3rd,March was quite a memorable day.I took to volunteer at the FSMK stall.
FSMK organizes a stall every year during the IISc open day to educate and
enlighten people about free and open source software.
The
day started off with the screening of a small animated movie that was
created wholly on an open source software. People came in awe as Rameez explained to them the philosophy of Richard
Stallman,Gnu and free software.
The experience of being here took my thoughts to a whole new arena. I was amazed to know how the perception of a computer varied so diversely to people from different fields.How a computer could cater to the needs of a programmer, which was much different from that of a house-maker , an engineer or a gamer.We had to identify their areas of interest and show them what we had for them as a free software alternative. We demonstrated to a few electronics students about Octave – a free-software alternative to Matlab, about Libre Office – an alternative for MS-office and Gimp -an alternative for Picasa , just to name a few.
We gave Ubuntu OS and the 'BOSS' cds ,which was an OS based on Debian given by the Government of India, to people who wanted to shift to the free-software platform.
It was exhilarating to stand there at the stall propagating free softwares and talking to new people.
Finally, the day ended grandly, as I receded back home through the panoramic backdrop of IISc ,I cherish this memory , the lessons I learnt ,the people I met and best of all the philosophy of Ubuntu ('humanity for others') that strengthened in me more deeply than ever.
I thank Raghavendra for giving me this wonderful opportunity and all my other friends Ashfaq , Chetan and Sneha ,who accompanied me.
No comments:
Post a Comment