[Reader-list] F$F v/s free software

[Prabhat Kumar]

In support of Chatterjee’s mail I would like to add
few more  words. NIIT and WEBEL are not only doing
e-governance but also setting up community based low
cost education and training centers and information
kiosks. 

On the contrary due to lack of £inux education and
training programmes, actually the knowledge is
controlled by very few programmers. They enjoy certain
monopoly in the field of £inux programming. Open
source acts as very good cover up as most of the
people are not able to write programmes. Thus control
automatically remains in the hand of organization like
F$F.

If one observes closely, F$F works against freedom. It
has no programme of expansion of knowledge base. It
entirely works with the pretension of “free” as free
market, where every person is free to use free
software provided that person has his own ability to
use free software. Programmes are shared but not the
know-how. It is like giving away the house without the
key. The key of knowledge is in control of very few.
More over, documentation and programmes are available
on net, and in India luxury of downloading
documentation and programme is only available to very
few corporate giants. Most of the company stuffs work
on dial up connection, which is used only under the
control of manager and company requirement. Staffs
hardly get opportunity to use internet for their own
purpose. In most of the cases they are not even
allowed to see their personal e-mails. Lets not talk
about those people who have no internet connection.
For them thinking of £inux is day dream.

Unfortunately, in India freedom in free software is
more than fallacy. Though F$F is new but £inux is used
in India for a long period of time. But there is not a
single effort seen by the £inux sects, though almost
every city has a £inux User Group, to share the
knowledge in the society. Building the community based
on sharing as the philosophy of free software claims
is only thing, which is not seen in their activity.

In India £inux User Groups are seem to be only
interested in monopoly, corporate marketing/servicing
and e-governance, basically making big money by the
holy name of freedom!

Prabhat


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