RMS in Pinas! (updated!)

[BadDudes]

its been a while ... that I havent got on line ... anyways i have this very interesting thread from the other forums.... What ya think of this?

I noticed while looking at IOSN.net that Richard Stallman, the father
of the open source software movement, will be visiting Asia, but not
the Philippines. I wrote him a letter and said "why don't you come to
Cebu?" He actually wrote me a letter back, which I was quite surprised
by, and asked "I've never been invited, why should I come to the
Philippines?"

This guy is maybe equal in stature to Linus Torvalds (the creator of
Linux) in the technical community, and more controversial. He
could possibly draw attention to Cebu IT center for the Philippines, as
well as shining a great big spotlight on open source. Indonesia,
Malaysia etc. are actively promoting him as a speaker in his visits to
their countries.

[vern]

Stallman surely has a big place in the open-source movement. It'd be great publicity if he did go to Cebu, but I'm skeptical to how much effect it'll have on Linux usage. Probably more of a geek thing than anything else.

Who wrote the letter to him?

[digitalsuperman]

i think stallman will be of great help in promoting the open source community here in cebu if he visit us here.

[BadDudes]

Who wrote the letter to him?

from Justin Wiley (juwiley@yahoo.com) a member of a local OpenSource clubs in cebu ... but never met him personally .... and I even tried to communicate with Phillipine Linuxs Users Group (PLUG) and this is what the response

from Raphael Dido Sivilla

We invited him for the Philippine Open Source Conference, but he already
had prior engagements booked for the date we set. Next year then, we
told him.

[BadDudes]

snipped

Update on possible visit by Richard Stallman...

I've been continuing an email disussion with Mr. Stallman, trying to
convince him to visit Cebu. Here is a list of reasons I gave him:

"1. it produces 10,000 IT graduates a year who are generally
ignorant of free software. Thats 10,000 potential free software
developers

(http://www.american.edu/initeb/js551...ilippines.html)


2. Along those lines, Filipino culture places heavy emphasis on
maintaining community. Local developers here who know about free
software are immediate converts and donate back to the community

3. it is geographically in the center of Asia

4. Following the strategy adopted in other Asian countries, Microsoft
and others are begining to dumping money into training centers and
local politicians to salt the earth to free software.
(http://news.osdir.com/article508.html)

36. Small enterprise and local government desperatly need IT to
increase productivity and reduce corruption, but are unable to aquire
it due to high costs. They are generally ignorant of free software
alternatives, and could become heavy adopters with greater knowledge"

Here is his reply back:


>>#3 is not true; the Philippines are at the Eastern edge of Asia,
>>if they can be said to be in Asia at all. #1 and #4 are shared with
>>many countries. #2 and #36 might be good reasons.
>>
>>I can't promise anything though.


So we are still discussing, I hope something comes out of it! I really
cant believe he wrote me back, he gets hundreds of emails a day. But
he is generally very interested in Asia, in fact I believe he feels
Asia is the future of open source and free software.

I will let you all know any updates.

Justin

[vern]

Here's to hoping.