The meaning of freedom - free software activist thamasha
November 17th, 2008
If there is one word that has the most confused and complicated definition in Kerala, it is the word “Freedom”. Many people think that “freedom” means you have the full right to do anything even if that means doing illegal things or trampling on another person’s freedom. It is like you can do whatever you want to if you have “political muscle power” or “union muscle power”. So any small party can say that you shouldn’t take your vehicle tommorrow since we want a “harthal” tommorrow. So the complete “freedom” is largely a myth and has lot of limitations. You have freedom only if you have the political muscle power with you.
Let us look at what our constitution says about freedom,
All citizens shall have the right-
- To freedom of speech and expression;
- To assemble peaceably and without arms;
- To form associations or unions;
- To move freely throughout the territory of India;
- To reside and settle in any part of the territory of India;
- to practise any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business
Funny that the “harthal” we call almost weekly in Kerala violates one of the fundamental principles of our constitution - “To move freely throughout the territory of India“.
One of the important aspects of political freedom is the “freedom of speech”. Even though our constitution guarantees it, you have to be careful unless you have strong political muscle with you. Many people also think that “freedom of speech” applies everywhere! But in reality there are limits. For example - racism or other remarks causing social tension are not permitted. That is why even a powerful politician like Raj Thackarey had to visit courts, police stations and jail!
Let us consider an example. Suppose you are an artist and you are conducting a public exhibition of your work in an auditorium. You have hired the auditorium and you CAN control whom you want to visit the gallery. Now in the evening some guys come to your gallery and standing inside they are giving out leaflets ridiculing your work. What will you do? Most of us will ask them to leave and if they don’t leave you force them to leave by calling security personnel. If that doesn’t work, you can call the police. This is because this is a event organized by you and you have every right to say who can and who can’t be at the venue!
In the above example, people can distribute the leaflets outside your gallery standing on public property. Then you can’t do anything since their actions are protected by “Freedom of speech” in our constitution.
Now you may be wondering why I am writing a thesis on Freedom on this blog.
Last week Cochin University of Science & Technology (CUSAT) and Kerala government jointly organized a “National Free Software Conference 2008″ in Ernakulam at CUSAT campus. Communist party in Kerala is very much impressed with “Free Software” concept probably thinking there is no money to spend. Of course many of them have no clue as to what “Free” in Free Software means. It doesn’t mean “free beer” or “free coconut”, rather it means “free speech”. You can view the software source, modify the source and use it the way you want. I am not sure whether communists would appreciate the “free speech” part in “Free Software”. Historically they are not very big fans of “Free Speech.
Whatever may be the political reason, I think promoting free software is a good thing. But there was a small problem with the above event. One of the sponsors for the event was Novell. The problem with Novell is that they are a known ally of Microsoft. So the sponsorship was like “KingFisher Beer” organizing “Anti drinking conference”. You get the idea!
But again, I found that only amusing. I think it is good that you can get some money from Microsoft to promote free software! But many “Free Software” guys in Ernakulam and Kerala were offended and they decided to use their “Free Speech” right inside the hall where the event was being organized. So naturally Novell guys and organizers were not happy and they asked them to leave the venue. They didn’t listen and organizers had to call the police to throw them out.
The organisers called up Kochi police and man handled the Anivar Aravind a former student of the Cochin University and a well known free software activist.
Now what I found amusing is the fact that the organizers (who is backed by CPI(M)) had to call the police! In good old golden days, they would have handled it on their own and it would be a bit more than the casual manhandling!
So now the Internet is full of “boycott novell”, “free software activist manhandled”, “microsoft joins with CPI(M)” etc. etc. I have only one thing to say to all these guys,
Grow Up!
THE FACT: You don’t have any right to protest inside the venue. The organizers had every right to throw you out.
More Information
- Event calendar at National Free Software Conference
- The so called manhandling photos - frankly you don’t call that manhandling it is called “throwing you out!”
- Unforgettable conference? - this is what you call unforgettable?
- Free software activist man-handled?
- This guy thinks that enough respect is not given? - If someone distributes nasty leaflets during your marriage what will your relatives do? Respect him?
Credits : bbaunach for his brilliant photo of crying free software activist from Kerala and to bobinson (one of the crying free software activists from Kerala), for pointing out the need for attribution.
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November 17th, 2008 at 3:48 pm
nice attempt to redirect some searches here. Hope your google page rank will increase and you get more revenue from the Google ads
good luck !
November 17th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
@bobinson,
Nice attempt to divert my valid points. Congratulations!
November 17th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
You do have the freedom to express. But from the nature of posts you were posting my conclusion was the what I said above.
on another note:
Please check the licensing term of the photo you have used and give credit to the author.
it is nice that you have given a back link, but the licensing term requests you to give credit / attribution to the photographer ie “bbaunach”. Lets follow this practice and respect each others creativity.
“Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).”
please do check http://www.freebird.in/wp/?p=130 for more details.
thanks buddy !
November 17th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
hey, it will be great if you can enable OpenID here.
November 17th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
divert my valid points
Google for “define:valid”
November 17th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
@bobinson
Thanks. I have added the credit.
November 17th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
@pR@tz
I have a question for you. What would you do if someone crash lands your marriage party and starts distributing leaflets accusing you of adultery? Will your relatives give him enough “respect”.
I find the whole thing as a farce by some “attention seeking children”.
November 17th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
@keralatips:
You said it man. The free software activists where pointing out misdeeds
you see, the face of truth is always bitter. And that explains the whole thing.
November 17th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
yes bobinson, it shows that people will rarely kick you out if you are polite.
November 17th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
My relatives may man-handle if that’s just an accusation (but I don’t think this as a right comparison, it is as idiotic as comparing 10 degree celsius to 10 meters) without sufficient proof, and if the allegation is not baseless, maybe …. all of them will manhandle me!
If the organizers had done their homeworks well, if they had studied about free software ideologies, they wouldn’t have:
1) Invited Novell for sponsorship.
2) Allowed the display of proprietary softwares.
3) kept “Novell sponsorship” a secret.
And Anivar is the front runner of free software activities in Kerala. It was also under his leadership, the Swathanthra Malayalam Computing had localized KDE and GNOME desktops. We are also localizing the pages of gnu.org. None among the organizing committee would have contributed to the free software community like Anivar had and FYKI that is why he was invited to take a workshop on Language computing and localization!!
Just say NO.
November 17th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
See their site http://nfm2008.atps.in/ … where is Novell?
November 17th, 2008 at 5:49 pm
@pR@tz
Politians have their own reasons to hijack these activities. It is better to keep them away from free software.
I am in pefect agreement with you. In fact I know many “linux” based companies coming up in Kerala just to squeeze money from government. The politians are happy and the public is told that all projects are now handled by “free software groups/companies”.
It would have been better to boycott the event or protest outside the venue. Disrupting the event may not get you any sympathy as you can see from the Slashdot comments. In Kerala/India lawlessness works, but people outside India are more “law-abiding”
November 17th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
SMC’s statement on NCFS 2008, Kochi
The National Conference on Free Software which holds the motto of Free
Software, Free Knowledge and Free Humanity was held on Cochin
University of Science And Technology (CUSAT). The main organizers of
the event were CUSAT, Open Software Solutions Industrial Co-Operative
Society (OSSICS), Appropriate Technology Promotion Society (ATPS) and
Kerala State IT@School Project. In addition to the above mentioned
organizations, Free Software Communities such as Swathanthra Malayalam
Computing(SMC) and ILUG-Cochin were also invited to organise the
event. The prime sponsors of the event were Keltron, C-DIT and Linux
For You Magazine. A number of NGO’s and private organisations also
participated in the four day exhibition and two day seminars. All of
the sponsors and the participating members were listed in the website
of NCFS(http://nfm2008.atps.in). However, one such organization was
missing from the sponsor list, which is the notorious Novell
Corporation.
After the evil agreement with Microsoft Corporation (MS), Novell
betrayed the Free Software community by violating the spirit of the
GNU General Public license, which is the corner stone of the Free
Software movement and legitimizing the patent threats of Microsoft
corporation. The protest against Novell have been in it’s peak since
the inception of the Boycott Novell campaign which has been successful
in making awareness about the evil hands of Novell and it’s ally MS.
Novell was allotted a prominent position in the exhibition stall and
they were allowed to place their posters at the prominent venues.
Members from SMC were part of the Programme Committee and the Souvenir
Committee. There were no indication that Novell was the platinum
sponsor of this Free Software Event. The organizers never communicated
about the sponsorship and thus betrayed the whole Free Software
community as Novell did. This is evident from the incidents that
occurred after the peaceful campaign to boycott Novell by the SMC
members & other Free Software Supporters present at the meeting.
SMC members including Anivar Aravind, Shyam, Hiran, Suresh, Jaisen and
many others were busy in the first day with Localization track (full
time) and sessions. After knowing Novell’s role SMC members planned a
peaceful awareness campaign on second day urging end users to boycott
Novell and posted a Charge
sheet(http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/fci/images/0/00/Boycottnovell.pdf)
against Novell. However, the organizers, primarily the CUSAT
bureaucrats & Members of Students Union, (who does not have much
exposure in Free Software) were harsh with the protesters after a
verbal complaint from one of the Novell official present at the stall.
SMC takes this opportunity to deeply condemn the organizers decision
to include Novell into the Free Software event. SMC urges the
organizers of the event to apologize to the community on this dreadful
alliance with the notorious Novell Corporation and the way the
organizers treated Free Software Campaigners.
November 17th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
In Kerala/India lawlessness works, but people outside India are more “law-abiding”
Well, if we were so “law-abiding”, we would still be saluting “the” Union Jack. And the action helped the free software activists to,
1) Spread the free software message to more and more people. (thanks for posting, thus giving us a platform to spread the message)
2) Spread the message against “Evil Novell” (thanks again)
3) Helped us to clarify our stand who thinks otherwise. (to people like you, and most of your readers)
4) Helped us to correct the organizers. (Do you think they will invite Novell, again to sponsor a free software event?)
November 17th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
I disagree. This incident has projected you guys as a bunch of thugs to many people.
And about british, they would have left even if we just waited. After all they were getting tired of us
November 17th, 2008 at 11:52 pm
> yes bobinson, it shows that people will rarely kick you out if you are polite.
ROFL ROFL !!!!!!!!!!
so, its not adultery or theft that is the crime !!!!! its pointing out adultery that is the crime.
sorry pal, I couldn’t stop laughing
November 18th, 2008 at 6:33 pm
Before eating half-baked cakes and far.. read the detailed explanation by Anivar.
If your intentions are true, better stay away from people who wants to make you their TOY!