How I understood the importance of FOSS i.e Free and Open Source Software

Hello people of the world wide web.
I'm Titas, a CS freshman trying to learn programming and build some cool stuff. Here's how I understood the importance of open source.

The first time I heard of open source was about 3 years ago in a YouTube video, but I didn't think much of it.
Read about it more and more on Reddit and in articles.

Fast forward to after high school — I'd failed JEE and had no chance of getting into a top engineering college. So I started looking at other options, found a degree and said to myself:
Okay, I can go here. I already know some Java and writing code is kinda fun (I only knew basics and had built a small game copying every keystroke of a YouTube tutorial).
So I thought I could learn programming, get a job, and make enough to pay my bills and have fun building stuff.

Then I tried to find out what I should learn and do.
Being a fool, I didn't look at articles or blog posts — I went to Indian YouTube channels.
And there was the usual advice: Do DSA & Algorithms, learn Web Development, and get into FAANG.

I personally never had the burning desire to work for lizard man, but the big thumbnails with “200k”, “300k”, “50 LPA” pulled me in.
I must’ve watched 100+ videos like that.
Found good creators too like Theo, Primeagen, etc.

So I decided I'm going to learn DSA.
First, I needed to polish my Java skills again.
Pulled out my old notebook and some YT tutorials, revised stuff, and started learning DSA.

It was very hard.
Leetcode problems weren't easy — I was sitting for hours just to solve a single problem.
3 months passed by — I learnt arrays, strings, linked lists, searching, sorting till now.
But solving Leetcode problems wasn't entertaining or fun.
I used to think — why should I solve these abstract problems if I want to work in FAANG (which I don't even know if I want)?

Then I thought — let's learn some development.
Procrastinated on learning DSA, and picked up web dev — because the internet said so.
Learnt HTML and CSS in about 2-3 weeks through tutorials, FreeCodeCamp, and some practice.

Started learning JavaScript — it's great.
Could see my output in the browser instantly.
Much easier than C ,which is in my college curriculum (though I had fun writing C).

Started exploring more about open source on YouTube and Reddit.
Watched long podcasts to understand what it's all about.
Learnt about OSS — what it is, about Stallman, GNU, FOSS.
OSS felt like an amazing idea — people building software and letting others use it for free because they feel like it.
The community aspect of it.
Understood why it's stupid to have everything under control of a capitalist company — who can just one day decide to stop letting you use your own software that you paid for.

Now I’m 7 months into college, already done with sem 1, scored decent marks.
I enjoy writing code but haven't done anything substantial.
So I thought to ask for some help. But who to ask?

I remembered a I've heard about this distant cousin Kushal who lives in Europe and has done some great software and my mother mentioned him like he was some kind of a genius .I once had a brief conversation with him via text regarding if I should take admission in BCA than an engineering degree, and his advice gave me some motivation and positivity . He said:

“BCA or Btech will for sure gets a job faster Than tradional studying If you can put in hours, that is way more important than IQ.
I have very average IQ but I just contributed to many projects.”

So 7 months later, I decided to text him again — and surprisingly, he replied and agreed to talk with me on a call.
Spoke with him for 45 odd minutes and asked a bunch of questions about software engineering, his work, OSS, etc.

Had much better clarity after talking with him.
He gave me the dgplug summer training docs and a Linux book he wrote.

So I started reading the training docs.

Kept reading the training docs.
Read a few blog posts on the history of open source — already knew most of the stuff but learnt some key details.

Read a post by Anwesha on her experience with hacking culture and OSS as a lawyer turned software engineer — found it very intriguing.

Then watched the documentaries Internet's Own Boy and Coded Bias.
Learnt much more about Aaron Swartz than I knew — I only knew he co-founded Reddit and unalived himself after getting caught trying to open-source the MIT archives.

Now I had a deeper understanding of OSS and the culture.
But I had a big question about RMS — why was he so fixated on the freedom to hack and change stuff in the software he owned?
(Yes, the Free in FOSS doesn’t stand for free of cost — it stands for freedom.)

I thought free of cost makes sense — but why should someone have the right to make changes in a paid software?
Couldn't figure it out.
Focused on JS again — also, end-semester exams were coming.
My university has 3 sets of internal exams before the end-semester written exams. Got busy with that.

Kept writing some JS in my spare time.
Then during my exams...

It was 3:37 am, 5 June. I had my Statistics exam that morning.
I was done with studying, so I was procrastinating — watching random YouTube videos.
Then this video caught my attention:
How John Deere Steals Farmers of $4 Billion a Year

It went deep into how John Deere installs software into their tractors to stop farmers and mechanics from repairing their own machines.
Only authorized John Deere personnel with special software could do repairs.
Farmers were forced to pay extra, wait longer, and weren’t allowed to fix their own property.

Turns out, you don’t actually buy the tractor — you buy a subscription to use it.
Even BMW, GM, etc. make it nearly impossible to repair their cars.
You need proprietary software just to do an oil change.

Car makers won’t sell the software to these business owners, BUT they'll offer 7500$/year subscriptions to use their software. One auto shop owner explained how he has to pay $50,000/year in subscriptions just to keep his business running.

These monopolies are killing small businesses.

It’s not just India — billion-dollar companies everywhere are hell-bent on controlling everything.
They want us peasants to rent every basic necessity — to control us.

And that night, at 4:15 AM, I understood:

OSS is not just about convenience.
It’s not just for watching movies with better audio or downloading free pictures for my college projects.
It’s a political movement — against control.
It’s about the right to exist, and the freedom to speak, share, and repair.

That's about it. I'm not a great writer — it's my first blog post.

Next steps?
Learn to navigate IRC.
Get better at writing backends in Node.js.
And I'll keep writing my opinions, experiences, and learnings — with progressively better English.

print("titas signing out , post '0'!")