[Ilugc] fossconf-09-negative side
- From: lawgon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Kenneth Gonsalves)
- Date: Tue Mar 3 18:53:20 2009
On Tuesday 03 March 2009 15:28:25 Raman.P wrote:
It is my wish that NRCFOSS achieves its slated objective - which is similar
to that of any LUG.
this is the root of the confusion. The objective of NRC-FOSS is far more
limited than the objective of a LUG. For example, a LUG can agitate against or
object to a University signing an MOU with a proprietary software company,
NRC-FOSS cannot. A LUG can oppose software patents, NRC-FOSS cannot. The list
is endless.
the second point that is to be noted that in the 1st Phase of MRC-FOSS, there
were 2 organisations involved - CDAC, Chennai and AU-KBC Chromepet. The tasks,
method of functioning etc were different. In the 2nd phase, there are *eight*
organisations involved. Please keep that in mind when talking about NRC-FOSS.
thirdly, in the mail that started this thread it was stated that 'NRC-FOSS
made a powerpoint presentation'. This is not correct, and please note for
future reference, only Professor Krishnan officially represents NRC-FOSS at AU-
KBC - all other presentations are made by individual NRC-FOSS employees. This
is a fact well known to leading members of ILUGC. If Mr Raman had stated that
'an employee of NRC-FOSS presented a power point presentation' it would have
been ok.
fourthly, the slides were in ppt format and presumably being shown using
openoffice - all the organisers had to do was to spend 10 seconds to convert
the
same to an open format. And spend 1 minute educating a newbie to foss about
open formats. Did anyone do this? Or did anyone contact the large number of
NRC-FOSS employees present - including me, prof Srinivasan and the Coordinator
Professor Krishnan regarding this?
Prof Srinivasan has apologised - but I do not think he was right in doing so.
This was a small mistake made by a newbie to FOSS - not an attack by $bill. I
do not apologise for this. I feel that this is being used as a stick by people
to beat up on NRC-FOSS.
The next point is: what is FOSS? In my opinion, if the code passes the test of
4 freedoms, it is FOSS regardless of platform, programming language and media
of presentation. If you look at the presentations made in linux.conf.au for
example, you will find that at least 1/3rd of them are made with Mac or doze. I
have given 2 talks in Ilugc meets, one talk in fossconf08 and many talks
across the country using Mac. Mr Raman attended both my talks at ilugc - he
did not object.
And this RTI bullshit. Thiagarajan and his friends keep sending mails here
accusing NRC-FOSS of various things. They have no time to substantiate their
idiotic allegations and no time or money to petition the RTI folks. They also
cannot afford the bus fare to Chromepet to come and inspect the records. They
are free to come anytime and check out everything, But they have to pay for
the bus/train fare.
and as for Mr Raman's statement that he is 'pained' - NRC-FOSS does not have a
medical unit - but usually aspirin relieves pain.
--
regards
kg
http://lawgon.livejournal.com
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