PaRCha - JNU - All Organisations - 2003 ID-42786
.
.
' .
r .
-l .
~' JNU SCIENCE FORUM .
Friends, FREE SOFTWARE IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS FREE SPEECH! 27.01 .04 .. .
When Richard Stallman quit MIT in 1984, he was a successful systems programmer at the institute'sArtificial Intelligence lab. However, he found it morally unacceptable to use proprietary software that placed.
restrictions on its use and dissemination and develop software that could become proprietary. With the goal ofproviding an alternative, he left his job at MIT and started the GNU project. GNU would be an operatingsystem that would be completely free-free not necessarily in the sense of being available gratis-but more.
'importantly free' in the sense of giving everybody the freedom to use, modify and redistribute it. This vision of.
free software.
had its roots in the early culture of computing, where programs were not seen as private.
'intellectual property' but as something that grew out of the creative efforts of the entire community..
Two developments of the past decade or so have dramatically transformed the struggle between thesealternative visions of computer software. One is the Personal Computer revolution. The other is the Internet..
The former has lead to an exponential increase in the number of computer users and has made the question.
of how software is developed and distributed a matter that concerns a great many of us. Also, by a quirk of.
history, the resulting huge market for PC operating systems is almost completely monopolized by a single.
corporation-Microsoft-:-whose predatory business policies and technically deficient software have made.
many ordinary computer users receptive to an alternative. At the same time, the Internet has made it possible.
for thousands of people from across the world to come together to provide that alternative..
One of the greatest achievements ofthis.worldwide effort is the GNU/Linux operating system. Bringingtogether software from the GNU project, other free projects and the kernel (the core of the operating system) ..
-developed by Linus Travolds, the GNU/Linux system provides a platform that is more powerful, stable and.
efficient than its proprietary alternatives and runs on hardware ranging from microchips embedded in.
electronic equipment, to ordinary desktop computers to massive clusters of computers which provide analternative to expensive supercomputers. On the way, the GNU/Linux project has exploded many of the mythsof capita1ist production. Contrary to the claim that pecuniary incentives are the only incentives that work, alarge part of the system is developed by volunteers who participate just for the sake of enjoying the work itselfand Tor the appreciation that they receive from the community. The dogma of the 'Mythical Man Month'-that.
as more and more people work on a project they get in each other's way and productivity stops growing-isoften used to justify methods of organization where expertise and initiative are limited to a few and the rest arecondemned to the most dehumanizing drudgery. The success of the GNU/Linux project with its large numberof participants and no formal hierarchy belies all such claims..
. ·Replacing proprietary systems with free software has practical advantages-the economic one ofaffordability and the technical ones of stability, security and ease of maintainability. These advantages are .
particularly' .
important for a developing country like ours. Efforts by Indian computer scientists like the CDACproject that customizes GNU/Linux for Indian languages or the liSe's 'Simputer' which provides computer.
facilities in a way that is affordable and accessible for people living in villages have already starting leveraging.
thes~ advantages of free software. This has also forced corporations like Microsoft to relax their licensing.
conditions~particularly for governments..
However, beyond these immediate advantages, free software is about ideological resistance, abouttaking back control of our lives from the giant corporations that completely dominate them today. The history of· free software also shows the contradictions that any such resistance must face if it does not question thefundamental capitalist rules of the game themselves. Today, many big IT corporat1ons like IBM and Sun are.
intervening in the free software community with the aim of making use ofthe fruit of the community's efforts for .
t.
their own profits. The result has been a split in the movement with some erstwhile adherents of free so~are.
compromising with the principles of the movement in order to become morewhile some corporations masquerade under misleading slogans like 'friendly' with the corporatronsmodifying their restrictive practices. 'open source' without essentially.
The free software movement is a new form of resistance right in the midst of the much vaunted 'New.
Economy'. Richard Stallman, who continues to be one of its leading activists, will be speaking in our university.
tomorrow. We appeal to all students to attend this seminar organized by SC&SS. .
. SEMINAR AT SCHOOL OF COMPUTER AND SYSTEM SCIENCES.
'FREE SOFTWARE MOVEMENT AND THE GNU/ LINUX OPERATING SYSTEM'.
Speaker: RICHARD STALLMAN.
28.01.04 (Wednesday) 2 :30p.m. .
Room No. 223, SC&SS.
I .
Sd/-Convenor, JNU Science Forum .
.
PaRCha - JNU - All Organisations - 2003 ID-42786
.
.
' .
r .
-l .
~' JNU SCIENCE FORUM .
Friends, FREE SOFTWARE IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS FREE SPEECH! 27.01 .04 .. .
When Richard Stallman quit MIT in 1984, he was a successful systems programmer at the institute'sArtificial Intelligence lab. However, he found it morally unacceptable to use proprietary software that placed.
restrictions on its use and dissemination and develop software that could become proprietary. With the goal ofproviding an alternative, he left his job at MIT and started the GNU project. GNU would be an operatingsystem that would be completely free-free not necessarily in the sense of being available gratis-but more.
'importantly free' in the sense of giving everybody the freedom to use, modify and redistribute it. This vision of.
free software.
had its roots in the early culture of computing, where programs were not seen as private.
'intellectual property' but as something that grew out of the creative efforts of the entire community..
Two developments of the past decade or so have dramatically transformed the struggle between thesealternative visions of computer software. One is the Personal Computer revolution. The other is the Internet..
The former has lead to an exponential increase in the number of computer users and has made the question.
of how software is developed and distributed a matter that concerns a great many of us. Also, by a quirk of.
history, the resulting huge market for PC operating systems is almost completely monopolized by a single.
corporation-Microsoft-:-whose predatory business policies and technically deficient software have made.
many ordinary computer users receptive to an alternative. At the same time, the Internet has made it possible.
for thousands of people from across the world to come together to provide that alternative..
One of the greatest achievements ofthis.worldwide effort is the GNU/Linux operating system. Bringingtogether software from the GNU project, other free projects and the kernel (the core of the operating system) ..
-developed by Linus Travolds, the GNU/Linux system provides a platform that is more powerful, stable and.
efficient than its proprietary alternatives and runs on hardware ranging from microchips embedded in.
electronic equipment, to ordinary desktop computers to massive clusters of computers which provide analternative to expensive supercomputers. On the way, the GNU/Linux project has exploded many of the mythsof capita1ist production. Contrary to the claim that pecuniary incentives are the only incentives that work, alarge part of the system is developed by volunteers who participate just for the sake of enjoying the work itselfand Tor the appreciation that they receive from the community. The dogma of the 'Mythical Man Month'-that.
as more and more people work on a project they get in each other's way and productivity stops growing-isoften used to justify methods of organization where expertise and initiative are limited to a few and the rest arecondemned to the most dehumanizing drudgery. The success of the GNU/Linux project with its large numberof participants and no formal hierarchy belies all such claims..
. ·Replacing proprietary systems with free software has practical advantages-the economic one ofaffordability and the technical ones of stability, security and ease of maintainability. These advantages are .
particularly' .
important for a developing country like ours. Efforts by Indian computer scientists like the CDACproject that customizes GNU/Linux for Indian languages or the liSe's 'Simputer' which provides computer.
facilities in a way that is affordable and accessible for people living in villages have already starting leveraging.
thes~ advantages of free software. This has also forced corporations like Microsoft to relax their licensing.
conditions~particularly for governments..
However, beyond these immediate advantages, free software is about ideological resistance, abouttaking back control of our lives from the giant corporations that completely dominate them today. The history of· free software also shows the contradictions that any such resistance must face if it does not question thefundamental capitalist rules of the game themselves. Today, many big IT corporat1ons like IBM and Sun are.
intervening in the free software community with the aim of making use ofthe fruit of the community's efforts for .
t.
their own profits. The result has been a split in the movement with some erstwhile adherents of free so~are.
compromising with the principles of the movement in order to become morewhile some corporations masquerade under misleading slogans like 'friendly' with the corporatronsmodifying their restrictive practices. 'open source' without essentially.
The free software movement is a new form of resistance right in the midst of the much vaunted 'New.
Economy'. Richard Stallman, who continues to be one of its leading activists, will be speaking in our university.
tomorrow. We appeal to all students to attend this seminar organized by SC&SS. .
. SEMINAR AT SCHOOL OF COMPUTER AND SYSTEM SCIENCES.
'FREE SOFTWARE MOVEMENT AND THE GNU/ LINUX OPERATING SYSTEM'.
Speaker: RICHARD STALLMAN.
28.01.04 (Wednesday) 2 :30p.m. .
Room No. 223, SC&SS.
I .
Sd/-Convenor, JNU Science Forum .
.