The days lying between 23rd October, 2006 to 25th October, 2006 (both
inclusive) were some of the most happening ones of my life. Things
started with a bang when we (Arjun Shankar, G.V. Manu, Rakesh Pandit,
Alok Sharma and myself) reached the
AirJaldi Summit
in Dharamsala at 15:30 hours. We were just in time to see Dr. Richard
Stallman talk about 'Free Software, human rights, and development' in
the Tibetan Children's Village (TCV) auditorium. Although I had seen
him talk about Free Software a number times on video, seeing him do it
'in the flesh' for the first time was something really worth
remembering.
Later that day, we got a chance to get close to some of the wireless
hackers who had come for the summit. These included Freifunk and
OPENNET hackers from Germany, Fred Pook from Holland, and the hackers
who had developed the Dharamsala Community Wireless Mesh Network.
However the most interesting part was when we were trying out pakoras
and momos outside the TCV auditorium, and Dr. Stallman joined us. Manu
took the opportunity to discuss about Free Software replacements for
Mathematica and other mathematical software packages.
The next day, 24th October, Arjun and I were supposed to meet RMS at
Hotel Himgiri at 09:00 hours. We reached the hotel a few minutes
earlier and it turned out that he was still sleeping. We struck a
conversation with the hotel manager, Mr. Verma, and while leisurely
sipping the hot cup of tea offered by him we waiting for RMS to wake up.
The man finally arrived and we went up with him to his room (No. 210).
After helping him pack his bags (just imagine :-)), we escorted him
down to the reception, where we left his big suitcase, back-pack, and
Arjun's bag and left for the summit in a cab.
At the summit we met a couple of localites who were interested (they
had vested interests actually) in taking Dr. Stallman on a sight-seeing
trip around Dharamsala. While Arjun and Rakesh accompanied him, I
joined Manu and Alok in the auditorium. It was the perfect opportunity
to try out the wireless mesh network, and after struggling a bit with
the wireless card settings and with some help from another GNU/Linux
user, I could finally get connected onto the mesh. I was impressed by the speed of the network. I could log onto Fencepost and use BitchX as if I was using a machine located a few kilometres away. Compared to the painstaking speed of our institute's connection, this was simply blinding fast.
Apart from that, I also encountered Hitesh whom I had first met in HBCSE this summer. It was nice to see someone from GLUG Bombay had travelled this far to attend the summit. But considering Hitesh's interest in wireless networks it was quite natural for him to come.
At around 18:00 hours we left Dharamsala, in the Tavera sent by the college for Dr. Stallman's transportation, for Hamirpur. Apparently RMS was pissed off by some of his experiences during his day trip around Dharamsala, which was organized by some localites whose only interest was to have an opportunity to 'hang around' with him and get some sort of recommendation, and the early part of the journey was undertaken in pin-drop silence. RMS was engrossed with his laptop, and we took the opportunity to silently reflect on the last two days' experience.
After a couple of stops on the way-- to pick up Alok from in front of Dharamsala P.S.; I had to change seats as the back seat was too cramped and was making me sick; and Dr. Stallman had to make an international call. At the last stop, we bought some Lay's and it was a pity RMS did not like the particular flavour!
Once we were back in the university, things moved really fast. Our Director (Prof. I. K. Bhat), Dean of Student & Alumni Affairs (Dr. Anoop Kumar), and a bunch of other faculty members and students were waiting in front of the guest house to receive RMS. After the initial niceties, he went up to his room and I hurried off to get dressed for the dinner that was planned at the guest house, leaving Arjun to set-up RMS' laptop with the campus network.
The dinner was not much about food as it was about the discussion between RMS and our Director. Since I am not one of those who can not help writing 'worthy Director sir' at every mention of the word 'director', I will not try to cover up my disapproval of some of the things that took place during the course of this discussion. I guess, I would rather pour my heart out about these things in a later post.
It turned out to be a good idea to publicise 09:30 hours as the time of the lecture, although the actual time was 10:00 hours as far as Dr. Stallman was concerned, since people kept trickling in even at 09:45 hours and we finally closed the doors a few minutes before the hour. There was more than 550 people already in the auditorium, and the ground floor was almost full. Ranjeet says that he had to open the balcony for some people since the ground floor did not have much space left. The final head count was roughly 600.
Considering the fact that the International GPLv3 conference in Bangalore had a 60% full house in an auditorium which is much less than half the capacity of this one, and we had packed 600-odd in a 900-odd capacity venue, I had to say that I was proud. The whole publicity exercise that we (Arjun Shankar, Ranjeet, Manu, Arjun B.S., Pandit, and others) had planned was slowly bearing fruit! Not only that. Not a single microphone or speaker misbehaved during the entire show. Ample testimony to the expertise and sincerity of Ranjeet and Sagar in preparing the auditorium for the event.
The talk was about: "Free Software in Ethics and Practice". The video is available
here. He started with a criticism of
Coca Cola's recent human rights violations and a request to boycott all Coca Cola products. This was triggered partly by the fact that we had kept a can of Coke for him! In his customary style he had the whole audience spellbound for 80 minutes, until he put on the garb of Saint IGNUcius, when he had the whole gathering in fits of laughter.
At the end of the talk RMS made available a whole lot of FSF and GNU/Linux stickers for the audience, and a few exclusive key-rings and pins. The latter two items had to be bought for money while the stickers were free. Later on he donated a few Free Software badges, key-rings and pins for the GLUG to Arjun. The donated stuff was worth almost Rs. 3000!
Once things at the auditorium was over, Dr. Stallman hurried off to catch up with his bunch of email. Since he was scheduled to catch the Shatabdi Express from Chandigarh at 18:20 hours, it was necessary that he leave Hamirpur by 13:30 hours. Sagar accompanied him on the Tavera this time, although Arjun did manage to hitch a ride in the vehicle to Hamirpur town. Lucky fellow!
