PHP Geek, FOSS Enthusiast, CTO and a Paediatrician

‘PHP geek, free and open source software enthusiast, CTO chief technical officer) of SANIsoft’ that’s how Dr Tarique Sani likes to describe himself. He’s qualified to be a paediatrician, but his love for open source has turned him into a geek for the past two decades and more. He recalls the good old days...

- Frederick Noronha

Dr Tarique Sani was educated as a medical doctor but diversified into open source software development and services, particularly PHP, and has been successfully running a company for more than two decades. Swati, his wife and co-traveller in the FOSS (free and open source) journey, is a mass communications professional who "wholeheartedly supported me in this journey by providing all the logistics and running the business side of things." When we met in Goa recently, she recalled her love for Urdu poetry, an interest she shared with Dr Sani's mother.

The projects Dr Sani has been involved with and has contributed to include WAPpop (pop mail client phones); Aaina-e-ghazal (trilingual dictionary for Urdu ghazal fans); NagpurBirds (atlas of birds from Nagpur district); Coppermine Picture Gallery (CMS for photos); and phplib (utility library for PHP).

But that was a long time back, when GNU/Linux was just getting known in India in the mid- to late 1990s. Looking back, he says the highpoints of his memories of the last two decades are "that most friendships and relations forged during that time have lasted till date."

How did he first get started?