On Friday 07 January 2005 19:35, Vickram Crishna wrote:
I did the excercise of contacting and providing a background on FOSS and piracy to many cybercafes in a brief spell of prophetic zeal to save the "oh so poor souls". The superciliousness about harming somones rights should be seen to be believed. The cafe wallas care a shit about piracy, although fully clued in about the repercussions. So unlike most i do the groundwork before faffing. And it is not about billy baba, it is also about Corel, Adobe, Umpteen games, antivirus, firewalls. I found almost the same stuff in every cybercafe. Most of the owners were not poor, they owned multiple cafes. In any case if u happen to own a cybercafe you are proly in the top 20% of the wealth bracket in our country. Most surprisingly the very few really small owners were at least receptive to an alternative and quite apologetic about piracy. Unfortunately they do not form a sustainable market.
But in brief
- we are talking and mixing multiple un related bussinesses and
issues Training for end users and sys admins / service guys / installers Linux windows integration (u require highily skilled personnel)
I don't think this point entered the discussion - it was merely about giving end consumers (not the cybercafes but their customers)
Eh. Where does the cybercafe walla come in then. Enduser seminars have been an on going prorgramme in the lug.
Social change Law
How can we live around FOSS without comprehending the extent of social change this fosters? Seems to me that many here are still confused about this. I see no harm in raising issues and awareness now and then.
No harm at all. but dont mix it with an excuse for illegal and unethical bussiness.
- The individuals involved in piracy dont care. Their interests
lie merely in making a fast buck.
Cybercafe rates are not dependent -
No they arent. But they sure have a keen sense of bussiness when it comes to screwing other peoples rights. Who cares if their bussiness sinks like a stone. They will be replaced with FOSS savvy entrepreneurs.
- Many in this posts seem to think that since piracy is the norm
it has to be acceptable.
In one sense, this is actually true - even law school will tell you that the pirate is defined by the lawmaker - when roles change, so do definitions. But once again, let us not get sidetracked. The discussion is about building a business case for FOSS services to cybercafes, and using the LUG meeting to explore this.
Here we go in contra mode
"it was merely about giving end consumers (not the cybercafes but their customers)"
Are we talking of a bussiness model using FOSS for the cafe walla? Or is it the end user.
- Many in this post think that people with poor tech skills are
not to blame for their woes.
How many PCO operators know beans about telephony? Or how many car owners about automotive engineering?
The PCO service guy knows a lot about the pco and the billing machine and the uneducated car mechanic too knows a lot more about cars than the average B.E mech. Dont confuse enduser with service provider.
Just as these two technologies have become ubiquitous, so can we help make general purpose computers running FOSS become ubiquitous.
FOSS is already ready. Save for a legal thingy or two to do with illegal trade practices and monopolies.
main loser (at least in India) is billy boy (unless cafes have illegal copies ;-) of Tally),
AFAIR three cafes did.And come to think of it there was Delphi in one, VC++, CD ripping tools. It is possible tho unlikely that a user installed the stuff.
other popular software application needed on Windows comes free, and is probably designed that way precisely because the vendor or developer wants it to be that way.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20041228040645419 Should remove any doubts.
Maybe it needs a small-scale business to do this. Why close our minds to the possibilities before they are even discussed? But why are there so many list cribbers who seem to think that new avenues of making money should not even be discussed before dismissing the concept right away? How about some lurkers throwing in their two bits?
Not without a commitment to the foundation of foss - Respect for other peoples rights no matter how stiffling. By accepting gross licence violations u are doing a grave injustice ] to GNU/Linux. There have been court cases by foss developers (Netfilter) against bussineses violating the GPL. Linksys - CISCO were forced to publish their modifications when the FSF threatened legal action. They too had wishy washy arguments for violating others rights.
And BTW the list cribbers are the ones who have spent their time and money repeatedly in holding seminars and training sessions (Dr. Nagarjuna, Philip, Dinesh, Parag, Trevor, me rarely :-( and several others). So go ahead and oraganise one for cybercafe's AFTER their assoc has done their miniscule favour to themselves. I will most certainly be there to help at the seminar in any way u suggest. BTW there is a distro specifically for cybercafes. Google and find.
rgds jtd