Free Software platform for world languages

By Our Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, JULY 21. The Messiah of Free Software, Mr. Richard M. Stallman, said here last night that the Free Software Foundation, headed by him, proposed to develop support for all languages of the world including Malayalam on the Free Software platform in ten years.

Mr. Stallman told press persons that the Foundation was working on internationalisation of Free Software--where free stood for freedom, and not gratis.

He proposed that the high schools in the State be supplied with the computers running GNU/LINUX and the pupils should be allowed to tinker with them. "They will learn on their own. You don't have to teach them."

He said that during his meeting with the Minister for Information Technology, Mr. P.K. Kunhalikutty, he had proposed Free Software as an alternative software for the Government's e- governance and IT@school programmes.

The Regional vice-president of the Computer Society of India, Mr. Satheesh Babu, said the Indian Chapter of the Foundation, which was inaugurated today, would be lobbying strongly for the adoption of Free Software by the Government for its computerisation programmes. "We will match the lobbying by companies selling proprietary software with performance and efficiency." Free Software for work flow management, which could be used for file processing in offices, was being developed.

The Director of Institute of Information Technology and Management-Kerala, Dr. K.R. Sreevalsan, said the educational courseware the Institute proposed to develop on various subjects would be free.

Proprietary software, he said, was not more efficient than Free Software.

Mr. Stallman, who had resigned his job at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory of Masachusetts Institute of Technology in the Eighties, to propagate the Free Software movement was here for the launching of the Indian Chapter of the Free Software Foundation (FSF India).

According to the 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. Free Software, it says, can help bridge this divide by encouraging solidarity, collaboration and voluntary community work amongst programmers and computer users.

In addition, being low or no-cost, Free Software will empower poor societies to overcome the barriers of crippling licensing policies and exorbitant costs. In the present grim financial situation confronting several Governments, Free Software emerges as a good, viable and national alternative.

The FSF India also proposes to campaign against software patenting. Software patenting, it says, would be a serious handicap to programmers, especially Free Software programmers. Programmes, it says, should be sharable and modifiable like food recipes. Users should have the right to use, study, copy, modify and redistribute computer programmes.

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