Free Software Foundation of India

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"> <title>Free Software Foundation of India - Feed</title> <id>https://fsf.org.in/feed.atom</id> <link rel="self" href="https://fsf.org.in/feed.atom"></link> <updated>2024-10-12T14:43:19Z</updated> <author><name>Free Software Foundation of India</name></author> <entry> <title>Prav - A Free Software Challenger To WhatsApp</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2024-10-13T00:00:00Z:prav</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/article/prav"></link> <updated>2024-10-13T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">Do you care about Free Software but still end up using WhatsApp for
your messaging needs? It is ironic that a large part of the Free
Software community in India is still using a proprietary software —
WhatsApp — for their everyday communications.
Some of these people are obliged to do so by their workplaces or other
entities they interact with; for others, it is largely to do with lack
of awareness and the inertia of moving to a different platform.
Those of us who are living without WhatsApp are forced at times to
depend on family and friends in situations where WhatsApp is
practically mandatory for an essential service, like sharing documents
with government officials. (We sometimes manage to share them via
email, but this is often a struggle and not always an option.)
<h2>What is Freedom-Respecting (Swatantra) Software?</h2>
For the uninitiated, Free Software is software that gives people <a href="https://writefreesoftware.org/learn">the
legal freedom</a> to run, study,
modify, and share the software. If you're new to Free Software, you
may think these freedoms are very nice, but useful only to
programmers. The truth is that these four software freedoms are
important for everybody.
Easiest to understand is the freedom to run software with no
restrictions on which devices you can use it on, or on how many,
or—thanks to the related freedom to share—whether you can share
that software with your friends. On a larger scale, this makes Free
Software projects more resilient: even if the original creator stops
publishing the program, others are legally permitted to share it, so
the program can outlast its authors rather than disappearing
overnight.
But what exactly is that software is doing? Is it really just an alarm
clock or also listening in to send your conversations to advertisers?
Such situations are where the freedom to study comes in. It allows
anyone to read the program's source code and see what it does. We are
not all going to read it, but if something shady is going on it's
likely that someone will find out—thanks in part to companies and
security researchers dedicated to reviewing and auditing code. And
finally, once you know how the code works, the freedom to modify
allows you to change it! Whether there's a feature you want to remove
or a new one you'd like to add, anyone can change the code to work the
way they want—or hire people to do so.
Scribus is a good example to illustrate the power of these freedoms. A
Free Software desktop publishing solution (similar to proprietary
products like Adobe Pagemaker or InDesign), Scribus originally, had
support only for the Latin script—that's the one used by European
languages like English, German, and French. In 2015, the Government of
Oman funded developers to add support for Arabic languages to Scribus,
and released the improvements as Free Software. This <a href="https://www.mtcit.gov.om/ITAPortal//MediaCenter/NewsDetail.aspx?NID=80909">ended up
benefiting</a>
all Indian languages too, since much of the logic to support Arabic
was also needed for Indian languages.
As you can see, while Free Software is often modified by developers
voluntarily contributing their time, governments, organizations, and
user communities can (and do) also raise funds to pay developers to
adapt a software to fit their needs. Funds? Yes! The "Free" in "Free
Software" is about freedom, and not cost—it can involve
money. English doesn't distinguish between the two kinds of "free",
but fortunately most Indian languages do.
The magic of Free Software is that even if only a particular group is
funding changes, those changes are released to the public so that
everyone can benefit.
<h2>Free Software For Communication - A New Challenge</h2>
Unlike earlier campaigns by the Free Software community against
proprietary operating systems like Microsoft Windows, a campaign
against proprietary messengers like WhatsApp is inherently more
difficult.
Replacing Windows with GNU/Linux is mostly a personal choice. The
availability of most desktop software (or replacements) across various
distributions makes it relatively easy to do. (<a href="https://asahilinux.org">Asahi
Linux</a> now offers a similar choice to owners
of new Apple computers, although it is <a href="https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/%22When-will-Asahi-Linux-be-done%3F%22">still very experimental</a>
and not for the faint of heart). The fact that many modern
"applications" run on the browser makes changing operating systems
even easier. Incidentally, this is a reminder that it's time to push
back against proprietary online services too.
For messaging services, on the other hand, the decision is not merely
a personal one. Changing over to a different service requires
convincing all our contacts to do the same — and that could include
people who have power over us, such as teachers, employers, or
parents. Bringing people over to a platform more aligned with our
goals needs a coordinated and long-term campaign, ideally coordinating
with entire groups of people (a class, a campus, a residents'
association) to switch over at the same time.
<h2>The Volkswagen Story of Cheating with Proprietary Software</h2>
The <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-34324772">Volkswagen emissions
scandal</a> is a good
reminder about what can happen when we blindly trust companies and
proprietary software.
The United States of America has strict rules about the maximum amount
of emissions a car can release. Since diesel cars were a new
phenomenon, these were being heavily scrutinised. In 2013, a group of
engineers realised that many Volkswagen cars being sold in the US had
a "defeat device"—or software—in their diesel engines, that could
detect when they were being tested, and could change the car's
performance accordingly to improve results!
The German car giant has since admitted to cheating emissions tests in
the US, and was ordered to recall 482,000 of their cars. The only
reason this incident came to light is because some engineers decided
to measure emissions not just in the testing centre but also directly
on the road.
Like Volkswagen's drive-control software, WhatsApp is
proprietary. Their source code is kept secret, which means we cannot
audit their claims independently. We do not know if they insert
backdoors (defeating their claims of end-to-end encryption) or are
collecting data they claim not to be collecting; the only option we
have, is to blindly trust their software. WhatsApp could engage in -
or may already be engaged in - a similar kind of cheating as
Volkswagen, whether willingly or through government coercion.
<h2>Private Data Collection and Centralisation</h2>
When the Volkswagen scandal broke, people at least had the option of
choosing a different car brand. Unfortunately, the same cannot always
be said of messaging apps. With WhatsApp being the dominant solution
in most of the world—and definitely in India, this gives it an
outsized influence on all our private communications.
All earlier communications methods like post, fax, telegrams, and the
mobile phone allowed for multiple providers—or, at the very least, a
different provider for every country—so that even if one broke down,
another would continue. With phones and number portability the
situation is even better: companies providing better services get
rewarded with more customers whereas those with poor services are
motivated to improve.
By contrast, you can talk to a WhatsApp user only through
WhatsApp. This means that you are forced to use it to communicate with
that WhatsApp user even if you don't agree with WhatsApp's policies,
or hate its user interface, or just want to avoid having a single
entity be harvesting data for the majority of the online
population. On the flip side, when WhatsApp crashes—as has happened a
few times in the past—then due to the lack of parallel alternatives it
can cause disruptions across the entire globe.
<h2>What is Prav?</h2>
Prav is a Free Software messaging service using the open XMPP
protocol. Many XMPP apps and services exist, but they often require
investing time to learn how everything works. Prav aims to make the
experience as user-friendly as well-known messaging apps. This makes
it easier for people to leave WhatsApp for more free standards and
services.
<div class="img-block">
<img src="/assets/img/prav.jpg" alt=" Prav Android App " title="Prav Android App"></div>This process was already initiated by Quicksy, a Free Software project
focused on easy signup and onboarding. Many of us at the Prav project
recommend Quicksy to our friends, while we ourselves message them
using other apps that need more manual steps. In fact, the Prav app
and server are both based on the Quicksy code - we added support for
message deletion and moderation to the app, and support for new Twilio
SMS gateway API used to send SMS OTP was added to the server. Thus,
Prav demonstrates how Free Software empowers users to take control of
the software they use and customise it to fit their needs.
Prav aims to take Quicksy's mission further by actively promoting its
approach to a wider audience — while at the same time working to
improve the service and make it even more user-friendly. As described
below, we are attempting to take a more democratic approach to this,
rather than having a core team making all the decisions.
<h2>Free Software As A Guarantee Against Cheating</h2>
Since Prav and Quicksy are Free Software, the code we run can be
audited to verify claims independently, rather than having to blindly
trust them as in the case of WhatsApp.
Those of us who are more interested can also self-host the software —
we can run our own version of the Prav service (or any XMPP software
such as ejabberd or prosody), either as individuals or
collectively. There's no trust as strong as trusting yourself (though
it involves cost and/or effort in running the service)! Thanks to the
federated nature of XMPP, the different instances are compatible -
Prav users can communicate with Quicksy users and users of other XMPP
servers like disroot.org or diasp.in without having to leave their own
app and service.
It must be noted that Free Software and self-hosting can only protect
you against mass surveillance. No software can offer foolproof
protection from laws that compel you to provide access your personal
devices - in such cases, you need to engage in political action to
change your government's policies.
<h2>Cooperative for Democratic Control with Prav</h2>
Prav is in the process of being registered as a Multi State
Cooperative Society and you can sign up to be a member of that
cooperative.
This means Prav will be owned by its users, rather than being owned by
investors or backed by another company. Decisions, such as what to
include in the privacy policy, and terms of use, how to spend funds,
what features to develop next, and so on - will be taken
democratically by the users through the cooperative. (Not every Prav
user is automatically a member of the cooperative, but any user is
welcome to register and join, as are other interested members of the
public.)
Our proposed cooperative society draws ideas from the <a href="https://platform.coop/">Platform
Cooperativism Consortium</a>, which describes
'platform cooperatives' as "businesses that sell goods or services
primarily through a website, mobile app, or protocol. They rely on
democratic decision-making and shared platform ownership by workers
and users." The Platform Cooperativism Consortium poses this as "an
alternative to venture capital-funded and centralized platforms,
putting stakeholders before shareholders".
<h2>Current Status of Prav</h2>
Prav is currently in Public Beta and you can <a href="https://f-droid.org/en/packages/app.prav.client/">install it from
F-Droid</a>
) (F-Droid is an app store for Android which only provides Free
Software). Before we release the app for the general public, we want
to release it on Google Play Store, setup up backups of the server,
and hire a system administrator to manage the service. You can
<a href="https://prav.app/donate/">donate</a> or <a href="https://prav.app/pre-order/">pre-order an
account</a> (it is free of cost before we
make a general release, but we will collect money directly from users
to meet expenses of running the service and developing new features)
to help us release sooner. If we manage to secure grants to meet the
expenses, we could offer the service free of cost as well.
<h2>Users Improving the Software</h2>
To determine a priority list of features for Prav, we conducted a
survey to find out which were the most widely-desired. Some of the top
features like deleting own messages and moderating group messages have
already been implemented.
We are also utilising the right to modify provided by Free Software to
offer you the choice of <a href="https://prav.app/blog/crowdfunding-for-custom-username/">hiding your phone number from other
users</a>
Quicksy uses the phone number as the username, which in some cases
allows others (like room admins or users of other networks like IRC or
Matrix when using a bridge software that connects these networks with
XMPP) to see your phone number. We want to change this, while still
allowing users who have your phone number to discover you on Prav.
In the spirit of improving Free Software and sharing our improvements,
we are raising funds and hiring a programmer to implement this
feature. These efforts also demonstrate in practice that the right to
modify is available to users without programming skills, nor limited
to companies/governments with lots of money.
If you find this important, please contribute to the fund raising
campaign. <a href="https://pages.razorpay.com/pl_NseNHjx2s9qd00/view?reason=Custom+Username+Support">https://pages.razorpay.com/pl_NseNHjx2s9qd00/view?reason=Custom+Username+Support</a>
<h2>The Apple Dilemma</h2>
Prav has raised funds for building Prav on iOS through <a href="https://prav.app/blog/prav-ios-opencollective/">a similar
crowdfunding
campaign</a>, and have a
developer working on it. Prav iOS is based on another Free Software
messaging app, Monal.
Apple is not really a company we want to support, but through
community discussions and polling we realised this is an important
feature for many. If Prav does not support iOS, the presence of even
one iOS contact makes it impossible for a group to migrate to
Prav. The iOS user could still use an existing XMPP-based messenger,
such as Monal itself, to join Prav group chats and conversations. But
that would only work if they were motivated enough to learn more about
XMPP in the first place.
This issue serves as a reminder for what we mentioned in the beginning
of this article - moving to a new messenger is, unfortunately, not
entirely a personal choice. We need to think about various strategies
for addressing this challenge - the high social cost of replacing
WhatsApp.
<h2>Spreading Awareness</h2>
<div class="img-block">
<img src="/assets/img/prav-booth.jpg" alt=" Prav Booth " title="Prav Booth"></div>Prav is not just about the technicalities of software, but also about
effecting social change. We go to events and setup booths or stalls to
promote Prav — but also, along the way, to spread awareness about
issues like privacy, software freedom, and the ability to use your
messenger of choice. We don't expect to convince everyone right away,
but we believe that with active marketing and repeated exposure,
awareness of these ideas will spread to more people.
While meeting people is more effective, we don't remain silent once
the events are over, either. We also promote the project on social
media like Mastodon, to spread the same ideas there.
We are able to challenge a big company like WhatsApp thanks to the
freedoms offered by Free Software, as we had Quicksy readily available
as a foundation for Prav. Now it's our job to pay it forward by
building a community around it.
<h2>Getting Involved With Prav</h2>
<ol>
<li>Install the Prav app from F-Droid and share your feedback to improve it.</li>
<li>Join as a member of the proposed Prav cooperative.</li>
<li>Promote Prav/Quicksy/XMPP among your friends and family.</li>
<li>Donate to Prav, pre-order an account, or promote and participate in
our fundraising campaigns.</li>
<li>Talk to people about Prav, and volunteer for organizing Prav
booths/stalls at events</li>
<li>Volunteer to design posters and awareness aids, or to help out with
programming and technical tasks.</li>
</ol>
You can learn more about the project at <a href="https://prav.app">https://prav.app</a>
<hr>
Written collaboratively by Praveen, and Badri with feedback from Ravi,
Benson and contrapunctus.
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>FSF India Board Statement</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2021-04-10T00:00:00Z:board-statement-2021</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/news/board-statement-2021"></link> <updated>2021-04-10T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">The recent statement by some members of the wider free software and
open source community to RMS re-joining the board of FSF as a member
have led to some unnecessary friction in the community. Unfortunately
many of the arguments made against him were based on misunderstanding
and half truths. More dangerous is concerted attack on RMS vilifying
him and trying to isolate him. FSF India condemns this action. There
is no freedom more important than freedom of thought and expression.
We welcome and encourage the efforts of FSF to improve their
<a href="https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2021/april">governance process</a> and hope that the larger free software
community will also support them in this process.
FSF India is an independent and autonomous non-profit organisation. It
continues to stand and work for the cause of free software. It is 
committed to making all its forums and programs inclusive and
promoting diversity while standing firm on the <a href="https://www.gnu.org/gnu/thegnuproject.en.html">ideals set out by
the GNU project</a>.
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>Educational Institutes should use exclusively freedom-respecting software</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2021-03-17T00:00:00Z:education</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/article/education"></link> <updated>2021-03-17T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">We urge educational institutes to <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/free-software-for-education.html">use free (as in freedom)/swatantra
software that respects students' freedom and
privacy</a>. For example, the Department of Scientific
Computing, Modeling, and Simulation, Savitribai Phule Pune University
<a href="https://fsf.org.in/case-study/unipune">has been using free/swatantra software tools for more than 20 years
and it's currently helping other departments at Savitribai Phule Pune
University adopt free software</a>. Free software <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/free-software-for-education.html">is readily
available</a> for all activities in the digital classroom
and should be preferred over their proprietary counterparts.
<h2>What is Free/Swatantra Software?</h2>
<a href="https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html">Free/Swatantra software</a> means that you, as user, have the
freedom to run, study, modify, and redistribute the program. Thus,
&ldquo;free software&rdquo; is a matter of liberty, not price. To
understand the concept, you should think of &ldquo;free&rdquo; as in
&ldquo;free speech&rdquo;, not as in &ldquo;free meals&rdquo;. With
these freedoms, the users, both individually and collectively, control
the program and what it does for them. When users don't control the
program, we call it &ldquo;nonfree&rdquo; or &ldquo;proprietary&rdquo;
program. Proprietary software is an injustice to the user because it
puts its developer or owner in a <a href="https://gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-important.html">position of power over its
users</a>. The developer uses this power <a href="https://gnu.org/malware">to spy, restrict,
censor, and abuse the user</a>.
<h2>Why should educational institutes use free software?</h2>
Any computer user should use free software for their own freedom, but
educational institutes have <a href="https://www.gnu.org/education/edu-schools.html">additional reasons to insist only on free
software</a>.
Some reasons are listed below:
<ul>
<li>Software should <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html">respect the user's freedom</a>.
</li>
<li><a href="https://gnu.org/malware">Proprietary software is often malware</a>.
</li>
<li>Educational Institutes have a moral responsibility to respect
students' freedom and teach students to appreciate it &mdash; for
their own future and their country's future.
</li>
<li>Educational institutes often expose students to <a href="https://www.eff.org/wp/school-issued-devices-and-student-privacy">privacy-invading
technology</a> without any real choice to escape from
it. Educational institutes should respect students' privacy. Free
software is controlled by its users and therefore it can protect
them from surveillance.
</li>
<li>Students cannot learn from proprietary software because it is
secret, and it prohibits learning as well as sharing while free
software encourages learning and sharing which align with the
mission of the schools.
</li>
<li>Proprietary software makes the institute dependent on the owner of
the software while free software allows the institute to be in
control.
</li>
</ul>
Free software can save schools money, but this is a secondary
benefit. Savings are possible because free software gives schools,
like other users, the freedom to copy and redistribute the software;
the school system can give a copy to every school, and each school can
install the program on all its computers, with no obligation to pay
for doing so. Schools can also do necessary modifications as per their
requirements without further cost.
<h2>Problems with commonly used proprietary tools for education</h2>
A lot of institutes rely on Google's Gmail and Microsoft's Outlook for
their email communications. Offering Google or Outlook accounts is an
injustice because:
a. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, and AOL are <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_%28surveillance_program%29">surveillance
systems</a>.
b. Gmail <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2013/12/google-using-gmail-build-psychological-profiles-hundreds-millions-people/?paging=off">makes psychological profiles</a> not only of
Gmail users but of everyone who sends mail to Gmail users.
c. Microsoft Outlook is known to block incoming mails from other email
service providers <a href="https://disroot.org/en/blog/microsoft_hostility">without providing a reason</a>.
Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams are proprietary software
generally used in live classes and webinars. All of them use their
power over the users to collect personal and location data. Zoom
<a href="https://studentprivacymatters.org/what-you-need-to-know-about-zoom-for-education">collects a lot of data</a> on students. Microsoft Teams and
Google Meet also <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/1/21244058/google-meet-microsoft-teams-webex-personal-data-collection-privacy-policy-concerns">snoop on their users</a>. We urge teachers
to help their students in resisting against proprietary
videoconferencing platforms; some ideas are <a href="https://www.gnu.org/education/teachers-help-students-resist-zoom.html">listed here</a>.
A lot of times, students are asked to join a WhatsApp group for
important announcements which is an injustice to the student because
WhatsApp is a nonfree program. Further, WhatsApp <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlypage/2021/01/08/whatsapp-tells-users-share-your-data-with-facebook-or-well-deactivate-your-account/">does not respect
user's privacy</a>.
Google Classroom is another commonly used nonfree program which is an
<a href="https://gomindsight.com/insights/blog/privacy-with-google-classroom-education-industry-news/">assault on student's privacy</a>. Google Forms are used for
filling personal details which sends data to Google, <a href="https://stallman.org/google.html#surveillance">a surveillance
company</a> known to track and profile users. Google Drive
<a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/9kgwnp/porn-on-google-drive-error">mistreats users</a> as well.
Chromebooks for schools <a href="https://www.eff.org/wp/school-issued-devices-and-student-privacy">collect far more data on students than is
necessary, and store it indefinitely</a>.
Many exam websites, institute and webinar websites report all their
visitors to Google by using the Google Analytics service, which <a href="http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/434164/google_analytics_breaks_norwegian_privacy_laws_local_agency_said">tells
Google the IP address and the page that was visited</a>.
Further, educational institutes are <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/anti-plagiarism-tools-a-new-age-of-truth-at-university/a-45475465">invading student's privacy</a>
through cheating-detection systems. Requiring students to install a
proprietary monitoring software in their own computers is an
injustice. Monitoring software, by design, runs even when the owner of
the computer tries to stop it from running long after the exam is
finished and takes full control of the computer which <a href="https://twtext.com/article/1252225044861693954">subjects users
to abuse</a>. These monitoring apps <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/08/proctoring-apps-subject-students-unnecessary-surveillance">collect a lot of
data on students</a> such as: Recorded patterns of keystrokes,
facial-recognition, microphones and cameras record students'
surroundings such as biometric data, full name, date of birth,
address, phone number, scans of government-issued identity documents,
educational institution affiliation, and student ID numbers, records
of operating systems, make and model of the device, as well as device
identification numbers, IP addresses, browser type and language
settings, software on the device and their versions, ISP, records of
URLs visited, and how long students remain on a particular site or
webpage etc. The algorithms of these monitoring software could easily
flag students who don’t have control over their surroundings as
&ldquo;suspicious&rdquo; <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/04/01/online-proctoring-college-exams-coronavirus">which could further penalize them</a>.
No student should be forced to make a choice between getting
surveilled or to fail the exam.
<h2>Free Software Recommendations</h2>
If you're a parent, talk to your child's school about the importance
of using free software that respects the freedom and privacy of
students and push for its adoption. If you're a student, team up with
your peers and write collective letters to the school raising
awareness about free software and urge them to provide a free software
infrastructure for your school. You can learn from people who
<a href="https://www.gnu.org/education/successful-resistance-against-nonfree-software.html#content">successfully resisted</a> the use of nonfree software in the
institutes.
Here's a list of freedom-respecting software that can be used in
education:
Operating system: <a href="https://gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html">GNU/Linux distros</a>
Online Classes: Jitsi, BigBlueButton. See <a href="https://fsf.org.in/article/better-than-zoom">this</a> for more
details
Instant Messenger: Element, Quicksy, Conversations. See
<a href="https://fsf.org.in/article/better-than-whatsapp/">this</a> for more details
Uploading videos: <a href="https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/PeerTube">PeerTube</a>
E-learning platform: <a href="https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Moodle">Moodle</a>
Recording Lectures: <a href="https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Obs-studio">OBS</a>
Sharing notes, lecture videos etc. : <a href="https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Nextcloud">Nextcloud</a>, <a href="https://framagit.org/fiat-tux/hat-softwares/lufi">Lufi</a>
Digital writing pad: <a href="https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Xournal">Xournal</a>
Document editor: <a href="https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/LibreOffice">LibreOffice</a>
Form filling: <a href="https://www.kobotoolbox.org">KoBoToolbox</a>, <a href="https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/forms">NextCloud Forms</a>
&mdash; <a href="https://disroot.org/en/services/nextcloud">Disroot</a> provides NextCloud Forms.
Email: Institutes can hire a free software consultancy to run their
own mail server. For self-hosting mails, <a href="https://mailinabox.email">Mail-in a-Box</a> ,
<a href="https://www.iredmail.org">iRedMail</a> and <a href="https://www.freedombox.org">Freedom Box</a> are good options. Further, the
users of the mail server(students, teachers, other staff etc) can use
end-to-end encryption so that only the participants of a communication
can read the mails. Furthermore, PGP or pEp may be used to encrypt
emails to recipients. For information about using PGP see the FSF's
<a href="https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org">Email Self-Defense guide</a>; for pEp see
<a href="https://www.pep.security/docs">pep.security/docs</a>. For most users, pEp might be more
straightforward to use.
The GNU website <a href="https://www.gnu.org/software/free-software-for-education.html">lists free software that can be used in schools and
educational institutions of all levels</a>. The Free
Software Foundation keeps a comprehensive database of educational
software at the <a href="https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Category/Education">Free Software Directory</a>.
<a href="https://usb.freeduc.org/index-en.html">Freeduc-USB</a> is a bootable USB
stick that contains useful applications for the classroom.
When an educational institute provides laptops to students, they
should choose laptops which can run fully free software-- check <a href="https://ryf.fsf.org/categories/laptops">RYF
laptops by FSF</a> and <a href="https://libretech.shop/">LibreTech</a>. For
other hardware which can run fully free software, check
<a href="https://h-node.org">h-node</a>.
<h2>Educational resources should be 'free' as in freedom</h2>
<div class="file is-centered" style="margin-bottom:5px;">
 <img src="/assets/img/blackhole.png" alt="[ Don't let proprietary limitations stand in the way of discovery - Image ]" /></div>In today's age, free sharing of scientific knowledge has become the
<a href="https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/how-did-the-free-sharing-of-scientific-knowledge-and-culture-become-the-worst-crime-our-justice-systems-could-think-of">worst conceivable crime</a> one can think of. Scientific journals
like Elsevier lock up academic research behind paywalls and prohibit
sharing with others. Since, the academic research is funded by public
money, it should be available free of cost as well as free in
freedom. For arguments on how the principles of software freedom apply
to academic papers, please read <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/push-copyright-aside.html">this essay</a>. Educational
resources-- like videos, recorded lectures, academic papers <a href="https://www.stallman.org/articles/online-education.html">should be
released under free/swatantra licenses only</a>. The <a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html">GNU Free
Documentation License (GFDL)</a> is a free license that can be
used for educational works. Creative Commons has two free licenses:
CC-BY and CC-BY-SA for this purpose. If you release your academic
papers under a free license, it will give everyone an opportunity to
learn from you. Some free (as in freedom) learning resources are
mentioned <a href="https://www.gnu.org/education/edu-free-learning-resources.html">here</a>. We must not allow scientific knowledge to
get locked.
<h2>Free Software adoption in Indian education</h2>
IT syllabus of class XI in Maharashtra <a href="https://fsf.org.in/news/mh-schools-floss">now includes free
software</a>. The state of Kerala <a href="https://kite.kerala.gov.in/KITE">migrated more than 2,600
public schools to free software</a>. Unfortunately, Kerala is the
only state in India where IT education is <a href="https://www.academia.edu/10236947/IT_at_SCHOOL_PROJECT_OF_KERALA_A_LANDMARK_IN_ICT_INITIATIVE_IN_GENERAL_EDUCATION">imparted over a Free
software operating system</a> and other states should also take
initiative in this direction. A free software named <a href="http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/TuxPaint">Tux
Paint</a> used at VHSS Irimpanam school, Kerala, where 11 and
12 years old students exercised the freedom to learn how the program
works and modify the program, which demonstrates that even non
programmers or children, <a href="https://www.gnu.org/education/edu-software-tuxpaint.html">can actually influence and improve
information technology</a> when software freedom is
granted. School-age children were able to effectively and quickly
exercise software freedom with Tux Paint in the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20070203150611/www.digitalequalizer.org/kids.htm">PC-in-the-Village
Experiment, Goa</a>.
Some of the educational institutions in India that are using
exclusively Free Software:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.gnu.org/education/edu-cases-india-ambedkar.html">Ambedkar Community Computing Center (AC3)</a>.
</li>
<li><a href="https://www.gnu.org/education/edu-cases-india-irimpanam.html">Vocational Higher Secondary School Irimpanam (VHSS
Irimpanam)</a>.
</li>
<li>Department of Scientific Computing, Modeling, and Simulation,
Savitribai Phule Pune University &mdash; <a href="https://fsf.org.in/case-study/unipune">Statement
here</a>
</li>
</ul>
If you know of other institutes which use free software, please let us
know, we would like to add them in this list. If you need help in
switching your institute to free software, feel free to <a href="https://fsf.org.in/contact">contact
us</a>, we would be very glad to help you.
<h2>Some Related Links:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Remote education does not require <a href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/remote-education-does-not-require-giving-up-rights-to-freedom-and-privacy">giving up rights to freedom and
privacy</a>.
</li>
<li>Richard Stallman on <a href="https://audio-video.gnu.org/video/richard_stallman_speech-sina.com-2005-09.ogg">why schools should use exclusively free
software</a>.
</li>
<li><a href="https://my.fsf.org/give-students-userfreedom">Sign Free Software Foundation's petition</a> to call on
school administrators around the world to stop requiring students to
run nonfree software.
</li>
<li><a href="https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/free-software-enables-free-science">Free software enables free science</a>.
</li>
<li><a href="https://guri.hipatia.net">Guri</a> &mdash; a project for free software in education.
</li>
<li>Ways in which technology used in education <a href="https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/privacy-students">puts students under
surveillance</a>.
</li>
<li>Schools are <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/02/schools-are-pushing-boundaries-surveillance-technologies">deploying massive surveillance on their
students</a> as if they are dissidents of an authoritarian
regime.
</li>
<li><a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/05/join-students-and-scholars-speaking-out-about-effects-mass-surveillance-campus">Join Students and Scholars In Speaking Out About the Effects of
Mass Surveillance on Campus</a>.
</li>
<li><a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/surveillance-vs-democracy.html">How Much Surveillance Can Democracy Withstand?</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://www.eff.org/id/deeplinks/2019/10/dont-let-science-publisher-elsevier-hold-knowledge-ransom">Don't Let</a> Science Publisher Elsevier Hold Knowledge for
Ransom.
</li>
</ul>
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>Case Study: SCMS - Savitribai Phule Pune University Pune, India</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2021-03-05T00:00:00Z:unipune</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/case-study/unipune"></link> <updated>2021-03-05T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">The Department of Scientific Computing, Modeling & Simulation,
Savitribai Phule Pune University Pune, India, has a long history (more
than 20 years) of preferring Free software over proprietary software
in its academic programs. We presently offer two academic degree
programs, one in scientific computing, and the other in modeling &
simulation. Students from both the programs require substantial
interaction with computers and software at an advanced level.
Although markets are filled with non-free software targeted
specifically at such academic programs, our experience tells us that
their use can be easily avoided. Many high-quality Free Software tools
are available, and some of these are, in fact, better than their
proprietary counterparts. For example, we have been using E-learning
platform Moodle consistently since 2015 to manage courses, conduct
exams, and keep track of every single activity related to various
courses. All our computer labs and servers run on GNU/Linux based
operating systems. We encourage students and faculty to use Free
software tools like Python, Julia, etc., GNU octave or SciLab instead
of MATLAB, Mathics instead of Mathematica, R instead of
S-Plus/SAS/minitab/etc., GNU compilers instead of Intel compilers,
Signal instead of WhatsApp, OpenFOAM instead proprietary CFD tools,
etc. This is in addition to departmental services like ticketing
system (RT), mail client (RoundCube), Git server (Gitlab), etc.
The ongoing pandemic has seen a big surge for non-free software like
Zoom and Google meet: We find that freedom-respecting platforms like
Jitsi meet for video conferencing, SimpleScreenRecorder and Open
Broadcaster Software (OBS) for screen/video recording, etc., work
great. Recorded classes are in turn hosted on our Moodle or Nextcloud
servers instead of proprietary services like Dropbox, Google drive,
etc. This is possible because we maintain our own servers, and decent
connectivity/bandwidth is available (through the University) to host
these services.
The pandemic also gave us an opportunity to interact with and help
sister departments to adopt GNU/Linux, Moodle, and Free software in
general: The assurance of readily available local expertise in Free
software was enough for many to start considering a move to Free
software. Shrinking budgets thanks to the pandemic seem to be
providing a financial incentive.
We wholeheartedly encourage and recommend educational institutions,
students, teachers, administrators, and decision-makers to start using
freedom-respecting Free software tools. We will be happy to advise
(and assist, to whatever extent possible) educational institutions
which are considering adoption of Free Software.
(On a factual note, the department does not interfere with the
software preferences and decisions related to research funding brought
in by individual researchers.)
Prof. Mihir Arjunwadkar 
Head, 
Dept. of Scientific Computing, Modeling, and Simulation, 
Savitribai Phule Pune University, 
Ganeshkhind, Pune 411007 
Contact details: 
<a href="mailto:office@scms.unipune.ac.in">office@scms.unipune.ac.in</a> 
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>Better than Zoom and Google Meet: Try these Free Software powered video conferencing apps and services</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2021-02-17T00:00:00Z:better-than-zoom</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/article/better-than-zoom"></link> <updated>2021-02-17T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">We recommend you to use <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw">free software</a> powered video conferencing
software like <a href="https://jitsi.org">Jitsi</a> and <a href="https://bigbluebutton.org">BigBlueButton</a>. Since they are free
software, the software is under user's control, and they give the user
the freedom to run their own server which gives users full control
over their communications.
It is entirely possible to run large conferences online using free
software. The FSF hosted its annual <a href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/how-to-livestream-a-conference-in-just-under-a-week">LibrePlanet
2020</a> and the <a href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/join-the-fsf-for-an-online-birthday-celebration-on-friday-october-9th">FSF 35th anniversary event</a>
entirely online using free software and <a href="https://ryf.fsf.org">RYF</a> hardware. The
LibrePlanet conference has been live streamed to a worldwide audience
<a href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/new-highs-for-libreplanet">since 2014</a>. FOSDEM 2021 <a href="https://matrix.org/blog/2021/02/15/how-we-hosted-fosdem-2021-on-matrix">was hosted online to an audience of
over 30K exclusively using free software</a>.
<h2>Problems with proprietary videoconferencing systems</h2>
Video conferencing systems like Zoom and Google Meet require users to
use proprietary client programs. This is a fundamental injustice to
the user because any nonfree software does not give users freedom and
users do not control that program.
Further, video communications on the nonfree software Zoom are done
via Zoom's central server. The combination of nonfree software client
and the central server gives Zoom power over the users which it uses
to <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210104084812/https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7e599/zoom-ios-app-sends-data-to-facebook-even-if-you-dont-have-a-facebook-account">snoop</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/18/zoom-helped-china-surveillance">on its users</a>, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2020/11/14/zoom-censorship-leila-khaled-palestine/">censoring the dissidents</a>
and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/11/zoom-shuts-account-of-us-based-rights-group-after-tiananmen-anniversary-meeting">preventing certain groups from connecting to its
service</a>.
Surveillance and censorship are the consequences of the power Zoom has
over its users because of its nonfree software and centralized
server. It is Zoom's unjust power over their users that we
oppose. This power bring users at the mercy of the entity (Zoom in
this case) providing the service. The same is true for <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/1/21244058/google-meet-microsoft-teams-webex-personal-data-collection-privacy-policy-concerns">other nonfree
conferencing systems</a> like Google Meet, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2020/04/27/your-whole-companys-microsoft-teams-data-couldve-been-stolen-with-an-evil-gif/#5859599339fc">Microsoft Teams</a>,
<a href="https://stallman.org/skype.html">Skype</a>, etc.
Nonfree programs should never be trusted for privacy even if they say
that the communications are end-to-end encrypted. It could send the
unencrypted version to the owner of the software when asked, bypassing
the encryption. A company that sold encryption systems to 100
countries was controlled by US and German intelligence, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/11/crypto-ag-cia-bnd-germany-intelligence-report">and the
equipment spied on the governments that used it</a>
which means that you should never trust a proprietary encryption
program to protect your privacy. Therefore, we suggest you to reject
any nonfree/proprietary software.
<h2>How can free software powered video-conferencing systems solve the problem?</h2>
If the users communicate using free software installed in a server
controlled by the users or a server run by a trusted service provider,
they get full control over their communications. This gives them
control over the policies of the service and data collection. With
Free Software like Jitsi and BigBlueButton, you have a choice of
service providers, and you are not forced to host your video meetings
on any particular server, say, Jitsi's central server. You can also
host the service in countries with better Free Speech laws instead of
forced to follow only Chinese law, in case of Zoom. This is like
dissenters taking refuge in other countries to avoid persecution by
oppressive governments.
Jitsi instances usually have maximum capacity of 70 participants at a
time. A list of Jitsi instances can be found at
<a href="https://jitsi.github.io/handbook/docs/community/community-instances">https://jitsi.github.io/handbook/docs/community/community-instances</a> and
a list of BigBlueButton instances can be found at
<a href="https://wiki.chatons.org/doku.php/services/visio-conference/big_blue_button">https://wiki.chatons.org/doku.php/services/visio-conference/big_blue_button</a>. We
did not try all the instances listed in these links, this is just a
list for users to try different instances. We suggest you to read the
policies of the servers before hosting your communications there.
Autistici's Jitsi instance <a href="https://vc.autistici.org/">https://vc.autistici.org/</a> supports
recording without using Dropbox or any other nonfree software service 
(other Jitsi instances usually require a Dropbox account) and
live-stream without using YouTube (other services usually support 
live-streaming with YouTube only) on their own server. To record your
meeting on Autsitici's server, you can click 'Start Recording' when
you want to start and after 'Stop Recording', you will be sent a link
in the Jitsi chat, and you can download the recording in your device.
Jitsi instances like 8x8.vc has an Indian dial in (not toll-free but a
number in Mumbai) number to join the audio conference. So people with 
unlimited talk time but not a good internet connection can also join these.
<a href="https://tube.tchncs.de">tube.tchncs.de</a> and other PeerTube instances that support
live-streaming can be another option.
<a href="https://joinpeertube.org/instances">joinpeertube.org/instances</a> has a list of PeerTube instances and
you can filter the list by choosing 'Video maker' profile and 'Yes' to
'And do live streams' option. Apps like <a href="https://newpipe.net">NewPipe</a> and Fedilab
support watching PeerTube videos and live streams. <a href="https://obsproject.com">OBS</a> can be
used to stream classes live.
BigBlueButton instances generally have more capacity than Jitsi
instances and instances like <a href="https://meet.nixnet.services">meet.nixnet.services</a> can scale
up to 270+. Mixed approach of live-streaming and using separate text
chat for questions can increase the number of participants.
BigBlueButton supports white board, presentations, live-streaming on
YouTube. We suggest you to avoid live-stream on YouTube.
BigBlueButton doesn't need any app on mobiles to work, people can
simply join via any web browser.
<h2>Conferences conducted using only free software</h2>
In the pandemic time, we also saw the successful organization of
conferences using only free software. <a href="https://fsci.in">FSCI</a> and <a href="https://fsf.org.in">Free Software
Foundation of India</a> conducted the <a href="https://camp.fsf.org.in">Free Software Camp</a>
entirely <a href="https://videos.fsci.in/accounts/fscamp/videos">using Big Blue Button</a>. Conferences
<a href="https://debconf20.debconf.org/about/debconf">DebConf</a> and <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DebianIndia/MiniDebConfOnlineIndia2021">MiniDebConf Online India 2021</a>
were also held using Jitsi and Vogol for live-streaming the conference
and Etherpad + IRC chat were used by the audience to ask
questions. The <a href="https://fsf.org">Free Software Foundation</a> conducted their 2020
annual LibrePlanet conference online <a href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/libreplanet-2020-in-person-component-canceled-but-well-see-you-online">without the use of any
nonfree/proprietary software</a>. The FOSDEM 2021 conference
was <a href="https://matrix.org/blog/2021/02/15/how-we-hosted-fosdem-2021-on-matrix">conducted using only free software which hosted 30,000
attendees</a> which shows that there is absolutely no
reason that <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/feb/08/just-say-no-to-zoom">any online conference should require proprietary
software</a><a href="#fn-1">α</a>. Any organization seeking
to run a conference can either hire their own people, hire some of the
people who organized FOSDEM to deploy the technology for you. If they
can host their conference using only free software, other
organizations can do it too.
<h2>Educational Institutes should switch to free software</h2>
We suggest educational institutes to adopt free software alternatives
like Jitsi, BigBlueButton and avoid nonfree software for lectures and
conferences.
The educational use cases for BigBlueButton are
<ul>
<li>Online tutoring (one-to-one)
</li>
<li>Flipped classrooms (recording content ahead of your session)
</li>
<li>Group collaboration (many-to-many)
</li>
<li>Online classes (one-to-many)
</li>
</ul>
Instructors can engage remote students with polling, emojis,
multi-user whiteboard, and breakout rooms. Presenters can record and
playback content for later sharing with others.
<a href="https://classmeet.chiguru.tech">Chiguru also runs a BigBlueButton server</a> especially for
online classes and includes paid plans according to your needs.
Conferences can be held using only free software similar
to the above mentioned conferences. Educational institutes have a
responsibility towards their students and teachers to respect their
freedom and privacy. Students should not be forced to give away their
freedom and privacy to attend lectures, webinars to build their
career.
We urge teachers to help their students in <a href="https://www.gnu.org/education/teachers-help-students-resist-zoom.html">resisting against
Zoom</a> or other proprietary software for online teaching.
If you are from an educational institute, and need help in switching
to free software services which respect your freedom, we will be glad
to help you. Please do not <a href="https://fsf.org.in/contact">hesitate to contact us in this
regard</a>.
<h2>Ways in which students can resist</h2>
To show rejection of nonfree software, students can resist in various
ways. Students can get in touch with each other and send collective
letters to teachers or their administration to create awareness about
the problems that proprietary software poses. To raise awareness, they
can share this article. They can ask their teachers to make
recordings from the Zoom calls and post the recordings where they can
download them later. We suggest free software like <a href="https://upload.disroot.org/">https://upload.disroot.org/</a>
or PeerTube for sharing video lectures.
Students can also set up kludges to avoid running nonfree video chat
programs. For instance, the teacher (or one student) could point a
camera at a screen showing the Zoom call, and stream that camera and
mic to the students who want to stay off Zoom. There can also be a
kludge for them to speak and send their voice to the Zoom call.
<h2>How to start and join a meeting via Jitsi and BigBlueButton?</h2>
<a href="https://jitsi.github.io/handbook/docs/community/community-instances">Find a Jitsi service that suits your needs</a> and create a
room with a random name or a name that you can remember. Share the
meeting link with attendees. Joining a Jitsi meeting is as easy as
clicking a link and loading it in your browser(Recent versions of
Chromium and Firefox) or Android or iOS Jitsi Meet apps and does not
require creating any accounts. Jitsi meetings can also be password
protected so that only invited attendees can join.
<a href="https://wiki.chatons.org/doku.php/services/visio-conference/big_blue_button">Find a BigBlueButton instance that suits your needs</a> and
sign up for an account. Once you are logged in, you can create rooms
and share the links with attendees. Joining a BigBlueButton meeting is
as easy as clicking a link and loading it in your browser (Recent
versions of Chromium and Firefox) either on your laptop/desktop or on
your mobile.
<h2>Need help? Contact us</h2>
If you would like to switch to free software powered services like
Jitsi and BigBlueButton, and you need help in this matter, feel free
to contact us at <a href="https://fsf.org.in/contact">fsf.org.in/contact</a>. We would be very
glad to help you.
<h2>Further reading</h2>
<ol>
<li>Members of UK parliament were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/20/mps-expected-approve-plans-virtual-parliament">forced to use Zoom in
order to vote</a>.
</li>
<li>Americans are getting evicted because <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/19/880859109/zoom-call-eviction-hearings-they-ll-throw-everything-i-have-out-on-the-street">they could not attend a
court hearing carried out via Zoom</a>.
</li>
<li><a href="https://www.gnu.org/education/edu-schools.html">Why Schools Should Exclusively Use Free
Software</a>.
</li>
<li>Zoom <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/12/21288995/zoom-blocking-feature-chinese-government-censorship">plans to block and suspend users based
on their location</a>. This practice is both surveillance and
censorship. It also shows how ready the company is to comply with
Chinese orders in violating basic human rights.
</li>
<li>Employers <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/27/shirking-from-home-staff-feel-the-heat-as-bosses-ramp-up-remote-surveillance">are imposing nonfree
video conferencing systems on their workers to put them under
surveillance</a>.
</li>
<li>Government schools in Delhi are <a href="https://theprint.in/india/education/delhi-govt-starts-online-lessons-for-class-12-but-only-a-handful-of-students-are-logging-in/397880">imposing
proprietary software Zoom on students for attending
lectures</a>.
</li>
</ol>
<hr>
α. The article uses the term 'FOSS' which
stands for 'Free and Open-Source Software' which we avoid because we
stand for freedom and therefore prefer 'free software' over 'FOSS'.
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>व्हाट्सएप से बेहतर: इन स्वतंत्र सॉफ्टवेयर ऐप्स और सेवाओं का प्रयोग करें</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2021-01-25T00:00:00Z:better-than-whatsapp.hi</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/article/better-than-whatsapp/hi"></link> <updated>2021-01-25T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">हम <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html">स्वतंत्र सॉफ़्टवेयर ऐप</a> जैसे कि <a href="https://element.io/">एलेमेंट</a> , <a href="https://quicksy.im/">क्विकसी</a> या <a href="https://conversations.im/">कन्वर्सेशनस</a> का उपयोग करने की सलाह देते हैं जो स्वतंत्र सॉफ्टवेयर संचालित सेवाओं से जुड़ते हैं। ये
सेवाएं उपयोगकर्ताओं को समान मानक का पालन करने वाले अन्य प्रदाताओं के उपयोगकर्ताओं
से बात करने की क्षमता खोए बिना अपना सेवा प्रदाता चुनने की अनुमति देती हैं। स्वतंत्र
सॉफ्टवेयर उपयोगकर्ताओं की स्वतंत्रता को सुनिश्चित करता है और अंतर्संचालित सेवाएँ सुनिश्चित
करतीं हैं कि एक सेवा प्रदाता पर कोई निर्भरता नहीं रहे।
कोई भी गैरस्वतंत्र ऐप उपयोगकर्ता को नियंत्रित करता है जबकि <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html">स्वतंत्रत सॉफ्टवेयर ऐप
उसके उपयोगकर्ताओं के नियंत्रण में होता है</a>।
<h2>विभिन्न ऐप और सेवाओं की तुलना</h2>
<ol>
<li>गैरस्वतंत्र सॉफ़्टवेयर ऐप और गैरस्वतंत्र सेवा प्रदाता + केंद्रीकरण (उदाहरण- व्हाट्सऐप):
उपयोगकर्ता की स्वतंत्रता का सम्मान नहीं करता है और <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in">विक्रेता लॉक-इन</a> बनाता
है।
</li>
<li>स्वतंत्र सॉफ्टवेयर ऐप लेकिन गैरस्वतंत्र सेवा प्रदाता + केंद्रीकरण (उदाहरण- टेलीग्राम):
ऐप सॉफ्टवेयर स्वतंत्रता का सम्मान करता है, सेवा प्रदाता सॉफ्टवेयर स्वतंत्रता का सम्मान
नहीं करता है और विक्रेता लॉक-इन बनाता है।
</li>
<li>स्वतंत्र सॉफ्टवेयर ऐप और स्वतंत्र सेवा प्रदाता + केंद्रीकरण (उदाहरण- सिग्नल):
उपयोगकर्ता की स्वतंत्रता का सम्मान करता है लेकिन विक्रेता लॉक-इन बनाता है।
</li>
<li>स्वतंत्र सॉफ्टवेयर ऐप और सेवा प्रदाता + फेडरेशन (उदाहरण- मैट्रिक्स और क्विकसी /
एक्सएमपीपी): उपयोगकर्ताओं की स्वतंत्रता (एक उपयोगकर्ता के रूप में या एक समुदाय के
रूप में) और बिना किसी विक्रेता लॉक-इन के ।
</li>
<li>स्वतंत्र सॉफ्टवेयर ऐप + पीयर-टू-पीयर डिजाइन (उदाहरण ब्रायर, टाॅक्स): उपयोगकर्ताओं
की स्वतंत्रता और बिना किसी विक्रेता लॉक-इन के।
</li>
</ol>
<img src="/assets/img/ims-hi.png" alt=" Comparison of Instant Messengers - Image">
<h2>कुछ बुनियादी संकल्पनाएँ</h2>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in">विक्रेता लॉक-इन</a>: सेवा प्रदाता सेवा बदलने की प्रक्रिया बहुत कठिन बना देता है
क्योंकि इसमें हर संपर्क को नई सेवा में स्थानांतरित करने के लिए आश्वस्त करने की आवश्यकता
होती है। इससे उपयोगकर्ता सेवादाता के अधीन हो जाते हैं।
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer">पीयर-टू-पीयर डिज़ाइन</a>: डिज़ाइन जो किसी उपयोगकर्ता को बीच में किसी भी
सेवा प्रदाता को शामिल किए बिना सीधे दूसरे उपयोगकर्ता के साथ संवाद करने में सक्षम
बनाता है। डिजाइन को कुशलता से काम करने के लिए दोनों पक्षों को एक साथ ऑनलाइन
होने की आवश्यकता होती है।
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_encryption">एंड-टू-एंड एन्क्रिप्शन</a> : केवल संचार में शामिल उपयोगकर्ता ही संदेशों को पढ़ सकते हैं।
<h2>व्हाट्सऐप और अन्य गैरस्वतंत्र ऐप</h2>
व्हाट्सऐप ऐप एक गैरस्वतंत्र सॉफ्टवेयर है जो उपयोगकर्ता की स्वतंत्रता और गोपनीयता
का सम्मान नहीं करता है। व्हाट्सऐप अपने उपयोगकर्ताओं को अपने स्रोत कोड तक पहुंच
प्रदान नहीं करता है और सक्रिय रूप से किसी को भी एक स्वतंत्र सॉफ्टवेयर ऐप बनाने की
अनुमति नहीं देता है जो व्हाट्सऐप सेवा से जुड़ सकता है। उनका दावा है कि उनका ऐप
एंड-टू-एंड एन्क्रिप्शन प्रदान करता है, लेकिन हम इसे प्रमाणित नहीं कर सकते कि उन्होंने
बिना किसी भी बैकडोर (उपयोगकर्ता की अनुमति के बिना दूरस्थ रूप से ऐप का उपयोग)
या लूपहोल्स के एंड-टू-एंड एन्क्रिप्शन लागू किया है। व्हाट्सऐप का गैरस्वतंत्र ऐप होना
ही उसको अस्वीकार करने के लिए पर्याप्त कारण है, इसलिए हम व्व्हाट्सऐप के बारे में
अन्य बुरे तथ्यों के बारे में चर्चा नहीं करेंगे।
स्वतंत्र सॉफ्टवेयर ऐप्स के साथ मैसेजिंग सिस्टम की तीन व्यापक श्रेणियां हैं- केंद्रीकृत
(सेंट्रलाइज्ड) सेवाएं, संघीय सेवाएँ (फेडरेटेड सेवाएं) और पीयर-टू-पीयर सिस्टम।
<h2>A. केंद्रीकृत सेवाएं</h2>
एक केंद्रीकृत सेवा वह है जिसमें हर कोई एक ही प्रदाता का उपयोग करने के लिए मजबूर हो
जाता है। इस तरह के व्यवस्था के कई नुकसान हैं जैसे कि वेंडर लॉक-इन, सरकार द्वारा
बैक-डोर के इस्तेमाल के प्रति अतिसंवेदनशील होने के कारण तथा पूरी दुनिया के संचार के लिए एक
संगठन पर निर्भर होना। केंद्रीकृत सेवाओं में विफलता का एक बिंदु होता है। सेवा को नियंत्रित
करने वाले संगठन को एक अलग संगठन को बेचा जा सकता है, ऑपरेशन के तरीके को को बदल
सकते हैं या यहां तक कि बंद कर सकते हैं, सेवा प्रदाता शर्तों और गोपनीयता नीति को अपने
हिसाब से निर्धारित कर सकते हैं एवं तीसरे पक्ष के <a href="https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217211165">ऐप को केंद्रीकृत सेवा से कनेक्ट करने से
मना कर सकते हैं</a>।
<dl>
 <dt>टेलीग्राम</dt>
 <dd>
 फायदे: टेलीग्राम के ऐप स्वतंत्र सॉफ्टवेयर हैं। आईआरसी
 और मैट्रिक्स के उपयोगकर्ता टेलीग्राम के उपयोगकर्ताओं से <a href="https://t2bot.io/telegram">
 ब्रिज के जरिये बात कर सकते हैं बिना टेलीग्राम अकाउंट बनाये</a>।

 नुकसान: टेलीग्राम सेवा मालिकाना (गैरस्वतंत्र) है और
 फेडेरेटेड नहीं है। एंड-टू-एंड एन्क्रिप्शन केवल मोबाइल ऐप्स में ही उपलब्ध हैं। साइन
 अप करने के लिए फ़ोन नंबर की आवश्यकता है।

 सारांश:आधिकारिक टेलीग्राम ऐप्स स्वतंत्र और गैरस्वतंत्र
 का मिश्रण हैं; टेलीग्राम सेवा सौ प्रतिशत मालिकाना है ।
 </dd>

 <dt>सिग्नल</dt>
 <dd>
 फायदे: सिग्नल ऐप टेलीग्राम की तरह स्वतंत्र सॉफ्टवेयर है, और टेलीग्राम की तुलना
 में यह सर्वर सॉफ्टवेयर को भी स्वतंत्र सॉफ्टवेयर के रूप प्रदान करता है जो इसे टेलीग्राम
 से बेहतर बनाता है।एंड-टू-एंड एन्क्रिप्शन डिफ़ॉल्ट रूप से सक्षम है और समूह चैट भी
 एन्क्रिप्ट किए गए हैं।सर्वर पर कम से कम <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/why-metadata-matters">मेटाडेटा</a>
 <a href="https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender/">एकत्रित होता है</a>।

 नुकसान: भले ही आपको सिग्नल सेवा को स्वयं स्थापित
 करने की अनुमति है, आपकी सेवा के उपयोगकर्ता आधिकारिक सिग्नल सर्वर के उपयोगकर्ताओं
 से बात नहीं कर पाएंगे, जिससे यह व्यावहारिक रूप से विक्रेता लॉक-इन हो सकता है।साइन
 अप करने के लिए फ़ोन नंबर की आवश्यकता है।

 सारांश: सिग्नल व्हाट्सऐप और टेलीग्राम से बेहतर है।
 </dd></dl><h2>B. संघीय सेवाएँ (फ़ेडरेटेड)</h2>
एक फ़ेडरेटेड व्यवस्था स्वतंत्र सेवा प्रदाताओं का एक संग्रह है जो एक दूसरे के साथ संवाद कर
सकते हैं। फेडरेशन आपके संचार का पूरा नियंत्रण रखने के लिये महत्वपूर्ण है। आप एक
विश्वसनीय प्रदाता चुन सकते हैं या स्वयं एक सेवा प्रदाता बन सकते हैं। कोई भी सेवा
प्रदाता उपयोगकर्ताओं पर अपनी शर्तों को लागू नहीं कर सकती है। फ़ेडरेटेड सिस्टम के
उदाहरण मोबाइल फोन, ईमेल, मैट्रिक्स, एक्सएमपीपी आदि हैं। उदाहरण के लिए, आप किसी
भी मोबाइल सेवा प्रदाता से एक सिम कार्ड खरीद सकते हैं और अन्य प्रदाताओं के ग्राहकों
से बात कर सकते हैं या एसएमएस भेज सकते हैं। इसी तरह, आप किसी भी सेवा प्रदाता के
साथ एक ईमेल खाता बना सकते हैं और उन लोगों को ईमेल भेज सकते हैं जो एक अलग ईमेल
प्रदाता के साथ पंजीकृत हैं।
<dl>
 <dt>क्विकसी</dt>
 <dd>
 फायदे: एक्सएमपीपी के साथ फ़ेडरेटेड है , सेवाओं
 की नीतियों पर नियंत्रण, अपने सभी क्विकसी संपर्कों से बात करने की क्षमता खोए
 बिना किसी भी एक्सएमपीपी प्रदाता पर स्विच कर सकते हैं।एंड-टू-एंड एन्क्रिप्शन
 डिफ़ॉल्ट रूप से लागू होता है और समूह चैट भी डिफ़ॉल्ट रूप से एन्क्रिप्ट किया जाता है।

 नुकसान: साइन अप करने के लिए फ़ोन नंबर की आवश्यकता है।

 सारांश: क्विकसी अपने फ़ेडरेटेड डिज़ाइन के कारण सिग्नल से बेहतर है।
 </dd>

 <dt>एक्सएमपीपी ऐप जैसे कन्वर्सेशन, डिनो के माध्यम से</dt>
 <dd>
 फायदे: क्विकसी के सभी फायदे के अलावा, एक खाते के
 लिए फोन नंबर / ईमेल अनिवार्य नहीं है। यदि आप खुद सेवा प्रदाता हैं, तो मेटाडेटा इकट्ठा करना
 आपके नियंत्रण में है।

 नुकसान: सेवा प्रदाता चुनने और खाता बनाने की प्रक्रिया
 मुश्किल लग सकती है, कोई स्वचालित संपर्क खोज नहीं होता है।
 </dd>

 <dt>मैट्रिक्स ऐप जैसे एलीमेंट, फ्लफीचैट के जरिए </dt>
 <dd>
 फायदे: एक्सएमपीपी के सभी फायदे के अलावा, मैट्रिक्स
 व्यक्तिगत चैट में शामिल होने या समूह चैट में जोड़े जाने से पहले आपकी अनुमति मांगता है।

 नुकसान: सेवा प्रदाता चुनने और खाता बनाने की प्रक्रिया
 मुश्किल लग सकती है, कोई स्वचालित संपर्क खोज नहीं होता है।

 सारांश: खातों को बनाने और स्वचालित रूप से अन्य
 उपयोगकर्ताओं को खोजने में थोड़ी असुविधा की कीमत पर एक्सएमपीपी / मैट्रिक्स क्विकसी
 की गोपनीयता और स्वतंत्रता के दृष्टिकोण से बेहतर है।

 नोट: चूंकि एक्सएमपीपी / मैट्रिक्स आपको ऊपर बताए गए
 एप्लिकेशन के बजाय अपनी पसंद के ऐप्स चयन करने की अनुमति देता है, कृपया उन ऐप्स
 का चयन करें जो एंड-टू-एंड एन्क्रिप्शन (एक्सएमपीपी के लिए
 <a href=" https://omemo.top">ओमेमो</a>) लागू
 करते हैं। हमारे द्वारा बताए गए विकल्पों में डिफ़ॉल्ट रूप से एंड-टू-एंड एन्क्रिप्शन लागू
 करते हैं।
 </dd></dl><h3>C. पीयर-टू-पीयर (पी 2 पी) ऐप</h3>
पीयर-टू-पीयर इंस्टेंट मैसेंजर किसी भी सर्वर के बिना सीधे बात कर सकते हैं। उदाहरण हैं
<a href="https://briarproject.org">ब्रायर</a>, <a href="https://tox.chat">टाॅक्स</a> और <a href="https://jami.net">ग्नू जामी</a> आदि। संदेश एंड-टू-एन्क्रिप्टेड हैं
और हमारे संदेश केवल डिवाइस में संग्रहीत होते है क्योंकि इसमें कोई सर्वर शामिल नहीं
हैं। ऐसा कोई सर्वर नहीं है जो आपके संचार को बाधित कर सके, इसलिए यह आपको
सर्वोत्तम गोपनीयता और स्वतंत्रता प्रदान करता है। संदेशों का आदान-प्रदान करने के लिए,
दोनों व्यक्तियों का ऑनलाइन होना ज़रूरी है , जो थोड़ा असुविधाजनक हो सकता है।
<h2>निष्कर्ष</h2>
हम आपको अपने उपयोग के अनुसार किसी भी फ़ेडरेटेड सिस्टम या पीयर-टू-पीयर मैसेंजर का
चयन करने की सलाह देते हैं ताकि आपको अपने संचार, स्वतंत्रता और गोपनीयता का पूरा
नियंत्रण मिले। व्हाट्सऐप जैसी गैरस्वतंत्र सेवाओं को अस्वीकार करना बहुत महत्वपूर्ण है जो
उपयोगकर्ता से स्वतंत्रता छीन लेते हैं। <a href="https://fsf.org.in/contact">एफएसएफ इंडिया</a>, <a href="https://fsci.in/#join-us">एफएससीआई</a> या
भारत में अन्य स्वयंसेवक द्वारा संचालित संगठन को इस बदलाव हेतु किसी को अधिक जानकारी
एवं मार्गदर्शन देने में खुशी होगी।
<hr>
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<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0">क्रिएटिव कॉमन्स अधिकार- अव्युत्पन्न ४.० अंतर्राष्ट्रीय लाइसेंस</a> के अंतर्गत प्रकाशित
किया गया है।
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>Better than WhatsApp: Try these Free Software Apps and Services</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2021-01-23T00:00:00Z:better-than-whatsapp</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/article/better-than-whatsapp"></link> <updated>2021-01-23T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">We recommend using <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html">Free Software</a> apps like <a href="https://element.io">Element</a>,
<a href="https://quicksy.im">Quicksy</a> or <a href="https://conversations.im">Conversations</a> that connect to Free Software
powered services. These services allow users to choose their service
provider without losing the ability to talk to users of other
providers following the same standard. Free Software ensures users'
freedom and interoperable services ensure there is no vendor lock-in.
Any non-free app controls the user while <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html">free software app is
controlled by its users</a>. When we are talking about free
software, we are not talking about price, we are concerned about
freedom.
<h2>Comparison of different apps and services</h2>
<ol>
<li>Non-free software client and server + centralization (Example
WhatsApp): does not respect user's freedom and creates vendor
lock-in.
</li>
<li>Free Software client but non-free server + centralization (Example
Telegram): client software respects freedom, server software does
not respect freedom and creates vendor lock-in.
</li>
<li>Free Software client and server + centralization (Example Signal):
respect user's freedom but creates vendor lock-in.
</li>
<li>Free Software client and server + federation (Example Matrix and
Quicksy/XMPP): respects users' freedom (as a user or as a
community) and no vendor lock-in.
</li>
<li>Free software client + peer to peer design (Example Briar, Tox):
respects users' freedom and no vendor lock-in.
</li>
</ol>
<img src="/assets/img/ims.png" alt=" Comparison of Instant Messengers - Image ">
<h2>Some basic concepts</h2>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vendor_lock-in">Vendor lock-in</a>: Ability to switch service
 is too hard because it requires convincing every contact to move to
 a new service.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer">Peer-to-Peer Design</a>: Design which enables a user to communicate
with another user directly without involving any service provider in
between. Both parties need to be online at the same time for the
design to work efficiently.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-to-end_encryption">End-to-End Encryption</a>: Only the users involved in a
communication can read the messages.
<h2>WhatsApp and other non-free apps</h2>
WhatsApp app is a non-free software which does not respect user's
freedom and privacy. WhatsApp does not provide its users the access
to its source code and actively bans anyone creating a Free Software
app that can connect to WhatsApp service. They claim their app
provides end-to-end encryption, but we cannot verify if they actually
implemented end-to-end encryption without any backdoors (access of app
remotely without user's permission) or loopholes. Being non-free app
is enough to reject WhatsApp, so we are not going to talk about other
bad things about WhatsApp.
There are three broad categories of messaging systems with Free
Software apps - Centralized services, Federated services and
Peer-to-Peer systems.
<h2>A. Centralized services</h2>
A centralized service is one in which every one is forced to use the
same provider. Setups such as this has many disadvantages such as
vendor lock-in, being more susceptible to back-doors by government,
the whole world getting dependent on a single organization for their
communications. Centralized services also have a single point of
failure. The organization controlling the service can be sold to a
different organization, change or even shut down the operation, set
their own terms of service and privacy policy, <a href="https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37#issuecomment-217211165">forbid the third-party
apps from connecting to the centralized service</a>.
<dl>
 <dt>Telegram</dt>
 <dd>

 Pros:The client apps for Telegram is Free
 Software.

 IRC and Matrix users can talk to Telegram users
 <a href="https://t2bot.io/telegram">through a bridge without creating
 a Telegram account</a>.

 Cons:The Telegram service component &mdash; that
 enables communication between the Telegram users &mdash; is
 proprietary (non-free) and is not federated.

 End-to-end encryption is available only on the Telegram mobile
 apps.

 Needs phone number for signing up.

 Summary: The official Telegram clients are a
 amalgamation of free (as in freedom) and proprietary (non-free)
 components; the Telegram service component is 100% proprietary.
 </dd>

 <dt>Signal</dt>
 <dd>
 Pros: Signal app is Free Software like
 Telegram, and in comparison to Telegram it offers server software
 also as Free Software which makes it better than Telegram.

 End-to-end encryption is enabled by default and groups
 chats are also encrypted.

 Minimal
 <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/06/why-metadata-matters">
 metadata</a> <a href="https://signal.org/blog/sealed-sender">
 collected on the server</a>.

 Cons: Even though you are allowed to set up
 Signal service yourself, the users of your service will not be able to
 talk to users of the official Signal server, making it practically a
 vendor lock-in.

 Needs phone number for signing up.

 Summary: Signal is better than WhatsApp and
 Telegram.
 </dd></dl><h2>B. Federated services</h2>
A federated system is a collection of independent service providers
which can communicate with each other. Federation is important to take
full control of your communications.
You can choose a trusted provider or be a service provider
yourself. No single entity can force their terms on users.
Examples of federated systems are mobile phones, emails, matrix , XMPP
etc. For example, you can buy a SIM card from any mobile service
provider and talk or send SMS to subscribers of other
providers. Similarly, you can create an email account with any service
provider and send emails to people who are registered with a different
email provider.
<dl>
 <dt>Quicksy</dt>
 <dd>
 Pros: Federated with XMPP, Control over the
 policies of the services, switch to any XMPP
 provider without losing ability to talk to all
 your Quicksy contacts.

 End-to-end encryption is enabled by
 default and group chats are also encrypted
 by default.

 Cons: Needs phone number for signing up

 Summary: Quicksy is better than Signal
 because of its federated design.
 </dd>

 <dt>XMPP via apps like Conversations, Dino</dt>
 <dd>
 Pros: In addition to all pros of Quicksy,
 the phone number/email is not mandatory for an account. If you
 self-host, metadata retention is under your control.

 Cons:The process of choosing a service
 provider and creating an account can appear to be difficult
 since it may be unfamiliar, no
 automatic contact discovery.
 </dd>

 <dt>Matrix via apps like Element, FluffyChat</dt>
 <dd>
 Pros: In addition to all pros of XMPP,
 Matrix asks your permission before you are added to a personal
 chat or added to a group chat.

 Cons: The process of choosing a service
 provider and creating an account can appear to be difficult
 since it may be unfamiliar, no automatic contact discovery.

 Summary: XMPP/Matrix is better than Quicksy
 from perspective of privacy and freedom at the cost of a bit
 inconvenience of creating accounts and finding other users
 automatically.

 Note: Since XMPP/Matrix allows you to have
 your choice of apps instead of the ones mentioned above, please
 choose apps which support end-to-end encryption
 (<a href="https://omemo.top">OMEMO</a> for XMPP). The choices we
 mentioned have end-to-end encryption by default.
 </dd></dl><h3>C. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems</h3>
Peer-to-peer instant messengers can talk directly without requiring
any servers. Examples are <a href="https://briarproject.org">Briar</a>, <a href="https://tox.chat">Tox</a> and <a href="https://jami.net">GNU
Jami</a>, etc. The messages are end-to-encrypted and are stored
only locally in the devices since there are no servers involved. There
are no servers that could intercept your communications, so it gives
you the ultimate privacy and freedom. To exchange messages, both peers
need to be online, which might be a bit inconvenient.
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
We recommend you to choose any federated system or peer-to-peer
messenger according to your use-case so that you get full control of
your communications, freedom and privacy. It is very important to
reject proprietary services like WhatsApp which takes freedom away
from the user. <a href="/contact">FSF India</a>, <a href="https://fsci.in/#join-us">FSCI</a> or other volunteer-run
organization in India would be glad to extend support to anyone
needing more details on undergoing such a shift.
<hr>
The "Comparison of Instant Messengers" infographic &mdash; Copyright ©
2021 Riya Sawant. It is licensed under the <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0">Creative Commons
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license</a>.
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയർ സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യ ദിനത്തില്‍ സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയർ ശിബിരം 2020 പ്രഖ്യാപിക്കുന്നു</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2020-09-19T00:00:00Z:free-software-camp-2020-announcement.ml</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/news/free-software-camp-2020-announcement/ml"></link> <updated>2020-09-19T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറും അതിന്റെ മൂല്യങ്ങളും പ്രചരിപ്പിക്കുന്നതിനായി ലോകമെമ്പാടുമുള്ള സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ പ്രവര്‍ത്തകര്‍ ഇന്നു് സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയർ സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യ ദിനം ആഘോഷിക്കുന്നു. അതേ ഉദ്ദേശലക്ഷ്യത്തോടും ആവേശത്തോടും കൂടി ഞങ്ങൾ ഇന്നു് സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയർ ശിബിരം പ്രഖ്യാപിക്കുകയാണു്.
സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയർ ശിബിരം ഇന്ത്യയിലെ സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയർ ഫൗണ്ടേഷനും സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയർ കൂട്ടായ്മയും സംയുക്തമായി സംഘടിപ്പിക്കുന്ന ഒരു ഓൺലൈൻ മെന്റർഷിപ്പ് പരിപാടിയാണു്. ഇതു ഒക്ടോബറില്‍ തുടങ്ങി ഫെബ്രുവരി അവസാനം വരെ തുടരുന്നു.
സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‍വെയറിലേയ്ക്ക് സംഭാവന ചെയ്യാന്‍ താല്പര്യമുള്ളവരായ, എന്നാല്‍ ചിട്ടയോടെയുള്ള മാര്‍ഗദര്‍ശ്ശനവും പഠിക്കാനുള്ള സാഹചര്യവും അതു് തുടങ്ങാനായി ലഭ്യമാവണമെന്നു് ആഗ്രഹിക്കുന്ന ആര്‍ക്കും ഈ സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‍വെയര്‍ ശിബിരം വിലമതിക്കാനാവാത്ത ഒരു അവസരമായിരിക്കും. ഇത് നിലവില്‍ സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‍വെയർ സംഭാവകരായിട്ടുള്ളവര്‍ക്കു് പുതിയ സംഭാവകരെ അവരുടെ പരിപാടികളില്‍ ഉള്‍പ്പെടുത്താനും സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‍വെയര്‍ കൂട്ടായ്മയിലേക്കുള്ള അവരുടെ കടന്നുവരവിനെ സാധ്യമാക്കാനും കഴിയുന്ന ഒരവസരം കൂടെയായിരിക്കും.
പഠിതാക്കൾക്കും മെന്റർമാർക്കും ഇതിലേയ്ക്കു അപേക്ഷിക്കുന്നതിനുള്ള കണ്ണികള്‍ <a href="https://camp.fsf.org.in">ശിബിരത്തിന്റെ വെബ്സൈറ്റിൽ</a> ഒക്ടോബർ 15 വരെ ലഭ്യമായിരിക്കും.
ഈ ശിബിരം പഠിതാക്കളെ സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‍വെയര്‍ ആശയങ്ങള്‍ മനസ്സിലാക്കുന്നതിനു സഹായിക്കുന്നതിനോടൊപ്പം സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‍വെയറിലേക്കു് സംഭാവനകള്‍ നല്‍കുന്നതിനു് പ്രാപ്തരാക്കുകയും ചെയ്യുന്നു. ശിബിരത്തിന്റെ ആദ്യഘട്ടത്തില്‍ സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‍വെയറിന്റെ സാമൂഹിക ഗുണവശങ്ങളും സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‍വെയര്‍ സംസ്കാരവും പരിചയപ്പെടുത്തുന്ന അസൈന്‍മെന്റുകളും സമ്പര്‍ക്കപരിപാടികളും ചലനച്ചിത്ര പ്രദര്‍ശനങ്ങളും മറ്റു പ്രവര്‍ത്തനങ്ങളുമടങ്ങിയ പരമ്പരയിലൂടെ പഠിതാക്കള്‍ കടന്നു പോകുന്നു. അവര്‍ക്കു് അവരുടെ സ്വന്തം കമ്പ്യൂട്ടിങ്ങ് ഉപകരണങ്ങളില്‍ സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‍വെയര്‍ ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നതിനുള്ള സഹായം ലഭ്യമാകുന്നതാണു്. ഇതിന്റെ അവസാനഘട്ടത്തില്‍ അവര്‍ വിവിധ സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‍വെയര്‍ പദ്ധതികള്‍ പരിചയപ്പെടുകയും മെന്റര്‍മാരോടൊത്തു് പ്രവര്‍ത്തിച്ച് അതിലേക്കു് സംഭാവന ചെയ്യുന്നതിനുള്ള കർമ്മപദ്ധതികള്‍ തയ്യാറാക്കുകയം ചെയ്യുന്നു. പഠിതാക്കളുടെ കർമ്മപദ്ധതികളനുസരിച്ചു് മെന്ററെ തെരഞ്ഞെടുക്കുന്നു. രണ്ടാം ഘട്ടത്തില്‍ ഓരോ പഠിതാവും അവരുടെ തെരഞ്ഞെടുക്കപ്പെട്ട കർമ്മപദ്ധതിയുടെ അടിസ്ഥാനത്തില്‍ മെന്റര്‍മാരോടൊത്തു് പ്രവര്‍ത്തിച്ച് സംഭാവനകള്‍ ചെയ്തു് തുടങ്ങുന്നു. നിശ്ചിത കാലയളവുകളില്‍ പഠിതാക്കളുടെ ആവശ്യങ്ങള്‍ അറിയുന്നതിനും തടസ്സങ്ങള്‍ മറികടന്ന് മുന്നോട്ടുപോകുവാന്‍ സഹായിക്കുന്നതിനും അവലോകനയോഗങ്ങള്‍ ഉണ്ടായിരിക്കും.
ശിബിര സൈറ്റില്‍ നിര്‍ദ്ദേശിച്ചിട്ടുള്ള മെന്റര്‍ യോഗ്യതകളുള്ള, സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‍വെയര്‍ മേഖലയില്‍ സംഭാവനകള്‍ ചെയ്തിട്ടുള്ള ഏതൊരു വ്യക്തിക്കും മെന്റര്‍ ആകുന്നതിനു് അപേക്ഷിക്കാവുന്നതാണു്. പഠിതാവിനു് കർമ്മപദ്ധതി തയ്യാറാക്കുവാന്‍ ആവശ്യമായ ആശയങ്ങളുടെ പട്ടികയിലേയ്ക്കു് അവരുടെ ആശയങ്ങള്‍ ചേര്‍ക്കാവുന്നതാണു്. കർമ്മപദ്ധതികള്‍ വിലയിരുത്തുന്നതിലും തെരഞ്ഞെടുക്കുന്നതിലും മെന്റര്‍മാര്‍ ക്യാമ്പ് സംഘാടകരുമായി ചേര്‍ന്നു് പ്രവര്‍ത്തിക്കുകയും തെരഞ്ഞെടുത്ത കർമ്മപദ്ധതികള്‍ വി‍ജയകരമായി പൂര്‍ത്തീകരിക്കുന്നതിനു് പഠിതാക്കളെ പ്രാപ്തരാക്കുകയും ചെയ്യും.
പ്രോഗ്രാമിങ്ങ്, സിസ്റ്റം അഡ്‌മിനിസ്‌ട്രേഷന്‍, പാക്കേജിങ്ങ്, യുഐ/യുഎക്സ്, ഫോറന്‍സിക്സ്, പ്രാദേശികവത്കരണം, കലാവിരുതുകള്‍, വിവരണങ്ങള്‍, പ്രചരണം, പരിപാടികള്‍ സംഘടിപ്പിക്കല്‍ തുടങ്ങി സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ ആശയവുമായി പൊരുത്തപ്പെടുന്ന എല്ലാത്തരം സംഭാവനകളേയും സംഭാവന ചെയ്യാനുള്ള വഴികളേയും ഈ ശിബിരം പ്രോത്സാഹിപ്പിക്കുന്നു. സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ ആശയവിനിമയ സംവിധാനങ്ങളായ ബിഗ് ബ്ലൂ ബട്ടണ്‍, മെട്രിക്സ് ആപ്പുകള്‍ തുടങ്ങിയ സംവിധാനങ്ങളുപയോഗിച്ച് ഓണ്‍ലൈനായിട്ടാണു് ഈ ശിബിരം നടത്തുന്നതു്. പ്രവേശനം സൌജന്യമായിരിക്കും.
കൂടുതല്‍ വിവരങ്ങള്‍ക്കും പങ്കെടുക്കാനും <a href="https://camp.fsf.org.in">https://camp.fsf.org.in</a> സന്ദര്‍ശിക്കുക.
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>Free Software Camp 2020 Launches On Software Freedom Day</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2020-09-19T00:00:00Z:free-software-camp-2020-announcement</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/news/free-software-camp-2020-announcement"></link> <updated>2020-09-19T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">The world celebrates Software Freedom Day today with the aim of increasing
awareness of Free Software and its virtues, and it is in the same spirit and
excitement that we announce today the Free Software Camp.
The Free Software Camp is an online mentorship camp on free software organized
by Free Software Foundation of India and Free Software Community of India. It
will start in October and run till end of February.
The Free Software Camp will be a valuable opportunity for anyone who wishes to
become a contributor to free software projects but feels like they need
structured mentorship and a learning environment to get started. It will also be
an opportunity for existing free software contributors to get new contributors
to their project and facilitate their entry into the free software community.
Application links for learners and mentors are open now on the <a href="https://camp.fsf.org.in">camp
website</a> and will be so till October 15.
The camp promises to be a safe space for learners to acquaint themselves with
the philosophy of free software while also getting equipped to become free
software contributors. In the first phase of the camp, learners will go through
a series of assignments, interactions, movie screenings, and other activities
that introduces them to the social benefits of free software and exposes them to
the free software culture. They will get help in using free software on their
own devices. At the end of this phase, they will get a chance to explore various
free software projects and working with mentors they will be asked to create
working proposals for contributing to these projects. The camp will match each
learner to a mentor based on their proposal. In the second phase, each learner
starts their free software contribution as per their accepted proposal, closely
working with their mentor. There will be periodic review meetings to address the
needs of the learners and help them stay on track.
Any free software contributor who can meet mentor expectations listed on the
camp site can apply to become a mentor. They can also add their ideas to the
list of ideas from which the learners can find starting points for writing their
proposals. The mentors will work closely with the camp organizers in evaluation
and selection of proposals, and with learners to facilitate the success of the
selected proposals.
The camp encourages all kinds of contributions and contribution pathways -
programming, system administration, packaging, UI/UX, forensics, localization,
artworks, documentation, publicity, event organizing, etc. - as long as there is
alignment with the free software philosophy. The camp is conducted online using
free software communication tools like Big Blue Button, Matrix, etc. There is no
fee for participation.
For more details and applying visit <a href="https://camp.fsf.org.in">https://camp.fsf.org.in</a>
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>സ്കൂളുകളിലെ ഓണ്‍ലൈന്‍ ക്ലാസിനായി സ്വതന്ത്രമല്ലാത്ത സോഫ്റ്റ്‍വെയറുകളും സേവനങ്ങളും ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നത് സംബന്ധിച്ച്</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2020-07-11T00:00:00Z:proprietary-apps-in-schools.ml</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/news/proprietary-apps-in-schools/ml"></link> <updated>2020-07-11T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">വിവർത്തനം ചെയ്തത്: പൈറെറ്റ് പ്രവീണ്, അനസ് പുന്നൊട് 
പുനരവലോകനം ചെയ്തത്: അരുൺ എം, ബീന പ്രദീപൻ
To 
ബഹുമാനപ്പെട്ട വിദ്യാഭ്യാസ മന്ത്രി 
കേരള സര്‍ക്കാര്‍
സാര്‍
കേരള സര്‍ക്കാര്‍ സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‍വെയര്‍ സ്വീകരിക്കുന്നതില്‍ എന്നും രാജ്യത്തിന് മാതൃകയാണ്. സ്കൂളുകളില്‍ സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‍വെയര്‍ 
തെരഞ്ഞെടുത്തു കൊണ്ടാണ് ഇതിന് തുടക്കമിടുന്നത്. ഇക്കാര്യത്തിൽ കേരളത്തിലെ അധ്യാപക സമൂഹം കാണിച്ച നേതൃത്വവും എടുത്തു 
പറയേണ്ടതാണ്.
കോവിഡ്-19 മഹാമാരിയുടെ സാഹചര്യത്തില്‍ വിദ്യാഭ്യാസം ഓണ്‍ലൈന്‍ ആകുമ്പോള്‍,<a href="#fn-1">1</a> ഞങ്ങള്‍ കാണുന്നത് 
സ്വതന്ത്രമല്ലാത്ത സോഫ്റ്റ്‍വെയറുകള്‍ വിദ്യാഭ്യാസത്തിനായി പ്രചരിപ്പിക്കുന്നതാണ്. വിദ്യാഭ്യാസത്തിന് സ്വതന്ത്രമല്ലാത്ത സോഫ്റ്റ്‍വെയര്‍ മാത്രം2 
ഉപയോഗിയ്ക്കാന്‍ കേരള സര്‍ക്കാർ വിദ്യാഭ്യാസ വകുപ്പിന് കീഴിലുള്ള ഓഫീസുകള്‍ ആവശ്യപ്പെടുന്നതായി ഔദ്യോഗിക രേഖകളിൽ നിന്ന് 
ഞങ്ങള്‍ മനസ്സിലാക്കുന്നു<a href="#fn-2">2</a>. വാട്ട്സാപ്പ് പോലുള്ള സ്വതന്ത്രമല്ലാത്ത സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറുകള്‍ പ്രചരിപ്പിയ്ക്കുന്നതിന് രണ്ട്‌ 
പ്രശ്നങ്ങളുണ്ട്. ഇത് സര്‍ക്കാറിന്റെ സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ നയത്തില്‍ നിന്നുള്ള പിറകോട്ട് പോക്കും ഒരു കുത്തക സ്ഥാപനത്തെ 
പ്രചരിപ്പിയ്ക്കുന്നതുമാണ്.
<h2>വാട്ട്സാപ്പെന്ന കെണി</h2>
അധികമാളുകളും വാട്ട്സാപ്പിന്റെ കെണികളെ പറ്റി ബോധവാൻമാരല്ല. സൗജന്യ സേവനം നൽകുന്നതും എല്ലാവരാലും 
ഉപയോഗിക്കപ്പെടുന്നതുമായ ഒരു ആപ്പായിട്ടു മാത്രമെ വാട്ട്സാപ്പിനെ അവർ കാണുന്നുള്ളൂ. വാട്ട്സാപ്പ് ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നതിലൂടെ അവർ 
ചെയ്യുന്ന വിട്ടുവീഴ്ചകളെക്കുറിച്ചുള്ള ധാരണക്കുറവാണ് ഇതിനു ഒരു കാരണം. വാട്ട്സാപ്പ് ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നവരുടെ വിവരങ്ങൾ അത് 
ശേഖരിക്കുകയും സംഭരിക്കുകയും, വിശകലനം നടത്തുകയും ചെയ്യുന്നു എന്ന കാര്യം അധികപേരും തിരിച്ചറിയാതെ പോകുന്നു. സ്വയം 
നിർണയാവകാശം ഇല്ലാത്ത കുട്ടികളെ ഈ സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയർ ഉപയോഗിപ്പിക്കുന്നതിലൂടെ, സൗജന്യ സാമ്പിൾ കൊടുക്കുന്ന ലഹരി 
മയക്കുമരുന്ന് കച്ചവടക്കാരനെപോലെ ഒരു വാണിജ്യ കുത്തകയ്ക്ക് ഭാവി ഉപഭോക്താക്കളെ സൃഷ്ടിച്ചു നൽകുന്ന പ്രവർത്തനമാണ് സർക്കാർ 
നടത്തുന്നത്. അധ്യാപന ഉള്ളടക്കം വാട്ട്സാപ്പിലൂടെ കൈമാറ്റം ചെയ്യുന്നത് അത് ഉപയോഗിക്കാതെ മറ്റു മാർഗ്ഗങ്ങൾക്കു മുൻഗണന നൽകുന്ന 
കുട്ടികളോടുള്ള വിവേചനമാണ്. ഫേസ്ബുക്കിന്റെ ഒരു അനുബന്ധ സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറാണ് വാട്ട്സാപ്പ്‌,<a href="#fn-3">3</a> 
ഫേസ്ബുക്കാകട്ടെ, ഉപയോക്താവിന്റെ സ്വകാര്യതയെ4 പൂർണ്ണമായും അവഗണിക്കുന്നതിലും അനാസ്ഥയിലും കുപ്രസിദ്ധി
നേടിയതതുമാണ് <a href="#fn-4">4</a>.
<h2>ബദലുകൾ ലഭ്യമാണ്</h2>
സർക്കാരിന്റെ വിവരവിനിമയ ആവശ്യങ്ങൾക്കായി <a href="https://quicksy.im">https://quicksy.im</a> പോലുള്ള സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയർ 
പരിഗണിക്കേണ്ടതാണ്. ഇവ ഉപയോക്താവിന് വാട്ട്സാപ്പ് പോലെ തന്നെ തോന്നുന്നതും എന്നാൽ ഒരു കമ്പനിയുടെ മാത്രം 
നിയന്ത്രണത്തിലല്ലാത്തതുമാണ്. ക്വിക്സി ആപ്പ് ഇൻസ്റ്റാൾ ചെയ്യ്തതിനു ശേഷം ഫോൺ നമ്പർ നല്കി അതിലേക്ക് വരുന്ന OTP യിലൂടെ 
വെരിഫൈ ചെയ്യാവുന്നതാണ്. അപ്പോൾ ഫോണിലെ അഡ്രസ്സ് ബുക്കിലും5 ക്വിക്സി ഡയറക്ടറിയിലും ഉള്ള ഉപയോക്താക്കളെ അത് 
കണ്ടെത്തും<a href="#fn-5">5</a>. ഒരു ക്വിക്സി ഉപയോക്താവിനു XMPP പ്രോട്ടോക്കോൾ ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്ന മറ്റ് എല്ലാ ആപ്പുകളും 
സേവനങ്ങളും ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നവരുമായി ആശയവിനിമയം നടത്താൻ കഴിയുന്നതാണ്. സംസ്ഥാന സർക്കാറിനു ആയാസരഹിതമായി 
സ്വന്തം നിലയ്ക്കു സെർവർ സജ്ജീകരിച്ച് എല്ലാ കുട്ടികൾക്കും ഉപയോഗിക്കാനായി സൗകര്യമേർപ്പെടുത്താൻ കഴിയേണ്ടതാണ്. ക്വിക്സിക്കു 
പുറമേ ഗവൺമെന്റിനു പരിഗണിക്കാവുന്ന അനേകം സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറുകൾ കൂടിയുണ്ട്6<a href="#fn-6">6</a>.
<h2>മാനദണ്ഡങ്ങളും പരസ്പര പ്രവർത്തനക്ഷമതയും</h2>
ഈമെയില്‍ സേവനങ്ങള്‍ക്കുപയോഗിയ്ക്കുന്ന SMTP പോലെയും മൊബൈല്‍ സേവനദാതാക്കള്‍ തമ്മില്‍ പരസ്പരം സംസാരിയ്ക്കാന്‍ 
സാധ്യമാക്കുന്ന GSM സ്റ്റാന്റേര്‍ഡ് പോലെ തന്നെയാണ് XMPP. ഒരു മൊബൈല്‍ ഉപയോക്താവിന് താനുപയോഗിയ്ക്കുന്ന 
സേവനദാതാവിന്റെ സേവനം തൃപ്തികരമല്ല എന്ന് തോന്നിയാല്‍ അവരുടെ നിലവിലുള്ള സമ്പര്‍ക്കങ്ങളുമായി സംസാരിയ്ക്കാനുള്ള ശേഷി 
നഷ്ടപ്പെടാതെ തന്നെ മറ്റൊരു മൊബൈല്‍ സേവനദാതാവിലേക്ക് നമ്പര്‍ പോര്‍ട്ട് ചെയ്യാനുള്ള സൌകര്യം നിലവിലുണ്ട്. വാട്ട്സാപ്പിന്റെ 
കാര്യമെടുത്താല്‍, അവരുടെ നിലവിലുള്ള വാട്ട്സാപ്പ് സമ്പര്‍ക്കങ്ങളുമായി സംസാരിയ്ക്കാന്‍ പറ്റുന്ന വേറൊരു സേവനദാതാവിലേക്ക് 
മാറാനുള്ള സൗകര്യമില്ല. ഈ കുരുക്കുള്ളതിനാലാണ്‌ വാട്ട്സാപ്പില്‍ നിന്നും മാറുന്നത് പ്രായോഗികമല്ലാതാവുന്നത്. XMPP-യില്‍ 
അവര്‍ക്കിഷ്ടപ്പെട്ട സേവനദാതാവിനെ തെരഞ്ഞെടുക്കാനും തൃപ്തികരമല്ലെങ്കില്‍ വേറൊന്നിലേക്ക് മാറാനും സാധിയ്ക്കും.
<h2>ശുപാർശകൾ</h2>
സര്‍ക്കാറിനു് മുന്നില്‍ താഴെപ്പറയുന്ന ശുപാര്‍ശകള്‍ വയ്ക്കാന്‍ ‍ഞങ്ങളാഗ്രഹിക്കുന്നു.
<ol>
<li>സംസ്ഥാന സര്‍ക്കാറിനു വേണ്ടി ഓണ്‍ലൈന്‍ പഠനത്തിനും (ഇ-ലേണിങ്) ആശയവിനിമയത്തിനുമുള്ള സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ 
ഉപയോഗിച്ചുള്ള സംവിധാനങ്ങള്‍ ഒരുക്കാന്‍ വിദ്യാഭ്യാസ വകുപ്പിന് കീഴിലുള്ള കൈറ്റിന് നിര്‍ദ്ദേശം നൽകുക. ഇതില്‍ സന്ദേശങ്ങളയക്കലും 
ഫയലുകള്‍ കൈമാറ്റം ചെയ്യലും ഓണ്‍ലൈന്‍ പഠനവും ഉള്‍പ്പെടുത്താനാകും.
</li>
<li>ഈ സംവിധാനങ്ങള്‍ ഒരുക്കാനും അധ്യാപകര്‍ക്കു പരിശീലനം കൊടുക്കാനും സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ കൂട്ടായ്മയുടെ കഴിവുകള്‍ 
ഉപയോഗപ്പെടുത്താം. അധ്യാപകര്‍ക്കു പിന്തുണ നല്‍കുന്നതിനായി7 25-ലധികം ആളുകള്‍ ഇപ്പോള്‍ തന്നെ തയ്യാറായി മുന്നോട്ടു വന്നിട്ടുണ്ട്
<a href="#fn-7">7</a>.
</li>
<li>ഇപ്പോള്‍ വീഡിയോകള്‍ യൂട്യൂബിലും ഫേസ്‌ബുക്കിലും മാത്രമേ ലഭ്യമാക്കിയിട്ടുള്ളൂ. സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ അടിസ്ഥാനമാക്കിയതും 
ഉപയോക്താക്കള്‍ക്കു മെച്ചപ്പെട്ട സ്വകാര്യത ഉറപ്പുവരുത്തുന്നതുമായ പിയര്‍ട്യൂബ് കൂടി ഉപയോഗിയ്ക്കാന്‍ കൈറ്റ് ആലോചിക്കേണ്ടിയിരിക്കുന്നു. 
കൈറ്റിന്റെ വെബ്സൈറ്റ് വഴിയുള്ള തത്സമയ പ്രക്ഷേപണത്തിനു വീഡിയോ കാണുന്നവര്‍ തമ്മില്‍ ബാന്‍ഡ്‌വിഡ്ത്ത് പങ്കുവെയ്ക്കുന്നതിലൂടെ8 
ചിലവ് കുറയും എന്നൊരു മെച്ചം കൂടി ഇതിനുണ്ട്<a href="#fn-8">8</a>. സ്വതന്ത്രമായി പങ്കുവെയ്ക്കാവുന്ന ക്രിയേറ്റീവ് കോമണ്‍സ് 
അനുമതിയോടെ വീഡിയോ ഇറക്കുകയാണെങ്കില്‍ ഇന്ത്യയിലെ സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ കൂട്ടായ്മ പ്രവര്‍ത്തിപ്പിയ്ക്കുന്ന 
<a href="https://videos.fsci.in">https://videos.fsci.in</a> എന്ന പിയര്‍ട്യൂബ് സേവനം വേണമെങ്കില്‍ ഉപയോഗപ്പെടുത്താവുന്നതാണു്.
</li>
<li>ഫസ്റ്റ് ബെല്‍ പ്രോഗ്രാമില്‍ ക്ലാസെടുക്കുന്ന അധ്യാപകരും വിദ്യാലയങ്ങളിൽ പഠനപ്രവർത്തനങ്ങൾക്ക് പിന്തുണ നൽകുന്ന അധ്യാപകരും 
ആശയവിനിമയത്തിനായി സ്വതന്ത്രമല്ലാത്ത സേവനങ്ങളാണ് ശുപാര്‍ശ ചെയ്യുന്നതെന്നു ശ്രദ്ധയില്‍പ്പെട്ടിട്ടുണ്ട്. വിദ്യാര്‍ത്ഥികളുടെ 
വിദ്യാഭ്യാസത്തിന് ആവശ്യമുള്ളതാണ് ആ സേവനങ്ങള്‍ എന്ന ആശയക്കുഴപ്പം കുട്ടികളിലും രക്ഷിതാക്കളിലും സൃഷ്ടിക്കാന്‍ ഇതു 
കാരണമായിട്ടുണ്ട്. ഈ ആശയക്കുഴപ്പം ഒഴിവാക്കണം.</li>
<li>ദീര്‍ഘകാലാടിസ്ഥാനത്തിലുള്ള സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറിനും അടിസ്ഥാന സൗകര്യങ്ങള്‍ക്കുമുള്ള മുന്നൊരുക്കം ചര്‍ച്ച ചെയ്യണം. ഇതു 
അത്യാവശ്യഘട്ടങ്ങളില്‍ സ്വതന്ത്രമല്ലാത്ത സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയറുകള്‍ ഉപയോഗിക്കേണ്ടി വരുന്ന സാഹചര്യം ഒഴിവാക്കും. അങ്ങനെയുള്ള 
ചര്‍ച്ചകളിലൂടെ, ഉരുത്തിരിഞ്ഞു വരുന്ന സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ പരിഹാരങ്ങള്‍ക്ക് എല്ലാവരേയും ഉള്‍ക്കൊള്ളുന്ന 
വിവരസാങ്കേതികവിദ്യയുടെ പ്രയോജനങ്ങള്‍ സ്വീകരിച്ചുകൊണ്ടുള്ള കാലത്തിനൊത്ത ഒരു വിദ്യാഭ്യാസ സംവിധാനം രൂപകല്പന ചെയ്യാൻ 
കഴിയും. അത്തരം സംവിധാനങ്ങള്‍ വികസിപ്പിച്ചെടുക്കാനും പിന്തുണയ്ക്കാനും സ്വതന്ത്ര സോഫ്റ്റ്‌വെയര്‍ കൂട്ടായ്മകളെ ഉള്‍പ്പെടുത്താവുന്നതാണ്.</li>
</ol>
<h2>അനുബന്ധം</h2>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://education.kerala.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/GO-Online-Class-First-Bell.pdf">https://education.kerala.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/GO-Online-Class-First-Bell.pdf</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://www.doolnews.com/online-learning-parents-and-teachers-need-attention-education-department-guidelines-454.html">https://www.doolnews.com/online-learning-parents-and-teachers-need-attention-education-department-guidelines-454.html</a> (we have a copy of the document referenced in this article) ഈ ലേഖനത്തില്‍ പറയുന്ന മാര്‍ഗരേഖയുെടെ പകര്‍പ്പ് ഞങ്ങളുടെ കയ്യിലുണ്ട്.
</li>
<li><a href="https://www.fsf.org/facebook">https://www.fsf.org/facebook</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica-factbox/factbox-who-is-cambridge-analytica-and-what-did-it-do-idUSKBN1GW07F">https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica-factbox/factbox-who-is-cambridge-analytica-and-what-did-it-do-idUSKBN1GW07F</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://www.f-droid.org/en/packages/im.quicksy.client/">https://www.f-droid.org/en/packages/im.quicksy.client/</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://switching.software/replace/whatsapp/">https://switching.software/replace/whatsapp/</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://codema.in/d/LDwsanKx/open-letter-to-kerala-it-school-kite-director-on-forcing-teachers-students-and-parents-to-use-whatsapp/5">https://codema.in/d/LDwsanKx/open-letter-to-kerala-it-school-kite-director-on-forcing-teachers-students-and-parents-to-use-whatsapp/5</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerTube">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerTube</a>
</li>
</ol>
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>Open letter to KITE: On the use of proprietary apps and services for online classes in schools</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2020-07-11T00:00:00Z:proprietary-apps-in-schools</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/news/proprietary-apps-in-schools"></link> <updated>2020-07-11T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">To 
Hon' Minister for Education, 
Govt of Kerala.
Dear Sir
Kerala Govt has always been a leader in adoption of Free Software
(free as in freedom) in the country. Most importantly it started with
introduction of Free Software in the schools. Leadership shown by
teacher community in Kerala is also commendable.
In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the adoption of online
mode of education<a href="#fn-1">1</a>, we found that proprietary
software is being promoted within the educational system. We learned
that official documents by the offices under the Govt. of Kerala calls
for use of proprietary software exclusively for educational
purposes<a href="#fn-2">2</a>. Promotion of proprietary software such
as WhatsApp is particularly problematic on two grounds. It is
explicitly going back from the Government's position to use Free
Software and secondly it promotes a monopoly power.
<h2>The WhatsApp Trap</h2>
Many people do not realize the trap of WhatsApp as they only see that
the service is free of cost and everyone around them is using it. One
reason for this is their lack of understanding about the trade-offs
they are making when using WhatsApp. Most people using WhatsApp do not
realize how their data is being collected, stored and analyzed by
WhatsApp. Making our students use this software at a time when they
can not make an informed decision is like a drug dealer providing a
sample pack. The State is creating consumers for a monopoly
business. Use of WhatsApp as the channel to exchange educational
content discriminates against those who would prefer not to use
WhatsApp but other options. WhatsApp is a subsidiary of
Facebook<a href="#fn-3">3</a> which is infamous for its carelessness
and complete disregard for its user's privacy<a href="#fn-4">4</a>.
<h2>Alternates available</h2>
We suggest that Kerala Government adopt free software alternatives
such as <a href="https://quicksy.im">https://quicksy.im</a> which works exactly like WhatsApp from a
user's perspective, but without lock-in to a single company. After
installing the Quicksy app, the user has to provide their phone number
and it is verified by an OTP sent to their phone. It then finds all
users listed in the Quicksy directory matching with the local phone's
address book entries<a href="#fn-5">5</a>. A Quicksy user can
communicate with users of any app or service that uses the XMPP
protocol, not just users of Quicksy app and service. The state
government may easily setup a server on its own and provide this
facility to every student in the state. Apart from Quicksy, there are
other free software alternatives that government may
consider<a href="#fn-6">6</a>.
<h2>Standards and interoperability</h2>
XMPP is similar to the SMTP protocol used for email and the GSM
standard used to ensure interoperability between mobile service
providers. A mobile subscriber has the option to buy a SIM card from
any service provider and port their number to a different provider
without losing the ability to talk to their existing contacts if they
are unhappy with the service. In the case of WhatsApp, they have no
choice to move to a different messaging service provider if they want
to talk to other WhatsApp users. So, moving away from WhatsApp is
often not a practical option due to this lock-in. In the case of XMPP,
the users can choose their preferred service provider and change it if
they are not happy with a service provider.
<h2>Recommendations</h2>
We would like make following recommedations to the government.
<ol>
<li>KITE under the Department of Education should be directed to setup
free software based e-learning and communication infrastructure for
state government. This can include instant messaging, file-sharing
systems, and e-learning platforms.
</li>
<li>Free software community expertise can be leveraged to setup
infrastructure and train teachers. More than 25 people from the Free
Software community have already volunteered to support the
teachers<a href="#fn-7">7</a>.
</li>
<li>Currently the videos are uploaded only on Youtube and
Facebook. KITE should also consider offering PeerTube as another
option, which is Free Software powered and offers better privacy to
users. Additionally it saves cost of live streaming via KITE website
by sharing bandwidth among the users<a href="#fn-8">8</a>. If needed
PeerTube instance at <a href="https://videos.fsci.in">https://videos.fsci.in</a> operated by Free
Software Community of India can be used provided the content is
licensed under Creative Commons license which allows sharing freely.
</li>
<li>It was noted that the teachers who give classes through first bell
program are recommending proprietary services as tools for
communication. This will create confusion for both students and
parents that they might think they are required for the student's
education. This confusion should be prevented.
</li>
<li>A long-term plan for software and infrastructure adoption should be
discussed. This will help to avoid being depended on proprietary
solutions in an emergency as we will be well prepared. Such
discussions, with the adoption of free software solutions, can design
an advanced, inclusive IT-enabled education system. Free Software
Communities can be involved for support and development of such
system.
</li>
</ol>
<h2>References</h2>
<ol>
<li><a href="https://education.kerala.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/GO-Online-Class-First-Bell.pdf">https://education.kerala.gov.in/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/GO-Online-Class-First-Bell.pdf</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://www.doolnews.com/online-learning-parents-and-teachers-need-attention-education-department-guidelines-454.html">https://www.doolnews.com/online-learning-parents-and-teachers-need-attention-education-department-guidelines-454.html</a> (we have a copy of the document referenced in this article)
</li>
<li><a href="https://www.fsf.org/facebook">https://www.fsf.org/facebook</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica-factbox/factbox-who-is-cambridge-analytica-and-what-did-it-do-idUSKBN1GW07F">https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica-factbox/factbox-who-is-cambridge-analytica-and-what-did-it-do-idUSKBN1GW07F</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://www.f-droid.org/en/packages/im.quicksy.client/">https://www.f-droid.org/en/packages/im.quicksy.client/</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://switching.software/replace/whatsapp/">https://switching.software/replace/whatsapp/</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://codema.in/d/LDwsanKx/open-letter-to-kerala-it-school-kite-director-on-forcing-teachers-students-and-parents-to-use-whatsapp/5">https://codema.in/d/LDwsanKx/open-letter-to-kerala-it-school-kite-director-on-forcing-teachers-students-and-parents-to-use-whatsapp/5</a>
</li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerTube">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerTube</a>
</li>
</ol>
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>Aarogya Sethu client app released as Free Software</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2020-05-29T00:00:00Z:arogya-sethu</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/news/arogya-sethu"></link> <updated>2020-05-29T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">FSF India, appreciates the Indian government's effort to publish the
source code of the Aarogya Setu application as <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html">Free Software</a>. It
is the first step towards achieving "transparency, privacy, and
security" as mentioned by CEO of NITI Aayog, Amitabh Kant as the core
values on which the application was designed. However, we stress that,
this is only a first step and we hope that the government will follow
up with some more actions that further strengthen the commitment made
towards transparency, privacy and security.
Some of the specific technical steps that would strengthen the
commitment towards transparency include:
<ol>
<li>Publishing the source code of server side code so that the solution
is completely usable for any one interested in using it.
</li>
<li>Ensuring systems for reproducibility of builds so that application
may be verified and security is enhanced.
</li>
</ol>
Lack of good legal frameworks for personal data protection and use of
server side data implies that source code release will not help us
address the questions raised around privacy and security of the data.
Without such legal framework, there shall be no transparency either.
While release of source code is definitely a positive first step, it
is not sufficient in addressing concerns around an application like
Aarogya Setu.
FSF India, hopes that release of Aarogya Setu application as free
software will lead to more software being published under a <a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/">free
software license</a>. We urge the national government and the state
government agencies to follow this lead and publish software they
develop under a Free Software license. As the leading national agency
for software development we thank National Informatics Center and
encourage them to release more software as Free Software.
We also urge the government to take necessary steps to build a strong
personal data protection system in the country with our citizen's
interest and privacy at the centre stage.
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>Santhosh Thottingal is awarded the President's Maharshi Badrayan Vyas Samman for 2019</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2019-09-12T00:00:00Z:thottingal</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/news/thottingal"></link> <updated>2019-09-12T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">Santhosh Thottingal, a software freedom activist, has been awarded the
Maharshi Badrayan Vyas Samman by the Hon. President of India for his
substantial contribution in the field of Malayalam language. FSF India
congratulates Santhosh for this recognition and his several years of
dedicated effort to create free software solutions for Indic
Computing.
The award, introduced in 2016, is given to the substantial
contributions to languages such as Sanskrit, Persian, Arabi, Pali and
Classical Oriya, Classical Kannada, Classical Telugu, and Classical
Malayalam. This is given to young scholars in the age group of 30 to
45 years, that includes a certificate of honor, a memento and a
one-time cash prize of Rs.1 lakh.
Santhosh has been one of the most active contributors of Swathanthra
Malayalam Computing and a principal engineer in Wikipedia's language
computing department. He has developed and released several algorithms
and tools that serve computing needs in many Indian languages
including Malayalam. He heads the maintenance of around dozen popular
Malayalam fonts. Santhosh (along Kavya) designed two fonts, Chilanka
and Manjari. He has contributed tools that serve a broad range of
language computing needs - input tools, layout tools, fonts, font
rendering, text to speech, translation, localization are just some of
them. He has also contributed and presented papers at several
international conferences.
Dr. Rajeev R. R from the e-governance and training department of
ICFOSS has also been selected for this award along with Santhosh.
We hope this award inspires Santhosh and Rajeev, budding contributors
to push boundaries of Malayalam language computing.
<hr>
Orginially published at <a href="https://blog.smc.org.in/santhosh-thottingal-wins-the-presidents-maharshi-badrayan-vyas-samman-for-2019/">blog.smc.org.in</a>.
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>IT syllabus of class XI in Maharashtra now includes FLOSS</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2019-07-28T00:00:00Z:mh-schools-floss</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/news/mh-schools-floss"></link> <updated>2019-07-28T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">We are happy to announce that the Maharashtra State Board's IT
syllabus of XI standard is now based on Free/Libre and Open Source
Software (FLOSS). The books have been released in the market. Despite
Ubuntu 18.04 being the default recommended OS, students can choose
their own GNU/Linux distro. The book follows the National Education
Policy in ICT education in order to make the education cost-effective,
ethical and accessible to all. Around 1.5 lakh students in Maharashtra
will be introduced to Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) from
this and successive years.
This is a result of efforts made by veteran founders of ILUG-Bombay,
Krishnakant Mane and his GNUKhata team, Prajakta Patkar, Karan Kamdar
and Abhijit of GNUKhata team.
Special thanks to Dr. Nagarjuna, Prof. Khedkar, Prof. Abhinav Jog,
Chandita, and Kasinath Guru; Adv. V P Patil, Adv. Amardev Unniyal and
Sudhakar Kashyap for their help regarding PIL, Fr. Jude and Sajida of
St Mary High School, Sr. Meena of Auxilium High School, Gayathri
Narayanan (SIWS College), Vidyadhar Mhatre, Shrikrishna Joshi,Sudhanwa
Joglekar, Gaurav Pant and many other members from PLUG, Balbharti,
Hon. Director, Support Staff and of course to all BOS team members
(listed in the textbook) , Rushubh Mehta and Dr Nambiar, Director
DBIT, for providing space for ilug-bom meetings and FLOSS events.
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>Free Software Seminar at VNRVJIET</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2019-07-17T00:00:00Z:vnrvjiet-fw</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/news/vnrvjiet-fw"></link> <updated>2019-07-17T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">An orientation seminar was organized for 2nd year
Information Technology (IT) students at Vallurupalli Nageswara Rao
Vignana Jyothi Institute of Engineering & Technology (VNRVJIET) on
&ldquo;Introduction to Free Software&rdquo;. About 160 students
participated. It was hosted by the IT department of VNRVJIET and
VGLUG.
<div class="columns is-desktop">
 <div class="column">
 <img src="/news/images/vnrvjiet_seminar_00-768.jpg"
 alt="[ IMG - vnrvjiet_seminar_00-768.jpg ]" />
 </div>
 <div class="column">
 <img src="/news/images/vnrvjiet_seminar_01-768.jpg"
 alt="[ IMG - vnrvjiet_seminar_01-768.jpg ]" />
 </div>
 <div class="column">
 <img src="/news/images/vnrvjiet_seminar_02-768.jpg"
 alt="[ IMG - vnrvjiet_seminar_02-768.jpg ]" />
 </div></div></content> </entry> <entry> <title>FSF India's call for a free digital society supported by free software</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2014-05-07T00:00:00Z:free-digital-society</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/news/free-digital-society"></link> <updated>2014-05-07T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">It is election time in India. All political parties are finalizing
their election manifestos. Free Software Foundation India (FSF India)
proposes all the political parties to pledge to create policies and
announce their commitment to protect digital freedom at a time when
the social and digital life is increasingly becoming digitized.
Digital technology in a free society must respect users'
freedom. India will move towards free software -- software that
respects the four essential freedoms: 1. to run the program, 2. study
and change its source code, 3. redistribute unchanged,
and 4. redistribute with changes.
<h2>India will advance towards digital freedom on six fronts</h2>
<ul>
<li>For digital sovereignty, India will cease installation of non-free
software in government agencies, then over time replace currently
used non-free software with free software. E-governance must use
only free software.
</li>
<li>For education in freedom, India will have schools teach,
distribute and promote only free software and free textbooks, and
explain the civic reasons.
</li>
<li>For citizens' digital security, India will make digital products
safe by requiring firmware to be free, and limit digital systems
from amassing and keeping huge collections of personal data.
</li>
<li>For a free web, India will make the software contained in web
pages respect users' freedom too.
</li>
<li>For freedom in digital commerce, India will implement a special
kind of digital cash that allows users to pay moderate sums to a
web site anonymously but doesn't let the web site conceal its
income. This will make it feasible to put a stop to commercial
tracking of people's web activities.
</li>
<li>For freedom of digital expression, India will guarantee that no
web material can be blocked or removed by government without due
process of law.
</li>
</ul>
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>FSF India's Response to the Proposed Framework by Govt of India</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2013-10-25T00:00:00Z:response-oss-framwork</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/news/response-oss-framwork"></link> <updated>2013-10-25T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">A half day Consultation Workshop on &ldquo;Framework on Adoption
of Open Source Software&rdquo; was organized at DeitY, Electronic
Niketan, New Delhi, on October 25, 2013.
The document is available on eGov Standards portal <a href="https://egovstandards.gov.in/Public_review_Framework_on_oss">https://egovstandards.gov.in/Public\_review\_Framework\_on\_oss</a>.
Dr. Nagarjuna G. from Free Software Foundation of India attended the
meeting and gave the following response to the draft document.
<h2>Not recognizing that citizens are the primary stakeholders of Govt</h2>
The document tries to balance the advantages of free software (FS) and
proprietary software (PS), and would like to present FS merely as an
option available. This neutrality is against the interests of
expanding the public wealth of the commons.
Proprietary software companies have an explicit objective to expand
their ownership of technology, and industry bodies like NASSCOM
explicitly support these objectives. This comes in direct conflict
with the interests of the citizens in having control of the actions of
the state.
Why should Govt try to accommodate proprietary interest that goes
against its own mandate?
eGovt is an extension of Govt, and should not be considered primarily
as a platform for commercial companies. The companies can provide
services as long they follow the non-proprietary basis of FS. This
principle cannot be compromised, and the government must insist.
<h2>&ldquo;OSS&rdquo; to be replaced with &ldquo;FLOSS&rdquo; consistently</h2>
&ldquo;FLOSS&rdquo; is a more inclusive term because it includes the
two broad communities. This is partially reflected in naming the two
other Govt of India projects, e.g. NRCFOSS and ICFOSS of Govt of
Kerala.
Though in the introductory section (2.4) it mentions that the document
considers the term inclusive of both FOSS and FLOSS, it is better to
use the widely used inclusive term than an explicit exclusive term to
bind the two communities.
If the text says &ldquo;OSS&rdquo;, it explicitly rejects the idea
that issues of the people's rights and the nation's sovereignty are at
stake.
<h2>Incompatibility of TCO with Govt agencies and FLOSS models</h2>
What is the TCO for running a Govt or eGovt? Govt does not do business
with citizens. It provides services that are direclty paid by the
citizens. The cost of Govt is therefore granted by the people of
India. It is Govt responsibility to grant the ownership to
people. Please do not use terms that present the issue in terms of
commercial values to the exclusion of civic values. Acknowledging the
concept of free/libre software by using the term "FLOSS" explicitly
supports and stregthens Govt roles and responsibilities.
To compare TCO for free/libre software meaningfully with that of PS,
the government should include the cost of obtaining the source code
for that proprietary software, and the right to flexibly use it. Thus,
if Govt considers TCO as a criteria to choose between the software,
then Govt must procure the source code of a proprietary software and
include it in TCO analysis. This should include the entire platform on
which an eGov application runs, not merely the customized code of a
proprietary software.
Ultimately, the comparison of cost is made meaningless by the fact
that PS delivers far less. PS does not deliver the source code. Where
FS delivers sovereignty, PS delivers the state into dependence on a
company.
<h2>Companies can bid with the Govt to create FS based on the need</h2>
As and when a specific application is missing in FLOSS, Govt could
spend its resources to create FS by hiring the services of
companies. Thus companies could have an important role in helping the
Govt to create FS as and when necessary. This will enhance Govt ICT
capacity. This can also be a role of the proposed center of excellence
for FLOSS.
FSF India opines that this document should propose a plan towards
eliminating the need for proprietary software in eGovernance.
<h2>Licenses</h2>
This section does the analysis of licenses with a yardstick defined in
terms of opposition to freedom. The proper yardstick when we talk of
licenses should be the freedom that users (such as the government)
will have, and how certain they are to have it.
The copyleft licenses – the GNU GPL and the GNU Affero GPL – are
designed to make sure that modified versions of a program, if their
use is offered to the public, are available to users with
freedom. They have requirements, which add up to, &ldquo;If you let
someone use your version of the program, you must let him have it as
free software.&rdquo; This is defense of the public's rights,
including the government's rights.
For instance, using the GNU AGPL is a way to tell companies such as
Google, &rdquo;You can adapt or extend this code to make a service,
but then you must make your changed version of the code available, so
we can run on our services too.&ldquo; The GNU AGPL is specialy
crafted to suit the freedom of users such as the government for
software that runs on online portals (including eGovernement
portals). Therefore, the state has every reason to promote the GNU
AGPL for software that is likely to be useful on such portals.
Why would someone call this a &ldquo;restriction&rdquo;? Only if what
he wants to do is restrict the public. Copyleft licenses say,
&ldquo;You can't use this code to restrict others.&rdquo; Thus, the
government should prefer copyleft licenses when given the choice.
Use of FS by Govt should not follow how commecial companies think
about licenses. Using their model of analysis for Government agency
will lead to complete conflict of interest. Governemnt needs to
protect the software freedom of its users and itself, and not the
interests of software developing companies that would benefit by
denying that freedom.
The most important stake-holder for the Governement is the people it
serves. Further, copyleft licenses do not interfere with commerce,
except for unethical commerce.
Therefore, the recommendation at the end of section 5 should be
removed and replaced with the following:
Web based infrastructure used by a Govt project should be released
under AGPL, so as to maximize the extent to which improvements made by
others become available for the Govt to use.
<h2>The idea of recommended Stacks</h2>
The section 2.5 misses the essential point of the use of free
software. The free software community has created certain frameworks
(a better choice than 'stack'), one of which is GLAMP (GNU, Linux,
Apache, MySQL, PHP). But GLAMP by no means is the only good
framework. There are other frameworks such as Django, Plone, Ruby on
Rails, Flask, Java based frameworks etc. Each of these frameworks
e.g. is based on a single programming language: e.g. GLAMP is based on
PHP, while Django, Plone and Flask are based on Python.
The state should not arbitrarily impose a particular framework. The
pros and cons of which free/libre framework to use for which project
should be left to the chosen on the basis of the function of the
platform by the competent developer and maintenance team.
Providing some guidelines such as availability of features, libraries,
wider use base, existence of strong developer communities and support
groups, established credentials etc. may be given, instead of
recomending one over the other.
Therefore the framework could recommend guidelines instead of naming
any platforms.
<h2>SWOT analysis</h2>
SWOT analysis section needs more clarity, rigor and elaboration. First
of all, two important things have to be defined and identified before
a SWOT analysis can be done: 1. which is the organization or agency
for which this analysis is done? 2. what is the objective for which
this analysis is done? Unless the organization and objective are
explicitly laid out, SWOT analysis does not help us to give any
direction.
Therefore section 3.3 needs an overhaul.
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>Swatantra Malayalam Computing completes 12 years</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2013-10-14T00:00:00Z:smc-twelve-years</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/news/smc-twelve-years"></link> <updated>2013-10-14T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">2013 marks the 12th year of Swathanthra Malayalam Computing's
existence - it grew up right along side digital Malayalam, from the
first unsure steps to the current confident stride. For the first
time, Swathanthra Malayalam Computing is going to hold a large scale
celebration that will honour free software, its developers and our
beloved mother tongue. October 14, 15 will see the kickoff, at Kerala
Sahithya Academy Hall, Thrissur. [ <a href="http://12.smc.org.in/en.html">Read More</a> ]
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>The GNU system has turned thirty years old on September 27, 2013</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2013-09-28T00:00:00Z:gnu-thirty</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/news/gnu-thirty"></link> <updated>2013-09-28T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">In 1983, Richard Stallman launched the free software movement with the
words, "Free Unix!" We've freed a lot more than that in the last
thirty years. The GNU system is now a vast universe of fully free
operating systems, window managers, andsoftware that serves almost
every imaginable purpose. More than 95 percent of the world's
supercomputers run free software. A majority of web servers run free
software. Even more impressive, there are estimated to be tens of
millions of free software users worldwide.
That's a lot to celebrate. This weekend, the Free Software Foundation
will be honoring thirty years of GNU with a <a href="https://gnu.org/gnu30/celebration">celebration and hackathon
in Cambridge, MA</a>. Around the world, there are over <a href="https://gnu.org/gnu30">eighteen
celebrations</a> planned on almost every inhabited continent. And
online, people are showing their love for GNU by embedding the
<a href="https://gnu.org/gnu30">special 30th anniversary badge</a> on their websites and <a href="https://my.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom">donating to
support GNU's future work</a>.
Please join us in the celebration:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://live.fsf.org/gnu30.ogv">Watch the livestream from the Cambridge celebration</a> to see
John Sullivan speak at 10am EDT (14:00 UTC) and Richard Stallman
speak live at 5pm EDT (21:00 UTC) on Saturday, September 28.
</li>
<li>Find the <a href="https://gnu.org/gnu30">celebration</a> nearest you.
</li>
<li>Embed the <a href="https://gnu.org/gnu30">special 30th anniversary badge</a>.
</li>
<li><a href="https://my.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom">Donate</a> to keep GNU going strong for another thirty years.
</li>
</ul>
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>Android and Users' Freedom</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2011-09-19T00:00:00Z:android</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/article/android"></link> <updated>2011-09-19T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">First published in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/sep/19/android-free-software-stallman">The Guardian</a>.
To what extent does Android respect the freedom of its users? For a
computer user that values freedom, that is the most important question
to ask about any software system.
In the <a href="https://fsf.org">free/libre software movement</a>, we develop software that
respects users' freedom, so we and you can escape from software that
doesn't. By contrast, the idea of "open source" focuses on how to
develop code; it is a different current of thought whose principal
value is <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html">code quality rather than freedom</a>.Thus, the concern here
is not whether Android is "open", but whether it allows users to be
free.
Android is an operating system primarily for mobile phones, which
consists of Linux (Torvalds's kernel), some libraries, a Java platform
and some applications. Linux aside, the software of Android versions 1
and 2 was mostly developed by Google; Google released it under the
Apache 2.0 license, which is a lax free software license without
<a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.html">copyleft</a>.
The version of Linux included in Android is not entirely free
software, since it contains non-free "binary blobs" (just like
Torvalds' version of Linux), some of which are really used in some
Android devices. Android platforms use other non-free firmware, too,
and non-free libraries. Aside from those, the source code of Android
versions 1 and 2, as released by Google, is free software – but this
code is insufficient to run the device. Some of the applications that
generally come with Android are non-free, too.
Android is very different from the <a href="https://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html">GNU/Linux operating
system</a> because it contains very little of GNU. Indeed,
just about the only component in common between Android and GNU/Linux
is Linux, the kernel. People who erroneously think "Linux" refers to
the entire GNU/Linux combination get tied in knots by these facts, and
make paradoxical statements such as "Android contains Linux, but it
isn't Linux". If we avoid starting from the confusion, the situation
is simple: Android contains Linux, but not GNU; thus, Android and
GNU/Linux are mostly different.
(Within Android, Linux the kernel remains a separate program, with its
source code under <a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html">GNU GPL version 2</a>. To combine Linux with
code under the Apache 2.0 license would be copyright infringement,
since GPL version 2 and Apache 2.0 are
<a href="https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#apache2">incompatible</a>. Rumours that Google has somehow
converted Linux to the Apache license are erroneous; Google has no
power to change the licence on the code of Linux, and did not try. If
the authors of Linux allowed its use under GPL version 3, then that
code could be combined with Apache-licensed code, and the combination
could be released under GPL version 3. But Linux has not been released
that way.)
Google has complied with the requirements of the GNU General Public
License for Linux, but the Apache license on the rest of Android does
not require source release. Google has said it will never publish the
source code of Android 3.0 (aside from Linux), even though executables
have been released to the public. Android 3.1 source code is also
being withheld. Thus, Android 3, apart from Linux, is non-free
software, pure and simple.
Google said it withheld the 3.0 source code because it was buggy, and
that people should wait for the next release. That may be good advice
for people who simply want to run the Android system, but the users
should be the ones to decide this. Anyway, developers and tinkerers
who want to include some of the changes in their own versions could
use that code just fine.
The non-release of two versions' source code raises concern that
Google might intend to turn Android proprietary permanently; that the
release of some Android versions as free software may have been a
temporary ploy to get community assistance in improving a proprietary
software product. Let us hope does not happen.
In any case, most of the source code of some versions of Android has
been released as free software. Does that mean that products using
those Android versions respect users' freedom? No, for several
reasons. First of all, most of them contain non-free Google
applications for talking to services such as YouTube and Google
Maps. These are officially not part of Android, but that doesn't make
the product OK. There are also non-free libraries; whether they are
part of Android is a moot point. What matters is that various
functionalities need them.
Even the executables that are officially part of Android may not
correspond to the source code Google releases. Manufacturers may
change this code, and often they don't release the source code for
their versions. The GNU GPL requires them to distribute the code for
their versions of Linux, if they comply. The rest of the code, under
the lax Apache license, does not require them to release the source
version that they really use. Replicant, a free version of Android
that supports just a few phone models, has replaced many of these
libraries, and you can do without the non-free apps. But there are
other problems.
Some device models are designed to stop users from installing and
using modified software. In that situation, the executables are not
free even if they were made from sources that are free and available
to you. However, some Android devices can be "rooted" so users can
install different software.
Important firmware or drivers are generally proprietary also. These
handle the phone network radio, Wi-Fi, bluetooth, GPS, 3D graphics,
the camera, the speaker, and in some cases the microphone too. On some
models, a few of these drivers are free, and there are some that you
can do without – but you can't do without the microphone or the phone
network radio.
The phone network firmware comes pre-installed. If all it did was sit
there and run, we could regard it as equivalent to a circuit. When we
insist that the software in a computing device must be free, we can
overlook pre-installed firmware that will never be upgraded, because
it makes no difference to the user that it's a program rather than a
circuit.
Unfortunately, in this case it would be a malicious circuit. Malicious
features are unacceptable no matter how they are implemented.
On most Android phones, this firmware has so much control that it
could turn the product into a listening device. On some, it controls
the microphone. On some, it can take full control of the main
computer, through shared memory, and can thus override or replace
whatever free software you have installed. With some models it is
possible to exercise remote control of this firmware, and thus of the
phone's computer, through the phone radio network.
The point of free software is that we have control of our computing,
and this doesn't qualify. While any computing system might have bugs,
these devices might be bugs. (Craig Murray, in Murder in Samarkand,
relates his involvement in an intelligence operation that remotely
converted an unsuspecting target's non-Android portable phone into a
listening device.)
In any case, the phone network firmware in an Android device is not
equivalent to a circuit, because the hardware allows installation of
new versions and this is actually done. Since it is proprietary
firmware, in practice only the manufacturer can make new versions –
users can't.
Putting these points together, we can tolerate non-free phone network
firmware provided new versions of it won't be loaded, it can't take
control of the main computer, and it can only communicate when and as
the free operating system chooses to let it communicate. In other
words, it has to be equivalent to circuitry, and that circuitry must
not be malicious. There is no obstacle to building an Android phone
which has these characteristics, but we don't know of any.
Recent press coverage of Android has focused on the patent
wars. During 20 years of campaigning for the abolition of software
patents, we have warned such wars could happen. Software patents could
force elimination of features from Android, or even make it
unavailable. (See <a href="https://endsoftpatents.org">endsoftpatents.org</a> for more information about
why software patents must be abolished.)
However, the patent attacks, and Google's responses, are not directly
relevant to the topic of this article: how Android products approach
an ethically system of distribution and how they fall short. This
issue merits the attention of the press too.
Android is a major step towards an ethical, user-controlled,
free-software portable phone, but there is a long way to go. Hackers
are working on <a href="https://replicant.us">Replicant</a>, but it's a big job to support a
new phone model, and there remains the problem of the firmware. Even
though the Android phones of today are considerably less bad than
Apple or Windows smartphones, they cannot be said to respect your
freedom.
Copyright 2011 Richard Stallman. Released under the <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0">Creative Commons
Attribution Noderivs 3.0 licence</a>.
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>Liberating cyberspace - Interview with Richard M. Stallman, founder, Free Software Foundation, FRONTLINE</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2009-02-27T00:00:00Z:liberating-cyberspace-rms-interview</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/article/liberating-cyberspace-rms-interview"></link> <updated>2009-02-27T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">Richard Mathew Stallman needs no introduction to the reading public in
India. He has visited India several times during the last eight years
or so, and has given lectures in many parts of the country. He started
the GNU1 project in September 1983 to create software that gives users
the freedom to use, share, modify and redistribute. Though he was
alone in this task at the beginning, today there are tens of thousands
of programmers world-wide helping to create such software. The GNU
project has inspired a large number of projects for creating Free
Software, and has led to the development of a wide variety of ap-
plications from text editors to office suites, browsers, email
clients, audio and video editors and even 3D animation tools. And this
is beginning to challenge large companies that create proprietary
software. GNU/Linux, formed from the kernel (core) Linux developed
initially by Linus Torvalds and tools like compilers, editors,
etc. developed under the GNU project, is the most popular Free
Operating System and this is being increasingly adopted by
governmental and other agencies in many developed and developing
countries. In India, Free Software has been mandated for government
purposes by the Government of Kerala in its ICT policy, and has become
part of the syllabus of state schools. Several organisations in the
country use Free Software, including LIC and Tamil Nadu’s ELCOT.
Stallman also developed the GNU General Public Licence (GPL), under
which most Free Software is published, the Free Documentation Licence
for software documentation and the Lesser GPL for certain types of
software. In 1984, he left his job in the Artificial Intelligence Lab
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology fearing that the
Institute may demand the copyright for his work. In 1985, he started
the Free Software Foundation in Boston, USA, to promote Free
Software. Today, it has its sister organisations in In- dia, Europe
and Latin America. The philosophy of Free Software has led to
movements to free various kinds of information from the severe
restrictions imposed by copyright laws. These include Wikipedia
(<a href="http://wikipedia.org">http://wikipedia.org</a>), Creative Commons
(<a href="http://www.creativecommons.org">http://www.creativecommons.org</a>) and the Open Access movement in
scientific publication (<a href="http://soros.org/openaccess">http://soros.org/openaccess</a>). The new
culture of co-operative production of goods of value, though the goods
are vir- tual, is leading people to explore the possibility of an
economy where production will increasingly become ‘peer-to-peer’ and
could take over completely from the capitalist mode of production
eventually.
Stallman was in India recently to participate in the International
Free Software Free Society conference at Thiruvananthapuram in
December 2008. This interview was done through email after his return.
Question: Twenty five years after you launched the GNU project,
how do you see the progress it has made? What do you feel about its
achievements and failures?
Stallman: The GNU Project has succeeded – we developed the free
GNU operating system and made it work well enough for millions to
use. Of course, not every specific programming project that we
undertook was a success, but the overall project succeeded. It
succeeded so well that it has inspired thousands of other projects to
develop and release free software, which is why a GNU/Linux system
distro today usually contains thousands of application programs.
However, the GNU Project was just the beginning of the free software
movement’s mission. Our mission is the liberation of cyberspace. That
won’t be finished until proprietary software disappears and all
computer users are free. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20110308110501/http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2604/stories/20090227260408500.htm">Read More (archived)</a>.
</content> </entry> <entry> <title>The Spectre of Free Information - Interview with Eben Moglen, Professor of Law and Legal History - FRONTLINE</title> <id>fsf.org.in:2007-10-19T00:00:00Z:frontline-moglen-interview</id> <link rel="alternate" href="https://fsf.org.in/article/frontline-moglen-interview"></link> <updated>2007-10-19T00:00:00Z</updated> <content type="html">Prof. Eben Moglen is Professor of Law and Legal History at the
Columbia University Law School, Founder Director of the Software
Freedom Law Centre and General Counsel for the Free Software
Foundation, Boston. Free Software is software that gives users the
freedom to use on any number of computers, to share with others, to
study and modify and to redistribute the modified
version. Prof. Moglen was involved in developing version 3 of the GNU
General Public Licene (the licence with which most Free Software is
distributed), along with Richard M. Stallman, the founder of the Free
Software Movement. He has had a rather unusual career. At 16, he
helped write the first networked email system. He later worked on
designing programming languages at IBM, but left the company
in 1984. He did a history degree and then a law degree, and ended up
teaching and writing about the roots of intellectual property law.
A friendly and jovial person, Prof. Moglen has very interesting ideas
that he has expressed through his numerous lectures across the world
and in his writings. During his public speech at Thiruvananthapuram on
Free Software and Free Culture, he said that all patent laws,
including the ones in the US, are archaic. Speaking in New Delhi in
2006, he remarked: "Anything that is worth copying is worth sharing."
He has devised what he calls the Correlative Corollary to Faraday's
Law: take the community, wind the net around it and spin the world,
and you get information flowing through the network. Another
interesting work from him is the dotCommunist Manifesto about which
also he speaks in this interview which was done when Prof. Moglen was
in India in June 2007. He speaks about Free Software, Free Culture and
their economic and political impact in this excerpt from the
interview.
Question: The Free Software movement started in United
States. What is the status of FS there? How popular is FS there?
Prof. Moglen: Well, popular, I think, is a little hard to judge
for two reasons. First because we have people who are using it and
don't know that they are using it. It's inside their enterprises
and/or it's inside their appliances. And they are not aware of
it. Second, we have the people who know that they are using it and who
have purchased the product or downloaded the product without
necessarily accounting for all their copies. So what we can say is
that Free Software is far more popular in the United States than what
the United States is aware. <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20071027165534/http://www.frontlineonnet.com/fl2420/stories/20071019507610000.htm">Read More (archived)</a>.
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