WITH M.Arun, special officer of the proposed International Centre For
Free And Open Source Software(ICFOSS), also getting marching orders,
free software exponents in the state suspect the entry of a dreaded
virus allegedly spread by Microsoft to shutdown the free software
movement in the state.

At this year's LibrePlanet conference hosted by the Free Software Foundation, Eben Moglen of the Software Freedom Law Center gave a keynote speech on the current state of free software and the free software movement.

FREE SOFTWARE activists fear that the Marxists are trying to hijack their movement in Kerala.

The CPM- led state government recently sacked two proponents of the movement, who had formulated the state's information technology policy based on free software. This follows attempts by the CPM to form networks in Chennai and Bangalore in the name of free software, but strictly under party control.

Eben Mogen of the Software Freedom Law Center recently gave the keynote address at the LibrePlanet conference hosted by the Free Software Foundation. He speaks about the current state of Free Software, what some of the challenges will be going forward, and what is needed for stage 2, as he thinks of it.

In Brazil, the adoption of free software in the public sector continues its unparalleled expansion. In the state of Paraná, the IT institution that maintains all of the state’s computer systems (CELEPAR), has developed a free software Ombudsman: OUV.

"Kerala is all set to become the first state in the country to completely banish Microsoft and allow only GNU/Linux free software to be used in the mandatory IT test at the state SSLC examinations that half a million students took in March. Till last year, they could take the exam using either free software or the Microsoft platform.

Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan inaugurated a new billing software,named ORUMA, based purely on Free Software developed by the KSEB(Kerala State Electricity Board) itself in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday.The KSEB will save Rs.9.5 crore on licence fee and software upgrading because of the shift to free software, the release added.

Many of these problems are with volunteer software in general, not Free Software in particular. Hobbyist proprietary programs are often hard to use for many of the same reasons. But the easiest way of getting volunteers to contribute to a program is to make it open source. And while thousands of people are now employed in developing Free Software, most of its developers are volunteers.

Binary Freedom started not long ago a campaign to promote free software and open standards on the state of Massachusetts. Government choice of software dictates the software citizens are able to use to access information and services. Please consider voting if you live in MA.