11 Sep
2002
11 Sep
'02
8:31 a.m.
Hello,
I am forwarding a copy of the letter send to the
The Executive Director
IT @ SCHOOL Project
SCERT Buildings
Poojapura
Thiruvananthapuram-12
itschool(a)asianetindia.com
for comments.
regards
ajith
11 Sep
11 Sep
10:58 a.m.
hi,
Ajith Kumar wrote on Wed, Sep 11, 2002 at 02:01:01PM +0530:
I join fsf-* recently. I'm from chennai and am planning to become a
part-time volunteering teacher for fsf-edu and after 5 or 6 years become
a full-time volunteer.
I have been trying to do the same stuff that you have done so far and I
have certain questions to ask the people here.
[:: Quoting Attachment ::]
* Those who offered entry level courses and
charged moderate fees.
Their fee was decided by the competition in the market. People who
go there do not atach much importance to the certificates they
issue.
Initially I tried offering myself as a volunteering 'free{beer}'
GNU/Linux lecturer at one such chota institute. For the first three days
I never gave technical lectures and all my talks were about software
freedom, etc.,. and by the end of three days, the proprietor of the
institute got bugged and asked me to 'kindly leave' :D From his
perspective, I was more of a 'waste of time' and I could understand that
I only disappointed him for he wanted me to teach something technical.
Maybe I shouldn't have gotten too philisophical. How do you think should
this be done? Should I talk about the freedom aspect at all (atleast
while beginning with)?
[Note: I thought it might have a better impact if he heard about freedom
from the horse's mouth. I gave him a recorded tape of RMS's speech (and
also asked him to make the students hear the tape). No workie]
* The second category is the franchisees of bigger
agencies. Charged
high fees and promised a lot and now busted along with the dotcom
bubble.
This category of institutes is the worst, IMO:
1. They _never_ talk about the freedom aspect.
2. They sometimes give misleading information: (examples: "GNU is a
set of tools", "It was all started in 1991 by a student...", etc.,)
How can they be approached and a change in syllabus be brought about?
Has anybody successfully corrected them?
Syllabus (changes to that put on the
web)
Functional introduction to IT. Hardware and Software parts of a
computer.
[:snip:]
Essential part. Interacts with the user - starts
other programs
-manages storage. Starting the OS - the booting process -
wouldn't it be nice if the free software movement's efforts, goals, path
finds a mention in the syllabus? :)
I would also be glad to find more volunteers from chennai for conducting
small GNU/Linux workshops for children of the age 10 and above.
I have an idea of conducting puppet shows for younger children (9 and
below) talking about the freedom aspect at one of the schools here.
Would it be worth an attempt?
suggestions would be very helpful.
thanks & regards,
-Suraj
--
+----------------------------------------------<suraj(a)chennailug.org>--+
| Startled by the slackening of my clasping hands, |
| this bangled hapless soul paled in her forehead |
| (withering of beauty - 8), Thirukkural |
+--<http://www.symonds.net/~suraj/>------------------------------------+
12 Sep
12 Sep
8:46 a.m.
Suraj Kumar wrote:
I never gave technical lectures and all my talks were
about software freedom,
etc.,. and by the end of three days, the proprietor of the institute got
bugged and asked me to 'kindly leave' :D From his perspective, I was more of
a 'waste of time' and I could understand that I only disappointed him for he
wanted me to teach something technical. Maybe I shouldn't have gotten too
philosophical. How do you think should this be done? Should I talk about the
freedom aspect at all (at least while beginning with)?
That is the difficulty with most (almost all) non-european/anglo-saxon cultures.
We pay little, if any, attention and/or respect to "intellectual property"
"belonging" to others. (Please note the quotation marks).
AFAI see, unless some software giant conducts a few raids, and sends a few
people behind bars for piracy, nobody in computer-related establishments are
going to respect IP or copyrights. I have noticed that copyrights are a
non-issue with most people. Indeed, only if the raids like referred to above
take place, people would begin to respect copyrights. My guess is that such
raids, as and when they take place, would give an immense boost to free s/w,
since that would force people who would rather not pay switch over. And for
those who are willing to pay, they will start demanding their money's worth.
There was an article somewhere (slashdot?) about two months back, saying that
software piracy is harming the free software movement more than it is harming
the Giants themselves.
All this apart, the end user is rarely concerned with terms of the license.
Only developers, and persons who need to exchange copyrighted materials are
concerned with distribution / redistribution / modifications. Hence, though
licensing issues should be covered even in short term courses, they are ideally
taken up at the end of a course, not the beginning.
1. They _never_ talk about the freedom aspect. 2. They
sometimes give
misleading information: (examples: "GNU is a set of tools", "It was all
started in 1991 by a student...", etc.,)
How can they be approached and a change in syllabus be brought about? Has
anybody successfully corrected them?
Here is a gem I heard :- Linus uses MS windows on his PC.
Those "poor guys" survive with the money earned selling certification for
closed
software.
wouldn't it be nice if the free software
movement's efforts, goals, path
finds a mention in the syllabus? :)
Yes, in Kerala, our govt. will shortly include free software in the syllabus ;),
on its own, and if it does not, we are going to make them ....
Why don't you try to find out what the syllabus in TN says? That is, if at all
IT is part of your school curriculum.
Mahesh T Pai.
13 Sep
13 Sep
4:54 a.m.
Mahesh posts :
> saying that software piracy is harming the free
software movement
> more than it is harming the Giants themselves
Software gets copied illegally.
Illegally copied software cannot harm the Free Software movement because
no revenue stream is hit. Maybe FS dissemination would be slow due to
the widespread and prevalent use of illegally copied software. The
Giants would slowly bleed to death due to rampant copying because of
oxygen cut off. Slashdot may have been saying this, anyway I shall
Google and get to it.
Best.....
--
.-"".__."``". ragOO, Amateur Radio VU2RGU
.-.--. _...' (/) (/) ``' Free Software for a Brave GNU World
(O/ O) \-' ` -="""=. ', Computing as a Community
Resource!
~`~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
8:33 a.m.
On Fri, 13 Sep 2002 10:24:17 +0530, Raghavendra Bhat wrote:
Mahesh posts :
I think you've missed the point. So-called piracy of proprietary
software *definitely* harms Free Software because it propagates
product lock-in. And there is no denying the fact that people and
businesses locked-in to proprietary software (paid for or not) are the
ones most unlikely to switch to free software.
However, Mahesh's assumption that if such a locked-in entity is
"raided" for piracy, s/he/they will switch to free software is not
convincing because the hidden costs of such a switch may be too high;
re-training, migration of proprietary format data, even porting of
custom applications, these may all serve as huge disincentives to
switching. Therefore, if "raided", it might be less costly for such an
entity to go out and purchase a proprietary software license than
switch to free software.
One more reason to keep "cost" out of the free software advocacy
picture.
--
Khuzaima A. Lakdawala
> saying that software piracy is harming the
free software movement
> more than it is harming the Giants themselves
Illegally copied software cannot harm the Free Software movement because
no revenue stream is hit. 
4:08 p.m.
>>>> "klak" == Khuzaima A
Lakdawala <klak(a)giasbm01.vsnl.net.in> writes:
klak> On Fri, 13 Sep 2002 10:24:17 +0530, Raghavendra Bhat wrote:
> Mahesh posts :
>
> >> saying that software piracy is harming the free software
> movement >> more than it is harming the Giants themselves
>
> Illegally copied software cannot harm the Free Software
> movement because no revenue stream is hit.
klak> [snip]
klak> However, Mahesh's assumption that if such a locked-in entity
klak> is "raided" for piracy, s/he/they will switch to free
klak> software is not convincing because the hidden costs of such
klak> a switch may be too high; re-training, migration of
klak> proprietary format data, even porting of custom
klak> applications, these may all serve as huge disincentives to
klak> switching. Therefore, if "raided", it might be less costly
klak> for such an entity to go out and purchase a proprietary
klak> software license than switch to free software.
Not just that. If you (hypothetically) are raided and found with
illegally copied software on your premises or your computer you are
liable to be put into jail. Also as far as I know a miniscule
percentage of people from companies that have been raided have
actually been put in jail. What happens to the rest?
Well, MS and Adobe et al and their minions the BSA and NASSCOM step in
and tell you, `So which do you prefer, going to jail or purchasing the
software legally?'
Guess which option most companies take?
-- Raju
--
Raju Mathur raju(a)kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/
It is the mind that moves
16 Sep
16 Sep
1:51 p.m.
On Wed, 11 Sep 2002 16:28:05 +0530, Suraj Kumar <suraj(a)symonds.net> wrote:
wouldn't it be nice if the free software
movement's efforts, goals, path
finds a mention in the syllabus? :)
It already does in Kerala, thanks to the efforts of free software
advocates in Thiruvananthapuram. This was noted some time back on the
fsf-edu mailing list.
--
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6 comments
6 participants
participants (6)
-
Ajith Kumar -
klak＠giasbm01.vsnl.net.in -
Mahesh T Pai -
Raghavendra Bhat -
Raju Mathur -
Suraj Kumar