[FSF India] Re: [FSF-India] GNU/Linux in Schools

[Pappu]

On Fri, Aug 03, 2001 at 02:35:31PM +0530, R Sai Kiran wrote:
> 
> 	Well, I have a slightly different point of view here. I claim
> that, you first get the people to start using the GNU/Linux systems, and
> very soon, the whole *philosophy* behind the movement becomes clear to
> them. 
I have seen this strategy fail miserably in many places. Now a days you
have many >>Linux<< users groups in India who openly refuse to listen
or talk about GNU or freedom. There are lots mailing lists where you
will be banned if you try to speak of GNU or freedom (I would have been)
thrown out of by now if I this thread was on one of them). The moment
we leave out the phylosophy and go after just the technology, we loose
all our strength. 

> The GNU + GPL is a rather new thing. We are in the initial phases of
> a huge revolution to come. 
This revolution is atleast 17 years old. It is growing at a good pace.
Better grow slowly rather than explode and die away.

> I believe, the best idea now is to get people 
> to start using GNU/Linux systems. I'm *NOT* supporting
> non-"free" software. I'm just saying that, we'll give them the GNU
> stuff. But, let's not pack the non-free stuff either. Probably, we can put
> all the non-free software in a separate path, or, the second CD, if we
> need to go for a 2-CD distro. 
This is a good idea and is actually practiced by the debian distribution.
But I still believe that stressing on phylosophy is the only way we can
promote free software. By not doing so, we may be able to get a much bigger
number of users but the majority will never even think of the freedom part.
Please note that for the majority of people in India, getting the software
they need without paying money is no big deal. So if we don't put
phylosophy first, our attempts will reduce to a mere anti microsoft 
campaign.

> 
> 	Please note, all I'm saying is we really need people to start
> using GNU/Linux first. When I first started off with Linux, I had no idea
> of the philosophy, just knew that it was free (in the free beer sense of
> "free"). Over a short period of time after that, I came to know the
> background stuff, the philosopy. And now, I'm pretty much in love with
> it. It's the same with most people, I guess.
NO. It is not so for the majority. The example of ilug is applicable here.

> I convinced one of my Professors here in campus to start using GNU/Linux. 
> Initially, I just gave him a brief idea of the philosophy and told him that 
> all tools he'd require (like code-libraries etc.) are free. Once he 
> started using it, he really "felt" the difference. He advises students to 
> use GNU/Linux these  days. 
Does he stress on the phylosophy now? If no, then we have a loss. If yes,
may be because this person is a Professor (thinks a lot), he found the
true value. But what about 90% of college students who just want to
watch vcds and ** stuff? They don't and won't care about phylosophy unless
we start with that.

> 	I totally accept. But, converting the Windows users to GNU/Linus
> users is the first step in making them use FREE software.
Can't we try the other way round? ie. we make them free software users 
and so they automatically become non non-free software users. I insist
on this because the failure of the other strategy that I have noticed.

bye,
pappu.