National Public Meeting on Software Patents
National Public Meeting on Software Patents
2008-09-30T14:08:04
The Free Software User's Group, Bangalore, is conducting a National Public Meeting on Software Patents on Saturday, October 4. There are big stakes involved in the control of software in an era when software is becoming increasingly central to the way we humans organize our lives and inhabit a democracy. I think this is one point which most people overlook - when Computing was still in its infancy, software was an intellectual curiosity (and a challenge) for the "hard science" guys; it soon evolved into a plaything for the hobbyist and the basement tinkerer and finally became an "industry" all on its on. It's undergoing yet another transformation - running on personal computers and countless embedded devices, it's becoming the unseen force which controls a large part of the way a human society functions - in this new role, issues concerning its control are no longer simple "business" or "technical" issues but are inherently political in nature. This is the fundamental understanding which anybody who wishes to grasp the logic of Free Software has to have.