Richard Stallman's visit to Chennai

RMS in Chennai

Dr. Richard. M. Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation, addressed a mammoth gathering at IIT-Madras on Monday, February 6, 2012. Speaking on the topic 'Free Software, Freedom and Education' in front of an audience of at least 3,000 students, teachers and activists, Dr. Stallman elaborated on a variety of topics including the history of the free software movement, the difference between free software and open source software and the dangers of proprietary software. Dr. Stallman was also very firm on the negative impact of social networking and the retrogressive role of mega corporations in stalling open access to knowledge. The previous night, during an interaction with FSFTN volunteers, he was very critical of the Tamil Nadu government 's scheme to distribute Windows Starter Edition to college students, an issue on which FSFTN has conducted a campaign with students and teachers. Students from nearly 25 colleges attended the function, in many cases coming from considerable distances in buses. About 30 students from different colleges formed part of the volunteer committee that worked closely to facilitate the smooth arrival and departure of the participants. There was also a considerable interest from participants in Community Computing Centre project.

Future of internet looks bleak with..SOPA/PIPA-RMS

RMS at the Seminar

Swecha, has organised a talk on Internet Freedom in the context of SOPA/PIPA by Dr.Richard Stallman, founder of FSF. He is also the initiator of GNU project and he is the man behind the emacs editor and GNU Compiler Collection, GCC. The talk that was well attended by around 1500 people from the industry and academia from all across the state. RMS spoke on the importance of free software and evolution of the free software movement.

Industry, academics and research have achieved rapid progress in the past two decades largely owing to the availability of knowledge on internet. However, the introduction of bills such as SOPA/PIPA makes the future of internet bleak.This was the essence of Dr.Stallman's lecture who also spoke about the necessity of knowledge being free from any shackles. Software being a knowledge in itself should also be free.

Dr.Stallman said censorship of any kind as tyranny and all those who are  for the freedom of internet should fight any attempts aimed at stiffling free speech and access to knowledge.

Membership campaign of DAKF inaugurated.

The membership campaign of the Democratic Alliance for Knowledge Freedom (DAKF) was inaugurated by Dr B. Ekbal, by giving the first membership to Dr Achyuth Sankar on 14th Feb 2010 at Press Club Auditorium, Thiruvananthapuaram. Speaking in the seminar that followed, on the subject “The control of Social Networking Media – Realities and Reactions” Dr B. Ekbal elicited the significance of DAKF in the context of commercialisation of knowledge and technology. Speaking on the occasion, Dr Achuth Sankar (*Director of State Inter University Centre of Excellence for Bioinformatics*) stated the importance of free media and freedom of speech. If the controlling aspect of the social networking media is largely meant to evade criticism against the government, then the whole process is objectionable. The contribution of social networking media in solving and interpreting the social and ethnic issues in and around the world is enormous. Architect Padmasree G Sankar, Pu Ka Sa General Secretary Prof V. N. Murali, Kerala University Syndicate Member Dr. P. S. Sreekala also participated in the Seminar. DAKF State Secretary Dr M. R. Baiju delivered the welcome address and DAKF Thiruvananthapuram Dist Secretary T. Gopakumar delivered the vote of thanks.

FSMI on Open Standards in eGovernance

Free Software Movement of India congratulates the FOSS community of India on its victory in acheiving an Open Standards Policy by the Government of India. The continuous debate on the draft policy and vigilant persuasion by the community has finally paid off.

The community should now focus on sensitizing the various government departments and organisations towards compliance to these standards and implementing alternative solutions. We should extend support upto the local government bodies in identifying non-compliant solutions and deploying solutions as per the Open Standards Policy.

We should look forward to foster an environment where the country's technology graduates can be employed for engineering free alternatives in the light of the great demand for solutions that this change in policy will bring forward.

This policy should be showcased as not only a success story of a vibrant Free Software community but also as a benchmark for other government departments in our country and for other countries as well.

FSMI was quoted by The Hindu in this article as:

Speech By Dr.A.P.J.Abdul Kalam at NCAR 2010

Former President Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam

I am delighted to inaugurate the National Convention for Academics and Research – 2010 on “Computing Freedom for Technology, Education and Research” being organized by the Free Software Movement of India (FSMI) at IIIT, Hyderabad. I am happy to know that this First NCAR 2010 is being organized for spreading awareness of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FOSS/FLOSS), and provide a platform for sharing of experiences and views in its use in Academia/Research Communities and to Foster a collaborate approach to education in developing and improving educational aids including software tools.

I am happy that the convention is focusing on wide range of topics through dedicated track sessions on academic and research areas like scientific computing and visualization, embedded technologies, Networking and Security, Cloud computing, to Indian Language technologies and application specific domains of Mobile, GIS...

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Workshop for Academicians at BVSR Engg College

Venue: 

BVSR Engineering College, Chimakurthy, Prakasam Dist.

Event Date: 

18th Nov 2010

BVSR Engineering College, Chimakurthy (Prakasam Dist.), will be organzing a one day workshop on "Computing Freedom in Engineering Education – A Free Software Perspective" in association with Swecha. The workshop aims at sensitizing academicians and Post Graduate students about Free Software and the research opportunities in the domain of Free Software. It will show a path for the researchers to think innovatively and to collaborate for the demand for indigenious research in FOSS (Free/Open Source Software).

Topics Covered by the Workshop:

Workshop for Academicians at KKR&KSR Guntur

Venue: 

KKR & KSR Institute of Technology & Sciences, Guntur

Event Date: 

19th Nov 2010

KKR & KSR Institute of Technology and Sciences, Guntur, will be organzing a one day workshop on "Computing Freedom in Engineering Education – A Free Software Perspective" in association with Swecha. The workshop aims at sensitizing academicians and Post Graduate students about Free Software and the research opportunities in the domain of Free Software. It will show a path for the researchers to think innovatively and to collaborate for the demand for indigenious research in FOSS (Free/Open Source Software).

Topics Covered by the Workshop:

Freedom Matters with Eben(Inauguration of Free-Software Course@St.Josephs')

Freedom Matters with Eben Prof.Eben Moglen, Founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center, and also the architect of GPL v3 is in Bangalore doing a series of talks and interactions pertaining to the freedom in the digital world.

Computing Freedom in Engineering and Technology Seminar

A one day seminar on 'Computing Freedom in Engineering and Technology' was held in the UGC Staff college auditorium on the 26th of September 2010. This event is in sequel to the call given by Free Software Movement of India (FSMI) to celebrate Software Freedom Fortnight from 15th Sept (birth anniversary of the father of Indian Engineering, Mokshagundam Visweswarayya) to 2nd Oct (Gandhi Jayanthi).

The 'Computing Freedom' seminar was aimed at emphasising on how Free Software can be used in academics and the speakers stressed on the need to strengthen the learning process which could be done only through Free Software as it is possible to look at the source code and make modifications to it. Collaborative effort of the academicians resulted in the release of a lab manual for Qucs (Electronic Circuit Analysis based on Free Software).

The manual was electronically and physically released by Prof KS Rajan of IIITH. It was decided to hold workshops/seminars/symposiums/guest talks in the run up for the National Conference of Academicians in Free Software. To begin with the first workshop will be held in the third week of october in the vicinity of JNTU Kakinada.

Overwhelming response to the Software Freedom Fortnight Celebrations by Swecha

More than 500 students from various colleges in Hyderabad participated in the Free Software workshops held by Swecha. These workshops were held at VNR VJIET, SVIT and SMEC colleges in Hyderabad. The workshops are a sequel to the call given by the Free Software Movement of India (FSMI) to celebrate the Software Freedom Fortnight from the 15th of September (birth anniversary of the father of Indian Engineering, Mokshagundam Visweswarayya) to 2nd October (Gandhi Jayanthi).

Sessions were aimed at introducing various free software alternatives available for the students in the engineering domain. A number of students showed interest in participating in more such workshops. The students were greatly inspired by these workshops to intensify their glug activities in close to 25 engineering colleges with the help of Swecha. The hosting glugs are vglug, EERF and vinx.

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