Malappuram/MESCE/FSUG

Chapter of Free Software Foundation at MESCE, Kuttipuram. We just setup GNU Lab in our college. Please visit here to see the page for GNU Lab of MESCE.

Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is a 501(c)3 donor supported charity founded in 1985 and based in Boston, MA, USA. The FSF has a worldwide mission to preserve, protect and promote the freedom to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer software, and to defend the rights of all free software users.

Free Software

What is Free Software

Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software:

• The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
• The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to any needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
• The freedom to redistribute copies, (freedom 2).
• The freedom to improve the program, and release such improvements to the public (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

A program is free software if users have all of these freedoms. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that one does not have to ask or pay for permission.

Why Free Software?

Free software emerged as a result of defending freedom against the forces that tried to take away freedom from the users of their software.It can be said as a struggle for freedom in the field of software.It asserts the value of sharing knowledge among fellow human beings(which itself is the main reason why we are like what we are today!).With the advancement in technology,information in digital formats can be copied very easily and can be transfered in drastic speed to any destination across the world.But not all want,people to make full utilisation of these technologies.They are here to limit the scope of these technologies to convert the limits to their own money!Free software brings to light, this new threat to our freedom.Computers have made such a great advancement in the progress of human being,that every human being in this world,can make use(or depends on) related technology to make his life better.So encroachment to the freedom in the field of software will have great impact in the modern world of computers.The people who value their motives,more than the freedom of fellow human being,too can make use of this great technologies to limit the freedom of people to a new extent.which is a terrible thing to happen for a society.so here is free software and the philosophy backing it says that,"please mind others freedom".

GNU

The GNU Project was launched in 1984 to develop a complete UNIX like operating system which is free software ,when unix which was initially having the concept of free software,later prevented its users from sharing it: the GNU system (GNU is a recursive acronym for "GNU's Not UNIX"; it is pronounced guh-noo, like canoe).The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is the principal organizational sponsor of the GNU Project. FSF/UNadvancement in the progress of human being,ESCO Free Software Directory is a project of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).All useful free software that runs under free operating systems - particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants are catalogued here.please check the [GNU] pages and [FSF] sites to know more..

FSF Chapter

FSF chapter at MESCE is the center point of free software activities at MESCE. Its aim is to spread the free software philosophy and to co-ordinate the free software activities at college. Recently we setup GNU Lab at MESCE which is a platform for students to make teams and do real-world projects,and keeping the free culture.

Contact

We have an unofficial support channel for IRC at irc.freenode.net as #mes-fsf.

Our mailing list is at mes-fsf [at] googlegroups [dot] com Group page is located at: http://groups.google.com/group/mes-fsf

References

• Wanna have a GNU/Linux CD? Checkout GnewSense.
• Wanna know more about free software philosophy? Checkout philosophy section.
• Another site which explains things lightly. get GNU/Linux
• Get all distros of Linux at a reasonable cost. Copyleft for Linux CD-ROM
• Swathanthra Malayalam Computing - Leading free software group in Kerala, focusing on Malayalam language computing.