On 28/10/2007, Vihan Pandey vihanpandey@gmail.com wrote:
The person concerned went as a representative of FSF India and thus should have left no stone unturned in making sure its ideals were properly represented. However the person concerned failed in doing so
I think it is very wrong to point fingers at a person who is so dedicated towards the mission without first trying to confirm facts. and this has been mentioned time and time again by yours truely as well as nagarjun as to who was the culprit. but even after all this if one person keeps on pointing fingers at the person in question then I can only say one thing. the freedom fighters might not be encouraged to take this as a good insentive. if my breafing started with the mention to fsf and the free software moment, and in my breafing to the press I did not even mention ones about the cost factor and after doing this (for me this is not a new thing), if people instead of bashing the press are going to talk roodly to the person himself, then I modestly leave it to the readers to conclude if this is some thing a person wants to have some thing personal in the mission or ... I think firstly if I am feeling bad about a certain article, I would first talk to the known person in the circle who is well known promoter of "free software " and confirm what happened. I would also ask certain respected people if they have any idea about the real facts. so if press made a mistake I would go to the source of that article and comment there if I was really by hart concerned about the problem and not to show some one "how great a freedom fighter I am ". I am not saying much because we must unite and fight the evils of proprietry software. but that's me, if this same thing would have happened with some one else, the situation would have been different. you see, after talking about all the free as in freedom aspect and confirming the same with the press, if people raise fingers at a dedicated person, then I doubt how many will sustain like I do. I don't need credit for what I do because I am doing it for the cause and the freedom of the community, but at the same time disregarding some ones efords is also not very encouraging. the entire mis understanding started when the comments came on the glug instead of on the rediff page where the rediff guys are most likely to see. that is what my colligue alpesh did because his anger was on the press and not on me. but on this email I was the one who would be reading and rediff was most unlikely to read it, so who was the target? any ways I have written this email no to bash vihan or some one (afterall his thoughts were the same as me except the words ), but to clearify things so people can understand my strong reactions. if some one wants to hear my press breafing, please email me off the list and I will arange to send a cd. regards, Krishnakant.
and i happened to point that out. Representing an organisation or even a school of thought is a big responsibility and must be handled with care that was not done in this case.
After reading my mail the person concerned responded by simply touting his experience and placing the blame squarely on the media and unilaterally absolving himself of all responsibility which IMHO is not the way things are done. You have to keep the media under check by making sure you are not misquoted or quoted out of context by demanding to have a look at the article before publication. Or you simply put pre-conditions to the reporter to mention the following (independently verifiable) facts before giving the interview. Apparently none of this seems to have been done in this case.
On me pointing that out the person concerned touted even more ``experience" including 5 years with the media. That statement raised a LOT of interesting questions most of which i put forward and am still awaiting a reply. The person concerned also implied that i had no right to ask these questions because of my age, which according to him was far too less to have asked those questions. Well if age and ``experience" is a pre-condition to ask questions then we probably ought to put an age and/or ``experience" restriction on who can ask questions on this list and who can't.
While you point does explain how this happened it does not change the fact that the a person made a mistake. In fact he still has not admitted he made one nor apologised for the harm done. Moreover if we are talking about ideals - it has to be consistent from publication to publication. If we send mixed ideals to suit our convinience - just so we get coverage - well IMHO, in that case we are not really being representatives of those ideals but cheap media attention whores.
Regards,
- vihan