Latha Jishnu: Opening Windows to software freedom

PATENTLY ABSURD

The extraordinary Richard Stallman, prophet of free software, always makes a deep and lasting impression. With his long brown locks, flowing beard and an unexpected air of innocence, he appears Christ-like, even if a slightly portly one. That's how he struck me when I first encountered this iconic figure five years ago for a magazine interview, and like everything to do with the feisty founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), it turned out to be amusing and unpredictable.

The interview was conducted in a park over a pleasant winter afternoon because Stallman thought it would be a pity to be cooped inside a hotel room. He played his favourite recorder, a tiny flute-like instrument, showed us the steps of a folk dance and was generally affable.

But it was also a meeting of high passion where the creator of the GNU-Linux free operating system threw open the windows to the wide world of software freedom "" and its politics. I have heard him several times since then, at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, at meetings organised by his fan following. But his message has always been the same: seek freedom by throwing off the shackles of patented software.

Last week, Stallman was in India to celebrate the FSF's triumphs in one corner of the country where his philosophy has been taken to heart. This is Kerala, where the India chapter of FSF has been instrumental in getting the 12,500 state-run high schools to switch to free software over a two-year period.

Stallman has a soft spot for India because he thinks people here are more inclined to free software "" in fact, the first chapter of FSF outside the US was set up in this country "" and because he sees similarities between India's struggle against colonialism and the struggle against proprietary software.

Like Christ, the bearded prophet rails against the temples of greed and monopoly, his target being the corporate giants who maintain a stranglehold on operating systems through a complex web of patents and by keeping the source code secret. That is something Stallman abhors. He dislikes proprietary software with a passion and he is deeply suspicious of the term 'intellectual property' because he believes it is a wide term covering too many concepts.

Stallman is what many people view as the far Left of the open source software community. He does not approve of what Linus Torvalds and Linux now stand for. Torvalds, of course, is the Finnish undergraduate who in 1991 wrote Linux or the kernel of an operating system and thus helped Stallman to complete his GNU system that he had been labouring on since 1983. But while Torvalds and Linux are synonymous with open source, Stallman's philosophy goes further "" complete software freedom. This, he insists, is a political movement, whereas open source is merely a development model.

Stallman's vision embraces larger concepts like human rights and ethical values, terms which make a lot of people uncomfortable. So, not surprisingly, he has been called a communist and worse, although Stallman is at pains to explain that he does not subscribe to free as in free beer but as in freedom of ideas. Besides, he says he is not anti-business.

Perhaps, it is all of a piece that Kerala, specially under the CPI(M) government of V S Achuthanandan has made tremendous strides in migrating to free software, not just in government schools but also in various government departments such as the PWD. Champions of free software say it is the most appropriate platform for e-governance projects, and are hopeful that Kerala's example will be a trendsetter for other states.

That, however, is not happening just yet, although in growing patches of the world, Stallman's ideas are taking root. In Europe, the Swiss, Norwegians and Macedonians, among others, have opted for free software in schools, along with the South Africans, Chileans, South Koreans and most of all, the Chinese who have the biggest programme for using free software.

Stallman's visit to India overshadowed an announcement by Microsoft India that it had trained a whopping 200,000 school teachers on the use of computers across the country. The teachers, in turn, are said to have trained 10 million students under the company's Shiksha programme introduced five years ago.

Microsoft has also made inroads into the educational segment by introducing the cheaper starter editions of its Vista operating systems. Clearly its footprint is much larger. But as the confrontation between proprietary software and free software gathers momentum, the Stallman camp says Microsoft's offer to provide free or subsidised software in India is akin to a cigarette manufacturer handing out free samples to students.

Like cigarettes, proprietary software, too, is an addiction and Stallman will need more than his personal charm to wean away the addicts. A celebratory jig will have to wait a while.