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From: Senthil Sundaram (sensunda) Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 9:44 AM To: 'Free Software Users Group - Bangalore' Subject: abhas talk - feed back from Magesh and engineer with a leading propritery software company in blr Free Software Talk by Abhas - 7 June 2008 ------------------------------------------ The talk was presented by Abhas Abhinav, CEO, Deeproot Linux, a free software based Company in Bangalore. For a person who is new to free software movement, the talk may seem philosophical for sometime. However, the very presenter being a successful entrepreneur already in free software business, that held the interest levels intact. The initial slides talk about the background of free software, why free software and what free software is all about. Even though one of the listeners wanted to jump to knowing about business ideas using free software, Abhas's commitment to educate on principles of free software business was appreciable. My idea on attending this talk too was about knowing at least handful of business ideas using free software. But as the presentation goes by one could realize that the session's objective was to educate on the model of doing free software business and not about discussing business ideas as such. May be it was only my expectation that was wrong. The session helps us realize how we are restricting our freedom and hence our knowledge in this proprietary software business model. Abhas was candid about making us realize how much $$$ he may lose if someone adopts his idea and sells an improved product next door. But this is what a free software principle is all about. To be a successful entrepreneur in this, he emphasizes the importance of 'Value' that you attach to your product which wins. He says the value that you give in terms of support and services that stands a differentiator between you and your competitors. It may be true that proprietary software business can make you more rich than your FSB counterpart. But the knowledge you spread around by distributing your source and helping the community to build upon that is a greater achievement. This liberation of mind is what is essential to be a committed free software follower and a FSB Entrepreneur as well. Hence they say, "Free software is not about price but about freedom. Think 'Free' as in free speech and not free beer". ---- _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe <password> <address>" in the subject or body of the message. http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
