FREE AS IN FREEDOM...

"We call this free software because the user is free"

Richard Stallman, a near-like mythological figure in the world of computing, hacking and a pioneer figure in supporting free software as a political weapon is all about Freedom...

Wikipedia, which devotes ten pages to cover Richard Stallman history and accomplishments, reports among other things:

"While Stallman did not participate in the counterculture of the 60s, he found
its rejection of the pursuit of wealth as the main goal of life to be inspiring,
and this may have influenced his actions at this time. However, he was the last
of his generation of hackers at the lab. He rejected a future where he would
have to sign non-disclosure agreements where he would have to agree not to share
source code or technical information with other software developers, and perform
other actions he considered betrayals of his principles.
He chose instead to share his work with others in what he regarded as a classical spirit of collaboration."

The phrase "software wants to be free" is often incorrectly attributed to him, and Stallman argues that this is a misstatement of his philosphy. He argues that freedom is vital for the sake of users and society as a moral value, and not merely for pragmatic reasons e.g., because it may lead to improved software.

"Free software, as defined by the Free Software Foundation, is software which can be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed without restriction.Freedom from such restrictions is central to the concept, with the opposite of free software being proprietary software (a distinction unrelated to whether a fee is charged). The usual way for software to be distributed as free software is for the software to be
licensed to the recipient with a free software license (or be in the public
domain), and the source code of the software to be made available (for a
compiled language)."(Source: Wikipedia)

Is that what YouTube, Flickr, Google and the latest Web 2.0 applications offer you?
Enclosed below is a mock interview of Richard Stallman with answers compiled from various sources and his speeches at FSF. Herein he explains a lot of stuff we always wanted to know but were unsure whom to ask. I have enclosed relevant wiki links for easy references.

...

What is free software from your point of view?

Free software means software that respects the user’s freedom. There are four essential freedoms that the user of software should always have:
Freedom Zero is the freedom to run the program however you wish.
Freedom One is the freedom to study the source code of the program and to change it to make the program do what you wish.
Freedom Two is the freedom to distribute copies of the program to others, when you wish. Now this includes republication of the program.
And Freedom Three is the freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others when you wish, and this also includes publication if that’s how far you wish to go.
If you have all four of these essential freedoms then the program is Free Software. Which means that the social system of the distribution of this program is an ethical system that respects the freedom and community of the users.If one of these freedoms is missing, then the program is proprietary software, meaning that it keeps the users divided and helpless and gives the developer power over the users. This is an injustice.Proprietary software should not exist and should not be used. If you want to have freedom while using computers, the only you way you can have it is by rejecting proprietary software. And that’s the aim of the Free Software Movement.
We want to replace proprietary software, with its unjust social system with Free Software and its ethical social system. And so we develop free replacements for proprietary software, and other free programs whenever we get an idea, so that the world can live in freedom. The part that uses computers, at least, in that one area of life. Because winning and maintaining freedom in general is a much bigger, much broader and harder activity, but this is one part of it.

What are the key negative consequences of using proprietary software versus free software?

Well, I’ve pretty much said already why proprietary software is bad because the developer has power over the users, the users are subjugated. And these developers use their power in various different ways, some hurt the user more than others, but they never should have this power in the first place.
So, with proprietary software the developer decides what it will do, and the users are stuck with that. The only way they can avoid whatever the developer decided is to stop using the program, to escape.
Whereas with free software the users are in control, the users decide what the program will do. And so Free Software develops in a democratic manner. Under the control of the users, the changes that are made and accepted are the changes users want to make and then accept.

What are some of the key examples of Free Software that you suggest people to use or consider using?

The fundamental instance of Free Software is the GNU operating system, which is the only operating system that was ever developed for ethical reasons, instead of for commercial or technical reasons, which is why most systems were developed.
I launched the development of the GNU operating system in January 1984 with the specific goal of making it possible to use a computer and live in freedom. In 1992 the last major gap in the GNU operating system was filled by the kernel Linux. So the result was the combination of GNU and Linux, which was the first complete free operating system. And because of this, there is at least the possibility of using a computer in freedom.
Before the existence of GNU/Linux, it was simply impossible. No one who used a computer could have freedom.
Long enough in the past, it was different, you know in the nineteen-seventies there were some other free operating systems, but they disappeared, and by the eighties there were none. There were none that could run on a modern computer back then. And so it was the existence of GNU/Linux that made freedom a possibility.

Is GNU/Linux a system that now individuals, professionals and organizations can start to use for their daily operations?

They do. Lots of organizations, lots of companies, lots of public agencies and lots of individuals already use GNU/Linux. It’s not particularly hard to use- it’s just different.
So, you have to make a certain effort to move to freedom. But its not a big sacrifice, so we’re lucky, because there are times and places where people had to make very big sacrifices for freedom, and we’re very lucky that they were willing to do so.

To support those, who like me, favor change over the control exercised by large corporations and media, what are the type of actions that individuals can take?

I wish I knew.
This is the greatest political question of our time.
How can we put an end to the empire of the mega-corporations and restore democracy? If I knew I would be the savior of the world.

What I think I can tell is that the media are crucial.
The power of the corporate media enables truth to be suppressed and lies to be passed as truth.
You’ve probably heard that a half truth can be worse than a lie. A lot of the things that our government’s and media say are one-tenth truths, nine-tenths lies. And it doesn’t take many of them together to create a completely fictional worldview, like the one that Bush says – presents – when he talks.
So I recommend that people stop listening to the mainstream media. Don’t watch television news, don’t listen to news on the radio, don’t read news on ordinary newspapers. Get [your news] from a variety of web sites, which are not operated under the power of business money, and you have better chance of not being fooled by the systematic lies that they all tell, because they’re all being paid by the same people to tell the same lies. Or nine-tenths lies.

A Talented Woman History Forgot

Once upon a time i missed winning an Inter school Quizzing contest as i didnt knew who was India's first woman photo journalist!!! It turns out history also forgot 92-year-old Homai Vyarawalla. Being India's first woman photo journalist she witnessed many historic events and changes during the freedom struggle and after. Her vast portfolio, soon to be published in a book, has pictures of Mumbai in the 1930s, political leaders, freedom fighters, the Nehru era right up to the time of Indira Gandhi... As an ode to this great and talented lady who lately came back to haunt me again in a quiz question (What an Irony that it all started with quizzing and came back with it) I have compiled her story in her own words as it happened many years ago. She now lives alone in Vadodara. Culled from various extensive interviews, here is Homai on her life and work.

Homai Vyarawalla with her Speed Graphic Pacemaker Quarter Plate camera.

Starting out...
I met my husband, Maneckshaw, when I was 13. He was interested in this new upcoming art called photography. He had come from Navsari to Bombay (now Mumbai) for his matriculation examination, and was staying with my uncle at the Andheri Agiary (fire temple), in the same block of houses where we lived.
I studied painting at the J.J. School of Art in Bombay. I got interested in the way he was taking pictures, developing them himself and sending them to the press. He was an inspiration. We went around taking pictures together, working in the darkroom.
We married 15 years later, in 1941.
The first pictures I took on my own without his help were published full page in Bombay Chronicle. They were pictures of a picnic party of the women's club of the J.J. School of Art. We had gone to the Amarnath temple, and the girls were enjoying themselves and I went on taking pictures. I was 25-26 years old. The newspaper gave me one rupee a picture in those days. That was a big thing. Painting didn't bring any money, and I thought this would be a paying line. It was something completely new, not being done by any other woman.
My husband was a sort of pioneer in making stories in pictures of all the activities of human beings, the general public - like cottage industries, hospitals, beggars on the street, Parsis, festivals. When we went out together, he had only one Roliflex with him. Whenever I saw something, I would take the camera from him and shoot it. He would sell them in his name because the publishers and editors knew his name. It was later on, in the late 1930s, that my pictures started coming out in my name.

Making my way...
The Illustrated Weekly of India started giving me assignments when the war came on. They asked me to take pictures of all the war-time activities, like the fire brigade, hospitals, ambulance workers and rescue workers all getting ready for any emergency. I was almost working full-time for The Illustrated Weekly and also sending pictures outside.
Then, my husband's and my name were recommended to establish the headquarters of the Far Eastern Bureau of the British Information Services in Delhi, so we moved there in 1942. In Bombay, my pictures were of the general public. When I went to Delhi, it was all political pictures.
The British Information Service gave me permission to continue with my freelance work after office hours. I was also working for Onlooker, a paper about the evening functions of the high society people of Delhi. My husband set up the studios, and remained in the office. I used to go about taking pictures, covering official functions, embassies, activities of the Britishers, and so on. I had taken my son to Delhi when he was only three months old. My mother-in-law stayed with us and looked after him when I was out. My office and our house were so close that we could look at and talk to one another from one building to another. If my son needed feeding, my mother-in-law gave a signal to my darkroom. I would go home, feed him and come back to the darkroom.
The freedom movement...
I was not a part of the freedom movement. I took pictures of freedom fighters and covered most of the big meetings.
Independence came to us easily. A few people fought for it, sacrificed for it, suffered for it.
I was very interested in the freedom struggle, but my job was to do good work for my employers and myself and to look after the family.
I knew all the big leaders very well. I also covered Lord Louis Mountbatten and all the functions he attended. Panditji (Jawaharlal Nehru) was very photogenic. He had different moods and was very active, so that made it possible to get good pictures of him. He always pretended as if no photographers were around. He didn't mind if he was taking a nap and you took his picture. He would wake up and give you a smile. There were others who would flare up and ask for the film. He was not like that, he was so dignified.
Each one of them had a different personality. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Nehru. It was fun taking their pictures. Dr. S. Radhakrishnan looked so imperial, he looked like a real President. You could see the integrity in their faces.
The papers publish the pictures of today's leaders. They look so wily.
Somebody asked if I would want to take pictures today. I said no, thank you. When you have done the best, you can't go to the mediocre.

Most thrilling moments...
The arrival of Mountbatten was very important. The freedom movement was going on, and so were many meetings. My picture of Gandhiji arriving for the Congress meeting to decide on Partition was very important. I took pictures of the first Independence Day celebrations. These were exciting moments. I took pictures of Nehru's address to the nation from the Red Fort on August 16, 1947 just after Independence. But because of some bureaucrat, I was not allowed to cover the meeting where Independence was declared at the stroke of midnight because I worked for a British company. That was the only time I was not allowed to go somewhere.
I was busy all the time and used to come home at two or three in the night. I never hired servants. I did everything myself, with my husband helping me 50-50. We did our developing and printing ourselves. Right from beginning till end, we believed in doing our work ourselves.

Partition...
I didn't take pictures of Partition because I was working in the office and couldn't go out. Another reason I couldn't go out was that we were living in a Muslim's house in Connaught Place. People wanted to burn that house down, to loot the furniture in the landlord's shop downstairs. So one of us had to be there. At the same time, we had to work in the office. My son was four years old. We had to take turns saving our house and family, and at the same time we were working. Those were difficult times. We had to be dressed all the time, never knowing when we would have to move. People used to throw burning rags. It was a very posh furniture shop where maharajas' furniture was made. We had to be on the alert. Fortunately, because we were Parsi, we were saved although Muslims were hiding in our house. They had to arrange to move out because so many killings were taking place all around. They had to shift to Purana Killa.

I quit...
I stopped taking pictures in 1970. My husband died in 1969. It was not worthwhile anymore. All the good things had gone. All the big leaders had either died or moved away. I was not interested. When Indira [Gandhi] came to power, the security guards made it very difficult to take pictures. Also, photographers started getting a bad name because of their bad behaviour, like gate-crashing into private parties, and so on. I didn't want to be associated with them. In 1970, I kept aside the lens. Since then, I have never taken a single picture.
I went to live with my son in Pilani. He was a chemical engineer and he was teaching at the Birla Institute of Technology. I lived there for 11 years. Then he shifted to Baroda [Vadodara], so I went with him. Then after a few years, he fell ill with cancer and died in 1989. Since then I am alone. That's the end of my life. (laughs)

Today...
I don't keep track of new photographers, they keep track of me. They publish lots of my pictures, or invite me for functions.
I read one newspaper. It doesn't give all the information. But there is no time to read all the papers.
In those days, the will to get the British out was so great among the people, there were lots of things happening and most of the papers were also for Independence. There was a lot to learn from them. Nowadays, it is all about CM [Chief Minister] said this and PM [Prime Minister] said this, and they are fighting in Parliament. And terrorists, terrorists, terrorists. And Pakistan... I don't think people mention the name of God as often as they mention the name of Pakistan nowadays. Everything bad happening is Pakistan's doing. But we don't get any information out of this. There isn't a single section of society where there isn't a scam. There isn't anything interesting in the papers.
I like to live a simple life, not burden my head with things that don't affect me. Photography keeps me busy. So many people come to meet me. Corresponding with them and working on my book keep me busy. I don't hire servants, so I look after my house myself and make things for myself - so I don't have to depend on others. All my time goes into all this. There are times when I want to do things that I would like to do but I can't because all the time there is some hassle. Photography has become a burden on me at the moment. I would like to do the feminine arts, to make designs and make things. But I have no time. I make my own dresses. I don't even have proper dresses nowadays because I don't have time to make them for myself. I like to be independent of other people and I don't want to ask them for any help. I want to do it myself (as much as I can) or do without it.

AGONY OF AN ECONOMIST...

Recently i was reading an article titled "What good are economists, anyway?" by Peter Coy,BusinessWeek and was left with a feeling of ennui by the time i finished reading the long and pointed charade on the state of global economy and the contribution of the economist to the effect.

Critics are always scathing. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the author of Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan, said: "We have to build a society that doesn't depend on forecasts by idiotic economists." Says Paul Wilmott, a quantitative finance expert: "Economists' models are just awful. They completely forget how important the human element is."

A commenter on a housing blog wrote recently that economists did a worse job of forecasting the housing market than either his father, who has no formal education, or his mother, who got up to second grade."If you are an economist and did not see this coming, you should seriously reconsider the value of your education and maybe do something with a tangible value to society, like picking vegetables," he wrote on patrick.net.

These were just some of the better criticisms of a job done badly but sample this to get a feel of the agony which is doing the rounds:"Take that, you pointy-headed failures(Read ECONOMISTS)! Go jump off a supply curve!"

To be fair, economists can't be expected to predict the future with any kind of exactitude. The randomness of the event makes it such an outlier that any amount of autopsy of the dead wont reveal the absolute truth. Because we are trained to think of financial markets as efficient, and made to believe in the Hypothesis that at any given time, security prices fully reflect all available information the implications of what follows when the opposite happens turns out to be really profound.That most economists weren't primed to spot the dangers posed by lax mortgage lending, over leveraged financial institutions, and impenetrably complex derivatives just goes on to prove "What you know...Cannot really hurt you".The problem lies in what u dont!!!

The paradox of efficient markets is that if every investor believed a market was efficient, then the market would not be efficient because no one would analyze securities. In effect, efficient markets depend on market participants who believe the market is inefficient and trade securities in an attempt to outperform the market.I believe the danger lies more in leaving the job up to "THE EXPERT" just because he knows best.In reality may be nobody knows best.There is a very old Stock market adage "Those who know don't tell, and those who tell don't know". Just because somebody says he may not necessarily know ...

Leaving It to the Experts isn't always a mutually beneficial proposition for both the expert and us. It's always a convenient way of shrugging off our own role in the circuitry. And it creates a huge professional market for all kinds of "expertise." There's a whole ugly universe waiting to be explored there which only feeds itself stronger if other like us allow them to. I feel we need to question the EMPTY SUITS and hold them responsible at every step for the meandering they so inexplicably do.

A word of caution is warranted for all the Empty suits we see around us.Such a person is little more than a suit of clothes. He is an empty soul in those fine suits smiling and perhaps scheming at every turn to make a fast buck.A suit, especially an empty suit, is in sharp contrast to a techie...An issue i will hold up for later, but in the end i would conclude with a voice of reason...
and this is the voice we need to listen.

"You cannot reason a man out of something that he did not reason his way into." -- Jonathan Swift

Search for Success...

Let me start this blog today with a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson...Lines that are as much a part of me as the passion that finally got me to begin this blog in search of my elixir of life.

SUCCESS

-Robert Louis Stevenson

That Man is a Success
Who has lived well laughed often and loved much;
Who has gained the respectof intelligent men and the love of children;
Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;
Who leaves the world better than he found it,whether by an improved poppy or a perfect poem or a rescued soul;
Who never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty or failed to express it;
Who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.