[Reader-list] freedom v/s freesoftware

[Prabhat Kumar]

I have seen all the mails sent by Mr. Mathur and Mr.
Chatterjee.

LUGs people just love to target Microsoft by whatever
means they find. They are so closed-minded. In the
context of patriotism I said Indian companies like
NIIT and WEBEL are handling the deal so basically
logic of patriotism doesn’t work. I think my friend is
too innocent to understand such straightforward
argument.

I think Chatterjee had become unnecessarily emotional
so he used the word crook. But I think actually,
governments should be cautioned of Linux otherwise
they would have to GPL every piece of their secret
information about e-governance. If secrecy of
government information is legitimate then why not the
secrecy of business information is equally legitimate?
In the competitive market every company maintains
secrecy for its existence, what is wrong about it?
What is special about software and Microsoft? My
friend was talking about AIDS medicine, is the
information about that medicine is freely available?
Does my friend have stopped taking medicines, the
information of which is not available openly? I don’t
understand this half-baked notion of freedom. I think
freedom of medicine is more important than freedom of
software. Is anybody asking for freedom of medicinal
information? Is my friend ready to challenge the sin
of secrecy done by state about its information?
Logically my friend should reject governments if he is
honest about his theory of free information. Yes,
fight for freedom should be fought at every level, but
nobody is stopping anyone to be consistent in his
theory. If Microsoft is a sinner then all companies
and institutions are sinner who hides information. So
my friend, think deeply what you are saying.

Actually, my argument was due to the lack of training
programme, even though programmes are open or
so-called free; they are in control of very few. By
and large people who are working in the market come
from lower middle class and lesser academic
background. They need some training or guidance to
start working. Most of them cannot afford to go to
institutions like NIIT. For example, I have asked many
network administrators working in small offices why
they are not using Apache. The reply I have got that
first of all their office doesn’t permit to download
and secondly they don’t know where to learn Apache.
They didn’t know anything about LUGs. Frankly
speaking, LUGs are too culturally coded for large
section of people to participate. First of all, though
now they are tending to act patriotic for their
professional ambition, but they hardly even speak
their own mother tongue. Most of them are quite
elitist by their behavior if not stinking rich. I
think these two are enough reason for society at large
to relate with these people. Another important thing
is, yes, few books and CDs are available in the market
but these books are only for those who have comfort
with English, who doesn’t need some one else to
explain what is written in the book. Using mailing
lists etc. requires some amount of social and cultural
confidence along with technical competency. Otherwise,
they do lot of unnoticed improvisation (can be called
as hacking, thus I feel that LUGs are only celebrating
the religion of hacking and true hacking is happening
somewhere else) in hardware and usage of software as
they have to live with limited resources provided by
their shop owner or company unlike most of Linux Users
who work in big companies and play with ample amount
of resources. When I said free as “free market” I
meant that, if some one does not have wealth of
English education and cultural confidence then nobody
is there to help him out. My friend, society is not
only comprised of elites so there is no harm in
thinking about poor. And I don’t know when LUGs will
realize that elites are there only because of
proprietary structure of social formation. It doesn’t
take minute to sweep noises like freedom if so is
needed. Companies and states are only instruments in
that formation. I find it very amusing to see that
after seeing cases like BMW, Jessica Lall, NBA etc.
LUGs still have lot of faith on copyright and
legalities to protect GPL. Wow. Take my word the
“freedom” of Linux will only grow if non-elite people
are also considered as human being. Otherwise Linux
will grow but “freedom” will die its inevitable death.
Knowledge never diminishes by sharing, but yes,
monopoly and control do, isn’t it? 

Going to slums is considered as undignified act by
many, so I don’t expect my friend to do so but if he
had accepted my suggestion of starting a free training
school of “free software” that would have caused some
reason to respect Linux Users in India. I promise to
send as many students as he needs. But I don’t think
it is going to happen.

I have seen two types of doctors, one is slogging in
public hospitals and earning a living, and another is
running a private hospital and making money. I respect
the first and consider the second as curse on the
mankind. As far as I remember I wrote about making big
money not earning a living. My friend, twisting waist
is appreciable but not twisting words. Commercial
activism is quite an amusing concept. It sounds like
pushing the car while sitting inside it. I hope the
car will move some day!! In absence of social
interaction and intellectual awareness, after some
time commerce grows and activism vanishes. I have
heard that in west hackers participate in hard-core
social activism as well. But in India in one hand they
mock “communists and socialists” on the other hand
they dream to do e-governance for a communist
government (West Bengal government). I hope they are
just naïve.

If people are requesting LUGs not to take dreams about
e-governance and think of expanding the user base in
non-elite and poor community they are actually
expressing their respect for philosophy of freedom and
free software. I think any sane person would expect
the same. Deaths of good philosophies in the hand of
their preachers are nothing new in history but it
hurts to see it happening. Somewhere I read that
philosophies are like an Egyptian mythical bird, which
dies to give birth to an offspring. I sigh and wait.

Prabhat

____________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Send a newsletter, share photos & files, conduct polls, organize chat events. Visit http://in.groups.yahoo.com.