Hi Richard,
The genius that started it all cant be left out. My apologies for calling it "open source". Let me correct it and call it 'free software movement" as i myself firmly believe in the ideology. Thanks again for correcting me.
Now, on students, Richard i dont agree with your and Gopal's view that the mainstream students cant contribute and will not contribute. i agree your assumptions are based on your experience in US and are for sure backed by statistics, but with India it is a bit different.
There is a massive educational setup that india can boast of in IT, especially when IT is generating such a huge revenues for a developing country, the country is for sure interested in upping the tempo in this promising field.
The manpower is in abundance, making India a powerhouse for future global software development alongside US (No. of MNCs setting up dev. centres in India is a witness).
This manpower is of two kinds, one in the industry and one waiting to be churned out.
My experience with the students says; if this community is guided and pushed a bit, they come out with amazing results.
The environment is very conducive for FSF, as gopal said, universities dont claim ownership of the work ... Its good, it can be Free.
Universities in India will be more than willing to associate with FSF for the sake of students. FSF should be willing too. If it does not give us free software, atleast it will push the ideology to a larger base of future professionals.
But with my experience with students in india; i firmly believe they can contribute a lot. Believe me every single student in IT in india has the desire to catch up with the global level. Stakes are higher here for a student than his counterpart in US, my indian friends can understand.
FSF on one hand is a window for them to peep into good quality s/w and on the other hand become a forum for this community to channalize their innovations.
the students are not contributing today on their own because i am sure the majority (in india) is oblivious of our existance or the kind of work being done at FSF or the ideology. We need to push the ideology and i am sure they will push free software back at us.
[to Gopal]
Gopal, if you and me can do it at our individual levels, then lets not leave this community out. If we are able to get 50 wonderful developers per year from this massive community making free software, i dont see it as a failure; alongwith we will sure get a big community supporting the ideology.
[to Richard] Richard, i can vouch for Indian students, they can give you amazing results. Believe me they can rock the base of all the business initiatives and tactics being employed by the properietry world. lets make them understand what free s/w is; the way you have done it for us.
leave you with this thought,
regards, tarun gaur
From: Richard Stallman rms@gnu.org Reply-To: rms@gnu.org To: gaur_tarun@hotmail.com CC: fsf-friends@mm.gnu.org.in, abhas@deeproot.co.in Subject: Re: Mentoring students !! Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 13:51:41 -0500
I have lately been discussing the fact with RMS that how majority ofthe students are being left out of open source initiative (FSF/GNU).
Our discussion was about the free software movement, not "open source". "Open source" is the slogan of another movement in our community, one that rejects our idealism. The Open Source Initiative makes me feel "left out", and I am glad if some others feel the same way.
When people with those views contribute to free software, we recognize their contribution to the community. But we in the FSF never work on "open source" activities. We want it to be clear that what we are doing is "free software".
I have myself been interacting with students on various projects andhave been amazed at their ability to push things through.
This is very different from my experience in the US and Europe. Occasionally a student who becomes a free software developer and does important work acting on his own, but students *in the academic context* hardly ever contribute anything that works.
Have you found it is different in India? I would be glad to learn that Indian students are more effective. If so, it could be worth some effort to try to reach out to them.
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