Hi guys!

So finally here's the "official" notification for RMS' talk in IITB. Most of you already know about his visit to Mumbai, and I guess there is no real need to introduce RMS to you :-) Please do come for the lecture.

Date: Saturday, 23rd March 2002 Time: 4pm onwards Venue: Convocation Hall

For directions for getting to IITB and to the convocation hall, please refer to this resource on the IITB website:

http://www.iitb.ac.in/campus/howto/howtoget.html

Here's an article that had recently figured in the Financial Express.

Free software Guru -- Richard Stallman -- on India mission March 14, 2002

While the concept of using free software for back-end requirements is catching on, the desktop is yet to be liberated from the hold of the largest proprietary operating system (OS) corporations.

So, as the free software movement guru Richard M Stallman sets out to spread the wings of the Free Software Foundation in India, helping build applications for the desktop that will reach the common man a daunting agenda lies ahead. Besides gearing up to popularise free software, both at the back end and especially the desktop, empowering developers to make applications ubiquitous, working with state governments to promote free software use in e-governance and using it as an effective tool to work towards bridging the digital divide is the core of Stallman's India agenda. 'Apprenticeship by tinkering' is clearly set to be the name of the game.

Richard Stallman is the man behind GNU/Linux (GNU developed by Stallman and a Linux kernel developed by Linus Torwalds) open source operating system, which is believed to have more than 17 million installations worldwide. Interestingly, Stallman says, 'free' software is not about the price (and says companies are free to charge a sum to offer the operating system and services to users), but is all about the freedom and openness of use. The Free Software Foundation itself makes most of its revenues by selling copies of the software and training manuals while some funds come in by way of donations. The foundation is also looking at a business model where it will function as the certifying agency and will certify compliance of free software users with the licensing rules.

"Countries can avoid paying gigantic amounts of money towards licensing of proprietary software. Specific to India, free software can be used to support computer science education at all levels. This also allows for anyone to use and learn," he said.

Interestingly, the free software movement with GNU/Linux has already made inroads in India. To cite examples the Andhra Pradesh government is already set to execute projects on the free OS, while the well-known Simputer Trust has showcased this OS in its low-cost computing appliance - Simputer and some of the new technology start-ups like CDC Linux are already developing high-end clustering and parallel supercomputing solutions on the GNU/Linux operating system.

Source: The Financial Express