Dear Rakesh,
Why didnt you have the same feeling when you initiated the bloody drama in the name of Novell protest at Cochin conference...?????
What did I do at CUSAT ?
A hand full of students and teachers were working hard day and night to make the Cochin event a great success... No one like you were there to help them...
I would like to appreciate all of them for their efforts. In fact many of the organisers of CUSAT event participated in conference held in Trivandrum. They were part of the organising committee of FSFS conference right from the beginning.
And at the end of the day, you tried your level best to demoralize them....
I am sorry if I tried to demoralize them. But i dont understand how I did that.
As a free software activists I respect freedom of speech. While myself or organisations I belong are not involved in any campaign against novell, I respect the freedom of others to campaign against Novell or even free software. When your freedom of speech is chained what is the point in having free software ?
I did protest against manhandling of Anivar and other free software activists MES college. I still keep that position.
Protest like one that happened in Kochin happened in FSFS also. At least some of us raised voice against those who spoke against the interest of our movement. But none of us manhandled any one. I was happy that Sunil pointed out the mistake. I would have been more happy if he had protested more strongly (Sunil said he did protest and there were no one to support) at the venue and informed the audience about the mistake.
Now, please tell me, what did I do wrong at CUSAT ? Do you think I should have kept silent ? Do you know that I've been locked in a room with people shouting at me and Mr Amarnath Raja (IEEE/InApp) saying that we wont be allowed to go out ? Is this the civilized manner in which a protest should be dealt with ? Why did our friends and fellow organisers did not come to resolve the issue, until we started the protest(against manhandling) ? What actions were taken against those who harassed students from MES who just took photographs of what happened ?
We did not protest against use of proprietary software in the conference(we should have). In e-governance session one speaker, after doing some google research, was telling the audience who difficult it is to use GNU/Linux. I doubt if he used GNU/Linux ever in his life.
And at the end, one of the key organiser started campaigning against me and FSF India for all that happened in CUSAT. Why me and FSF India, there were several others who protested that day, I was just one among them, Ranjith(Lecturar, Barton Hill Engg College), Anil kumar K S( Head E-Gov, Kerala State IT Mission), Pramod, Vimal (SPACE), Anoop (ZYXWare), and many others.
I am willing to correct if you can point out my mistake.
Why FSF India and I became the target ? Time will tell more...
warmly arun.