On Fri, Feb 10, 2006 at 01:40:34PM +0000, Mishi Choudhary wrote:

hello everyone some of you might remember me from the basic questions and queries i keep shooting your way.i am a lawyer practising at thedelhi high court and supreme court of india and wish to introduce the concept of free and open software to the legal community in northern india.

Encourage others to read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html and related links.

This will trigger other activities.

With regards M.Balakrishna Pillai

Mishi Choudhary wrote:

some of you might remember me from the basic questions and queries i keep shooting your way.i am a lawyer practising at thedelhi high court and supreme court of india and wish to introduce the concept of free and open software to the legal community in northern india.i am aware that most of you learned ppl are based in the southern part of the country which is also the geek hub,the northern india especially the legal community is unaware ofthe same despite the kinda conferences being organised as linux asia which wound up today only.considering the growth of free software ,the day is not far when all developers would need legal advise to avoid any hassles in their creative work.in view of the same i as a member of the delhi bar association wish to organise a conference on the same and request your contribution in terms of ideas,participation anything and everything .kindly give it a thought and consider my proposal

I have attended a couple of demo day events organised by ilugc here in Chennai. Please check out the "Special Events" at http://www.chennailug.org/meetings.php to get an idea about how volunteers get together to discuss free software and also introduce it to newbies. The idea is to have as many running systems for demo, allowing visitors to view or play with them, and also have an arrangement to share distros. The minutes of a typical free software user group meet I had the pleasure to attend is at http://www.chennailug.org/meeting/minutes/yr2004/momlf2004.html Please get in touch with the local free software user groups who could volunteer to help in your conference.

The spirit of the movement is essentially to share work with others, as freely as possible. The mood is casual and informal, and there can be no doubt that those involved are dead serious on technical matters and try to maintain the highest possible coding and ethical standards. Status here depends on merit and nothing else.

The legal community urgently needs to equip itself with as much as possible on free and open software and standards, to understand modern technology and business practices that are rapidly advancing. If we fail here, our profession may be left behind to fend for itself in darkness. Further, free software could become the mother of all our freedoms, and I had an occasion to write about it at http://mm.gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2003-September/001190.html and our duties there cannot be done without a firm grasp and understanding about free software.

Others have already pointed to literature on free software, and I could suggest "Free for All" also to introduce free software to the legal community, available at http://www.wayner.org/books/ffa/ that incidentally chronicles the court trials that led to the release of FreeBSD. I am sure you have come across the articles by Justice Yatindra Singh, on computer software which is also available on the web site of the Allahabad high court (www.allahabadhighcourt.in) at http://www.allahabadhighcourt.in/calendar/itemWiseList.jsp?group=11

HTH :)

-Ramanraj K