On Sun, 2008-11-30 at 14:27 +0530, Arvind Kumar Chinniah wrote:
Excellent go ahead with your complete strategy on and against the democratic stance on freedom and software. You were informed about that, else I don't know how you were present in the campus ? (A BASIC LOGIC MESS).
I did not understand what I was informed about. If you are talking about the Cochin University conference, yes, I was not only informed, but also invited to chair a session. I declined the offer because I had another commitment and I was not sure whether I would be able to even participate in the conference. I informed the organisers not to make me chairman for any session because of this confusion. I told them that I would participate if I could. So what is your problem? That I did participate in the conference? Are you saying that I should not have participated?
And even dont know how you guys went on through taking sessions that too from the first day morning.
You mean to say that those who had agreed to take sessions should not have? So that it would throw the conference into confusion? So that you could have then blamed these people for having created the confusion? Sorry to disappoint you there.
A symbol can be patented, even I'm against it, pls get to know abt that if u r ignorant. (Hope this can be made as a separate thread of discussion).
Thank you for the knowledge. I did not know that a symbol could be patented. Hope you are knowledgeable about patents.
You said you accept the money or incentive, if you were sponsored, on their willingness. The case in Kochi Conference also is the same. All the linux user groups were asked for sponsor, Novell user group came out with a quote for sponsoring at the platinum level.
Oh so was it the Novell user group that sponsored the conference? Must be a rather wealthy group if they could become the Platinum sponsor of a conference that hosted 1500 people.
The question is "Are you the only authoritive to make decisions on free software in India ?" I was actually expecting an answer for this. And the other are all due to the way you made your statement page.
Of course not. Actually, I don't make any decisions on free software in India. It is actually the governments and the people who make decisions. We Free Software advocates talk to them why they should adopt Free Software and Free formats. That is all.
Best
It is not my concern for not making you sit on the Dias stage. First you said you were not invited for the session organize. Then, you accepted that you were invited to hold a session under you. But this is not the actual talk of the discussion.
We are not in a descriptive manner explained about, 1) Why the Kochi Conference had a protest against Novell, why cant that be made when the lend a hand towards you (As you were already informed, the proof is the mail scraps at http://www.gnu.org.in/kochi-conference-communication ). Why on that day, why not before that? 2) Why the Free Software Foundation is not considered to be a Mass Movement. If its not, its not going to be a community. You spoil the real nature of Democracy (and in turn Freedom) in that.
Rgds, Arvind
On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 4:00 PM, V. Sasi Kumar sasi.fsf@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, 2008-11-30 at 14:27 +0530, Arvind Kumar Chinniah wrote:
Excellent go ahead with your complete strategy on and against the democratic stance on freedom and software. You were informed about that, else I don't know how you were present in the campus ? (A BASIC LOGIC MESS).
I did not understand what I was informed about. If you are talking about the Cochin University conference, yes, I was not only informed, but also invited to chair a session. I declined the offer because I had another commitment and I was not sure whether I would be able to even participate in the conference. I informed the organisers not to make me chairman for any session because of this confusion. I told them that I would participate if I could. So what is your problem? That I did participate in the conference? Are you saying that I should not have participated?
And even dont know how you guys went on through taking sessions that too from the first day morning.
You mean to say that those who had agreed to take sessions should not have? So that it would throw the conference into confusion? So that you could have then blamed these people for having created the confusion? Sorry to disappoint you there.
A symbol can be patented, even I'm against it, pls get to know abt that if u r ignorant. (Hope this can be made as a separate thread of discussion).
Thank you for the knowledge. I did not know that a symbol could be patented. Hope you are knowledgeable about patents.
You said you accept the money or incentive, if you were sponsored, on their willingness. The case in Kochi Conference also is the same. All the linux user groups were asked for sponsor, Novell user group came out with a quote for sponsoring at the platinum level.
Oh so was it the Novell user group that sponsored the conference? Must be a rather wealthy group if they could become the Platinum sponsor of a conference that hosted 1500 people.
The question is "Are you the only authoritive to make decisions on free software in India ?" I was actually expecting an answer for this. And the other are all due to the way you made your statement page.
Of course not. Actually, I don't make any decisions on free software in India. It is actually the governments and the people who make decisions. We Free Software advocates talk to them why they should adopt Free Software and Free formats. That is all.
Best
V. Sasi Kumar Free Software Foundation of India http://swatantryam.blogspot.com
On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 6:02 PM, Arvind Kumar Chinniah arvindkumar.c@gmail.com wrote:
We are not in a descriptive manner explained about,
- Why the Kochi Conference had a protest against Novell, why cant that be
made when the lend a hand towards you (As you were already informed, the proof is the mail scraps at http://www.gnu.org.in/kochi-conference-communication ). Why on that day, why not before that?
I didn't get your point. Please read http://anivar.movingrepublic.org/2008/national-free-software-conference-boyc... to get the details of the isues happened in Kochi Conf.
Also want to make few points for the propaganda repeating of conspiracy theories
1. We planned awareness campaign about Novell's Anti-community practices as very much part of a free software event, But organizers misunderstood it as a "Protest" against them.
2. Protest sit-in was happened later after the Organizers manhandled our peaceful campaign. A lot of people participated in it since it is a threat to freedom of expression
3. At first I thought that all these incidents happened because of lack of free software exposure for some people in the organizers . But now i feel it is more than that (after seeing these responses & conspiracy theories)
Anivar
On Sun, 2008-11-30 at 18:02 +0530, Arvind Kumar Chinniah wrote:
It is not my concern for not making you sit on the Dias stage. First you said you were not invited for the session organize. Then, you accepted that you were invited to hold a session under you. But this is not the actual talk of the discussion.
Since you raised the point, I explained what happened. I said FSF India was not invited to join in organising the conference. Later, I was invited to chair a session.
We are not in a descriptive manner explained about,
- Why the Kochi Conference had a protest against Novell, why cant
that be made when the lend a hand towards you (As you were already informed, the proof is the mail scraps at http://www.gnu.org.in/kochi-conference-communication ). Why on that day, why not before that?
Good question. Please ask the question to those who protested against Novell. I was not informed that Novell was going to be the main sponsor. Even if I was informed, why should I protest? As already explained, neither FSF nor FSF India has a boycott Novell campaign. It is independent. I don't have anything more to say about it.
- Why the Free Software Foundation is not considered to be a Mass
Movement. If its not, its not going to be a community. You spoil the real nature of Democracy (and in turn Freedom) in that.
FSF is not considered a mass movement because its function is different. We have tried to explain this in several mails.
Best
On Sun, Nov 30, 2008 at 6:02 PM, Arvind Kumar Chinniah arvindkumar.c@gmail.com wrote:
It is not my concern for not making you sit on the Dias stage. First you said you were not invited for the session organize. Then, you accepted that you were invited to hold a session under you. But this is not the actual talk of the discussion.
We are not in a descriptive manner explained about,
- Why the Kochi Conference had a protest against Novell, why cant that be
made when the lend a hand towards you (As you were already informed, the proof is the mail scraps at http://www.gnu.org.in/kochi-conference-communication ). Why on that day, why not before that?
It is answered already. It is because the organizers never disclosed the relevant fact to anyone, not even to those who are part of the organizing committee. They did not mention that on the event website. (all these points are repetitions.) THAT IS WHY it happened on THAT DAY, and NOT BEFORE THAT. So, you should go ask them why this information was surpressed?
You are asking several questions to us, since FSF India created a forum for transparent discussion. This conversation is possible and that is why you are asking questions, we are patiently responding to your queries. If FSFI does not believe in generating opinion why should there be a list like this where people can discuss transparently and understand each other.
- Why the Free Software Foundation is not considered to be a Mass Movement.
If its not, its not going to be a community. You spoil the real nature of Democracy (and in turn Freedom) in that.
Complete misunderstanding. Most of these are based on inaccurate expectations.
FSF was founded in 1985. What kind of hindrance did it create for not letting democracy or freedom flourish? On the contrary it took the lead in promoting and protecting these virtues. It gave the direction to the movement. FSM created tools that help create social networks to let this happen. It is therefore an enabler of freedom.
FSF supported the GNU project where people from all over the world participated and collaborated in a distributed development environments using mailing lists, cvs, web servers, list servers, chat rooms etc.
How can you say that doing such things spoils the real nature of democracy and then in turn freedom?
FSFs do not want to administer freedom movement, it wants to give a direction and support, and become a body to protect software freedom (when you find someone is voilating GPL, a country changes a policy and introduces software patents e.g.). And the body of FSFs include people who take leads in those movements. They may come from several other organizations/groups etc.
Political parties on the other hand want to administer social change, but we do not do that. They want power and control but we don't.
Free software movement is possible without creating any large political groups. The most important identity that we respect is the human being and that beings' freedom. When we have a large number of small groups at every part of the country (an FSUG in every town, district, we don't have them now.) FSM will flourish. FSFI will support their formation, provide them direction, give them infrastructure, invite the leads of such groups into the working group, generate consensus etc. and support each other.
We are doing it differently from other political movements, because we have a point to make here. The point is when freedom is granted to each individual, and they develop an ability to defend their freedom at all times on their own, there remains nothing else to govern. This is possible when knowledge is free, and the software that helps in creating, managing and distributing that knowledge is also free. Creating powerful groups even if they are democratic does not solve the problem (India and US are good examples of that, both are large democracies, neither of them respect or grant freedom.). That is possible in user groups, mailing lists, wiki spaces, chat rooms where people can have a dialogue. We need a large number of small organizations, and a network of these organizations, which happens automatically. This is how we grow. This growth is organic, and organic growth is sustainable. We want to catalyze the formation of such an ecosystem.
Let us all work towards such an organic growth, instead of creating one large network of FSF chapters. let me repeat, FSFs do not want to become a political powers, and does not want to govern. That will be self-defeating to the ideals of freedom.
Nagarjuna
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Anivar Aravind -
Arvind Kumar Chinniah -
Nagarjuna G. -
V. Sasi Kumar