[Fsf-friends] draft gnowledge manifesto

[doxa@sancharnet.in]

Dear Nagarjuna,
>I have uploaded the oulines of the talk given at Trivandrum conference.
Sounds soft now. But there may be issues related to construction of "mind" - perhaps, the theme of "mentality" over mind may be more suitable to this context (it would smash away a few more remaining brmnkl concepts). In fact culturation could directly and easily be exchanged with mentality - saying explicitly that there is no "mind".

Regarding "Copyrights and Patents", we should remove that *bias*. 
"...When the English Parliament passed the first modern copyright
 law, the Statute of Anne, in 1710, it did so in part to stop 
publishing monopolies 'from oppressing authors, potential 
competitors, and the public'. The first American copyright
 law, in 1790, covered only books, maps, and charts, and granted
 monopoly control for a mere 14 years (renewable for another 14).
The Copyright Clause itself specifies only 'limited times' for
 monopoly control of creative works, after which they enter 
the public domain – that is, they become freely available for
 anyone to publish, sell, copy, or preserve...." (www.fepproject.org)
Historically, hence the concept of Copyright were quite different from what they are interpreted today by Corporate-based education/legislations.

One more issue remains. And that is to commit that though there are ways today to get *interconnected* globally, in reality, there is no *communication* (Nizar-ian theme, which includes "mentality" - ex Kanpur IIT, your alma mater). People just do not communicate, they mimic, coerce or terrorise. Here the ethics centred around *principles of sharing* that is embedded with Free Software, gives a way out, probably the best way - and that's why citizens world over do not scared when Free Software is becoming *global*, getting ready to *colonise* with its own anti-inhuman *imperialistic designs*.

The most fundamental departure from Marxian idealogy is that "revolution" here doesn't pit human beings against human beings, it forces human beings to come together and work for *commons*.

Maybe, your theme already covers these ideas.
CK Raju