IfYouAre

If you are

a human being, you may be assuming one or more of the roles below. Whatever be your role in the society, you can do your bit to build a good society where sharing knowledge becomes a virtue and not a vice. We are living in a society where sharing is discouraged, often called by derogatory names, such as for example 'piracy'. This campaign is to create a ready reckoner for any person who intends to promote free knowledge and free software. Please edit this page to add new roles, make it comprehensive, but try to keep it simple. Add few links here and there, pointing to pages on the Internet, where readers can get more information on each point. --Gnowgi 12:13, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

teacher

• create your lessons in free standards*
• teach the values of self-reliance and freedom
• encourage your students to share software
• do not use proprietary software
• if you want to teach spreadsheet call it spreadsheet and not Excel (every photocopying machine is not Xerox)
• if you want to teach word processor do not call it Word
• don't call any presentation by the name 'Powerpoint'
• encourage self learning of students

student

• hacking is the best way to learn the art of programming
• refuse to learn branded software
• join a free software club and enjoy the culture of sharing

principal

• wherever syllabus doesn't prescribe a brand, choose free software
• support a club or cell for free software (keep it informal)
• do not buy any new proprietary software
• when you buy new machines, ask for preinstalled free software
• make sure your college/school website is w3c (http://www.w3c.org) compatible
• identify a few student friendly faculty
• train teachers in free software
• establish links with local free software hackers and advocates
• do not call a lecture as a power point presentation
• do not call a LCD projector a power point projector
• ask for justification when your colleagues ask your permission to buy a proprietary software

examiner

• do not ask questions that are too specific to a branded software application
• frame questions in such a manner that they are generic in nature

head of the dept

• ask for strong justification when your colleagues ask your permission to buy a proprietary software, and make this an exception and not a norm
• insist on using open standards (such as odt or rtf) for documents created using a computer
• if your department has a web page, ensure that it is w3c [1] compliant

syllabus committee member

• eliminate proprietary brand names from syllabus
• include publicly owned standards*
• do not include languages that are not supported by all operating systems in the syllabus

prime minister

minister of trade and commerce

• do not permit the sale of hardware for which free software drivers do not exist
• do not permit the sale of software that forces users to save documents in proprietary format
• do not confuse copyright, patents, and trademarks with the term intellectual property
• treat software on par with mathematics, I.e no patents for software
• DRM is digital restrictions managements, not rights managements

minister of culture

• argue for licencing material produced with government funding under a Free licence
• make available to the public all material produced with government funding through the Internet
• insist on using open standards in organisations under the department

minister of local self-governance

• insist on using Free Software on all computers in the department
• ensure that all documents are created using Free standards

president of a country

• freedom to encode and decode be added as a fundamental right

hacker

• keep it up, way to go

cracker

• use your creativity in constructive work, consider becoming a hacker

programmer

• program contains procedural and formal knowledge, publish it like any other knowledge
• keep it simple
• make it reusable
• add good documentation, to let other programmers understand the logic

owner of a software firm

• employ hackers to power your software needs
• encourage your customers to use Free Software
• consider licencing your software under GNU GPL
• encourage your programmers to share programs

chief justice

• right to information is meaningless without preserving the right to decode and encode knowledge resources

scientist

• scientists were the first hackers, continue sharing your knowledge to understand the world, keep up the good work
• publish your papers in a journal that does not restrict access, consider joining the Public Library of Science group
• consider publishing in an Open Access journal: that improves the visibility of your publication and makes it available freely to your colleagues
• do not publish with those journals that ask you to remove your paper from your home page
• you are the author of your work, do not loose your right to express and publish, and sell your rights to publishers who are restricting the access of your work to every one
• refuse to compromise on your ethical standards
• consider using a copyleft licence for any book that you may publish

parent

• talk to your children about ethics and the need to maintain ethical standards
• when you give your child a computer to use, ensure that it uses Free Software
• encourage your children to share their knowledge and software with friends
• make sure that your children understand the importance of using open standards

journalist

• use cracker if you meant an intruder
• use hacker if you meant someone who explores creative possibilities
• say linux only if it is about the kernel, use the term GNU + Linux if you mean the OS
• carefully distinguish open source from Free Software and Free Software from Freeware

film maker

• consider copyleft your film licensing after recovering and earned sufficient profit

Web Engineer

• use w3c standards
• make it accessible to all browsers
• reduce dependency of special tools to view, such as flash

own a proprietary software company

• dont use technology to restrict, i.e. avoid DRM
• program contains procedural and formal knowledge, publish it like any other knowledge
• preserve and uphold the conditions that produce knowledge, of which the most important is sharing

Bill Gates

• fix the file system of your OS and save the world from virus menace
• release your software under a free software license, and continue to rule the world, we will make you our hero.
• use technical innovation to let more people access and create knowledge effortlessly, and not to restrict access. That is to say avoid DRM.

Steve Jobs

• release the rest of the code under APL, and get more support from hackers around the world
• use technical innovation to let more people access and create knowledge effortlessly, and not to restrict access i.e. avoid DRM