[Fsf-friends] Good s/w promotes ideology on its own ... we can help for sure

[Tarun Gaur]

Hi Ajith,

By the likes of it, it seems that you are quite senior to me when it comes 
to the industry. As far as linux goes, i think i am my self a sort of 
vetran. Now, I totally agree with you that criticism alone cannot improve 
things. But friend , the ideology is based on how well it can be accepted by 
the masses and anything inferior is not generally accepted ( though we may 
quote exceptions, but remember exceptions are always in minority ). Now 
"inferior" is a relative term. Something that may not be inferior at BARC 
(for scientists) may be inferior for the masses (because the needs are 
different).

I have never doubted our ability to write wonderful software. But we have 
ignored the "interfaces" for the masses for too long. I am sure Richard 
Stallman agrees.

Now, you have yourself mentioned that FSF is currently worrying about 
helping school children take on GNU/Linux. Now, lets just for a moment pause 
and ponder over the needs of these kids and put our software on test. Now 
lets forget the problems, lets try and find answers.

As far as the ideology goes, it is spreading and will spread even more the 
moment we start touching the masses. Projects like Gnome and KDE have taken 
giant strides in the direction. But there is scope of improvement.

Now, to put this point thru i need help of people like you to endorse the 
fact that we need to improve the interfaces, we need to consolidate the 
services on GNU/Linux, we need to simplify the structure etc and believe me, 
we are all set to push Microsoft software to a corner if not oblivion.

Look at the current scenario,
      - microsoft is in a transition phase
      - We are real good at Server side solutions
      - They are consolidating their servers
      - We are working on GUIs

Now, we know it is peanuts for people to write Desktop versions of Operating 
System who are good at Enterprise Servers. Desktops touch the masses and 
this world belongs to masses as masses are in MAJORITY.

Now friends, Let us all contribute. Let us do our bits and be sure we will 
reign supreme. A Dream of an ideology reigning supreme is not that bad after 
all.

Free software for the brave GNU World.

With regards,
Tarun Gaur


>From: Ajith Kumar <ajith@nsc.ernet.in>
>To: Tarun Gaur <gaur_tarun@hotmail.com>
>Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] Read Richard Stallman's mail
>Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 14:33:13 +0530
>
>Tarun Gaur wrote:
>
> > Hi Mr. Ajith
> >
> > I am shocked at the way you have interpreted my quest for ever 
>improvement.
> > According to your interpretation, all the CRITICS carry some kind of
> > infiriority complex ? Brother, i am just asking all my friends to 
>improve. I
> > will quote Richard Stallman's mail posted on fsf-friends, where he says 
>that
> > common user has to be taken serious care of.
>
>First of all i am not an FSF member. I have used GNU/Linux for  
>applications
>like
>particle accelerator control and physics experiments. Nuclear Science 
>Centre's
>control system runs on a network of 6 machines , 24 hours 365 days and I am 
>yet
>to see a
>'hanging' OS , running redhat 5.2 distro.  I developed it  5 years ago.
>We have a  Data Acquisition System  that is fastest among the other labs 
>like
>BARC etc.,
>done in Linux.  Almost the entire organization uses it for communication,
>office work etc.
>
>I know that it is not perfect. I myself face a lot of problems when try to
>convince people to
>use it. I had a talk with RMS when he visited NSC  in March. He asked me to
>give more stress
>on spreading the ideology than trying to get more people just using Free
>Software.
>I spend a lot of time and energy  to help schools to use GNU/Linux.
>The point is we should not  project  weaknesses alone, the stregths also 
>should
>be projected at the
>same time.
>
>As far as I know FSF is  mainly worrying about  how to get the  schools in
>Kerala to use Free Software.
>
>with regards
>
>Ajith


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