Fsf-friends November 2005

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19 participants
35 discussions

Could this affect education?
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 14 Nov '05

14 Nov '05

http://www.thehindu.com/edu/2005/09/26/stories/2005092600150200.htm Microsoft award for teachers Microsoft Corporation India Private Limited has announced the second round of its "Innovative Teachers Leadership" awards 2005. Instituted last year, under its flagship India education programme "Project Shiksha," these awards seek to honour school teachers who innovatively use IT in their teaching techniques. The entries for the award are currently open to both Government and private school teachers and will close on September 30, 2005. The top five entrants will be selected by a panel of judges. They will then attend a three-day regional seminar in Seoul, South Korea. The winner, from the region will then attend the global seminar in the U.S.

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[OFFTOPIC]: APC blog on Tunis... http://www.apc.org/english/wsis/blog/index.shtml
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 14 Nov '05

14 Nov '05

>From the APC blog. Please add your voice here... There are also APC blogs in Spanish and French getting underway. FN http://www.apc.org/english/wsis/blog/index.shtml Making the ride to cyberspace less costly, bumpy By FN (Frederick Noronha) 14/11/2005 08:08 [Access, ICT policy, Communication rights, Content & language] En route to the promised global village, the information superhighway is plagued by poor access and high fares that the bulk of this planet simply cannot afford. Reducing international internet costs is an important priority, underlined in a set of recommendations from the APC made to the WSIS stresses.Read more... Crucial drafting session in Tunis on internet governance By APCNews 13/11/2005 20:40 [Internet governance] Late on Sunday night, November 13, 2005, an assembly of about 100 people agreed to a series of minimal points of common ground related to internet governance in Tunis. These points were then to be reported back to the general plenary of what is called the resumed PrepCom 3 meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) for definitive negotiation and implementation. Read more... Some figures... and hard facts By FN (Frederick Noronha) 13/11/2005 20:24 [Communication rights] Some figures, and hard facts, from a Highway Africa article, titled ICT4 All expo to attract 40,000 participants: "According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the 942 million people living in the world's developed economies enjoy five times better access to fixed and mobile phone services, nine times better access to Internet services, and own 13 times more personal computers than the 85 per cent of the world's population living in low and lower-middle income countries. ITU also estimates that 800,000 villages still lack connection by telephone line, the Internet or any other modern ICT." Read more... Don't take pictures@WSIS-Tunis By Shahzad (BytesForAll, Pakistan) 13/11/2005 18:02 [Civil society participation, Communication rights] Maxigas -- a friend from Hungary -- and myself had the opportunity to go to the Tunis City Centre last afternoon, just to have a feel of the city and get to know a little more about Tunis. The atmosphere seemed quite festive, and preparations for the WSIS are in full swing. Green plants are being transported in numbers and transplanted on roadsides and important squares, large pictures of the Tunisian President are installed everywhere, and even most of the banners also carry his pictures welcoming the WSIS delegates ;) But questions remain.... Read more... Some voices... about Tunis By FN 13/11/2005 16:43 [Media & ICTs, WSIS implementation] How's the world comprehending Tunis? From disinterest to unheard voices, bewilderment, hidden agendas and nationalistic positions... all these seem to be the trends emerging from the media conference on November 2005's World Summit on the Information Society at Tunisia. More so, if one looks at the media from a Southern perspective. Read more... The WSIS is _not_ in Tunis By maxigas 13/11/2005 07:45 [Local ICT tactics, WSIS implementation] Yesterday me and Shahzad had a chance to see Tunis in all its WSIS splendour. Tunis as a city has been completely appropriated by the WSIS campaign. Public spaces where people lead their daily lives are heavily marked by a campaign about an event that they have no meaningful way to experience, and that will perhaps not bring any lasting good for their country. Read more... New book... via Tunis By Partha Pratim Sarker 12/11/2005 08:23 Word Matters Multicultural perspectives on information societies has been described as "a collective work by some 30 authors from civil societies all over the world, deciphers the central concepts of the 'information society'." Read more... Ultimate webmaster, citizens' voice By FN 12/11/2005 08:03 [Internet governance, Civil society participation] Might interest you: Inter-Press Service has this story U.S. Fights to Remain the Ultimate Webmaster which says that international efforts to break down the digital barriers facing the world's poor will backfire if governments fail to work out their differences on the issue of internet governance. Meanwhile, here's the website for the Citizens' Summit on the Information Society (CSIS). It was launched on November 10. Read more... Technorati links (2488 and growing) By FN 12/11/2005 07:40 Technorati.com, the search engine for blogs, throws up a total of 2,488 posts related to the WSIS among the 21 million sites and 1.7 billion links that it tracks. Read more... WSIS Panel on WIPO and IPRs (Nov 16) By Al Alegre 12/11/2005 07:19 [Intellectual property] Thought this -- IPJ at WSIS:A parallel event to be held at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis -- would be of interest. Not sure if it conflicts with any events. Probably will :-). Read more... Gender voices from Tunis By Katerina Fialova 12/11/2005 05:20 [Civil society participation, Gender & ICTs] Here's some information about GenderIT.org coverage planned for the WSIS at Tunis in mid-November 2005. See details of what's expected via websites, blogs, RSS feeds and more, to keep cyberspace informed about what's emerging. Read more... APC ... reflecting the WSIS By FN 12/11/2005 04:24 [Civil society participation] Some of APC's plans for reflecting what's happening at Tunis include its English and Spanish websites and a blog in French These blogs aim to be a mix of indepth structured articles plus notes and comment from the APC team in Tunis, and anyone else who would like to write. It's open to the public to post items and comments, subject to posts being relevant to the theme. Read more... APC... on internet governance By APC 11/11/2005 18:05 [Internet governance] APC has participated extensively in the internet governance process at the World Summit on Information Society. Out of this participation and in collaboration with other partners, including members of the WSIS civil society internet governance caucus, APC has crystallized a set of recommendations with regard to internet governance ahead of the final Summit in Tunis in November 2005. Read more... Blog links By FN (Frederick Noronha) 11/11/2005 17:50 [Communication rights] Wikipedia's entry on the WSIS has this useful set of links to some other blogs on this theme. There's the WSISBlogs.org, a multilingual coalition of bloggers attending WSIS; includes text, photos, podcasts and video; apart from WSIS wire news on the summit; iwitness, offering debate, news and resources for "journalists creating a fairer information society" and The Daily Summit - WSIS and similar World Summit coverage by the British Council Science Team (with items dating back to 2003 and 2004, at the time of blogging). Read more... IPS, WSIS and paedophile issues By Frederick Noronha 11/11/2005 15:56 [Laws & regulation] From my RSS-feed, I just came across this story from one of my favourite news sources -- IPS filing from Bangkok -- that makes a case on why the information society must block paedophiles. Read more... Looking for environmental activists By Milena B. 11/11/2005 06:59 [Environment & ICTs] Just curious whether environmental sustainability and ICTs is taking place somewhere in the WSIS docs at all ;-) It will be good to know if apart from BlueLink, whether there are other NGOs interested to stand up for the issue of environmental sustainability in Tunis. Read more... Welcome to the APC WSIS blog By Karen Higgs• 08/11/2005 16:57 [Access] APC will be producing two APCNews/APCNoticias specials direct from WSIS and for the first time, original content in French. Watch our for our trilingual English-Spanish-French blogs! Read more... -- _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ Frederick Noronha | Independent Journalist | Ph 832.2409490 _/ Goa India | fred(a)bytesforall.org | http://fn.notlong.com _/ Mobile: 0 9822 122436 | http://fn-at-google.notlong.com _/ _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ EDUCATION INDIA: Relevant discussions from the world of education http://puggy.symonds.net/pipermail/education-india/ (See archives)

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OFFTOPIC: There are more Internet users in London than in the whole of Pakistan...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 12 Nov '05

12 Nov '05

Just sharing these figuress downloaded from a Tunis 2005-related website... FN http://www.itu.int/wsis/tunis/newsroom/stats/index.html ASIA-PACIFIC The world’s most diverse region, Asia-Pacific’s 41 economies span 30% of the world’s land mass, encompass 3’500 languages, and are home to 57% of the world’s population (or 3.6 billion people). Nowhere is the digital divide more pronounced. Internet penetration ranges from below 1% in countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia and Lao, to above 65% in countries like Australia and the Republic of Korea. Mobile penetration ranges from below 1% in countries like Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal and Papua New Guinea to 90% or more in countries like Hong Kong (China) and Singapore. China remains the region’s powerhouse. During 2004, the country added an average 5.4 million new mobile subscribers every month. China already represents almost 50% of the entire Asian mobile market in terms of subscriber numbers, yet domestic penetration still hovers at around just 25%. That translates into another one billion more potential mobile customers. India has overtaken China to become one of the region’s fastest-growing mobile markets, with growth rates of over 90% per annum every year since 1999. With just total mobile penetration rates of just over 4%, potential for growth is enormous. The Republic of Korea leads the world in broadband penetration, with high-speed lines serving more than a quarter of the population. Did you know that . . . ? Figures can paint a striking picture of the ICT landscape around the world. ITU provides some interesting snapshots, drawn from its 2004 ICT World Telecommunication Indicators Database. Internet * In 2004, less than 3 out of every 100 Africans use the Internet, compared with an average of 1 out of every 2 inhabitants of the G8 countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and the US). * There are roughly around the same total number of Internet users in the G8 countries as in the whole rest of the world combined: * 429 million Internet users in G8 * 444 million Internet users in non-G8 * The G8 countries are home to just 15% of the world’s population - but almost 50% of the world’s total Internet users. * It is estimated that top 20 countries in terms of Internet bandwidth are home to roughly 80% of all Internet users worldwide. * There are more than 8 times as many Internet users in the US than on the entire African continent. * There are more than three times as many Internet users in Japan as on the entire African continent. * There are more than twice as many Internet users in Germany than on the entire African continent. * The entire African continent - home to over 50 countries - has fewer Internet users than France alone. * There are more Internet users in Seoul (Republic of Korea), than all of sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa. * There are more Internet users in London than in the whole of Pakistan. * Switzerland, host of the first World Summit on the Information Society, has five times the Internet penetration rate of Tunisia, host of the second Summit. * Discrepancies in international Internet bandwidth - the critical infrastructure that dictates the speed at which websites in other countries can be accessed - are nothing short of astounding. Tiny Denmark has more than twice the international Internet bandwidth that the whole of Latin American and the Caribbean combined. * The high cost of international bandwidth is often a major constraint, with developing countries often having to pay the full cost of a link to a hub in a developed country. More than 40 countries have less than 10Mbps of international Internet bandwidth, whereas in Belgium, a 9Mbps ADSL high-speed Internet package is available for just EUR 60 a month. * There are still 30 countries with an Internet penetration of less than 1% Mobile * The 14% of the world’s population that lives in the G8 countries accounts for 34% of the world’s total mobile users. Fixed * Of Africa’s 26 million fixed lines, over 75% are found in just 6 of the 55 African nations. * Africa has an average of 3 fixed lines per 100 people. * The Americas region has an average of 34 fixed lines per 100 people. * Europe and the CIS has an average of 40 fixed lines per 100 people.

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List of malayalam words
by balachandran c 12 Nov '05

12 Nov '05

Does anybody know where I can find a list of malayalam words? Is a compilation of words copyrightable? How about mathematical models derived from such compilations? If a freely usable list does not exist, can we approach some literary organization to help make one available? Such word lists and corpora are essential for developing models for software like OCR. While individuals can work on aspects related to algorithms, it is extremely difficult to build their own databases for such purposes. Thanks in advance, Bala.

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EFF india
by Thejesh GN 11 Nov '05

11 Nov '05

Hello All, I have created the group for discussion related to EFF in India. http://groups.google.com/group/efforgin Please join the list to continue the discussion. Please see the article below for more discussion http://www.techmag.biz/time_for_eff_india Previuous mails regarding this Lawrence view: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/2004-April/001713.html Badri and Mahesh's view: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/2004-April/001715.html Let me know if you have any questions. And sorry for mailing multiple list. Its just that I don't want to miss anybody interested. To: Cibot Yes it was created for the same reason. Thanks, Thejesh GN www.techmag.biz <http://www.techmag.biz> On 11/11/05, Cibot <ciibin(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > I have been following up lot of posts to group about starting an EFF > like organization in india. And i couldnt find any action on that. > Is this the group created for that? > > Regards, > Cibot > >

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Announcing Small Research Grant Programme of SPACE
by Vimal Joseph 10 Nov '05

10 Nov '05

Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment (SPACE), Kerala, invites applications for its Small Research Grant programme to projects in the area of FLOSS (Free Libré and Open Source Software). SPACE invites developers/researchers/programmers (practitioners as well as students) to propose projects in the area of FLOSS (Free Libré and Open Source Software) applications. These projects can be software development or research initiatives, or associated tasks such as localization or documentation. Some of the priority areas under this programme are : - Local language computing - Solutions for Small and Medium Businesses - Education - E-Governance Some ideas for your thought: - OCR for Malayalam - Tools for School Education - Mini ERP for SMEs - Software for Microcredit for Self Help Groups We are looking for original ideas as well as contributions to existing Free Software projects. Please send your project proposal to research-grant(a)space-kerala.org or SPACE 109 Mangalam Lane, Sasthamangalam, Thiruvananthapuram 10 Kerala. a rough format of proposal available at http://space-kerala.org/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=32 About SPACE ----------- SPACE, the Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment, is a registered society that has members from academia, IT industry, professional societies such as IEEE and Computer Society of India, and IT Administration of the Government of Kerala. The vision of SPACE is to promote Free, Libré and Open Source Software (FLOSS) in academics, governance and individual use, and supporting advocating the use FLOSS for employment generation in Kerala. contact(a)space-kerala.org www.space-kerala.org -- Vimal Joseph www.space-kerala.org Free Software, Free Society <http://fsfs.hipatia.net/wiki>

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[offtopic]Free software activists/developers wanted
by Vimal Joseph 10 Nov '05

10 Nov '05

Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment is is an intiative for promotion of Free software in Kerala. We are looking for candiates with basic knowledge of GNU/Linux Operating System and philosophy and good organisational skills. Applicant must have conversational skills in Malayalam language. Programming skills in GNU/Linux Operating System is advantageous. Send your resume to contact(a)space-kerala.org -- Vimal Joseph www.space-kerala.org Free Software, Free Society <http://fsfs.hipatia.net/wiki>

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First and only magazine for the new [GNU]Linux user....
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 09 Nov '05

09 Nov '05

TUX is the "first and only magazine for the new [GNU]Linux user". See http://www.tuxmagazine.com Currently issue number 8 (November 2005) is available on "the stands". What more, it's available for a free download. I did download the issue of May 2005. Just as an illustration, here are some of the easy-to-understand articles it contains: * Can anyone use [GNU]Linux? * Viva La [GNU]Linux Desktop Revolucion * Q&A with Mango Parfait. Mango Parfait introduces herself, answers her own questions with astounding facility and invites you to ask her your own questions. Don't be shy. There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers. * Home Plate: Movies and More -- Life with Xine * Suited up: The Cuts and Pastes of OpenOffice.org Productivity * Tux Explains: Linking Users with Their Data * Tux Explains: Be the Master of All You Survey: Using Konqueror for File Management and Domination. * Tux Explains: All about Screensavers, and Why you Want to Run Them * Tux Explains: Going Guru -- Michael's Top GIMP Tips * Reviews: Adding PDF Power to OpenOffice.org * Abiword * Gaim * Rhythmbox * Totem Movie Player * The light and dark side of [GNU]Linux multimedia... Did you know that all these films include computer animation rendered using GNU/Linux? The movies are: The Incredibles, Shrek, Shrek 2, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Titanic, Ice Age, Spawn, Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron, Sphere, Peter Pan, Bunny, Barbie of Swan Lake, Joe Fly & Sanchez, Los Gringos and The Night of the Headless Horsemen. -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Frederick 'FN' Noronha | http://fn-at-google.notlong.com Saligao, Goa, India | fred(a)bytesforall.org Independent Journalist | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9822122436 ----------------------------------------------------------

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How to help Free/Open Source Projects
by gaurav 06 Nov '05

06 Nov '05

How to help Free/Open Source Projects I am writing this article after I took into account if i was doing something for promoting Open/Free Source Projects . How many times has that rescue CD we use has saved Us? How many times has the free/Open source software that comes bundled with some Gnu/Linux Distro proved a lot to us or that Live Gnu/Linux Cd helped us and we have felt proud of possessing that Software/Distro? How many times we have been able to stand up against pirated software with our help high along with the Free/Open Source software that works along with other copyrighted Platforms as well ? How many times have we been helped by some expert on any forum? I hope not many of us can take into account the above in pure numeric terms . What Have we done to promote Free/Open source related projects? Very few of these projects have the support of sponsors(maybe 2%-5% of these projects)These projects do require some encouragement and some monetary encouragement also to survive with the resources required to keep them running. Good projects receive some donations in form of Money or resources such as Internet Bandwidth (Mirror for downloading software),Computer Hardware for their development or Server . I do not know about any team that has been making big profits from the donations they receive . These just suffice them to keep their projects alive and kicking. Helping these projects is necessary as they provide this premium collection of software for free .Else they will also start charging for the premium version or to sign up for some help forum.Already some Distros and Software Vendors have started following this strategy.After all they too need to upgrade themselves to survive. These projects can e helped in some way or the other some of them that i could think of Donate some Money directly to these Organizations. A good way can be through affero.net ,from where you can choose various organizations who will benefit from any money you donate.(the minimum amount you can donate is 5$) Buy the Free Cds that are available for download, directly from these Organizations ,that way also you can help them and you can get some more premium service. Many of these Organization carry ads of their sponsors, these can fetch some some money(although meagre) for the User Clicks they generate.Visiting their sponsors can also help them. Help them while offering a Download Mirror for their Software/Distro, this wil reduce the Bandwidth Cost for such Organizations.In india there is dearth of such download mirrors.Corporates/Educational Institutes can get involved here if they provide the required bandwidth for non-office hours only. There are many other ways for helping these organizations. I do not know how many of us might have helped such Organizations but i think a sum of 5$-20$ can be donated on a yearly basis to any such Organization. gaurav masand linux4all[at]gmail.com -- my site:http://www.gnulinuxclub.org my blog:http://linux4all.blogspot.com my project:http://masand.sourceforge.net

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Some Differences Between Free and Proprietorial Software (by Guido Sohne)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 05 Nov '05

05 Nov '05

An interesting article from Guido Sohne guido at sohne.net on the GKD mailing list. -FN -----Original Message----- From: On Behalf Of Guido Sohne Sent: November 4, 2005 6:26 PM To: gkd(a)milhouse.edc.org Subject: [GKD] Some Differences Between Free and Proprietary Software Dear GKD Members: I wrote this with the intent of informing decision makers who are facing a decision of 'open source' versus 'proprietary software' to understand the choice they are making by explaining the context in an approachable manner. -- G. ************************************************** Some Differences Between Free And Proprietary Software * Introduction This article is an attempt to dissect some differences between free and proprietary software in an accessible manner, free from jargon and the techno-gobbledegook dialect favored by some technical people. * Two Different Worlds Proprietary software is created by organizations that seek to maximize profit by restricting production. The usual and common objective of such organizations is to operate and maintain a continued revenue stream, for maximum profit. Restricted production and the continued revenue objective result in a dependency syndrome for users - they can't ever stop paying. Proprietary software is mainly provided by companies that use the access-restrictions of copyright laws to maintain well-defined segments across their markets as well as to maintain barriers to market entry by competitors as a means of maximizing revenue across market segments by trying to minimize the costs of dealing with competitive threats, thus helping to maximize profits. >From a modern microeconomic perspective the business secret aspect of intellectual property is only one part of a multi-faceted set ofprofit-maximization tactics firms can and do employ, in either freely competitive, oligopolized or monopolized markets. Other related tactics include marketing and support expenditures that can make market entry more expensive or that can help lock-in consumers. Firms engaged in such behaviour, often are unwilling to share their technologies, especially those beyond the development capacity of most of the market, as an additional means of restricting competition by restricting the availability of the product. Free software, on the other hand, has no profit motivations as its basis for organization. Instead, free software seeks to ensure that there are as few restrictions to software production as possible. Free software does not make a distinction between the level of access granted to the product given to its users and that given to its developers. Free software maximizes the potential for production to occur. Unfettered by the profit motive and guided by higher ideals of freedom, sharing and communal ownership of knowledge, free software is more oriented towards the product and its development and far less attuned to anti-competitive business strategies, necessitated by its goal of minimizing restriction to the software product. It is important to note here, that this sort of anti-competitive behaviour described is not limited to the software industry but rather permeates much of the status quo for business practices in industries that produce digital goods (software, music, film). The popular grassroots movement that is the basis of the increased usage and utility of free software is at the core, a rejection of this anti-competitive behaviour and this is evident in their clarion call for increased freedom. * Licensing of Software Software licenses are contracts attached to the software, either in raw or finished form, that determine the expectations, rights and obligations of the parties to the contract. As used by software producing organizations, licenses are primarily a means to either restrict, or ensure access to the product in both its raw and finished form. Restricted production licenses usually differentiate between access to the product in its raw form and in its finished form. Such licenses often only grant access to users on the basis they are the only permitted user of the finished form of the software product that has been given access to the software. Other users must also buy licenses for continued revenue and maximum profit. Free software licenses operate by removing the distinction between raw and finished form, emphasizing the raw form as the actual software product. If the software comes in finished form, the raw form of the software must be present or readily accessible. This is in line with the free software objective of ensuring that there are as few restrictions on production as possible. Free software licenses often block restriction of the software product by restricting use of the software to exclude scenarios or situations that result in restrictions being placed on the software that would have adverse effects on production. * Locked In Competition For Users Software licenses are almost always centered around the user of the software. On one hand are organizations seeking maximum profit and on the other hand are organizations seeking maximum access (unrestricted access to the software product). However, developers are those with the ability to utilize unrestricted access. In the free software world, the user can be a developer too. In the proprietary software world, other developers are often 'the enemy' because it is only other developers who can create a competing product. And in between this war between worlds of developers, stands the hapless user ... Significant resources are devoted to proprietary software in order for it to appeal and compete for the expenditure of users. Restricting users' access to the software by supplying it solely in finished form causes more effort to be placed into making the software usable by ordinary users (as opposed to developers). In this manner, proprietary software evolves to be biased heavily to the ordinary user, often at the same time making it hard or impossible for other developers (who are also users of the software) to work with the software in its raw form. The proprietary software approach of restricting production to finished form also biases the productive options available to overwhelmingly favor the organization owning the software product. In the case of companies like Microsoft, whose software comes preinstalled on the vast majority of computers being sold, the user often has no choice but to use the software. Any other route often results in more work for the user. They have to go and find some other software and get it installed. When they do so, they encounter incompatibilities, which incidentally, are in favor of Microsoft maintaining its monopoly by making it easier just to stay with Microsoft products, which of course, work well together. The resulting state of affairs is in total contradiction to the free software goal of ensuring minimal restrictions on software production and software choice for the end user or individual developer. Free software accomplishes this by predominantly taking a 'laissez-faire' approach to ordinary users as well as to its developers. The only restriction faced by developers when producing free software is in integrating their own improvements to the source code. This restriction arises from the free software goal of maximizing the efficiency of software production. If there are no restrictions on changes to the raw form of the product, it quickly becomes buggy or unstable unless the developers are of equivalent skill or are familiar with the code involved, otherwise it devolves into a hodgepodge that just doesn't work. Only well thought out and well tested changes should ideally make it into the software product, and even this is best done in a gradual, incremental manner. This necessary mechanism for restricting software production in a manner that maximizes efficiency takes the shape of the other developers of the software, who by fiat, consensus, war, politics or rewriting the affected code constitute a peer review mechanism operating around the goal of production efficiency within their common visions and objectives. Developers have the choice to do what they please and often prefer to do what pleases them at the expense of the ordinary user, who is assumed not to understand the specific benefits of the particular improvement. On the other hand, users or organizations have the opportunity to encourage developers by giving them incentives to work on improvements preferred by the user. This interplay between the two types of users (technical and non-technical) of free software evolves into a symbiotic relationship, where the developer has no reason to work if no one will use his work, and the users have no choice but to depend on a developer to do what they cannot do for them. Both benefit, each contributing to the resources needed for production. * Differences in Organization of Labor The mode in which labor (developers working to maintain or enhance the product) is organized differs between the proprietary and commercial approaches. Organizations producing proprietary software, being mostly driven by the profit motive, and restricting production need to be able to control ownership of the software and at the same time utilize developers to make changes or improvements to the software while maximizing profit. Organizations producing free software are often places where individuals interested in producing the software are employed because the organization and the individual have aligned interests for the software. This is because the free software development process is organized on the basis of individuals. Organizations are represented only by an individual, and such individuals have influence proportionate to their contribution to the software product. Free software often operates as a self organized, developer centric culture resting on individual reputation and esteem in the eyes of the rest of the team. Comparing the two methods of production, it could be concluded that proprietary software developers seek to maximize income while free software developers seek to maximize their contribution to, and influence over, the software product itself. * Mode Of Production In order to achieve this, these organizations hire developers and pay them for their contribution to the software product. Done as a work for hire, the ownership of the product, primarily exercised through copyright, remains with the organization that hired the developer. The cost of developers and the general cost of doing business translates into a total cost for production that must be recouped by sales to users. The price at which the product is sold depends on how many users choose to use the software, or how many users are compelled or coerced to use the software. With free software, the general cost of doing business is often incidental and not central to the objectives of people or organizations producing it. Maximum access to successful free software products often results in multiple organizations making changes or contributions to the software. If one of the organizations participating in the free software development process disappears or changes its objectives and abandons the software, the other organizations are not affected. At the same time, the developers working on free software are often still available to different degrees of availability even when their organization collapses, because the raw form of the software product is not restricted to the organization only. They can continue working and may even join the organizations remaining. Due to this, the free software development process results in software products that exhibit robustness even in the face of adverse economic circumstances. In such cases, the efficiency of development is even increased because the developers will have more time to work on changes to the products that they prefer, while being underemployed with respect to potential output. The ability to utilize underemployment effectively is a strong contributing factor to the efficiency of the free software development process. Additionally, free software development reduces the perceived cost of developing software by distributing the cost of development across all the participants in the process. This is in contrast to the proprietary software development process, where the cost of development is distributed across the user base and results in lower prices for the user. These lower prices are partly due to the increased supply due to the absence of restricted production. * Conclusion Proprietary and free software are different approaches to producing software products that are competing for users and resources. Proprietary software development restricts access to the software product by prohibiting copying but free software development encourages access to the software product by prohibiting restrictions on copying. Proprietary software development is most efficient at maximizing profits but free software development is most efficient at maximizing production. The choice is always up to you, the user of the software, in how to exercise your interests. ------------ ***GKD is solely supported by EDC, a Non-Profit Organization*** To post a message, send it to: <gkd(a)mail.edc.org> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <majordomo(a)mail.edc.org>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.edc.org/GLG/gkd/>

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Fsf-friends November 2005