Dear friends, I saw Dinkar's mail and JJ's post. I had the fortune of attending the meeting. I think the minutes put was two thin. the discussions were on two lines mainly. What I could understand was that there is a general opinion being formed that the GPL is very beneficial to the end user but it does not in any way encourage the developer to better the product and put his best efforts. For similar and connected reasons, the GPL softwares fail to reach the necessary standards of user friendliness and hence we end up in having GPL software which is in a perpectual chase of proprietary software. Another aspect was the role of non-developers in this system. I was more interested in this because I am a user of linux and open source software who personnaly do not know any thing about development of the software. What do people like me contribute to the community. Should we nopt be compelled to make such contribution. Speaking for myself, i will say that when the prices are reasonable, the non developing user must not be feeling it difficult to buy the software from the stand rather than getting a copy from someone who has downloaded it from the net or has already bought it. But yes, I must be assured that atleast a portion of what I spend is reaching the developer. In the meeting there was also a mention and discussion about what Mr. Balakrishnan had suggested some months back of pooling some money to sent to debian or fsf. that was when debian decided to comeout with a commecial version.
the meeting was very meaningful in the discussion, thanks to the presence of shanu. But I think the discussion must take place in a wider base.. may be in this list. The question is vital. It is not how we hwlp the system. It is how we ensure that the system do not collapse under its own pressure. HARI At 11:38 PM 2/18/02 +0530, Dinkar wrote: >Hello JJ > >It was a terrible miss I suppose as Shanu was there for the meeting.Plz >inform us (in advance) about classes by people like him next time. And will >he b here for somedays for making ILUG-Cochin more active ? Any way to >contact him (ph >number or something ?) Hope more people will b there for the next meeting > >Rgds >Din _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com
