[fsug-bangalore] Knock knock.

[rkrishnan at antispam]

Arun,

Yes, I know about these difficulties, and fully understand. It's just that
I am frustrated with afew individuals at the helm of fsf-india. If these
people change, probably everything will change.

Free Software Movement is one of the most noble movements ever in humanity,
so it is very important we do something about it. We need representations
in Govt committees etc (already "Open Source" guys who are headquartered in
Bangalore are in Govt committees). We also need ways to handle online
donations. If there were a way to donate monthly as in fsf-boston, I would
not have given that precious $10/month (now $20/month from June '04
onwards)I give to them and instead given that to FSF India. When I hear
people talking how the fsf-india funds were spent (like flight charges
for people etc) I do not feel like contributing to FSF-India as that money
I donate is earned after working very long and hard hours at my work place.

I hope things will change for good in the time to come. But for that a lot
of current practices and people have to change.

Ramakrishnan

> Dear Ramki,
>
>   Unlike FSF in Boston, which is now a standing organisation, FSF India
> is not (not even a single full time staff, and even the core people are
> spread across the country). Resources are very small. And lot of
> headache as a legal entity. It is easy to say fix this and that, but a
> lot of work has to be done to get things fixed. I know you are
> complaining because of your interest in us not hate.
>
> Just to understand the difficulties here are some work,
>
> Some time back RMS visited India and had discussion with our president.
> Fine, how many know the difficulty we faced in arranging his travel ? We
> raised good amount of funds to pay his travel in India and to India.
> Some good friends like Abhas helped and at the last minute we arranged
> everything.
>
> I had to spend long time in from of government organisations like
> Registrar of companies, IT office etc its really pain. It is not at all
> fun like coding. Last month, for several days i was in IT office seeing
> one person to get the papers for IT exemption to FSF India. Most of
> these work go in the background and wont be seen or known by others.
>
> Also there were very much visible efforts like WSF media centre. It
> wasnt a simple job.
>
> Regarding the web, now we have an efficient and almost full time
> volunteer to work on it. He had done lot of work already. Many of your
> suggestions including the Who is Who is complete. Software for volunteer
> registration etc ready now (he is testing i think).
>
>
> We will be improving the operation, but need time and resources.
>
> regards,
> arun.
>
>
>
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