Free(dom) software

When computers were first introduced, all software was free, but soon, it began to be proprietory, owned by its creators. RAJNIBAKSHI writes on a team of software designers in Bangalore who are attempting to bring back the community spirit that earlier existed in computing and, at the same time, use it as a means of social change.

"FREE software" seems like a contradictory term. After all, computer software is a multi-billion dollar business today. Yet free software is a reality with far reaching implications for positive social change. This is the creative quest of some computer wizards, spread all over the world.

This is a movement which involves both businesses and social activists. In Bangalore, it is boldly visible on street hoardings: "Linux is free. Linux engineers, however, are busier than ever." One of these engineers, Bangalore based consultant Atul Chitnis, says the Linux enterprise gives more power to community values and can thus strengthen democracy. Elsewhere in the same city, an activist group called "Mahiti" sees free software as a powerful tool for enabling masses of people to benefit from the information technology "revolution".

These people are part of a loosely "unorganised" global community known as the "open source movement". The crucial element of free software is freedom, not price. Richard Stallman, a American computer visionary and one of the leaders of the open source movement, has clarified that a program is free software, for a particular user, only if:

* You have the freedom to run the program for any purpose.

* You have the freedom to modify the program to suit your needs. To make this freedom effective in practice, you must have access to the source code.

* You have the freedom to redistribute copies, either gratis or for a fee.

* You have the freedom to distribute modified versions of the program, so that the community can benefit from your improvements.

Stallman stresses that "there is no contradiction between selling copies and free software. In fact, the freedom to sell copies is crucial: collections of free software sold on CD-ROMs are important for the community, and selling them is an important way to raise funds for free software development".

In the early days of computers all software was "free" and developed by a small community of technical wizards, mostly at universities. But by the early Eighties almost all software had become proprietory. This meant that it was owned by its creators, who forbid copying and changing of those programs.

So in 1984 Richard Stallman and a team of other software designers conceived the GNU project to bring back the cooperative, community spirit that prevailed in the early days of computing. The ultimate goal of the GNU project which is the work of the Free Software Foundation based in Boston, U.S., is to provide free software to do all the jobs that computer users want to do and thus make proprietory software obsolete.

A major task in this mission was the creation of a free operating system that was user-friendly and could be run on a personal computer. The breakthrough came in 1991 when Linus Torvalds, then a student at the Helsinki University, put together the raw kernel of a brilliant operating system. He posted this software on the Internet, complete with code. Over the next few years, thousands of people worked with Torvalds, over the Internet, to improve and perfect this software which came to be known as Linux.

Today Linux is widely accepted as a more cost effective and efficient system than anything offered by the commercial giants. Microsoft lawyers called Linus Torvalds as a defence witness in the anti-trust case against their company. Torvalds was presented as proof that Microsoft does indeed have tough and threatening competition.

This "threat" was generated by "a rag-tag team of people working all over the world" says Atul Chitnis, an active member of the Linux community and director of Exocore Consulting, in Bangalore. These people were able to work together, says Chitnis, because they built an environment of trust without central control: "they all give feed-back to each other, keep sharing problems and then sharing solutions."

This kind of work further widens the inherent potential of information technology to foster more democratic and non- hierarchic structures in society. The Internet is a giant leap from broadcast communication in which millions of people could only be an audience. Now, anyone with access to a personal computer can be both receiver and sender of information. The same computer which allows you to surf the web can also act as a server and host websites. This sharing of ideas enables a level of participation across geographical boundaries like never before.

This inherent potential and the power of free source is the primary inspiration for Mahiti, an "info-tech resource group" in Bangalore. The Mahiti team has been studying and replicating useful software for voluntary sector groups who otherwise cannot afford the services of commercial software companies.

Sunil Abraham, the team leader at Mahiti, is among those who are sure that the Internet can be a great equaliser and the sharing it facilitates will accelerate and stimulate intellectual advancement. He sees this as part of a human evolutionary process in which social power structures keep changing thus giving people more and more freedom.

But this will not be possible as long the IT "revolution" is largely limited to those who understand English. Thus various efforts are being made to facilitate computing in local languages. The openness of free operating systems like Linux is ideal for this purpose. Venkatesh Hariharan, a professor at the Indian Institute of Information Technology in Bangalore, recently wrote that: "Linguistic groups that may be considered too small a market by vendors can also take their destiny in their own hands by customising the Linux interface to their own needs.

According to Hariharan the benefits of free software multiply exponentially with large-scale implementations. For example, says Hariharan, the government of Mexico is estimated to have saved about $125 million by opting for Red Hat, a company that uses Linux to provide software to over 140,000 schools and colleges across Mexico.

Red Hat is one among a handful of companies that have commercialised Linux. The actual software can be downloaded free or purchased at drastically lower prices. The company makes its money by providing support services.

Voluntary sector groups like Mahiti do Linux based commercial work and use the earning to fulfill their activist mission. Two years after it was formed, Mahiti has about 50 clients. For example, they designed a website called "Formsindia.com" which is putting every conceivable application form on the net - whether relating to birth, death, marriage, property, jobs, education, taxes and so on. Formsindia.com is the creation of a young entrepreneur who is grateful to Mahiti for doing the work at a fraction of what it would have cost him on the open market.

"We have nothing against making money" asserts Abraham. Making money

is just not their primary focus. But given the sky-high salaries that are currently chasing software engineers, how will Mahiti attract enough qualified people to its team. No problem, says Abraham, "there are enough technologically and ideologically smart people in Bangalore".

Mahiti's most ambitious effort so far is the soon to be launched web engine "Indiacares.org". This will serve as a platform for voluntary organisations as well as individuals to share views and knowledge resources. For example, individuals can log on and get information about groups working on the problems of street children, afforestation, watershed management and so on. Voluntary organisations can use the web site to both communicate their ideas and also raise funds for their work. Eventually Indiacares.org will also be an e-commerce portal for those voluntary organisations which have products for sale.

This kind of effort is vital at a time when global giants like the World Bank are also in the process of creating development related web-engines, says John D'Souza of the Centre of Education and Documentation (CED). 'I totally oppose the plans of institutions like the World Bank which try to centralise from the top. The importance of an effort like Indiacares.org is that it is from the ground up and leaves room for others to act and grow."

D'Souza is a veteran of the India Link network which was a pioneer in providing email links to people in the voluntary sector who could not afford or directly access the Internet. Many such activists, in various South East Asian countries, are now exploring ways to maximise the potential of free software.

Many of them are concerned that if they do not act fast, corporate groups will cash in on the growing popularity of such software. There is also talk of a joint exploration of possibilities involving governmental and non-governmental agencies as well as members of the corporate sector. Such linkages will be essential to support efforts like "Indiacares.org". The launch of this web-engine has been delayed by over six months because Mahiti is short of funds.

These efforts are a mere fraction of a wider striving to actually realise the egalitarian potential of cyber-technology. They also show that the individual pursuit of power and money are not the "bottom-line" for everyone. Multiple forms of creativity are being inspired by the challenge of securing greater freedom for all.

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