[Reader-list] freedom v/s freesoftware

[Raju Mathur]

Hi Prabhat,

>>>>> "Prabhat" == Prabhat Kumar <prabhatmuhurta at yahoo.co.in> writes:

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

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

NIIT/Webel handling the deal will neither make the source code of the
software available for audit to the Government nor will it bring any
commercial benefit to the buyer.  Arguments based on Indian companies
being involved in the deal are meaningless until these two happen.

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

Maybe you're a bit confused between information and software.
Information is data relevant to achieving a specific goal.  Software
is a tool that manipulates data and converts it into information.  I'm
a proponent of free software.  I presume you're referring to some
other friend who's advocating free information above.

I (and no one else in the Free Software camp) is advocating that
corporates open up their private information to the masses.  I will
not give company information about my clients and projects to my
competitors, and nor will I advocate the same to them.

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

OK, you go ahead and teach Linux/Windows/FreeBSD/OS400/whatever to the
underprivileged, non-English-speaking masses if that's your objective
in life.  It's not mine, and I resent the implication that everyone
has to subscribe to your world-view and share your objectives in order
to be called a productive member of society.  Frankly, my dear, I
don't give a damn about communism, elitism, socialism or capitalism --
I do what I can to help other people in ways which are consistent with
my requirements and my ideals, and I give space to other people to do
the same and respect them for it.  That doesn't seem to be the
philosophy in action here, unfortunately.

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

No, my friend, you have it all wrong: /you/ start the training classes
for slum children and ask me for my help and I'll gladly give it to
you.  It's part of /your/ mission in life, not mine -- mine is using
and advocating Linux and MAKING MONEY OUT OF IT.  See?  It's simple
when spelled out in words of two syllables ;-)  Of course, there are
some dictionaries in which making money is a taboo phrase, but *shrug*
you can't please all the people all the time.

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

*Sigh* I consider Rs. 2,00,000 per month to be making a living, you
consider it making big money, Ram Jethmalani (a top-notch lawyer in
India) considers it being below his poverty line -- who's right?
There are no absolute lines drawn between the two terms, so IMHO we
should just try to avoid vague and indefinite phrases and stick to
facts.  Similarly, I'd suggest you don't use terms like ``social
interaction'' and ``intellectual awareness'' until you have a
certificate signed by God Almighty which announces that you have the
One True Definition of those terms.  Until then, I consider my
interpretation to be as meaningful and valuable as yours, if not more.

I had an interesting experience when I sent the letter prototype to
the FSF mailing list in India -- the first reaction that arose was
towards the inclusion of the term ``Open Source'' in the letter.
According to the Free Software proponents, Open Source is a derogatory
term, not fit to be spoken in the same sentence with the Holy Grail of
Free Software.  So don't worry: knee-jerk reactions and programmed
responses aren't the personal property of any community; they are
shared alike by all.

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

For certain values of sanity, possibly.

I believe that I can do equally effective work by getting corporates
and governments in India to switch to Linux from Microsoft since it'll
make India a richer country in the long term.  I believe that one NIIT
converted to teaching Linux as its main operating system is worth more
than teaching 10,000 slum children Linux since the benefits of having
competent Linux administrators, programmers and advocates will trickle
down to everyone within a short period of time.  I believe that having
high-class commercial support for Linux will cause its quicker and
wider adoption and result in benefits to society as a whole.

I'm likely to be damned for holding such heretical thoughts, but it
doesn't matter.  In the eternal divide between doers and talkers, I
see that I'm on the wrong side of the fence, but I still prefer to act
rather than sit in my armchair and use big words, high rhetoric,
well-written prose and a blinkered mindset to belittle the efforts
that others are making.

There doesn't seem to be any point in continuing this conversation or
remaining on this mailing list, since I can see that I'll never be
able to get through the self-imposed limitations I see all around.
I'd rather spend my time in some arena which is slightly less
inward-looking: where the primary objective isn't mutual reinforcement
of identical mindsets and beliefs.

Wishing you all the best in your efforts,

-- Raju
-- 
Raju Mathur          raju at kandalaya.org           http://kandalaya.org/