[Ilugc] [OT rant] FOSS and the student community [was Re: Re: RFC: Syllabus v0.2.0]
- From: sanand@xxxxxxxxxx (Sridharan Anand)
- Date: Thu May 12 17:27:35 2005
On Thu, 12 May 2005 16:20:20 +0530, "Manokaran Kittuswamy"
<manokaran@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Ironically, where FOSS is all about freedom and non-conformance, AU
is all about unquestioning compliance! The very anti-thesis of creative
thought. Pls dont blame the students. It is the faculty, out of fear
that their ignorance will be exposed, that leave no stone unturned to
penalize students for the slightest deviation from the prescribed path.
Evidently, your sense of irony and humour is not compatible with mine,
but we will let that be :-) ! I was taking barbed swipe at AU and its
culture!
Anyway the point is, this is true not only of AU, but of almost any
institution whether it is in academia or industry. Ignorance and
individual malice has little to do with it. By the very fact that it is
an institution, it institutionalises and bureaucratises (if I may make up
such a word) modes of thinking that do not promote creativity. This is
inevitable (I might almost call it a natural law of degeneration of
institutions, somewhat like the second law of thermodynamics) and it
happens even in the NITs and IITs, even the very best of foreign
universities. It is no use whining on ILUG-C about sadistic faculty
members. The only people who can break this mould are the students.
If students really want to be `non-conformant', as you say, and they
really care about things like freedom and other things, why isn't there
that air of defiance and creative rebellion on AU campuses? Where is the
buzz that one expects to see on college campuses? Why do I get the
distinct impression that students have little other than their CGPAs on
their minds? I don't see too many students who are animated by deep and
abiding passion. Why? Unless this happens, no amount of _promotion_ of
FOSS by the govt., or the university, or NRCF, or FSF, or anyone else,
is going to work in this country. Students need to sit up on their arses
and think hard about what they want in life. This may not happen in a
day. What is required is nothing short of a grassroots revolution
of sorts which would reach beyond the educational institutions and into
the general population via the students: the goal will be achieved, and
you can rest on your laurels only when your grandma is able to expound
on the benefits of using GNU/Linux! If you're more ambitious, you should
not stop till your grandma can write a how to do a Canadian-cross gcc
build!
Later,
Anand.
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