FSF begins Indian operations

Kerala is all set to become the `Free Software Capital' of India with the launch of the Indian chapter of Boston-based Free Software Foundation (FSF) in the State. World renowned software guru Richard M Stallman, President of FSF, officially launched the foundation activities.

FSF India consists of a close knit group of programmers and free software users, IT professionals and lay persons spread out in different parts of the country. Some of them are running commercially successful businesses on free software. Focal Image, an Indo-UK publishing venture has been doing good business publishing scientific works using entirely Free Software solutions, including the LATEX document preparation system.

A conference titled Freedom First! was organized as part of the launch of FSF activities in India. Stallman lectured on the purpose, goals, philosophy, methods, status and future prospects of Free Software and GNU operating system. The conference was co-organized by Information Technology Mission, Kerala, Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management-Kerala (IIITM_K), Group of Technopark Companies (GTECH) and Electronics Research and Development Centre (ER&DC). According to FSF India, a developing country like India should promote and encourage the use of free software not only because India is economically backward and cannot afford expensive proprietary solutions, but also because of the `digital divide' resulting from the country's diversity in language and literacy levels, as well as access to computers and bandwidth.