Dear Prof. Bapat,
Thank you very much for the reply. It means a lot for us. Is this Friday 6:00 pm possible
for you and other faculty members? I am keeping the education group of FSCI in the cc just
so that they will also get the update.
I agree that most people would view this as a nuisance. But this is always the case for
many changes that are made for the good. All of us at FSCI need to work hard convincing
people that freedom is so important that paying some cost is completely fine, and returns
are huge. As I also said in my last e-mail, although software freedom is our main goal, as
a side effect we also end up saving money. In this case, some of us can also volunteer for
talking to people if they are ready to talk to.
Kindly let us know so that we would be able to schedule the meeting. I will send you a
meeting link after the confirmation. Thanks again.
Best regards,
Snehal M. Shekatkar
--
Snehal M Shekatkar
Pune, India
https://inferred.co
Sep 27, 2021, 15:15 by dean.acad(a)iiserpune.ac.in:
Dear Snehal,
Sorry for the delay in responding to you. I have been rather busy, and could not
therefore pay attention to this.
I appreciate the effort you are putting in and I am sure there are some people here who
would be interested in the proposal you have made. However, I am afraid, that any change
will generally be looked upon as a nuisance and a time sink by the majority of people.
So, although I do see merit in what you are trying to do, I can't promise you anything
at the moment. We are mainly using Google Classroom for online teaching, mainly because
of a perceived ease of transition when the pandemic hit the hardest, although we have had
the moodle platform running for some courses during normal times. I am sure that even
after the online classroom phase is over, people will continue to use online tools, so it
would be useful to discuss your proposal.
Let me try to put together a team of people who would be interested, and we can meet
either this coming Friday or early next week.
Sorry once again for the delay.
Regards,
Bhas
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Bhas Bapat
Dean (Academics)
and
Professor (Physics)
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research
Pune 411008
India
Phone : +91-20-2590-8248
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
From: > "snehal" <snehal(a)inferred.co>
To: > "dean acad" <dean.acad(a)iiserpune.ac.in>
Cc: > "MS Santhanam" <santh(a)iiserpune.ac.in>
Sent: > Wednesday, 22 September, 2021 11:44:22
Subject: > About IISER Pune switching to Free Software for Education
Dear Prof. Bhas Bapat,
I am an assistant professor in Pune University, and I also happen to be a working group
member of the Free Software Foundation of India (FSFI) and that of Free Software Community
of India (FSCI). I had talked to Prof. M.S. Santhanam about a possibility that IISER Pune
may want to entirely switch to Free Software for educational activities. I am willing to
offer assistance on behalf of FSCI for this transition.
Thus, would it be possible for you along with one or two other faculty members from IISER
Pune to meet us online sometime to discuss the issue in more detail? Although we are
mainly concerned about software freedom, and not money, as a side-effect IISER Pune would
also end up saving large amount of money if you do decide to switch. I would highly
appreciate if you could find some time from your busy schedule for the proposed meeting.
If you want any quick discussion, you can also call me on my cellphone (9673847472).
We eagerly wait for your positive response.
Best regards,
Snehal Shekatkar
--
Snehal M Shekatkar
Pune, India
https://inferred.co