Freedom Matters with Eben

Prof.Eben Moglen, Founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center, and also the architect of GPL v3 is in Bangalore doing a series of talks and interactions pertaining to the freedom in the digital world.

Today, Prof.Eben visited St.Joseph's College, Bangalore in an event organized by FSMK. FSMK has come up with a Free Software course of 120 hours with an elaborate introduction to the world of Free Software in an application oriented approach. The syllabus can be found at this link.

Prof.Eben delivered the first lecture of the series, and hence inaugurating the program officially.

In his talk, Prof.Eben introduced the concept of Free Software to the keen but novice audience, drawing analogies from Free Science to Free Software, with emphasis on the Freedom aspect. Talking about the course proposed by FSMK, Prof.Eben said that it was the best course currently in the world for such a cause, which can be emulated world across to incorporate Free Software in the education system. He urged students to take up this course, for it would also prepare them for the industry.
This talk went on for 20 minutes.

In his second stint, during the interaction with the audience, for my question about "Monetizing Free Software", he ended up by saying "Put some free software into your brain, and that brain is much wanted by all major players!".

Later on, when asked about the Google-Oracle law suit, Prof.Eben dramatically elucidated the case going on, the benefactors, the temporary allies and the losers of the lawsuit. He apprehended about a prospective Oracle-IBM lawsuit on JAVA lines, for that would hurt the freedom of users.

He also spoke about the reasons for the current state of M$( failure of Windows Vista, 7...), which has grown obese with its baggage of proprietary applications. He also touched upon the architecture specificity(/rigidity) of M$ which hasn't been able to compete with omni-architecture supporting GNU/Linux.

He gave insights into the Intel Atom and the Nokia 'cynical' deal that is going nowhere, and the troubles Intel is facing with its Meego and Atom projects.

Most importantly, Prof.Eben also spoke about the cause he is batting for, with respect to 'securing privacy of users', with the OpenPlug,GNUplug like devices with a Free Stack, to curb the privacy infringement by the cloud and cloud application developers.

It was an amazing experience, witnessing Prof.Eben; As one of our FSMK activists mentioned "He is one of the 100 Most Influential Speakers of contemporary world" ,and not surprisingly he pleasantly overwhelmed us, by getting us acquainted with the different facets of the Freedom Struggle in the digital world. Every interaction with Prof.Eben transforms into a strong motivation, which would drive us to take up the Movement further, in creating a "Free World( Free,as in Freedom)"

Software Freedom Day-2010

Dear Friends and Patrons of Swatantra Software,

Software Freedom Law Centre, New Delhi(SFLC-ND) and Free Software Movement-Karnataka (FSMK) are celebrating Software Freedom Day, by organizing Talks and events by one of the mavericks of the Knowledge Freedom campaigns and an affiliate of SFLC-ND - Prof.Eben Moglen,Founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center. SFD with FSMK

In this visit to Bangalore, Prof.Eben Moglen will be participating in three separate events organized by FSMK.

1. Inaugural Lecture of Free Software certificate course at St.Joseph's College,Bangalore on the 15th September 4 p.m.

St.Joseph's College, Bangalore has incorporated 120 hours of free software sessions to be handled by FSMK and other like-minded Free Software Enthusiasts. 

2. Prof.Eben at Ambedkar Community Computing Center (AC3) at 5pm on the 16th of September

Before two years, RMS and Prof.Eben visited AC3 with only a few students who were being taught computers using Free Software. Today, these handful of young free software activists from the community are running three other Community Computing Centers completely on their own. Prof.Eben will visit AC3 for a community discussion.

3. Interaction with Prof.Eben Moglen on the Freedom in the Cloud at Indian Institute of Science, on 17th September , 3p.m – 5 p.m, faculty hall IISc. 

Abstract:

Everyone wants a piece of you these days: Google, Facebook, Flickr, Apple, AT&T, Bing. They'll give you free e-mail, free photo storage, free web hosting, even a free date. They just want to listen in. And you can't wait to let them. They'll store your stuff, they'll organize your photos, they'll keep track of your appointments, as long as they can watch. It all goes into the "Cloud."

How we got here is quite a scary story. But nowhere near as scary as getting out again. This talk will discuss how much worse things have become since the pre-cloud era and explain what you can do to reclaim your freedom in the era of Web 2.0.

I cordially invite you all to come and celebrate Software Freedom Day along with us at FSMK and SFLC-ND during these events.