Recently I've been reading a book written by Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux. For those of you who don't know, Linux is an open-source operating system. Open-source means that I have access to the source code, and I can make changes to it to suit my personal needs. This is fascinating!

Several times per day I find myself thinking "Man, I wish Windows wouldn't do this crap!" But of course, there's no way to change it. And even if I could access the source code for Windows, I probably wouldn't know enough to change anything. But I could learn.

Even if I don't yet know enough programming to make major changes to any open-source programs, the principle is still fascinating. I love the idea that I can change everything however I want to! It totally blows my mind because I've "grown up with" proprietary software.

As with everything, there is a catch. I'm here at college studying to be a computer scientist. With any luck, programming computers is going to be my livelihood. So how can I make enough money to eat if I spend all my time writing programs that I give away for free? Obviously the Free Software movement and all its implications are becoming more important in my life. Maybe Linus's book will have an answer...I'll keep reading.

At any rate, soon I plan to add a Java section to my web site. I just took a class in Java programming and I will take more in the fall. I wrote a program that will allow you to do logic puzzles on my site. I'm fairly proud of it, as it is the first program I've ever written that has a graphical user interface (GUI). If my idiotic, lazy friend will ever write a logic puzzle for me to use, I will make the program available for all of you to use.

So, when I "release" this program, should I make the source code available too? Deep down inside I really want to. I really want to share and hopefully even receive feedback about my programming. But on the surface of my brain, there is still a pessimist complaining that I shouldn't give away software if I someday hope to write it for a living.

What do you think? Please let me know in my forum.