[Fsf-friends] MS' influence in academia

[balachandran c]

I believe it is very important to step up the activities regarding FS 
advocacy in Universities and Schools. The "Unix culture" was born in 
the Universities, and it appears that MS is determined to kill it 
there. MS already offers gratis copies of its softwares in 
Universities. I am pretty sure that with higher broadband penetration, 
they will offer these "academic programmes" in Indian Schools too. I 
guess that they are not offering these "services" in India since they 
know that the kids will make illegal copies anyway, and they don't have
 to pay the bandwidth costs. (Most likely, the Schools will be paying 
for the b/w costs). This is a very real threat.

As far as the gnu on the desktop question goes, I think win's main 
strength is this: you can get your nephew to reinstall win every time 
it craps out. There are lots of gnu users who can make their machines 
do a samba, but the mass of users who can "just install gnu, and maybe 
even change themes" are few. We need them. MS's efforts will largely 
absorb people from this category.

Our efforts: The real meaning and purpose of FS is freedom, the real 
reason, ethics. Most of our efforts in advocating FS is based on these 
facts. But are they enough? A very popular argument among us goes this 
way: if someone uses FS for any reason other than the one that ought to
 be, they will move away when they get an alternative. I agree. But so 
what? While they are using FS, they are providing us with that resource
 which we badly need. (As far as moving away is concerned, notice that 
inertia when people refuse to go gnu even when ethical *and* financial 
considerations point that way? Inertia works both ways.) Am I saying 
let us forget all about ethics and talk about "network effects" ? All I
 am saying, is that if we have 1000 people who will switch to nonFS 
tomorrow, but can help 10 people who "get it" to switch to FS today, it
 is something positive. Moreover, it is easier to get our real point 
across to people who already use FS. (We are experts in preaching to 
the converted ;) ). When we get our point across to people who use 
nonFS, we imply that they are supporting something unethical. People 
resent this. They react, not by thinking about the problem and reaching
 a logical conclusion, but by pushing the whole problem across the SEP 
(Somebody Else's Problem) barrier. What if we can make sure that when
people think about the problem, they are already on the other side of
the ethical/moral problem? I think they will react differently. Better
yet, we can get them to act.

If you agree with my point, you will see that our resources are not
well organized. As far as the ethical aspect goes, we have lots of
essays at FSF website. I believe that we should organize all our
resources, the essays, the case studies:extremaduras and munichs
(personally, I found the extremadura story more relevant to India),
the bounties, the cool tech's:xens and reisers, the tutorials, the
LUGs. Advocacy must be multi-pronged, it requires a bit more planning.
Personally, my attempts at FS advocacy to individuals have been
successful. My only attempt involving a group (CS students at CET), a
failure. I realize that volunteering support (short pointers on how to
use gnu tools, staying after regular hours to discuss things, burning
cds with knoppix, eclipse, and all that jazz) was not enough. The
issue is not that people think about the problem and choose nonFS,
they simply refuse to think about the problem. We need serious
brainstorming to get their attention. One of the interesting suggestions that came up in one of the FSF meetings was to give some sort of membership to the students to let them know that they are part of our group. I am sure, we can come up with more ideas. 

Here is one: FSF Academic Awards.

Best Project (Developed): The conditions are obvious. Adv: The CS
students are required to develop projects anyway, lets recognize their
creativity.

Applied (Technical): Use/Modify existing software for creative applications in non CS fields. 

Applied (Social): Socially relevant application of FS.

Arts (Essays, Artwork for FS projects, Artwork with FS):

So my basic idea is to get some attention for FS from the whole range
of academia. Ofcourse, the real problem would be to find sufficient
resources. For my part, I pledge Rs.3600 to any effort to bring in the
students. As far as solving the resource problem goes, I think we should lobby the alumni of the schools to support us.

Maybe this "FSF academic awards" idea is not a practical one, maybe it
is. But more importantly, we *need* some ideas to make them reach us. Something more "interesting" than letters to beaurocrats.

Eagerly awaiting your ideas and suggestions,

bala.