[FSF India] To Hackers in Bangalore ( and other places)

[Vivekananda Prabhu]

Hi,

Recently I read a lot of postings in the FSFI mailing
list on WB Government signing a deal with MSFT for
providing e-governance to the people. It is sad that
despite efforts by FSFI WB govt. signed the deal with
MSFT burying Freedom

Are you guys aware that our very own Karnataka govt.
has signed a deal with MSFT worth millions of dollars
to get Kannada-versions of Win XP to provide
e-governance to the people in their state language?

I read this news item in "Times of India" at almost
the same time as WB-MSFT controversy was "raging". I
thought I would make a posting in the FSFI
mailing-list so that FSFI could take up this issue
with KRN govt., Free Developers would "flood" KRN CMs
mail-box & make KRN govt. to see sense. 

But before clicking the "Send" button I paused "What
if KRN CM agrees to our "Free software" for
philosophical (or economic) reasons and asks us to
give a Free Kannada Operating System so that he could
use it *now* in providing e-governance to the people
?"

We would be standing hanging our heads in shame or
trying to save our faces by saying "Give us 2 years &
we will come up with a better OS". It would not serve
any purpose other than wasting band-width on the FSFI
mailing list. 

So I clicked the "Cancel" button. (Yes, I too am a
"Freedom" freak, but I am also practical)

I presume you guys were either not aware of the issue
or clicked the "Cancel" button the way I did.

Isn't it sad that M$ "buys" Indian language code from
government funded (tax-payers money) NCST (paying
pea-nuts in Rs.) making it in-accessible to Free
Software, adds it to XP & sells it to state
governments (again tax-payers money) in dollars
(stealing from us our precious foriegn currency
reserve) & our media declares it a victory for the
people (e-governance in their local language)?

And what do we have to counter-act this? Nothing but
the Freedom "rhetoric"? Yes, Freedom is good but
people also need the means to achieve Freedom. In
these jet-set days nobody is willing to wait for
years.

Yes "Indigo" is a good project in this direction. But
going through this project web page they seem to be
working on only one language now (Malayalam) with
pointers to work going on in Tamil & some work on
"Star Office" in Telugu ( Since other projects are
being carried out by Govt. funded organizations &
universities I am not sure if these are really Free
Software projects)

We are a nation with 18 national languages (in the 8th
schedule) & countless others, but we don't have a full
blown support for even a single Indian language in the
Free GNU OSes. How many years will it take before we
finally have Malayalam, Kannada, Bhojpuri, Kashmiri
Distros of GNU OS?

By the time this would happen MSFT would have laughed
all the way to the bank. "Windows everywhere & Freedom
nowhere"

Yes, it might not matter much to the English speaking
populace like you & me. But it does to 60-70% of our
populace who can only understand local languages

My head hangs in shame whenever I think of this
helplessness. I feel more ashamed as I am living in
the 'Silicon Valley of India' producing countless SEI
CMM 5, ISO 9000, SEI PSP professionals, projects &
products. There are a million "IT gurus" ready to do
Y2K Cobol coding (or similar stuff) but not even a
handful to stand for Freedom. 

Yesterday my Mom was apprehensive of the prospect of
me going abroad for 3 or more months. She said "How do
you I write E-mails to you. I don't know English".( My
Mom knows only Kannada). The pain was even more

My interest now is to have a *full* Kannada GNU/Linux
distro. I am not the greatest hacker ever born. But I
will not stop even if it takes me years to achieve
this.

Right now the only issue stopping me is IP issues (as
I work for a MNC). Yes I get paid in XXKs & move
around in a Korean made car. I can always get Fredom
by running GNU/Linux or GNU/Hurd on my PC.But what use
is all this if I find myself living in a country where
my neighbors Banta Singh, Vishwanathan Iyer &
Shafiulla donot have this Freedom?

Can anyone help me with the IP issues so that my
company cannot claim Copy-right or patent over the
code I write for this project making it non-free? I
don't want to lose the hard won battle in the court
room. I believe many other developers would (*should*)
be having the same question in mind

Rest of the things can wait (Technology,
Implementation details etc.). I believe they will fall
in place once we start.

Let the "babus" & "netas" run Windowz XP (we cannot
bribe them the way M$ would). But let us atleast give
the Freedom to "Mr. Common Man"

Hackers, please start coding in your mother-tongues or
local languages (after resolving IP issues). We have a
thousand miles to go & we haven't covered Mile One.

Regards,
Vivek




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