[Reader-list] freedom v/s freesoftware

[Pankaj]

On Sun, Aug 12, 2001 at 06:37:11PM +0100, Prabhat Kumar wrote:
> 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.
LUG's are not an entity its a group of people and people
have opinions you can not and should not generalise

Hackers criticise Microsoft because of the bad quality
of there products and their business techniques.

 
> 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.

I belive you dont know any thing about the GPL
Go sit in a corner for ten minutes. and then read the GPL.

And if you have followed this list there were discussions
about medicine knowledge being free.

> 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.
And what makes you belive that its LUG's problem to make
everyone realise that th LUG exists. I belive it is more
importan that people nknow their rights and how and in what
way the goverment/police can screw them and are deciding about 
new ways to do the same.

Free Software is a noble concept and LUG's are a nice way to 
get free pizza. There are more important things in life.

>Frankly
> speaking, LUGs are too culturally coded for large
> section of people to participate. 
Did I stopped you to join our's or start your own.

>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 do not and never will buy this concept of mother toung 
mother land and all this shit I strictly belive this all
is crap and is just mind control If it makes sense to speak 
dutch I will learn and speak dutch. So it makes more sense 
to speak english in India Because more people understand
english then my mother toung (being Dogari) so please don't 
4try to sell this mother toung /land crap to me or any sane 
person.
And hindi might be your primary language. its not mine.

>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, 
I don't know how to bake a cake and all the recipies are
too technical to understand and the ingrediens listed 
are not available in the store near me baking needs too
much hardware and I can not afford it.
Who's fault is this?

What you wrote above is absolute crap.

>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.
I belive you don't understand the concept of free software 
as well.

What You are saying is absolutly absurd.
You mean If I belive i Free Software and write code and
free it from myself and release it under GNU GPL I should
also make sure that every one gets the resources to use my s/w?

> 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? 
NO 
Go sit in a corner for ten minutes and then Go read The GPL again.

> 
> 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 don't think So. I beliv people who brag about going to slums
and doing great for the miserable community just suck.
I belive the problems of people who are in slums cannot be solved
by paying visits to slums and helping the miseriable people
those people ar'nt incompetent in any way. 

I don't know what you want to do but No linux user/developer
will like to help you if you criticise them. 

LUG's as a community are bunch of technical people trying to
know more about software that is ethically correct. They have
no moral or leagle liablity to help the poor or any of that 
crap.

There is more important stuff a poor person needs then computer 
letracy.
Just Like knowing how to bake a cake is more important to me 
then knowing how to clean the gutter.
--
Pankaj Kaushal