Btw, I'm writing this from the yahoogroups web interface so excuse any messy formatting and please cc [EMAIL PROTECTED] as I am not a member of the list.
--- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Thaths <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > My opinions: > > 1. Hardcore, technical topics (like Cox's or Welte's talks) tend to > draw bigger audiences in India because of the perceived potential > monetary outcome of knowing the skill being talked about. Ok, so? Free software isn't against making money. > If one of the lesser known Open Source people were to speak on a non-technical, > but important topic say, copyright term extensions, I would bet that > the talk will draw a significantly lesser crowd. > The same applies to any conferences anywhere I think. But the point is to increase awareness and just knowing there is an organized community for software freedom makes an impact. You cannot expect political awareness to happen overnight. Not in India, or the US or anywhere. The important thing is to get the concepts out there. > 2. For most attendees, Linux is a skill (not that there is anything in > approaching it as a skill) and not a passion or lifestyle. In other > words, hackerhood is a relatively smaller phenomenon in India at this > stage. This is partially because the schooling system tends to drain > the passion out of students and makes them into automatons who > regurgitate memoried facts to gain higher marks. The pressures of > getting into a good college and getting a well-paid and steady job > drain whatever passion remains. Under these circumstanses, it is > extremely difficult to keep one's inner geek alive. This is one of the > reasons why geeks that are passionate about Open Source have tended to > be from the upper socio-economic strata of Indian society - they were > economically safe enough to afford their pursuing their passions. > Why do you think this a feature of Indian society only? Look at any gathering of American geeks and it will be overwhelmingly White, well-to-do, suburban types. The media over here has reported extensively on the drastic drop in students pursuing IT degrees. This is because most of them were "mark-seeking automatons." I can tell you that I met with many young people at foss.in who were very enthusiastic about Free software. I am trying to mentor as many of them as I can so we can keep that enthusiasm up. > 3. India is undergoing accelerated social and economic change. > Entirely new careers are opening up for the young people today. I > think with time - I would hazard to guess 5 to 10 years - life would > be less precarious in India to let more young geeks follow their > dreams. > If it is truly their dream, they will follow it regardless of the financial cost. I think events like foss.in are tremendously supportive in keeping such dreams alive. Being able to meet the likes of Alan Cox really boosted the morale of some of the young people I talked to. Being in the presence of hundreds of like-minded peers is also a morale boost. It reminds me a lot of some of the Linux events we had in the US in the 90's when we were just lone weirdos using a strange funny-looking non-Windows OS. When we got together we would realize that actually we were not alone but part of a dynamic global community. The Linux juggernaut you see today was a direct result of those efforts and the same process will occur in India. > 4. IMO, FOSS.IL nee Linux Bangalore have concentrated more on the > splash they make than the impact they have on young hackers. There is > nothing wrong in this shock-and-awe approach. It just isn't the right > one to foster more Open Source participation, especially in terms of > code, from hackers in India. > We are going to have atleast five more Debian developers in India directly because of foss.in. KDE India was founded at foss.in. Gentoo has gotten a lot of interest due to foss.in. That's impressive. That's impact. Yes it cannot be the sole means of pushing free software, but it is an important part and deserves more respect than you are giving it.
