[Fsf-friends] Fund Raising for FSF-India

[Ramanraj K]

__ Explicit Note:  These are *MY* own views__

Recently, Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay <gajo@softhome.net 
<mailto:gajo%40softhome.net?Subject=%5BFsf-friends%5D%20About%20the%20preliminary%20draft%20i%20had%20sent%20in&In-Reply-To=>> 
wrote about extending the reach of FSF-India.  Directly connected with 
this, is the question of raising funds for FSF-India.  The issue does 
stare upon our faces, and we ought not to skirt this issue.  I putforth 
here, what strikes me as correct.  Please do send in your suggestions. 
 I am sure FSF-India, could deal with this issue in a better way, when 
this is done voluntarily by all of us.

1) Donations:  This, the FSF-India invites through its web site.  It 
should help if FSF-India also draws up and publishes a budget.  Any 
donation from even a mere Rs. 10^0 to even > Rs.10^10 should help.  We 
cannot underestimate the value of even 10^0, when the population of 
India is more than10^9, and if each Indian were to contribute just 10^0, 
FSF-India would have Rs. 100 Crores at its disposal.  But, since that is 
flying too high, more pragmatically individuals may be comfortable with 
the idea of contributing anything from 10^2to6, and it would be nice if 
FSF-India, could give away CD's or a DVD of stable releases of top 
software from the Free Software Directory to donors.  Corporates and 
governments who use and earn considerable profits from Free Software, 
could start at 10^5 and share whatever they could to promote FSF-India. 
 We have about two dozen states, and if each could send as little as 
anything from 10^6to9, that should build a solid corpus.  Please always 
remember that,  when we part with our wealth to FSF, all of us end up 
becoming more wealthy!

2)  Free Software CD's/DVD's:  I have never seen a GNU/Linux box in 
Chennai.  I have to place orders to shops in Bangalore if I want a 
GNU/Linux box.  FSF-India could package and distribute Free Software 
CD's/DVD's along with printed documentation, through major book stores. 
 This could generate revenue.  For all that I know, FSF-India may be the 
distribution point for the whole of Asia.  Now, that could also earn 
foreign exchange for India.

3) Posters:  Our friend Rakesh Ambati, suggested posters of the 
Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace by Perry John Barlow.  We 
could have posters of GPL under the GNU head logo [I would frame one for 
my office], and may be of St. iGNUtius RMS with his famous lines:

	I bless your computer my child
	I'm saint iGNUtius of the church of Emacs.
	
	Emacs started out as a text editor but it became a way of life for
	many computer users and then a religion.  
	
	infact there was an alt.religion.emacs newsgroup back around 1990.  I
	don't know what it was used for because I never read net news.  
	
	but so,emacs became a religion. we even have a great sism between
	two different versions of emacs. 
	
	and now we have saints.	fortunately no gods yet.
	
	To join the church of emacs you must repeat the	confession of the
	faith three times. you must say, "There's no system other than the
	GNU. and Linux is one of its kernels."
	
	The church of Emacs has some advantages compared with some other
	churches because to be a saint in the church of Emacs does not
	require celibacy
	
	however it does require making a moral commitment to live a life of
	purity and then living by it.  
	
	You must Exorcise the evil proprietary operating systems from all the
	computers you control.  and then install a wholly free operating
	system instead.  because wholly can be spelled in more than one ways.  
	
	and then only install free software on top of that.  
	
	if you make this commitments and live by it, then you too would be a
	saint and you too may eventually have a halo, if you can find one
	because we don't make them anymore 
	
	Now sometimes people ask me "In the Church of Emacs, is it
	a sin to use vi?" 
	The answer is that "Using a free version of vi is not a sin its a
	penance." 
	
	and people sometimes ask me if my halo is really an old computer
	disk.	this is no computer disk.  this is my halo. But it
	was a computer disk in a previous life.  

        so, 'happy hacking' every one!


The ilugc has the full text of the above speech at: 
http://www.chennailug.org/rms-chennai.txt

The first line, "I bless your computer my child", touched my heart 
because the blessing comes alive with a load of GNU free software.  I 
have removed the [laughter] tags that you will find in the link above. 
 More ideas for posters are welcome.  There is scope for audio tapes and 
cd's too: including the free software song by RMS, and other free songs 
that can inspire and relax us.

3)  T-Shirts, Shoes, Footballs and a whole range of sports gear:  Arun 
proposed Khadi Kurtas.  I particularly request Footballs.  Whenever we 
see somebody kicking well, we could send them a FSF Football and write 
"Wow, you kick so well!  I am impressed.  Please kick well so that we 
can together reach the goal".  Some will use Free Software but refuse to 
promote it.  They get free kicks!  We could have a special offer on a 
pair of Footballs, where the purchaser pays for two at a discount but is 
delivered only one, and the other is sent to the deserving candidate for 
free kicks.  This special offer could be called "Share your kicks!". 
 Our OpenSource friends may promote a whole range of events based on the 
FSF sports gear: International tournaments, open matches, etc - oh! what 
fun it will be!  But since sports gear cannot be copied like software, 
these efforts will bring home wealth to FSF coffers to promote Free 
Software.  With the FSF sports gear, regardless of the players, we can 
always reach and win the goal of sharing the true spirit.

This is Christmas Season.  We could send some Footballs to Santa Claus 
so that he could give away to children for free.  But we should also 
watch out for entitites with the initials of Santa Claus who run after 
the balls they have given away for free all these years!

4)  Free Computers Junction:  Providing a junction for disposal of 
unwanted or discarded computer hardware and software that is still 
usable, could help people who need these for development efforts.  This 
may be just a mailing list to start with.  This is a kind of wealth, and 
could also be used by FSF-India, say in fairs for demo purposes.

Now, please contribute something more and add to the above fund raising.

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