@Shakti Kannan, I somehow missed this mail of yours. On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 12:20 PM, Shakthi Kannan <[email protected]>wrote:
> Hi, > > --- On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 8:19 PM, Phani Bhushan Tholeti > <[email protected]> wrote: > | Is it justified that the results of the work done by spending the money > from > | taxpayers > \-- > > Not all is tax-payers money. There are industry-sponsored projects too. > That's besides the point, and even the industry doesn't get open/free access to the work - they have to buy the subscription. > > --- > | Not all can afford to buy subscriptions > | of magazines (like IEEE) or even articles from them. For that matter not > | just international but even Indian journals. > \-- > > Most of them have subsidized rates for students. > Fine. So you think an Indian student is doing say a course in engineering or medicine or economics can "afford" to get it? I couldn't. I'm working now and I don't think I still can. On certain topics school students must be given access, or those in their pre-university courses. What about them? Will the parents agree? And all this is ignoring the people who have their own businesses or are looking for jobs. The thing to consider is why should it even cost you anything? Why should the OS cost anything? I'm not talking of "free as in free beer" but "free as is freedom". The idea isn't just to get access, more access means more validation and any flaws get ironed out faster. > Try: > > http://arxiv.org/ > Thank you. Of course, none of this still answers the question of "why" we need such a body? An industry group/standard (OpenGL, OpenWeb) makes sense to me, but not this. -- Lots o' Luv, Phani Bhushan Let not your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right - Isaac Asimov (Salvor Hardin in Foundation and Empire) Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html -- Mailing list guidelines and other related articles: http://lug-iitd.org/Footer
