[Tuglist] Caturanga2002: 8th Spet, Trivandrum, Conference on Free Software.

[Amitabh Trehan]

Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya
(MGAHV), New Delhi
is hosting Caturanga2002 , its annual conference on
Computing and the
Liberal Arts on 8th September, 2002 at Trivandrum,
just after TUG2002.
 The focus of the Conference will be on the philosophy
of Free 
Software.
The conference shall also discuss about the
developments in the
multilingual computing scenario. We think that this
philosophy needs to
be applied in more fields besides software. Hence, we
plan to have a
gathering of free software people and people from
various other fields
(Writers, Musicians, Artists etc.) . The discussion
will focus around
the Free Software philosiphy, its manifestations,
Counterparts in other
fields, Licences (e.g. GPL ), IPR etc. The first part
of the morning
session can have  introductory talks on the philosophy
for participants
from other fields followed by the discussion.
 The afternoon  session will also invite
talks/presentations on the
developments in multilingual computing e.g. The Omega
typesetting
system.
We wish to invite some writers and workers in field
like painting music dance etc.
 and discuss the basic logic of ' free' in free
software.
 Background paper will be circulated but some of the
major points are as follows:
                  a) A restricted access delimit the
directions and spatialities 
of knowledge of any kind and endanger its species. For
instance of a particular
 kind of footstroke or percussion style in confined to
a single family, it will
 die out in course of time. In India itself we have
several examples.
                  b) Variformity as a value will 
disappear if knowledge packaging is not free.
                  c) Inequalities should not be
legetimized.
                  d) Qualitative advancement in
impossible without freedom because knowledge is
cumulative.
ince about the only working example at global level is
provided by the free software people, we will 
be grateful for your help in concretizing the idea of
this meeting and participating in it.

                    Possible topics are :
                    1) Free, open-source, and
share-ware : Approaches to the pragmatics of
knowledge.
                    2) The economics of free knowledge
packaging.
                    3) Can there be free paintings,
free music, free dance............?
                    4) Who owns a book?
                    5) Patenting the pythogorean
theorem and many others.


 We will be grateful for an early reply.

Amitabh Trehan
for the Caturnga Secretariat,
Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya
Hindi Vishwavidyalatya,
New Delhi.






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