(FIX) Re: [OSS] Re: [rms@gnu.org...] + Viet Linux-FAQ

[Apologies, folks, i missed the opening paragraphs in my quick-edit before sending. (Dang! ;)) I've fixed them below. Please delete the previous version of the post, if you'd like. - best, AD]

Dear Mr Stallman,

Please pardon the further intrusion. But i *must* make this effort. I hope *you* understand.

I'd like to have a chance to have you read my response to your post to the (VietNam) OSS and VietLUG lists, in hopes of persuading you to stay.

Please understand, sir (said *sincerely*), i must work quickly, now, and may not present my opinion as best i could.

Please also note that any other's to this thread from Asia might not come for a week or more, since we are now two days away from the Lunar New Year and most people are now scrambling to prepare for that week-long holiday.

At 07:04 2003.01.29, Richard Stallman wrote:
> It's beyond fantastic that rms and Jordi, both highly respected
> advocates of Free/Libre&Open (can i just say, "FLO"? ;)) Community
> Info-Systems, have chosen to participate in this list Stefan has
> worked so hard to create, build and, most importantly, lead.
><Cut, but still included. SeeBeLow>
>I also inform people that much of the work labeled as "open source"
>was done by the free software movement before the open source movement
>was started, and asking them not to label our work as "open source".
>See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html for
>more information.
>
>I don't want to keep saying this repeatedly on your list, so I will
>say it once now, and then probably unsubscribe rather than keep
>repeating it here.

I hope you didn't unsubscribe. _In_light_of_ the words of a key leader of the VietNam's entry into the FLO Movement, Tran Luu Chuong, WE NEED *YOUR* HELP, MR STALLMAN.

Dr Chuong wisely included the following his presentation to the InfoDev Conference, Friday Oct. 18, at the World Bank IFC Auditorium, Washington, DC, http://www.infodev.org/presentations/OpenSource02/chuong.ppt.

Please note the words "spirit", "principle", "Re-training and training", "intellectual property" and, unfortunately, *only* "OSS" (incidentally, "OSS" is the old name of the US' CIA, when Ho Chi Minh was routing the French):

A possible OSS program [for VietNam]
One possible strategy

1. Overall goals:
Ø Disseminate the OSS spirit and principle
Ø Re-training and training
Ø Promote OSS localization
Ø Promote the establishment of OSS support services
Ø Recommend the use of OSS where can use, in particular in public administration
Ø Prepare to implement the BTA with the United States, in particular in software intellectual property.

I believe you, Mr Stallman, would understand the _full_ implications of Dr Chuong's "possible" strategy and why we thus NEED *YOUR* INPUT.

[Again] At 07:04 2003.01.29, Richard Stallman wrote:
>See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html for more information.

I'm re-reading http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html, now.

Admittedly, i only *skimmed* it the first time i ran into that page and i've actually been studying the Free/Libre&Open (FLO) movement based on an understanding of the differences between the Free/Libre and "Open" movements derived from a perspective i picked up from Joe Barr's "Live and Let Licence" article at ITWorld.Com, http://www.itworld.com/AppDev/350/LWD010523vcontrol4/

Mea Culpa: I had lazily accepted that, "Open source implies a development methodology that is shared by both. Free Software implies a license designed to ensure the four freedoms...", as Barr put it, the Four Freedoms being, simplistically, in Barr's words still:

01. Users are free to use the program for any purpose;
02. Users are free to examine the source code to see how it works;
03. Users are free to distribute the program to others;
04. Users are free to improve the program.

I had, also, understood that those Four Freedoms of Free Software are protected by the articles in the GNU (GNU's Not Unix) GPL (General Public License), http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html#GPL, that bar anyone using Free Software from restricting The Four Freedoms for anyone else, including by *not* informing them of the GNU/GPL upon redistributing any Free Software they use -- which implies an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) violation if someone tried to privatize and profit from Free Software, no?

However, i just read this in free-software-for-freedom.html (URL above):

For the Open Source movement, non-free software is a suboptimal
solution. For the Free Software movement, non-free software is
a social problem and free software is the solution.

I didn't remember that from my first skimming of that page and my immediate reaction was to remember the following words -- which, co-incidentally, just started flowing from my PC's speakers (exactly *now*, as i'm writing (cool... ;)):

True perfection _has_ to be imperfect
I know that that sounds foolish but it's true
The day has come, and now you'll have to accept
The life inside your head we give to you
Oasis - Little By Little
From the album "Heathen Chemistry"
http://www.leoslyrics.com/albums/6458/

That doesn't sound "foolish" to me, and, as an econ grad (long ago), neither does the notion of other sub-optimal solutions, assuming the optimal solution just can't be had when and where it's wanted.

For example, a mere skim of http://www.stallman.org suggests to me you'd empathize with the results of that have persisted for some 2 weeks now at "TIMEeurope.com: Poll -- The Biggest Threat To Peace", http://www.time.com/time/europe/gdml/peace2003.html, ie:

Which country poses the greatest danger to world
peace in 2003? [Results:]
North Korea: 7.4%
Iraq: 8.5%
The United States: 84.1%
Total Votes Cast: 311364
NOTE: This is an unscientific, informal survey for the
interest and enjoyment of TIME.com users and may not be
indicative of popular opinion.

Yet, i also guess, you, Sir, remain a relatively law-abiding, tax-paying US citizen, by choice, despite what's said in the US legal and political documents you likely hold dearest, about, specifically, "arms" and tolerating governments that violently violate people's human rights. Am i guessing any more wrongly?

If not, have you not also chosen a "sub-optimal" solution, having reasonably judged it too costly to devote the vast majority of your efforts to stopping Georgie (Bush) Jr and his crew before they slaughter hordes of Iraqi people, when even Saddam's guilt is yet to be proven, to either you or, say, more than 51% of the rest of the world?

On the other hand, you may see the situation as i and many Asians do, as part of the natural balance of things and, in this specific case, a particular vicious work of Fate, but one we don't *feel* either driven to oppose or capable of doing so. Hence, implicitly, acquiescence seems to be the _optimal_ second-best solution, so far.

Um... Please pardon the veiled and polemic pop and political plugs. But, hopefully, they got the key point across, with some impact, ie:

*Nothing* is perfect and/or absolute -- and nothing else is.
Yet, we may never know what "Nothing" is. So why demand only
"optimal" solutions?

That said, i'll now read the rest of free-software-for-freedom.html, and leave you with the following, allowing you a chance to respond -- if you'd please grace us with as much.

And, for your consideration in the meantime, this URL signals where i'm ultimately trying to go with all this:

The Entry to Why.FLO.CommuniSystems@VN.IS.BIZ
http://h0lug.sourceforge.net/00.viet/fl0@vnisbiz/

{Please note that page was actually laid out at least 9 days before your mail of today [VNT(=GMT+7)]. The "Latest Update" time-stamp thereon merely reflects changing some URLs linked from that page to my standard "UnderConstructed Slack" pages, because their pages are not ready yet.}

Finally, i'm guessing that, outside of VietNam, you, _Sir_, are one of the very few people who may fully understand, or care about, the implications of that page's choice of semiotics, including its links, alts and template design, without even needing to go beyond it.

And, Mr Stallman, if i am (still?) guessing correctly, once you've considered that page, along with this post to the PubSoft, VietLUG and (Viet) OSS lists, you'll probably also understand why a sub-optimal alternative to free-software-for-freedom.html might seem optimal, here and now, in HøChiMinh (ex/or SighGone ;)), fo' this Hø at least, if not for many other Høz, here and now (bøyz, here and now).

[cf. Aldous Huxley's "Island" re. "Here and now, boys, here and now..."]

Wishing all the very best to you and yours...

***SINCERELY***,
AD (Andi) Marshall
Founder HøLUG, the HøChiMinh LUG
& PResident of [VICE]-8 (Consulting ;))

PS: What's RezoNet.net?

*--------------------------------------------------*
AD Marshall, VietInfoComm&Edu [VICE]-8 Consulting
Vietnam Information Communications & Education
ParadoxCafe-VietNamAsia HTTP://ParadoxCafe.Com
Post: 8A/G8 Don Dat, Q.1, TpHCM, VietNam
eM01: MailTo:AD.VICE@ParadoxCafe.Net
Web00: HTTP://WWW.VICEConsulting.Com
eM01: MailTo:MADd@HCMC.NetNam.VN
Web01: HTTP://WWW.aXiServe.Net
Cell: +84 (0)903871313
YIM: ad_marshall
*--------------------------------------------------*
*------------- Count YourSelf "In" ----------------*
*--------------------------------------------------*
*--- Linux Users Counter - VietNam (Vie^.t Nam) ---*
*---- http://counter.li.org/bycountry/VN.html -----*
*--------------------------------------------------*
*--- Hø Chi Minh City Linux Users' Group HøLUG ---*
*--------- http://h0lug.sourceforge.net -----------*
*----- http://sourceforge.net/projects/h0lug ------*
*--------------------------------------------------*

At 07:04 2003.01.29, Richard Stallman wrote:
> It's beyond fantastic that rms and Jordi, both highly respected
> advocates of Free/Libre&Open (can i just say, "FLO"? ;)) Community
> Info-Systems, have chosen to participate in this list Stefan has
> worked so hard to create, build and, most importantly, lead.
>
>Stefan subscribed me so I could respond to messages in the recent
>thread, which seems to be dying down now. In general I put my effort
>into activities that carry the banner of "free software" rather than
>those that carry the banner of "open source".
>
>I have never been a supporter of "open source"; nowadays my work is
>mainly a matter of telling people why I disagree with the open source
>movement. That movement was founded in 1998 to discard the most
>fundamental principles of the free software movement. Telling people
>about these principles--in effect, telling people what the open source
>movement does not say--is the focus of my work.
>
>I also inform people that much of the work labeled as "open source"
>was done by the free software movement before the open source movement
>was started, and asking them not to label our work as "open source".
>See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html for
>more information.
>
>I don't want to keep saying this repeatedly on your list, so I will
>say it once now, and then probably unsubscribe rather than keep
>repeating it here.
>
>
>
>
>
>--
>URL of List Archives:
>http://www.isoc-vn.org/cgi-bin/mojo/mojo.cgi?f=archive&l=oss
>URL to Subscribe to this list:
>http://www.isoc-vn.org/cgi-bin/mojo272/mojo.cgi?f=n&l=oss
>
>To unsubscribe from: OSS, just follow this link:
>http://www.isoc-vn.org/cgi-bin/mojo272/mojo.cgi?f=u&l=oss
>Click the link, or copy and paste the address into your browser,
>or send a mailto:oss-owner@isoc-vn.org to request manual unsubscription
>by the list administrator.

To facilitate co-ordination regarding the introduction of OSS SW in Vietnam

Subscribe to OSS:

Subscribe | Unsubscribe