[FSUG-Bangalore] FSF should distance itself from undemocratic, illegal, immoral and unjustifiable acts of protest.

Wed Nov 19 19:54:17 PST 2008

Dear All,

Have been looking at all the discussion on what happened at Cochin, I have
some questions as i was not present at the venue.

Many of the protesters have been raising this point time and again that the
organisers had no clue on what Free Software is? agreed than what did you
all the intellectual lot of free software activists, evangelists do there at
the venue to educate them?

with my association to the free software moment. i have seen most of the
free software activists, evangelists either replying to mails/discussions or
telling stories about various issues on blogs and sending links to these
lists.

but to remind in reality  people at large to be educated about free software
and freedom are not in these lists. only people who already realised the
necessary of freedom are here. this is reality. your posts blogs and
intellectual taught are from there reach.

so when the organisers managed to get so many participants why was confusion
created by a protest instead of an educating campaign against Novell when
majority of you were speakers of the various sessions. go work with people,
gather them, educate them clarify things to them. they themselves will join
hands in all your protests.

if the principle organisers of the "protest" even  had clue of working with
people at large  would not have taught of protest instead would have used
the opportunity to put the glory of "Freedom above there individual
popularity and personal grudges" .

and why is this fear of hijacking, how can some hijack a moment. how can a
peoples moment ever get hijacked. i am seriously thinking of consulting a
language expert to know what "HIJACK" actually means but before that i would
like to hear from all those who alleged CPI(M) of hijack attempt what they
meant by "HIJACK".

On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 10:35 PM, justin joseph
<justinjoseph007 at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 4:32 PM, Nagarjuna G. <nagarjun at gnowledge.org>
> wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 2:40 PM, haynes davis <haynesdavis at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 1:32 PM, haynes davis <haynesdavis at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> who are the  FSF people are doing the double speak?
> >>>>
> >>>> Second, please do not identify FSF and FSFI.  These are two different
> >>>> sister organizations.
> >>>
> >>> i referred to fsf only in Indian context, ie. fsf india. Sorry for the
> >>> confusion.
> >>>
> >>> Some people took part in the protest say Novell issue was due to the
> >>> ignorance of organizers, while some say the organizers concealed it.
> People
> >>> like Arun etc were at the conference, while some where protesting.
> Anivar
> >>> Aravind, Member FSF was a speaker at the conference and also a
> protester.
> >>>
> >>> http://nfm2008.atps.in/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/speakers.html
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>  And also regarding cpim hijack issue. Why dont fsf india make the
> things
> >>> clear. Do fsf india support those rumors?  If not, why does not fsf
> india
> >>> condemn such news, at least to show some gratitude towards cpim which
> >>> supports our cause?
> >>
> >> to add some more
> >>
> >> 1.) http://www.mail-archive.com/fsf-friends@mm.gnu.org.in/msg00704.html
> >>
> >
> > Here Sasi clarified that what his intentions are.  what is the double
> > speak in the above message.
>
> It depends on how one perceives it, or how one would analyze it, or
> how one would *like* to see it.
> But to suggest some thing first and then give a different version of
> ones understanding can be
> *generally* .  In this particular case, I personally can see this as
> deliberate ambiguity.  But like I
> mentioned I do agree that It depends on how one see it, or how one
> would analyze it, or how one
> would *like* to see it....
>
> Off course people can *clarify*.  But what Sasi kumar has said in this
> post:
>
> http://mm.gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2008-September/005462.html
>
> and here :
>
> http://mm.gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2008-September/005468.html
>
> does not do justice to the word "clarify".  To me it still appears
> double speak.  If Sasi kumar
> had mentioned in the second post that he is posting on the basis of
> clarifications he sought or
> was given from where ever, I would have seen it as him clarifying himself.
>
> I am ready to change my opinion if convinced the other way.
>
> >
> >>
> >> 2.) http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?no_d2=1&sid=08/11/17/0120203
> >>
> >
> > James did a mistake, he sent his apologies, and  he is not a
> > spokesperson of FSFI.  FSFI does not endorse what James wrote.
>
> As far as I can remember, James did not *apologize*.  He *clarified*
> saying he made a mistake.
>
> But I *might* be wrong here, because like many here, I merely
> volunteer my time towards some
> of the things mentioned here:  http://www.fsf.org/volunteer/
> sometimes(mostly the case :-) ) spending money out
> of my pocket  and as this money comes from my full time job which
> takes a lot of my time I might have missed some
> posts from James where he send his apologies.  If I were a payed
> employee, I am sure I would have been more
> carefull while using my official id's.
>
> Were little sad to see the loads of negative comments at slashdot
> against the Novel campaign and I saw that
> most of them were centered around the methodology used.
>
> >
> > Would it be OK if i take your views expressed in these emails as that
> > of CPIM?  If I do so that would be a mistake.
>
> I think it would be OK if the views came from foobar at cpim.org, since
> its not the case
> it is not OK.
>
> >
> >> 3.) what did arun do in his capacity as FSF Secretary to  dissolve the
> >> situation during the conference. Was he organizing the protest? Was the
> >> protest with the knowledge of FSF india?
> >>
> >
> > He tried talking to the organizers, he was not in the protest to begin
> > with. He did not organize the protest.  It came to the knowledge of
> > FSFI only after the manhandling issue.  Arun was in the scene only
> > after the manhandling.  He is protesting the manhandling and later
> > supported the protest, for it is a just protest.  That was a
> > spontaneous decision and was not a decision of FSFI.  FSFI does not
> > consider the protest is in bad taste.  The protest was not against the
> > organizers, it was to inform the participants about the color of
> > Novell.  That is an important step, else the people would have left
> > with the impression that Novell is associated somehow with FSM.
> > Organizer's interpretation that the protesters planned this against
> > them is not correct.  Not a single poster was against the organizers.
>
> Protest could also be done differently, even by posting to ones local
> community:
> http://www.mail-archive.com/mailinglist@ilug-cochin.org/msg01678.html
>
> In my opinion putting up posters in ones own stall would have been fine.
>  But
> I do not think its alright to post on others banners and all across
> the avenue.  The photos
> on Anivars Blog shows that  the posters were posted across the venue and
> also on
> Novel Banners.
>
> Anivar is a good friend and I am sad that he received blows to his
> back,  any kind
> of physical contact should have been avoided at all cost.  There is no
> justification
> what so ever for hitting him.
>
> I would only like to suggest that we could have protested in other ways
> which
> would have avoided a confrontation, like distributing Debian GNU/Linux CD's
> or gNewSense CD's, asking for an open forum for discussion on this.
> Sammer of ILUG Cochin( was good to see that Linux was changed to Libre on
> Dr. Nagarjuna's suggestion, I did always want that and hope it
> reflects on the website
> and mailinglist soon) while doing his session discussed relevance of
> the boycott Novel campaign
> and made it a point that the participants understood the point, were
> happy to be part of it.
> We could have asked for the speakers to dedicate 2 or 3 minutes of
> each of their time slots
> towards spreading awareness about the issue and requesting
> participants by giving them links
> to internet resources for the same.  The speakers would have more than
> obliged.  We could think
> of a lot and lot of ways to do this and to take this forward.  The
> whole idea is to educate and promote
> trying to avoid confrontation.  Anivar has also mentioned that he
> understood  dynamics of the campus
> violence by these people.  For these the method of protest could have
> been avoided.
>
> Long time back while in college we had also pasted banners for
> altogether different reasons, but in
> hindsight I have admitted to myself that it was a wrong thing to do.
> Although the issues we raised
> are still valid, we should have done better things to convey the message.
>
> And I really need to ask this here, whats the agenda you are setting.
>
> I have lot of valid concerns from the Free software point of view
> against some other conferences especially
> foss.in to name one.  That does not mean that I will go around pasting
> banners supporting my concerns
> at the foss.in event, I will think of better means to serve the same
> end.  But in the hypothetical even that I do it and
> the security confront me, will you and FSF-I support me and come and
> sit with me in protest at the venue?
>
> I would have wanted to say a lot more but need to get back to work :-(
>
> -justin
>
> >
> >
> >> 4.) was anivar representing FSF?
> >>
> >
> > He was also not representing FSFI, nor FSF. He clarified that he was
> > representing swatantra malayalam computing.
> >
> > Nagarjuna
> > _______________________________________________
> > FSUG-Bangalore mailing list
> > FSUG-Bangalore at mm.gnu.org.in
> > http://mm.gnu.org.in/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fsug-bangalore
> >
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-- 
regards
naveen
Be Free, Speak Free, Work Free.
Advocate "FREE SOFTWARE",
FREE as in FREE SPEECH, not as in FREE BEER
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