I have been thinking about writing on BLUG meet for some days after seeing a mail and later a post from Atul. The meet was on 25th Aug as it was Linux’s Birthday (Why 25 ? Read an article from blug wiki). I went home after the meet and couldn’t upadate my blog during weekend.
Then there was another blog entry about another perspective of FLOSS in Education.
Me and Dilpu were again there together.
I got a chance to initiate a discussion on Software Freedom Day and there was a very interesting discussion. Some points are noted in SFD Bangalore wiki
. Then there was a video of Eben Moglen’s talk on Freedom of thought, culture etc.
The interesting thing was meeting those with whom I discuss things on mailing lists. Also the food was good though 150/- was a bit more I suppose (Though you won’t get that feeling with 150/- no where, so it was rather worth it)
Well some quotes from Sankarshan blog.
Is this the right approach ? Perhaps not. This approach or offering is based on what the developer world makes of the requirements and the processes of the academic world. And in a way that could turn out to be dangerously skewed. Till date, at least for India, the developers have not really sat across with the academicians and educators to question them directly on what they want the software to do, how they want it to behave. I guess the time has come for us to do that. Just imagining (or assuming) the requirements and then trying to figure out the best possible pieces of the puzzle that will complete the jigsaw will only see FLOSS lose credibility.
And he gives some solutions too
If you notice carefully, we have travelled down a rocky path till now. We began with the assumption that the current way of providing FLOSS for education is not proper and ended up with the real need to motivate developers to create applications or add functionality to existing applications. For example, a software like DrGeo would do pretty well if advanced mathematics modules aimed at standard 10,11 and 12 are added to it. Using that in conjuction with Octave, R and gnuplot would enable the creation of a complete tool set of educational applications for mathematics. And this is exactly what is lacking right now – the means to create modularised education stacks which can be plugged into a FLOSS based educational application framework. One framework for an entire board with modules being added at will to enable it to be re-used.
I would like to have more discussions in this line so we will have more discussions on SFD and in FOSS.IN (There is a separate Education track for foss.in). We are starting a project as extension to Srath Lakshman’s slynux. It will be slynux edu-GNU OS. I have just talked about it with Sarath and looking forward to his reply.
This effort will be focused to collect the free software available from various sources and provide a customised (for India) version for educational institutions.
Looking forward to more ideas on this.
The guy behind slynux is a cheat. Many people, including me, who have interacted with him have realized the same. Catch him on his yahoo messenger and ask him couple of basic technical questions and decide for yourself. He is just out to make money by creating a sympathy with his age.
Kumar: I know Sarath Personally. I have met him and talked too. I chat with him regularly. You don’t know anything, dude.
What more do you expect from a 11th standard boy ? He has made his own distro, Do you have one ? OR do you have any contribution to FOSS to talk about ?
I agree that the media has created a hype. It is not the problem of Sarath, but the media. They think what he did is a great thing, and I agree it is not a simple thing for a 10th standard guy. No journalist who interviewd him or wrote about him know even what free software is about.
In the beginning even Sarth was not aware of the basic things, but that does not keep him the same way always. He is a hacker and he has learned many things now.
>>He is just out to make money by creating a sympathy with his age.
This is absolutely rubbish. Totally wrong. Who are you to judge Sarath ?
Okay.. I can work with that Edu-GNU project. It will be nice to see educational institutions using GNU/Linux. It will also encourage students who are interested in experimentational type (Hacking) learning.
Actually, when i was Ist out with SLYNUX, I didn’t have much idea about freesoftware. Then I was aware only about Free software was something that gives right to modify, distribute software. So I was truely blind then.
But now..I’m really understood the needs of FS. That’s why I’m now interested in including FS in School.
Iam little late on the reply, but let me reply. Iam sure you do not know me. Pls dont rule out people whom you dont know at all. I can bet my contribution to FOSS is 10 times yours. I first started on linux 9 years back and in the last 9 years I have given back “much more” than an average lug poster.
I/my friends too have interacted with Sarath. He has NOT created a distro. He never could answer some basic questions. First time when I talked to him he was just asking for money for his broadband !!!
Cmon lets face it. He may have some talent but he should take credit only for what he has done and not for what is has not done.
>>I am sure you do not know me. Pls dont rule out people whom you dont know at all.
Exactly !! This is what I have to remind you in case of Sarath. I am sure you don’t know Sarath either.
>>I can bet my contribution to FOSS is 10 times yours. I first started on linux 9 years back and in the last 9 years I have given back “much more” than an average lug poster.
I never claimed my contribution is more than yours (and I don’t know you first of all — you don’t even provide a link to somewhere).
I’m happy if you have given back “much more” than an average blug poster. But is this the discussion about ?
I repeat Sarath is not a cheat . Are you a self-assigned judge of all the foss community members ?
RMS is not cheat
ESR is also not cheat
…..
Sarath is cheat
Praveen has not given anything back to community
I’m interested to know more about your judgement on other foss members.
What do you think about Atul Chitnis, Gopal V, Biju Chacko … ? It will be nice to see your ratings.
When did you start this rating thing ?
Is it your profession or what ?
Kumar is not talking about “Linux 9”. He said that he started with Linux 9 years back. You just failed to understand what he actually meant. Just FYI.
BG
Baishampayan,
Thanks for pointing that out. (RedHat used to call Linux 9 for RedHat 9 release). But I didn’t like the way he talked about Sarath. I don’t think that was the right way to encourage some one like Sarath.