At 03:56 even 11/4/02 +0530, Dr.N wrote:
In practice I refuse to use and try to convince people to use Microsoft products. But I would refuse to set this as an agenda or campign actively for this because, when GNU and FSF started there was no Microsoft. The idea of free software is independent of Microsoft. FSF and GNU have a positive agenda and to put it in a negative terms will deviate the purpose. The reason why I cannot swallow everything that Charles wrote in Business India is because, the media is now manufacturing a new concent. As you saw the article talked about economics but not about business ethics, freedom and philosophy. >They are missing the point, but it is deliberate. And not because they are ignorant about it. The war is not against Microsoft, it is against proprietary software paradigm.
Nagarjuna
You have put in a few excellent points. I read that article and it did not /feel/ right. It never mentioned the ethos of the free software community. It never talked about /how & why/ GNU/linux is where it is today. All they talked about was business & money. The media only needs a bandwagon to jump on. Like so many linux "pushers" out there it too has very practical reasons behind it. Of all those managers who have "embraced" linux they have done it because it makes business sense - not because they believe in the philosophy. And it beats me why we have to even think about them.
The only point I do not see eye to eye with you is the question of "war". Is it really a war out there? Can not two schools of thought exist together? The proprietary software paradigm is what we do not like. But by us not liking it does not make it evil or wrong. Then where does the question of war come from? Or like the US are we now ready to 'bomb' anyone who does not agree with us? Is this real "choice"? Self protection for survival is one thing - war is another.
Can we have a LUG meet to discuss this issue? Been a long time since a LUG meet anyway.
regards,
On Tue, Nov 05, 2002 at 07:17:38PM +0500, quasar@vsnl.net wrote:
At 03:56 even 11/4/02 +0530, Dr.N wrote:
In practice I refuse to use and try to convince people to use Microsoft products. But I would refuse to set this as an agenda or campign actively for this because, when GNU and FSF started there was no Microsoft. The idea of free software is independent of Microsoft. FSF and GNU have a positive agenda and to put it in a negative terms will deviate the purpose. The reason why I cannot swallow everything that Charles wrote in Business India is because, the media is now manufacturing a new concent. As you saw the article talked about economics but not about business ethics, freedom and philosophy. >They are missing the point, but it is deliberate. And not because they are ignorant about it. The war is not against Microsoft, it is against proprietary software paradigm.
Nagarjuna
You have put in a few excellent points. I read that article and it did not /feel/ right. It never mentioned the ethos of the free software community. It never talked about /how & why/ GNU/linux is where it is today. All they talked about was business & money. The media only needs a bandwagon to jump on. Like so many linux "pushers" out there it too has very practical reasons behind it. Of all those managers who have "embraced" linux they have done it because it makes business sense - not because they believe in the philosophy. And it beats me why we have to even think about them.
The only point I do not see eye to eye with you is the question of "war". Is it really a war out there? Can not two schools of thought exist together? The proprietary software paradigm is what we do not like. But by us not liking it does not make it evil or wrong. Then where does the question of war come from? Or like the US are we now ready to 'bomb' anyone who does not agree with us? Is this real "choice"? Self protection for survival is one thing - war is another.
Can we have a LUG meet to discuss this issue? Been a long time since a LUG meet anyway.
The term `war' is metaphorical. But I dont agree that we are working for coexistence. When it is a matter of ethics, we should not say that the good and the bad can coexist. We should strive for eliminating what we consider bad.
Planning a meet on the coming sunday. Announcement will be made soon.
Nagarjuna
----- Original Message ----- From: "Nagarjuna G." nagarjun@hbcse.tifr.res.in To: linuxers@mm.ilug-bom.org.in Sent: Tuesday, November 05, 2002 8:46 PM Subject: Re: [ILUG-BOM] HappyDiwali thanx to BILL to bill in BusinessWorld
You have put in a few excellent points. I read that article and it did
not /feel/ right. It never mentioned the ethos of the free software community. It never talked about /how & why/ GNU/linux is where it is today. All they talked about was business & money. The media only needs a bandwagon to jump on. Like so many linux "pushers" out there it too has very practical reasons behind it. Of all those managers who have "embraced" linux they have done it because it makes business sense - not because they believe in the philosophy. And it beats me why we have to even think about them.
[snip]
A point here is that most managers are going to take a decission on moving or not moving to Linux as a business decision. It is connected to profitability and costs. They cannot make a decision on the basis of philosophy or ethos. Even when they choose linux because of the pholisophy, it is because the MS way of working is going to be very costly in the long terms and tie them to a tech platform they will have not option to change from. They are supporting the free / open source software platform because it makes business (which is not necessarily economic) sense for them
For linux to be successful, there has to be enough users and enough software, specially for commercial and for home users. That is what MS success was been about. Then only, is an OS platform going to be "mainstream". So you have to think of them and make them move to it. Linux has to consider the needs of commercial organistions to grow.
On a related note, why is it that in mid 90s, 68% of webservers were Apache / Linux ? Not simply because the server owners thought open source phillosophy is great (many of them probably did too), but because it met a very important need of theirs and it was business decision. The reason why the number has now dropped to close to 50% is also because of business reasons (dont flame me if the number is wrong, it is what i read in a report a month ago -- I think even 50% is fantastic considering how hard MS is trying to capture the market).
For example, If I ever tell my clients to switch to Linux, it will be considering business factors only -- cost (not necessarily free -- and considering hardware + software costs), options avaialble, ease of use, difficulty to maintain and availabity of good tech personnel who are willing to provide support at a reasonable cost.
Regards Saswata
On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 19:17:38 +0500 (IST) quasar@vsnl.net wrote:
thought exist together? The proprietary software paradigm is what we do not like. But by us not liking it does not make it evil or wrong. Then where does the question of war come from? Or like the
Think DRM, DMCA, Palladium, Trusted Computing. Those are all the angelic gifts of Proprietary Software. And they sure are most willing to co-exist with Free Software Philosophy.
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Nagarjuna G. -
quasar＠vsnl.net -
Saswata Banerjee & Associates -
Tahir Hashmi