Paediatrician turns geek In 2001, this is what I wrote about Dr Sani (excerpts):

Indian mobile phone users now have an easier time downloading email thanks to WAPpop, which is spurring hundreds of downloads each day after an upgrade last month. Mobile users have access to phone services while on the move, but they need a computer in order to have a look at their email. “WAPpop was written keeping the problem in mind so that they can have access to and glance at their email while on the move,” says Dr Tarique Sani, a Nagpurbased medico who has written the software. By using a WAP (wireless access protocol) enabled device, like a phone or palmtop, the software Sani wrote — WAPpop — can read mail from an internet server, reply or forward mail, and even delete mail and send new messages. The paediatrician-turned-software expert says WAPpop, the first version of which was released in July 2000, remains the only open source software of its kind in India. “The response (to WAPpop) has by far surpassed expectations. Before the release of the second version, the downloads had tapered down to an average of 1,000 per month. The downloads for the second version have been an average of 500 per day,” Sani says. At present, he concedes, the tiny screen and cumbersome typing procedures are a “major hurdle” for anyone wanting to use such wireless devices to access the internet. There is also limited bandwidth available for WAP. But this could change in the near future. “When we started this project, WAP was a hot technology around the world. Unfortunately, most of the WAP development was centred on Microsoft’s ASP,” Sani says. But he himself “loves PHP”, which is open source’s answer to ASP and the most popular Web-scripting language around the world. “I felt that I could make a mark for PHP, open source and, in turn, myself in the WAP world and to that extent I feel this project has been a success,” he says. Sani, a medical doctor who did his post-graduation in paediatrics and forensic medicine, opted to become the chief technical officer of his own Web engineering company SANIsoft, based in Nagpur, Maharashtra.

PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared towards web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. Originally an abbreviation of Personal Home Page, it now stands for the recursive initialism PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor.

Three realisations “kind of shaped my life,” he adds:

■ Faith in the collaborative nature of development

■ Sharing promotes growth

■ Every individual can make an impact

In Dr Sani’s view, there are many individuals who shaped FOSS in India. “But two people have continued to make active contributions to FOSS — Kushal Das, who is still doing a lot in the Python Foundation, and Pradeepto Bhattacharya of KDE,” he says.

If he had the chance, would he do this all over again? “Yes, of course,” he replies, without hesitation. But he feels he would have “paid attention to doing more community outreach and advocacy.” FOSS will always need a public-driven movement, he believes.

What keeps him busy now? Tarique says, “I am working with IT CXOs and executives to support mental health, having trained as a psychotherapist in cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). Swati is following her love for Urdu literature, having done her MA in Urdu, and is now writing books in English about Urdu poetry and her own poetry in Urdu.”

Interestingly, Dr Sani started in the world of computing with a ZX80, and has been into the world of computing for nearly four decades now. SANIsoft, his web engineering company, specialises in PHP application development.

By: Frederick Noronha

The author is a Goa-based freelance journalist, who has been tracking FOSS (free and open source software), Creative Commons and the Wikipedia issues closely and intensely for a long time.