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

[Joy Chatterjee]

>Umm, so the fact that NIIT and WEBEL are helping the community
>exonerates MS from all its sins?  That's a new way of looking of
>things... lateral, at the very least.

I think Prabhat is talking in the context of my mail so let me say that 
SFS-India is also sponsoring RMS. So who is sinner lets not get in to it.

>I fail to see your point here.  Are you saying that Open Source (or
>Free Software) are actually closed because not enough people have the
>skill to write programs?  By your logic, Pfizer should be damned
>tomorrow if it opens up the process of making an anti-AIDS drug since
>99.999999% of the people in the world have no way of manufacturing
>drugs.  Any author who makes his/her works public is damned because
>most of the people in our country are illiterate.  This /mailing list/
>is damned because it's an elitist tool available to only a small
>fraction of a percent of people in our country.
>
>If you're so concerned about this putative community that you keep
>referring to in your message why aren't you spending your time working
>for their upliftment instead of playing intellectual games using
>elitist media?  How is this going to help them?

If some one opens up certain part of the production process knowing that 
other part is never be available for the community to replicate that is crook.


>The Free Software movement has many goals.  Making Free Software is
>one of them.  Disseminating it another.  Documenting it is a third.
>What I read from your message is that since the Free Software movement
>has not setup community training centers for free to make information
>about Free Software available to the masses it has no right to exist
>or to have any say in any matter of importance.  I find that more a
>failure of corporates who're in bed with MS than of Free Software
>itself.
>
>If you'd looked around a little bit before you wrote your message
>you'd have found oodles of information about FSF software, including
>information on how to extend it, how to modify it, how to strip it
>down to work in minimal environments; that you consider these aspects
>of control indicates... never mind :-)

Prabhat never said that Linux should not exist. He is saying it is existing 
as a monopolised form of knowledge. And it has never shown any interest to 
share in the community at large. He is complaining against the strategy of 
Linux users to keep it under their control.

I had been working in a Linux environment for quite a time now, I never saw 
any information available outside Linux community and internet.

>You may also like to pick up a copy of recent magazines which give
>Linux CD's for free along with the magazine.  Come to a Linux-Delhi
>meeting where you can pick up copied Linux on CD for Rs 20 (the cost
>of a blank) or for nothing if you know how to turn out your empty
>pockets.  Install Linux on a 100 computers from a single CD.  Make as
>many copies of the CD as you want for just the cost of copying and
>distribute them to to the ``community'' and all those deprived office
>staff who never get to see the Internet.

Sorry to say that in Sarai in spite of having Linux experts  we find it 
difficult to install and use Linux. People are very much here who 
volunteered to become gini pig of Linux but with time they are regreting. 
So just availablility of Linux CD without any support is same as providing 
lock without key.

>Ah, I presume that you're an active member of many User Groups and
>Linux/GNU-related mailing lists in India to be in a position to make
>such a definitive statement.  You are, aren't you?
>
>The fight for freedom has to be fought at many levels.  I have no
>issues with your approach; don't damn my method just because it's
>different or doesn't fit into whatever -ism is the flavour of the
>month today.

One thing can never be achieved by fighting is freedom, so isms and 
foundations should break down and disseminate in larger community.

>Closed minds are the biggest hurdle to individual freedom, and I
>grieve to see that those whom I considered my peers suffer from the
>same malaise that has kept this country from achieving anything except
>grandiose words and ideals in the past 5 1/2 decades.  Anyway, let's
>all talk a bit more about this, since talking's just about the most
>productive activity that we seem to be capable of.

That is true so Linux people should stop nagging about MS and do some 
constructive work for the community !!

Joy