open Source Softwares are the softwares which are shipped with the source code. Source code is open to view the actual logic behind the package.
[2] Most of us says Linux is an Operating System which is not correct. Linux is a kernel which was developed by Linus Torvalds.
[3] Linux was embedded with GNU (Its GNU Not UNIX!!!). OSF (Open Source Foundation by Richard Stallman) Founded GNU which was the huge collection of packages which needed a kernel to manage them.
[4] Linus Torvalds provided the Kernel to OSF which later combined to form the GNU/LINUX.
[5] There are lots of distributions in GNU/LINUX such as RedHat, Debian, Mandriva, Suse, CentOS and many more.
[6] Upstream is the space where new packages are developed and added to the latest version of Operating System. Now Fedora 15 is one of the upstream projects. Communities and professionals contribute to design the upstream.

GNU/LINUX in DOMAINS

GNU/LINUX is used in hundreds of domains, following are some of the famous domains.

[1] Bioinformatics
[2] Computer Networks
[3] Gaming industry
[4] Embedded systems/VLSI
[5] Operating Systems
[6] Research
[7] Service industry
[8] Systems development
[9] System/network administration
[10] Teaching
[11] Telecommunications

JOB DESIGNATIONS

In above domains, following Job profiles are available. Every Job Designation has its own type of duties.
[1] Application Developer
[2] Graphics Designer
[3] Database Programmer
[4] Embedded Systems Engineer
[5] Freelance Writer
[6] Professor/Researcher
[7] Marketing Specialist
[8] Consultant
[9] Network/System Administrator
[10] VLSI Engineer
[11] Systems Developer
[12] Web Developer

WHY OPEN SOURCE

Open Source softwares are provided with the source code. The user who is going to use it for whatever purpose, like production environment, development environment, or anything as per his/her needs, can be able to check and verify the source code. Under the GPL, any user can copy, modify and distribute the Softwares with Copyleft laws. There is huge community support for these softwares. And as these softwares are open and free, anybody can use it and remodify it as per the needs. Most of the security bugs are fixed immediately. So Open Source is more reliable than that of Close Source in which everything is hidden and copyrighted.

Internet is the best way and source to get what you want. So please check out what you expect from Open Source and what you get. Jump into the biggest ocean of this technology. Success is waiting for you out there. All the best everybody for your successful life ahead.

With Regards,

Mr. Pushpendra M. Chavan
ATS Engineer
Global Solutions Services Dept.
Redhat Software Services (India) Pvt Ltd.
Pune, Maharashtra, India