"CHENNAI: Techies advocating free software on Sunday issued a rallying call to expand the “digital freedom struggle” as they celebrated the anniversary of the GNU/Linux project launched in 1984.

"As part of FSF India's effort to strengthen the free software movement in AP, FSF India has been working closely with free software activists there. Initiatives like Swecha took place as part of that. FSF India Director, Mr Kiranchandra provided the leadership for the activities in Andhra Pradesh.

Richard Mathew Stallman or “RMS”, his famous initials of the hacker community at Harvard where he graduated magna cum laude in Physics in 1974, is the most prominent American Free Software Advocate alive today.

"With the elections to the Parliament nearing, the main political parties in the country have started announcing their manifestos. It is heartening to see that the CPI(M) and BJP have included references to Free Software (FS) in their manifestos. CPI(M) has generally been supportive of Free Software and has helped in the campaign against software patents.

"Hello, finally. This is an unusual talk in which I'm going to start by explaining the ideas of free software, and then go on to talk about how they extend to some things other than software.

"Finding an email in my inbox from Richard Stallman is not the way I start most mornings, but on a recent morning, there it was.

In this interview, Microsoft India Chairman talks about Software Piracy (we call that sharing) in India and why it's bad, why "Intellectual Property Rights" are important. The contrast in thoughts of the Free Software community about the same issues is particularly interesting to note.

"...For Richard Stallman, the danger lies in the fine print. To Stallman, the fact it's illegal to copy, modify or give away much of today's computer software is an assault on people's fundamental rights and freedoms. But he knows it's all there, written down, saying that people can't do it. So for almost 25-years, it's this fine print he's been fighting..."

"NEW DELHI: Imagine a world free of patents and passwords, of copyrights and copycats, of freedom to create. Imagine a world full of free software. That’s the world of Richard Stallman , tech guru, hacker, political activist, pioneer of concepts like Copyleft, digital colonisation and maker of GNU compiler and debugger of GNU/Linux operating system.

As founder president of Free Software Foundation, Dr Stallman, 55, has managed to convince governments like Kerala and companies like ATI (now AMD) to switch to the idea of free software. ET caught up with the legendary Richard Matthew Stallman (called RMS by hackers) on his visit to India to understand his idea of a free world of technology. Excerpts..."