Guys, you must have heard about the GPL. The GNU General Public License, which is the cornerstone of any thing which you know as Free Software or Open Source Software.

To be very straightforward, without the GPL we would not have had Free Software or Open Source Software (hereby referred to as FOSS) the way we have it today. And obviously if there was no FOSS, GNU/Linux would not have been here today. Now each one of us _loves_ GNU/Linux. Don't we? Whether it is Ubuntu, SUSE, Fedora; or the coolness of XGL and the geeky look of GCC, Bash and the text terminal, we simply _love_ it.

The future of the GPL is being shaped today. GPL version 3 is being drafted and the 3rd version of the draft is already done. The 4th International GPL version 3 conference is going to be held in India.

http://gplv3.gnu.org.in/

Yes in India, in Bangalore on the 23rd and 24th of this month. And the amazing this is that the conference is OPEN TO ALL, and registration is FREE (as in free of cost too!).

As a build-up to this grandoise event organized by the Free Software Foundation of India and IIM Bangalore, Dr. Richard M. Stallman (or RMS), the original author of the GPL and the founder of the Free Software Movement, is on an extended and extensive tour of India. He
will start off with a talk in Kolkata on the 16th of August, followed by a visit to Bombay on the 27th after the conference, and then again a visit to Bombay and Dharamsala for the Air Jaldi conference in October 22-24.

Unfortunately the organizers have have been struck by an unforeseen calamity. Terrorism.

Suprised?

The recent dicovery of a plan to blow up an airline has brought about increased security in air travel. Books and laptops are some of the things that most airlines have prohibited. Security is indeed important, but so is the use of laptops and books by the delegates coming to the conference. This has caused a exponential increase in the organizational cost of the event.

I am attaching a mail from Dr. Nagarjuna G., Chairman of Free Software Foundation of India, which has been posted on the FSF India mailing lists, GLUG-Bombay mailing list and forwarded by numerous other people to various other lists too.


Message: 1
Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 19:50:45 +0530
From: "Nagarjuna G." <nagarjun@gnowledge.org>
Subject: [Fsf-friends] [OT] An appeal
To: fsf-friends@gnu.org.in
Cc: indic-computing-users@lists.sourceforge.net, ILUG Bombay MList, linux-india-general@lists.linux-india.org
Message-ID: <20060812142045.GA26901@gnowledge.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii


(If you are a commmon member of the lists to which this email is sent, you get more than one copy of this mail, sorry.)

As many of you know FSF India is organizing GPL V3 Conference at Bangalore, (http://gplv3.gnu.org.in). The response to the conference was overwhelming, and we already recieved registrations beyond the capacity. We thank you all for the enthusiastic response.

Due to recent increased security restrictions on both International and national airlines, some of our guests were diverted to other less restrictive airlines which allowed laptops and books. Making these alternative arragements to our guests caused doubling of the expenses, and cancellation expenses. In some cases refunds were also not possible. As a result FSF India does not have these extra funds at this moment. We thought of bringing this to the notice of free software community, and explore the possibility of support. This is an appeal to contribute to FSF India. Since we do not have enough time to make alternative arrangements we seek your active support at this needy hour. Even if the support is small from each of you, if more people give a small sum, we will be able to make sure this will happen. The additional required budget is around Rs. 150,000/- (or around $3000/-). If you also know any one who could sponsor a ticket or part of the ticket do let us know.

The conference registration was kept free and we thought we could manage well with our earlier budgets. Conference registration continues to be free, but do consider sending donations. You may also consider becoming taking fellowship (http://www.gnu.prg.in/fellowship).

http://www.gnu.org.in/donate#account

FSF Account information:

Free Software Foundation of India.
Acc No : 632000002698
Bank : HDFC Bank LTD.
Branch : Trivandrum.

FSF India have 80G status under Income Tax Act. All donations to FSF India are
tax-deductible (by order number: C. No
302/ADIT(E)/24/2005-05 Dated: 25/01/06 ).

Please note that, for the time being, we are unable to accept donations from outside India.

Thanks

Nagarjuna

The FSF India does realize that many of us are students, hobby programmers, and enthusiasts who do not have a huge amount to spare. Meagre contributions of Rs 50 would also make a huge difference to the whole scenario. After all these people fight so hard to ensure we have free (as in Freedom/Libre) and cheap (as in free beer) software, which is also so cool to use, and I think we can make a difference.