SMC/StatementOnNCFS2008Kochi

The National Conference on Free Software which holds the motto of Free Software, Free Knowledge and Free Humanity was held on Cochin University of Science And Technology (CUSAT). The main organisers of the event are Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), Open Software Solutions Industrial Co-Operative Society (OSSICS), Appropriate Technology Promotion Society (ATPS) and Kerala State IT@School Project. In addition to the above mentioned organizations, other Free Software Community which also includes Swathanthra Malayalam Computing (SMC) was also invited to organise the event. Members from SMC were part of the Programme Committee and the Souvenir Committee. The prime sponsors of the event were Keltron, State Bank of India and Linux For You Magazine. A number of NGO's and private organization were also participated in the four day exhibition and two day seminars. All of the sponsors and the participating members were listed in the website of NCFS. However, one such organization was missing from the sponsor list, which is the notorious Novell Corporation.

After the evil agreement with Microsoft Corporation (MS), Novell betrayed the Free Software community by violating the spirit of the GNU General Public license, which is the corner stone of the Free Software movement and ligitimising the patent threats of Microsoft corporation. The protest against Novell have been in it's peak since the inception of the Boycott Novell campaign which has been successful in making awareness about the evil hands of Novell and it's ally MS. Novell was allotted a prominent position in the exhibition stall and they were allowed to place their posters at the prominent venues.

Even though, SMC was also included in the organising committee, there were no indication that Novell was the platinum sponsor of this Free Software Event. The organisers never communicated about the sponsorship and thus betrayed the whole Free Software community as Novell did. This evident from the incidents that occurred after the peaceful protest against Novell by the SMC members present at the meeting.

SMC members including Anivar Aravind, Shyam, Hiran and many others attended the first day conference without knowing the Novell's participation. They planned a peaceful protest on the second day of the conference. However, the organisers, primarily the CUSAT bureaucrats were harsh with the protesters after a verbal complaint from one of the Novell official present at the stall.

SMC takes this opputunity to deeply condemn the organisers decision to include Novell into the Free Software event. SMC urges the organisers of the event to aplogize to the community on this dreadful alliance with the notorious Novell Corpoeration and the way the organisers treated its members.