[Ilugc] [survey] Institutional Support for Free Software

[Ramanraj K]

  Shakthi Kannan wrote:

>--- Ramanraj K <ramanraj.k at gmail.com> wrote:
>        
>
>    In India, free software projects could thrive with
>    Institutional 
>    support. 
>    
>
>
>  
>
>
>Here, you are using the word "institution" as a noun,
>as in a place:
>
>"institution. noun. 1: an establishment consisting of
>a building or complex of buildings where an
>organization for the promotion of some cause is
>situated"
>
The OED defines "institution" as: "1. An important organisation or a 
public body such as a university.  2... 3. An established law or 
custom."  "Institutionalise" means to "establish as an accepted part of 
an organisation or culture."

Intellectual honesty is notionally, the highest at Universities.  They 
have considerable academic freedom, and the infrastructure required for 
doing research and development.  Eligible students are paid stipends, 
scholarships or other grants for their work.  A framework of formal 
rules are always present and the output generated is usually what would 
be worth archiving and using.    Originality of research output is a 
mandatory rule, but this does not mean that it has to be original from 
scratch, but only that the work done by the scholar has to be orginal, 
though built on work of others.  "Institutional support" for free 
software at Universities, merely means that the research output of 
students, hitherto copyright in favour of the University would be 
released under the GPL, FDL or other free licenses.  RMS left MIT while 
commencing the GNU Project, so that this issue would not be raised by 
the University, and now that the point has been made, Universities and 
its policy makers have enough justification to make the change for the 
better.  

Many Universities are already researching and trying out ways of 
providing institutional support for free software:

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/webmaster-2004/talks/rahtz/html/
=> This does not mean Universities start competing with SourceForge. 
 Many live examples are discussed

http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=12034&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
=> UNESCO and free software

http://www.isr.uci.edu/research-open-source.html
http://opensource.mit.edu/home.html
=> Research papers, etc. on this subject

http://www.chennailug.org
ilugc is easily an example of institutional support for free software.

>But, the 'cathedral organization' refers to the
>organization of people and the _way_ they work. We are
>not referring here about physical material, it is how
>people interact in project development. In a cathedral
>structure, a software engineer may not even have a
>say, and the project leader and project manager make
>design decisions. But, in a 'bazaar organization' each
>one has a say and there is a "maintainer" who
>maintains and patches the code.
>  
>
"Cathedrals" like "IBM" are ultimately responsible to share holders who 
may value only profits[1].  Whereas,  Institutions have goals like 
"making provisions for advancement and dissemination of knowledge, to 
manage institutes of research, to organise labs, libraries and other 
equipment for research work, to institute professorships, teaching posts 
etc., to confer degrees etc." in the larger interests of the general 
public, and are governed by legislative Acts.  "Academic Freedom" also 
means having the freedom to choose the gap you want to fill, but 
nevertheless, the student is answerable to the guide.  The reputation of 
institutions rests upon the worthwhile projects they undertake, and that 
usually ensures progress.

[1] OT: IBM has sold its "PC Business" including its laptops, to a 
Chinese company Lenovo.