[Fsf-friends] Mentoring students !!

[Tarun Gaur]

Hi Richard,

The genius that started it all cant be left out. My apologies for calling it 
"open source". Let me correct it and call it 'free software movement" as i 
myself firmly believe in the ideology. Thanks again for correcting me.

Now, on students, Richard i dont agree with your and Gopal's view that the 
mainstream students cant contribute and will not contribute. i agree your 
assumptions are based on your experience in US and are for sure backed by 
statistics, but with India it is a bit different.

There is a massive educational setup that india can boast of in IT, 
especially when IT is generating such a huge revenues for a developing 
country, the country is for sure interested in upping the tempo in this 
promising field.

The manpower is in abundance, making India a powerhouse for future global 
software development alongside US (No. of MNCs setting up dev. centres in 
India is a witness).

This manpower is of two kinds, one in the industry and one waiting to be 
churned out.

My experience with the students says; if this community is guided and pushed 
a bit, they come out with amazing results.

The environment is very conducive for FSF, as gopal said, universities dont 
claim ownership of the work ... Its good, it can be Free.

Universities in India will be more than willing to associate with FSF for 
the sake of students. FSF should be willing too. If it does not give us free 
software, atleast it will push the ideology to a larger base of future 
professionals.

But with my experience with students in india; i firmly believe they can 
contribute a lot. Believe me every single student in IT in india has the 
desire to catch up with the global level. Stakes are higher here for a 
student than his counterpart in US, my indian friends can understand.

FSF on one hand is a window for them to peep into good quality s/w and on 
the other hand become a forum for this community to channalize their 
innovations.

the students are not contributing today on their own because i am sure the 
majority (in india) is oblivious of our existance or the kind of work being 
done at FSF or the ideology. We need to push the ideology and i am sure they 
will push free software back at us.

[to Gopal]

Gopal, if you and me can do it at our individual levels, then lets not leave 
this community out. If we are able to get 50 wonderful developers per year 
from this massive community making free software, i dont see it as a 
failure; alongwith we will sure get a big community supporting the ideology.

[to Richard]
Richard, i can vouch for Indian students, they can give you amazing results. 
Believe me they can rock the base of all the business initiatives and 
tactics being employed by the properietry world. lets make them understand 
what free s/w is; the way you have done it for us.

leave you with this thought,

regards,
tarun gaur









>From: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
>Reply-To: rms@gnu.org
>To: gaur_tarun@hotmail.com
>CC: fsf-friends@mm.gnu.org.in, abhas@deeproot.co.in
>Subject: Re: Mentoring students !!
>Date: Wed, 18 Dec 2002 13:51:41 -0500
>
>     I have lately been discussing the fact with RMS that how majority of 
>the
>     students are being left out of open source initiative (FSF/GNU).
>
>Our discussion was about the free software movement, not "open
>source".  "Open source" is the slogan of another movement in our
>community, one that rejects our idealism.  The Open Source Initiative
>makes me feel "left out", and I am glad if some others feel the same
>way.
>
>When people with those views contribute to free software, we recognize
>their contribution to the community.  But we in the FSF never work on
>"open source" activities.  We want it to be clear that what we are
>doing is "free software".
>
>     I have myself been interacting with students on various projects and 
>have
>     been amazed at their ability to push things through.
>
>This is very different from my experience in the US and Europe.
>Occasionally a student who becomes a free software developer and does
>important work acting on his own, but students *in the academic
>context* hardly ever contribute anything that works.
>
>Have you found it is different in India?  I would be glad to learn
>that Indian students are more effective.  If so, it could be worth
>some effort to try to reach out to them.


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