[FSF India] Talking about free software in schools
Nagarjuna G.
nagarjun@hbcse.tifr.res.in
Wed, 7 Nov 2001 15:25:45 +0530 (IST)
On 6 Nov 2001, M.P.Anand Babu wrote:
->"Nagarjuna G." <nagarjun@hbcse.tifr.res.in> writes:
->> There is another problem. The Mumbai group particularly
->> started as a GNU/Linux Users Group, and not as FSF - India.
->> When we went out and started talking about Freesoftware we
->> talked about everything under the sun, such as Free/Open RH,
->> SuSE, Caldera, Mandrake etc, including of course GNU/Debian.
->We dont need to care about non-ethical distributions. Why should we
->market for SuSe, Caldera, RedHat or Mandrake ?
->
I will exemplify a situation that I have recently faced. I
was asked to give twelve special lectures in Mumbai University
for the students of PGDIT. I have not framed the syllabus for
the course, though they gave me a free hand to make changes.
But the syllabus contained references to redhat system. For
most of the aspects of my lectures I am and will be using
Debian. I did a demonstration install for both. Do you call
this marketing for RedHat? I have accepted to lecture on the
condition that I will be using Debian, except where RH
specific matters are discussed. They did agree to this.
Imagine the result of this compromise. I have an opportunity
to speak to about three hours to a group of 55 students every
week on free software, minus a few uneasy moments.
Another situation: I was to give a 2hour lecture/demonstration
on Emacs (which is My real OS). When I went there I found out
that they cant give me in the lecture hall a GNU/Linux
machine. What did I do? I have installed Emacs on their
windows machine and continued the talk, of course telling them
that they are missing much of the magic. These are the
kinds of frequent situations that I face. The places where I
go to give presentations either have no GNU/Linux Machine or
have other distros. When they call me to fix the dates I do
tell them what my preferences are, but as it turns out they
cannot meet all my demands, for many of them haven't even
heard about Debian distro. What they tell me is that they
already have RedHat Linux Lab. Should I refuse to go and
speak to them. When we go out to have a dialogue on ethics
and freedom, I cant behave as if ethics and freedom are things
that can be decided as truth/false and refuse to talk. As an
interventionist, I am also resorting to politics. Do you call
this opportunism?
->Core members of what ?
GNU/LUG of Mumbai, not FSF-I.
->What matters to us is the Ethics. We need not be desperate about the
->head count.
->
I am also not worried about the head count, but I dont think
that ethical issues can be handled by binary (truth/false or
black and white) tactics, because I do see a lot of gray area.
This happens despite the fact that polarity is well defined: I
make an effort to be as close to the pole of my choice as
possible, but at exceptional times I compromise.
->> wise to be with the heterogenous group and continue to talk
->> about the ethics and politics of free software as and when the
->> opportunity arises. E.g., I dont refuse to install RH or SuSE
->> in a workshop, though I would love to show them Debian. I do
->I will refuse.
I wont' refuse in exceptional situations, for the reasons
mentioned above. I cant' equate RH and SuSE under the same
category as MS, and at the same time I will not also put them
in the category of pure FreeSoftware.
But please dont think that it is my mission to install RH/SuSE
or but very bleak exception. I remember having installed only
twice of about 15 or so demonstrations that I did, the recent
one is RH, which I have never used. Another time I had to
install SuSE in a workshop.
Nagarjuna