Freedom Matters with Eben

Posted on September 15, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

Prof.Eben Moglen, Founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center, and also the architect of GPL v3 is in Bangalore doing a series of talks and interactions pertaining to the freedom in the digital world.

Today, Prof.Eben visited St.Joseph’s College, Bangalore in an event organized by FSMK. FSMK has come up with a Free Software course of 120 hours with an elaborate introduction to the world of Free Software in an application oriented approach. The syllabus can be found at this link.

Prof.Eben delivered the first lecture of the series, and hence inaugurating the program officially.

In his talk, Prof.Eben introduced the concept of Free Software to the keen but novice audience, drawing analogies from Free Science to Free Software, with emphasis on the Freedom aspect. Talking about the course proposed by FSMK, Prof.Eben said that it was the best course currently in the world for such a cause, which can be emulated world across to incorporate Free Software in the education system. He urged students to take up this course, for it would also prepare them for the industry.
This talk went on for 20 minutes.

In his second stint, during the interaction with the audience, for my question about “Monetizing Free Software”, he ended up by saying “Put some free software into your brain, and that brain is much wanted by all major players!”.

Later on, when asked about the Google-Oracle law suit, Prof.Eben dramatically elucidated the case going on, the benefactors, the temporary allies and the losers of the lawsuit. He apprehended about a prospective Oracle-IBM lawsuit on JAVA lines, for that would hurt the freedom of users.

He also spoke about the reasons for the current state of M$( failure of Windows Vista, 7…), which has grown obese with its baggage of proprietary applications. He also touched upon the architecture specificity(/rigidity) of M$ which hasn’t been able to compete with omni-architecture supporting GNU/Linux.

He gave insights into the Intel Atom and the Nokia ‘cynical’ deal that is going nowhere, and the troubles Intel is facing with its Meego and Atom projects.

Most importantly, Prof.Eben also spoke about the cause he is batting for, with respect to ‘securing privacy of users’, with the OpenPlug,GNUplug like devices with a Free Stack, to curb the privacy infringement by the cloud and cloud application developers.

It was an amazing experience, witnessing Prof.Eben; As one of our FSMK activists mentioned “He is one of the 100 Most Influential Speakers of contemporary world” ,and not surprisingly he pleasantly overwhelmed us, by getting us acquainted with the different facets of the Freedom Struggle in the digital world. Every interaction with Prof.Eben transforms into a strong motivation, which would drive us to take up the Movement further, in creating a “Free World( Free,as in Freedom)”

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Software Freedom Day-2010

Posted on September 14, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

Dear Friends and Patrons of Swatantra Software,

Software Freedom Law Centre, New Delhi(SFLC-ND) and Free Software Movement-Karnataka (FSMK) are celebrating Software Freedom Day, by organizing Talks and events by one of the mavericks of the Knowledge Freedom campaigns and an affiliate of SFLC-ND – Prof.Eben Moglen,Founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center. SFD with FSMK


In this visit to Bangalore, Prof.Eben Moglen will be participating in three separate events organized by FSMK.

1. Inaugural Lecture of Free Software certificate course at St.Joseph’s College,Bangalore on the 15th September 4 p.m.
St.Joseph’s College, Bangalore has incorporated 120 hours of free software sessions to be handled by FSMK and other like-minded Free Software Enthusiasts. 

2. Prof.Eben at Ambedkar Community Computing Center (AC3) at 5pm on the 16th of September


Before two years, RMS and Prof.Eben visited AC3 with only a few students who were being taught computers using Free Software. Today, these handful of young free software activists from the community are running three other Community Computing Centers completely on their own. Prof.Eben will visit AC3 for a community discussion.

3. Interaction with Prof.Eben Moglen on the Freedom in the Cloud at Indian Institute of Science, on 17th September , 3p.m – 5 p.m, faculty hall IISc. 


Abstract:
Everyone wants a piece of you these days: Google, Facebook, Flickr, Apple, AT&T, Bing. They’ll give you free e-mail, free photo storage, free web hosting, even a free date. They just want to listen in. And you can’t wait to let them. They’ll store your stuff, they’ll organize your photos, they’ll keep track of your appointments, as long as they can watch. It all goes into the “Cloud.”

How we got here is quite a scary story. But nowhere near as scary as getting out again. This talk will discuss how much worse things have become since the pre-cloud era and explain what you can do to reclaim your freedom in the era of Web 2.0.



I cordially invite you all to come and celebrate Software Freedom Day along with us at FSMK and SFLC-ND during these events. 

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Why innovate?

Posted on September 12, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

Those of you who have been following this debate on my social networking profile, might already know the stand I have taken on this debate. Before I reiterate my stand on this forum, I would want to elaborate the premise and context of my opinion. And before I get into my argument, I would want to re-quote NRN:

“IT companies must innovate to beat US outsourcing curbs”

For a moment, let us imagine that we are US citizens, and also acknowledge the fact that we still haven’t grown enough to seek “Universal Fraternity”, and are mature enough only to reach only a nationalistic feeling ( with forced efforts of course).

So, what would I want to do when more than half of the jobs which could employ my own fellow countrymen are being directed to another country where labor is cheap, so that the monopolies make more profit, with an addendum of tax evasion. I wouldn’t happily let it go, even if I were the USA.

Now, let us get back to being Indian citizens. We very well know what the IT has given – Accelerating disparity ( ubiquitous vistas of IT parks adjoined to slums!) and a mediocre and servile work force (no apologies on this rudeness), which seldom gets opportunity to do anything new with the “Please the (their) customer motto”. This being the harsh truth, not all of us want to see what has become of a couple of generations of youth in India. Entrepreneurship is discouraged and servility to monopolies is much encouraged, starting in the education system, and unfortunately has also penetrated the family system.

Also, let us look at what tangible technology IT force has returned to our own country, which meets the real needs of India. It has always been outsourced work which has been done prominently, and ‘most’ of that work doesn’t apply to our system’s realities. In fact, almost all of it is of no use in the Indian context  ( we have the least developer for every 1000 individuals, only after China in the FOSS community, and we still are struggling to get a stable OS and applications in our regional languages!)

Talking about Innovation, not all innovators are mavericks who can rise out of any circumstances. When we train minds to appropriate conditions with the necessary facilitation, the number and quality of innovators will certainly increase.

Lack of innovation ( also innovation in Indian context) in the IT sector has been transparently visible to everyone for all these decades of its reign in India. Now, when US wants to curb outsourcing, you can’t spontaneously transform this crowd into innovators. We should have been conscious of this from the start, and must have given more importance to “innovation to excellence”, rather than using it as a back-up plan after the failure of political gimmicks.

Innovation is a trait emanating out of refined and independent minds. And, I do not want to comment on the quality of the subjects under the scan, for it is evident.

What we need is a renaissance in the work culture and a reformation in the context of the work we will be doing. And, this discovery shall lay the foundation to innovations.

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The Legend of Hindu Mythology

Posted on September 10, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

With Gowri-Ganesha festival in an hour, recollecting the legacy of Indian mythology would be appropriate.

The greatness of these epics are the time periods when written and the grandeur of imagination incorporated into them.

To start with, the roles of the Trimurtis: Brahma-The Creator, Vishnu-The Sustainer and Shiva- The Destroyer, and the legends behind each of these deities are excellent pieces of literature, and unsurpassable for the variety and the logical intricacies in them.

I personally love the the stories of Vishnu, and his ten incarnations, which have intriguing stories interrelated in multiple frames of time.

Of all the incarnations of Vishnu, obviously apart from the versatile Krishna, I personally like Narasimha (a futuristic hybrid of man+lion, of the recent likes of liger!). The cause for his incarnation- Demon king Hiranyakashyapa, and his son Prahlaada, and the immortality boon and the shrewd cracking of the boon to kill him, awe me for the sheer diligence in the work that is so ancient.

Talking about the two major epics from Hindu mythology- The Ramayana and The Mahabharata, the latter easily beats the former with its grand scale, plenty of rich and complex characters, in an elaborate but meticulous plot. In Mahabharata, the negatives of the dominating positive, and the positives of the wronging negatives are exemplified in an impeccable manner. For, it is usual to show the right as right,and the wrong as wrong  throughout. But, if observed in Mahabharata, all the facets of all the characters are excellently presented, without the prejudice of them being principally right or wrong. The various facets of characters manifested throughout the epic, with all their nuances and subtleties make it undoubtedly the best Epic written hitherto in any country in any period of time.

Although, I haven’t read these, but have heard, and been hearing the stories, or watched them on TV. They have had tremendous positive influence on me. Mahabharat, Jai Hanuman,Sri Krishna and numerous other mythology based chapters in Indian TV have come by. But, today I apprehend, even with hundreds of channels there is very little of accurate mythology being shown, and more of fabrication even in the little of these classics, to fit the imperfect society of today’s world.

With the growing global convergence, we seem to be losing firstly the cognizance of, and secondly the authenticity of such mastermind epics. Colleagues mentioned that in Chota Bheem, Bheem plays 20-20! Hope he’s not on Facebook too, else the kids might include FB to be part of the Hindu mythology…

Creativity in the real sense, is lacking today, and by properly infusing the Hindu Mythology to the newer generation we could expand their realms of imagination. And, not to forget the diverse stories from these classics which are eternal in the truest sense.

PS: Well, if you were thinking I was talking religion – Nope, it was about creativity…

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Time Swift

Posted on September 8, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

Time flies.. Yes, it does.

But, when does it fly? 
Not when you are stuck on a lazy afternoon, or while conversing about irrelevance of relevance,or vice versa with a seemingly irrelevant person, or when you are at the troughs of your personality.
Time does fly, but only when you most need it to slow down. And yes the famous analogy of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity does hold good in many cases. But, it more often flies when you have lost yourself in your endeavors. 
Like recently, when I was on work, and was doing something really cool for the first time ( Load Balancing  for Servers:). As it was something new and with monstrous machines to work with, I was so engrossed in my task that, in a reverse inception-like situation, I was feeling that one hour had reduced to ten minutes, and continued to till the end of the day. 
This is only one recent instance of accelerated time. I’m sure all of you would have experienced this many times. The beauty of such phases of time is the gratification, but at the same time the insatiability it renders.  
Now we can analyze further sating that the rate of time acceleration purely depends on the individual and his interests, and that again is relative. But, we can very well do only things which we are interested in, so that we are always in this ecstatic time-swift… 
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People [Live]

Posted on September 5, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

Off late, if you have been reading my posts, there has been a lot of open criticism and cynicism about the News and Media houses, for all the hampering they are rendering to the opinions of people and running of the country. Let this not imply that I am getting all to obsessive about this attack. These are only small vents of my disappointment from the anomalous consequences of Free Press and Free Media.

In such a grim situation, an attempt like Peepli [Live] is important within the realms of the real Indian scenario. Kudos to the team for such an effort. It can be genre’ised as a ‘dark satirical comedy’, but it does more than that by throwing some much needed light upon the mechanism behind the news manufacturing process, and the apathy of the politicians towards the real people.

By real people I mean people, who are not influential enough, but are only daily-bread seekers: That alone is their ambition in life -Mere Survival.
We can rule out most of the urban population from this discussion, and entirely confine on the rest of the huge population from the rural corners of India. The worth of these people to politicians is ‘One Vote’ during elections, and a hot-selling story for the media. These people are like Use & Throw commodities.
People who have no idea of their rights and who are naive about the exploitation they are being done to.

From mining scams to land acquisitions, the corruption feeds on not only the resources of these people, but on their lives. Literally, driving them to suicides as a political gimmick.

People like P Sainath, who brought to light these haunting issues are needed in more numbers. We need to do our part in clearing this sewer-like filthy system..

PS: Read P Sainath.

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Ideal Insomnia

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

Rarely it happens to people that the pursuance of an idea keeps them awake, while the desire to go for it pulls them repeatedly out of bed, starting from the latest of nights to the earliest of the mornings.
Being in such a wave of euphoric enthusiasm is the best feeling; Nah, the best experience 🙂

Infatuation towards certain one or two, has yes, kept me anxiously happy and awake, and those I call were consequences of naivety, which i wouldn’t repent about. Whereas, insomnia because of the train of thoughts and blasting mines of ideas within the mind is inexplicably enjoyable, and is the impeccable driving force (The force is so much so that it can defy the drowsiness of paracetamol!)

Undying urge, mixed with a dosage of patient pragmatism and efforts to suffice, is what I prescribe myself for this adventure.

Ideas aren’t immortal alone, they’re insomniac as well 🙂

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Unsocial social beings!

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

We the Homo sapiens call ourselves social beings. Don’t we? Or at least that is what has been told to us right from the beginning of our social journey.

But, as I get to meet more people, I seem to get alienated from this idea of us being “social”; Actually, we are quite the opposite, I’d say. Few of my personal observations could substantiate this accusation of mine, if you are unconvinced.

Firstly, the infamous lack of eye-contact.
Now, we needn’t deny this fact. I have traveled a lot (for my age) within India, meeting hundreds of people (mainly students) and there has been seldom good eye-contact with a voluntary greeting, or an acknowledgement to my greeting. Most of the times, it is only after I have given my talk, or been on stage is when people seem to interact, and that is because they know me. As a stranger, they want me to be a stranger. This is very disappointing!

Secondly, the lack of will, or motive, or incentive , or I don’t know what else could be the primary cause for the reluctance; The reluctance which prevents people from coming together and gathering for a social event. In case, there is a celebrity in the proximity, or some notoriety happening, people throng, but for their own cause, or for some genuine social cause, it has been very few who have had the humane aspect in them. This again, is a conclusion from the various social events I have organized and have been part of. Further disappointment!

Adding to this is the apathy we have towards fellow beings. With this, and more such anti-social animosity filled within us, I totally deny the concept of us being Social beings!

A paradigm shift about mutual perception is what the society requires, not just a superficially modified etiquette.

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Encore for the Blogger fiesta?

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

Blogger Fiesta yesterday, wasn’t the best of the executions, I agree. But still, it was fun to have met up and the proceedings of the event made it all the more memorable.

To start with , the famous CCD on MG Road, which I had visited even before a couple of months was gone! Imagine the shock I was faced with… To add to this confusion, not everyone who was meeting up had given their contact numbers. The ones I had I could redirect them to a different place.

But, still we started wondering what if the others come to this place? How do we reach them?

Idea was to hold a placard ( like in the Airports!), asking if people were some of the interested ones. In this process we also met some new friends . After waiting for sometime and grabbing some public attention, the ones who had gathered alone met up at a different venue and have proposed to conduct a more organized Meet Up soon.

The idea of having a community of bloggers, who can cooperate and contribute efforts on a channelized manner is also being floated. Let us see, how far we get with this.

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Decentralization and Redistribution

Posted on August 28, 2010 by Raghav/Raghu

Decentralize and redistribute:
This should form the slogan; a slogan representing the need of the hour. The need being, a revolution which would enable the dis-empowered individual, while redistributing the concentrated powers from monopolies. Individuals as entities are losing the little bit of foothold and control over their lives, and are more so becoming functions of the elaborate plays by few corporations surrounding them.

Every field invaded by humans has now transformed into existences of monopolies alone, comprising of few individuals who are effortlessly,facilitated by the system, controlling and manipulating the rest of the population . A grim situation projecting a bleak future…

It has been well proven that, the salvation for the community from the clutches of this exploitative system would come only by “Elaborate Decentralization for uniform Redistribution”.

Models like the Free Software Movement, where the individuals and the togetherness play important roles in producing quality work, generating alternatives to the monopoly products in the society are to be emulated on wider scales, with necessary modifications applied to the different fields of application.
This empowers the individuals, and adds the community spirit: A holistic feeling, instead of the ever increasing antagonism between the lucky few and the not-so-lucky rest of us.

Another, important alternate means manifested in today’s world is empowering individuals in the media and information domains. Wikipedia, Open libraries and blogging have increased the unbiased spread of information in an almost ideal manner, without getting constrained by influences of any other aristocracy or bureaucracy.

Blogging, particularly has increased the disemination of personal opinions, and formulation of unbiased community opinions so that people can still make themselves heard in the deafening chaos of the paid news and media frenzy.

We need to tackle all aspects of the monopolized perils in the society. Individuals having their role to play in the formulation of the community facet is the need of the hour. If things are left with the monopolies and the certain elite, it is going to worsen and the individual as such is going to remain the silent puppet in the hands of the system, while the system is busy exploiting us.

Decentralize and redistribute!

Applying a comprehensive approach with elaborate planning and meticulous execution, with the above principle as the motive behind is what is required for the genuine betterment of the things all around us.
A little freudcheying on these lines will help for sure….

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