[FSF India] Re: WB Govt ties up with MSFT

[Raghavendra Bhat]

[Thu, Aug 09, 2001 at 04:14:12PM +0530] Rajkumar S. :

> taking such fundamentalist positions has a chance
> to do more harm that good.

Yours is a naive stand which is not going to do us any
good. Can you ever think of winning the battle without
the *freedom* shield, forget about winning the war ?

We are going to stress more on the Freedom aspect in the
letter we are going to send to the West Bengal Govt.  
We are going to articulate the position espoused by 
Pappu/Khuzaima and of Raju's well trashed out technical
aspects.  Khuzaima and Pappu have debated out the basic 
and ethical stand of the GNU, the positions for which 
RMS has stood for and shown us.  This fundamentalist 
position has a chance to do us more good in the long 
run and is going to win us the war.....


> Can you come up with a text to be included in Raju's
> letter about freedom ?

Maybe you should also chip in and get the letter out fast.
We have to get our act together, before these M$ guys take
out the Bengalee sahibs out for a treat at the Presidency ;-) 
Can we ever hope to match these M$ guys in their PR work ?
So, Raju's letter would be about *freedom* and the technical
superiority model brought about by its open-ness.


> When the term Open Source is included it actually does
> imply that Free Software movement and Open Source 
> movement are similar but different

Can you say what the Open Source movement stand for ?  No goal,
"shunyam".  These Open source guys have already started groping
in the dark, not knowing what to say in reply to M$ attack on
the GPL.  We shall in no way include the word 'Open Source' in 
our letter.  Please understand that the M$ guys are going/have 
already prepared to attack the GNU and the GNU GPL in the
corridors of the Bengal Vidhan Sabha.  The Open Source guys
have got no 'arm-parts' to be trampled on.....we in the *free
software* movement are going to be hurt more :(


> So why remove it

It has to be removed. The Free Software movement is different and
we have to make this very clear.  We shall not lend our signatures 
to a document/petition which includes the word 'Open Source'.


> FSF should always co-operate with other like minded orgs
> where ever possible with out loosing its individuality.

The FSF should do things individualistic-ally; if the Open Source
guys come around wanting to co-operate with us...good.  All of
us walk the last mile together....Freedom First !

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