GPL conference
I’m at the GPLv3 Conference at IIMB and it sucks.
People missed the whole point of the conference. The conference is about what-to-have and what-not-to-have in the next version of GPL. However, the last 2 days, people have been just asking “How do I run xxx in linux” to “What do you think about M$”.
Currently I’m in the DRM panel and someone asks RMS “Why free software” and he is going on and on about how he was in MIT and how he lost freedom.. the usual stuff. Somehow he/she does not get boo’ed while someone got boo’ed coz he said he used proprietary software coz he could not find a free-software alternative. Ofcourse not to mention RMS’s abuses on people coz he cannot understand the Indian english accent.
Just remembered why I cannot stand FSF and RMS.
That’s very sad. There’s a reason why Indians aren’t taken as seriously out in the west as they probably ought to be, and I think this captures it perfectly. Why isn’t there some sort of a “co-ordinator” person stepping in and shoo’ing off all the grossly offtopic questions on linux/microsoft/why-free-software etc.
I wouldn’t be too harsh on rms not understanding indian accents. While most indians would love to think they speak awesome english, (and I agree that the vocabulary and grammar tend to be quite comprehensive/correct), the accents are pretty frigging hard to comprehend for a non-indian.
I think you’re coming off too harshly on the FSF and rms. I think the FSF in principle is a fantastic idea, and I am grateful for their existence. As for the rabid propogation of GNU tools, it’s debatable if it’s a good thing, but then again, would Joe Ramaswamy in Brazil or India have heard of rms or the GNU if rms wasn’t being as persistently rabid/noisy about it? Finally, all said and done, that man is a bloody genius, and I really do respect him for that. It’s sad how people are judging him based on his personal philosophies, really.
RMS doesn’t have a problem with the Indian English accent – he is 50+ years old, and he is a bit hard of hearing. So cut the man some slack. 🙂
Also, given what I saw yesterday, I can honestly say that if *I* were in his place, fielding the dumbest questions on the planet, from people so clueless that they should be jailed for sheer dumbness, I would have reacted exactly the way he did yesterday. It wasn’t just frustrating for him, but for many of us sitting in the audience who really wanted to discuss the GPLv3 proposals.
The audience was quite literally sprinkled with “attention whores” whose only reason for being there was to draw attention to themselves with their dumb questions, so that they could go home and tell their friends that they “discussed with RMS” or something to that effect.
Worse, the publicity for the event was pathetic. The industry (the ones who really needed to be at this event) just didn’t know that the event was happening.
Neither RMS nor Eben Moglen deserved that lack of understanding that they had deal with yesterday. The organisers of the event may have had the best of intentions, but they certainly did not ensure that participants knew what was expected from *them*. This should have either been an invitation-only event, or there should have been some criteria set for attendance. *Anything* to increase the quality of discussions.
True.
Am also there right now as you type this blog. But blame it on the home work not done?? May be there should have been someone to moderate and say “OFF TOPIC”??
I wouldn’t be too harsh on rms not understanding indian accents
Its fine not to understand but its really not fine to abuse.
Why isn’t there some sort of a “co-ordinator” person stepping in and shoo’ing off all the grossly offtopic questions on linux/microsoft/why-free-software etc.
I’m not sure if thats what Kalyan meant.Was the speaker himself on topic ? Maybe I misunderstood…
Re: True.
You have clearly never tried to moderate a discussion with RMS in it. 🙂
I’m not sure if thats what Kalyan meant.Was the speaker himself on topic ? Maybe I misunderstood…
Ahh from all the other comments looks like I did misunderstand.
In short you are totally wasting your time which you could have spent out in the wild.
Re: True.
The man kept telling Kallu to “pro-nounce your con-sooooo-nants” when he tried to speak. It was embarrassing and degrading.
Who is RMS !!!
Yes me too…is it human..
(rolls eyes)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman
Re: True.
It was just funny that anything related to linux was offtopic and views about de-forestation was on-topic 🙂
I wouldn’t be too harsh on rms not understanding indian accents
There is no issue with him not understanding indian accent. But he is in India and he cannot scream at people for how we talk in our native country. I polite “I’m sorry I did not get that” would be very nice.. considering the people whom RMS is screaming at are old experienced folks from various communities.
I think you’re coming off too harshly on the FSF and rms.
I’m very happy for what he did and for what FSF did. But that does give them the right to say they own the world and linux/OSS etc are just crap. I like their philosophy.. but they really take it to the extreme. With freedom, I also would like to have the freedom to pay for a nice piece of s/w and use it. 😉
Yep Absolutely agree with you on the last part.
But RMS should grow up and not attack people who do not “GNU” before few words.
Ouch my poor kallu.I’m glad I was not there …with my club
Give the man a break. Compared to the moron who asked RMS “how to run autocad on Linux”, or the room-temperature-IQ guy who asked him “what is the difference between free software and open source – is it like fedora and redhat?”, he was positively benign! 🙂
Glad the registrations were closed 😀
this explains why u prefer watching/listening animals and their doings to human talk 🙂
It is sometimes difficult to separate the values, goals, and philosophy from the personalities. But it is important.
Additionally, just about every time I attend a technical conference, I leave depressed. I know these people are my peers, but the fringes make me uncomfortable.
Today there was a panel discussion titled “FOSS in Business”. One of the issues discussed was to have an alternate GNU/Linux solution for the accounting, ERP etc. One of the speakers said that its very hard to convince clients to move from Tally to GNU Cash. After all the discussion that happened, someone from the audience asked something about Tally. While the panel was answering to his question, one of the organisers argued that it was not necessary to discuss Tally since its not a free software. That was very rude, but the same person from the audience asked another question…”Is the source code for Tally available ? ”
It didn’t matter how much the question(s) were related to Free Software – this conference was not about discussing Free Software, but to discuss the proposals made in the GPLv3, to help it become something that works for a majority of people.
> This should have either been an invitation-only event, or there should have been some criteria set for attendance. *Anything* to increase the quality of discussions.
I think the organizers didn’t really expect the janata to turn up in numbers …
And even fewer around actually understand what GPL is (forget what GPL v3 is about).
To be honest, I think there were less than 5 people who really were glued into GPL there. Though on the whole there were less then 50 people in the audiance.
you love bait
He’s really bad PR for FSF / GNU.
I was at one of his talks in IISc some years ago, and everytime someone mentioned “linux”, he was quick to jump on them for not using “GNU/Linux”. Most people who bore the brunt of this were the members of the press, non-linux folks.
Safe to say, they’d have gone home thinking linux users were a bunch of rude, self obsessed lot and I’m pretty sure he drove them away from ever trying linux.
What he did was really uncalled for, someone of his age and experience could have been a lot more circumspect.
That’s funny. If you were ever at any of the BSD conferences, that’s mostly what they keep saying as well 😉
Oh, I wasn’t there — I don’t know if rms really “abused” anyone — if that was what he did, well, very very sad and disappointing. 🙁
If the speaker himself wasn’t on topic at any conference, then well, shame on the organizers for letting him/her speak on said topic, esp. at a conference of this nature.
I’d give the IIMB/organizer folks more credit/intelligence — I’d imagine the offtopic stuff comes from the audience, but then again, I guess kalyan could confirm this 🙂
I’ve been to *several* rms conferences and haven’t ever heard him say that “linux/OSS are just crap”. Ever. I think the anti-GNU sentiments are a little too strong and the anti-GNU camp tends to exagerrate wildly.
From my experience, rms has always maintained that the linux/OSS folks aren’t giving the GNU project sufficient credit, and that they ought to, and he keeps talking about “Free software” was “Open Source software”, never really going into bashing microsoft or linux or OSS.
… unless of course rms has changed in the past 4-5 years … but I doubt it.
As for “GNUheads” walking around with their opinions, well, screw them. I couldn’t care less. The smarter ones are (a) bloody smart (b) keep their opinions to themselves, esp. when it comes to linux/OSS etc.
And I didn’t realize he was “screaming” at people for speaking clearly … that’s a little sad. 🙁
You’d be surprised how few people actually grok GPL (BTW, I don’t claim to grok it or anything) — I was at one of the licensing v/s patents talk at BSDCan last year and it was eye-opening when the speaker went on discussing various licenses v/s patents v/s whatever … I guess I didn’t really care that much that I don’t even remember what was being talked about, but that’s the point I’m trying to make. You’ve gotta be careful about how you populate the audience for a talk/conference of this nature … ;/
Actually this is like the 3rd or 4th time I’m listning to RMS and he *has* changed.
I still remember back in 98/99 when he would ask people to call Linux as GNU/Linux and he would say how things were in place before linux really took off.
This time however, he openly critized linus, OSS (I was shocked too considering he was not even kidding in front of some school janta).
Looks like he just could not take the popularity of linux anymore.
Yep absolutely agree. I myself am pretty bad with this stuff. Infact I was at the conf not to add my views, but to better understand all the new stuff in GPLv3 related to patents/DRM etc.
AFAIK, they just touched upon these things on talks which was already there on the web. I missed one imp talk, so maybe it was covered there.
here are two things that scare me:
(1) Watch any moderately popular person in the “IT field” field questions from desis
(2) Take RMS seriously
(1) is scary since you saw first hand what went wrong. These are people who will ask Charles de Gaulle if Adolf Hitler was his golf buddy and ask Alan Greenspan to give top 3 reasons of why an interest free economy makes sense (there has to be a “what is your top 3 blah”)
(2) is scray because he does things like this and thinks his word can make a difference in this case
OTOH, putting 1 & 2 together sounds like absolute fun.
Oh, I wasn’t there — I don’t know if rms really “abused” anyone
Lol neither was I , but you know how much I believe in Kalyans honestly :D.
Can’t believe an innocuous post you wrote has close to 50 comments! You should rename your LJ to “flamebait” or similar.
By the way, while you were writing it, I was staring rudely at your monitor from the last row 😉
It’s about time I had adsense on my blog 😉
I saw you reading the last line and I do remember you laughing out loud when you read that.:)
heh.. I just don’t know why our desis always ask questions like as if its the white house press brief. “What are your comments on …”, “what is your opinion on …”
Heheh, i was thinking the same thing too.
As I said to you on IM – had more people like you been around at the conference, things would have been much better. The fact that you didnt show up meant that the majority of people were clueless guys, and were in control of proceedings.
I’m glad I didn’t bother to come at all. 🙂
Musharraf mian
So does calling a spade a spade bother you? At least rms has the guts to say it, and say it out loud.
All you IT guys are soft in the head from thinking you’ve inherited the earth, just like the Paki bastard does for his people/race.
Social interaction
Do you IT guys always interact in this way, even when you’re (see, *I* dont say ‘your’) sitting next to each other? What, is your (not you’re) laptop your reproductive organ?
I saw a bozo waiting at the doctor’s, fiddling with his and trying to look all-important, while his wife was woolgathering. Must be from the same batch.
When will we learn, oh, when will we learn?
Subject2
Hi
Bye
You rock more than Steven and Joe for sure!!
I might be one of the few guys praying for MonSOON to disappear SOON because can’t wait to see updates to your awesome gallery!!
One of friend (Ranjit Rao – Awarded for BEST PHOTOGRAPH in Annua Ashvita Photography competition last year) introduced me to your photoblog on Saturday (06/09/2007) around 11:00 PM (Eastern), I couldn’t take my eyes off from your gallery. I was about to hit the bed since I had few plans around North Carolina mountain with my XTi, so thought will surf your gallery for a while….guess what its was 4:00 AM when I finished surfing your gallery.
Next day, I dropped my plans of visiting Carolina Mountains and started surfing your gallery again. Amazing gallery I haven’t seen a great gallery like this one in Wildlife category. One of the things I understood from your gallery is “A Great” photo is just not ONLY because of expensive or advance camera and lens, but its about timing and creativity (eg: photo of “The Last Supper” – BR Hills in your gallery and the same photo in http://sgowtham.net/photoblog/index.php?showimage=41 ),no offense Gowtham 🙂
BTW..I think you should remove sort By Type option called “BEST” from the fliter; I really find each photo in your gallery is BEST.
Great Work !! Kalyan… Way to go!!!
Thanks
Raj
http://picturevision.blogspot.com/
Waiting to see the next set of pictures. Every time i look through your gallery, I get transported to a different world. I am amazed at how beautiful your pictures are. Keep them coming. Cheers!
close to Munnar?
I remember guide was pointing to “Nilgiri tahrs” these at that time, but could not see much due to bad weather.
Hello.
Hi. Me very much to like here. I shall advise this site to the friends.
I am sorry for my English. I only learn this language.
it was great. specially the photo collective where people like amogh, vinu, hari, jace and those with bangalore weekend shoots shared their tips and tricks. 🙂
Informativ blog
Very useful and informative blog. Recommended for all to see.
http://medsdrugs.blogspot.com/
Oh wow.. Simply Lovely.