On Mon, Nov 24, 2003 at 10:01:16AM +0530, Nagarjuna G. wrote: You forgot to add a "minor" detail ... Prof. Nagarjuna, HBCSE, TIFR is on the board of directors for FSF-India. Sameer. -- Research Scholar, KReSIT, IIT Bombay http://www.it.iitb.ac.in/~sameerds/

On Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 12:01:00AM +0530, Sachin Nair wrote: Well I am not sure what you mean by "believe in the _fsf movement_" ... as far as I know, the "movement" is for software freedom, and FSF is trying to be a central body to support it. There's also the open source movement. Then there's this huge category of people who simply don't care about movements, and instead just code and give away their work because they feel like doing so. You might get a better response if you first spell out the point, that you are trying to drive. I don't know about any "talk about bringing everything under the FSF umbrella". Like I said, there are all kinds of people ... in fact a lab in our dept is planning to become a major player in _open source_ software in the long run ... the emphasis being more on affordability than freedom. A lot of corporate entities are interested in those efforts since its a great way to expand their market. Sameer. -- Research Scholar, KReSIT, IIT Bombay http://www.it.iitb.ac.in/~sameerds/

On Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 12:31:04PM +0530, Sachin Nair wrote: Believe me, this is the last thing that a newbie to the "philosophical debate" should see ... ;) It is difficult to be very precise about these two issues, but in a loose sense, the former topic of "just software" is what the Open Source movement talks about while the later topic of society in general is what the Free Software movement is all about. Here are some good references to see either side: http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/ http://www.catb.org/~esr/open-source.html A few good hints, about ESR's idea of Open Source and how it contrasts with Free Software, are also found at end of the following chapter in his new book, TAUP in the sections titled "Linux and the Pragmatist Reaction: 1991-1998" and "The Open-Source Movement: 1998 and Onward" http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/taoup/html/historychapter.html I would say, worry about the philosophy part only when you have the time to. If by jumping in, you mean using FLOSS on your setup, go right ahead and give it a try; what have you got to lose? I am sure you'll be hooked in no time ;) Errr ... its actually the other way round. Free Software scares the hell out of businesspeople (marketroids) because they don't like being lectured on idealogies. Open Source, instead, makes perfect business sense, although its the same wine in a different bottle. Depends on what business you are in. If you plan to make money by selling software that you wrote, go ahead and do that - its your choice. That's the only kind of business that cannot afford to release source code. But most Indian companies work in the service industry ... they rarely release branded products! In either case, remember that the customer is the king, and no matter whether you want to release your code or not, there are others who will - and your customers just might decide to go to them! Its easy to say that, but difficult to implement ... relying on a company that's providing service usually turns out to be far cheaper than doing it yourself. Remember the suit buzzword "outsourcing"? If the customer has access to the source code they run, they have more freedom to choose their support system. This would be true even if they used a custom built software that's used only in their company! Download any big software like the kernel, apache, gcc etc. Grep for all the copyright notices. That should answer your question. No problem at all! Feel free to fire away! Sameer. -- Research Scholar, KReSIT, IIT Bombay http://www.it.iitb.ac.in/~sameerds/

Thnx to sameer for some light on fsf and opensource in general. But then again particularly for Mr. Dsouza, No sir, china does not make business sense to me. It has a huge market but has redtape so mind boggling that the Indian threads seems like just a few knots. Mindless name throwing does not help matters. Even the great Enron fell hard!! Every company has it's own way of dealing with cost cutting measures and dealing with competition. Read .. Microsoft If you are gong to talk about large corporations then am sorry I was talking about the SSI unit. My fault, I should have specified. 90% of the SSI's operate on pirated software. Ideology in these parts, exists after money! success or failure of your business. It is your job to utilise and contribute to the resources of freesoftware and make your bussiness a success doing so. Quoting from http://opensource.org "Open Source Initiative exists to make this case to the commercial world." unquote. understand the complexities of free software (or software for that matter) stick to closed source (while it lasts). Let's not fight shall we? :) reasons do not make sense I wonder what does. Money makes sense to me. I don't mean money in an ideal world but in the real world. The very company which was earlier heralded by many for its contribution to opensource has been later thrashed for its newest licensing policies. Read REDHAT. Well I have also found copies(hope not) maybe privately funded ) stating otherwise! :/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Iam willing to listen .... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There is a manufacturing unit specializing in certain mechanical components of machines. They make extensive use of Tally(accounting) & AutoCAD. They use pirated copies of software, lack the monetary horsepower to buy the real thing. Even if they did, they as of now don't see ay real value in converting when things work just fine. You tell me how do I convince them to convert? Or why should I ask them to convert? HOW & WHY?

On Mon, Nov 24, 2003 at 08:40:09PM +0530, Sameer D. Sahasrabuddhe wrote: This is precisely the reason why open source ideology fails (Dont think that open source has no ideolgy). The reason why we should use free software is not because of economic reasons. Since open source business ideology cant answer this question without bringing in the FSF arguments. We ask such a company to use free software not to save money alone, but to be FREE. To get the freedom to repair the software they use, to get the freedom to use it for any purpose etc. What I would say is to spend money if necessary (say employ good free software experts in your company) and gain this virtuous freedom. What we should tell the company is that free software is economical is accidental, and not necessary. That is the reason why we cannt ask companies to switch to free software for the economic reasons alone, such as TCO. The TCO concept belongs to another paradigm and not to FS paradigm. I disagree here because of the reasons mentioned above. Open Source guys/girls have no answer in this situation unless they tell the company that see it is worth spending because you also get source code. That is when everyone realizes what is the crux of the matter. Every sector is important for GNU. SSI, NGOs, schools tactically yes. Today the govts falling prey to the cost argument. Govt should say we opt for free software because this will give the country self-reliance, and not because is is economical (it is worth repeating this golden message, so tolerate my reeats.) Nagarjuna -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ nagarjun at hbcse tifr res in. http://www.gnowledge.org/ Support Public Library of Science http://www.plos.org/

Nilesh Chaudhari wrote: Sometimes these guys have to work under very tight budgets, and yet deliver the world to their companies. It is unfair to pin the blame of using pirated software on them. Any manager would love to have a clear conscience and use software legally. Actually when the company fixes a very tight budget, it (the company/business) is giving the manager a strong cue to use pirated software. Another point is whenever a company sets up operations it has the proper figures for obtaining facilities for conductin it's main business, however the IT/IS department does not get enough money for software acquisition. Why? "We can always get licensed software once we make enough money..." Businesses try to appear attractive to investors (present & future) by showing how little investment they needed and how quickly they recovered that investment. Factoring the added costs of IT infrastructure would throw the spanner in the works, in a manner of speaking, for their prospects in attracting investment. This is the REAL reason in most cases of SSIs/propreitorships. This is wrong thinking. Money should be allocated for setting up *legally* obtained IT infrastructure right at the outset, and should be factored in the start-up costs the way they are worked out for the rest of the business's activities. So what will make them change their mind? A strong movement from vendors for combating software piracy? Yeah right, maybe in another 10 years. :P Commercial software vendors know that if they push too hard, a lot of potential clients will shift over to FS. That is why they give several chances to offenders. They say, "Start off buying a few licenses and in time cover your entire infrastructure". That way they atleast start getting some fees from the client instead of losing them completely to FS. For now, I believe "whistle-blowing" (NASSCOM) is the only practical way to get businesses to switch to FS in the immediate to near future. You'd be surprised how they would flock to FS when the cost of commercial software starts to bite! ;) -- Clinton Goveas - http://www.clintongoveas.com

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Thursday 27 Nov 2003 1:28 am, J. T. D'souza wrote: A misnomer at the very least. The whole idea of the FSF is that a term like "intellectual property" should not exist - atleast in the domain of computer software. Note that this is different from the concept of copyrights, which as origibally intended, were meant to "borrow" something (temporarily) from public domain. Even then, the concepts of "fair use" and "nonprofit use"(not a recognised term as such) were clearly understood and respected. This concept has totally been turned onto it's head in today's world. You have to realize - there shouldn't be any "intellectual property" as we know the term today. Just temporary "commercial rights". Knowledge should be free. That, i believe is what the whole movement, and RMS in particula, stands for. - --gera. - -- - From the moment I picked your book up until I put it down I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it. -- Groucho Marx, from "The Book of Insults"

J. T. D'souza wrote: And coming back to the topic ;) of the FSF and how to get it popularised (or more acceptable) so no one gets the impression that it is "dead". :) -- Clinton Goveas - http://www.clintongoveas.com

On 26/11/03 16:11 +0530, Nilesh Chaudhari wrote: <snip> Whats the cost of a Windows admin, as against the cost of an equivalent Linux admin? Particularly if your Windows admin is going to be the same guy who sold you the hardware and pirated software. Nope, I don't see Linux fitting into smaller shops right now. Linux makes sense once you can afford to hire a good admin, but until then Windows makes far more economic sense. It probably would be better to convince the computer supplier to provide Linux cheaper than Windows (and he is going to argue that he knows Windows but doesn't know Linux, so Linux will be more expensive). Devdas Bhagat

On Friday 28 November 2003 05:45, Sameer D. Sahasrabuddhe wrote: Not at all. TCO is more about the recurring maintanence costs than the initial capital costs. In fact your next statement states two very important costs in the TCO calculations.