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Stallman’s Shadow to Proprietary Chains: My Journey from College FOSS Enthusiast to the Walled Garden
One month after I officially entered my twenties, I had my first professional encounter with a “foreigner” — anyone other than an Indian. And it was a big one, with Richard Stallman, the founder of the free software movement.
I was entering the third year of my undergraduate studies in electronics and communication engineering. As a member of the free and open source software (FOSS) community at my college, the FOSSCell, along with other professional bodies such as the IEEE, we were organizing a conference on “FOSS in Education” in the city of Calicut. Mr. Stallman had been invited as a chief guest to the event and to deliver the keynote address.
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Through my computer science friends in IEEE, I got a crude introduction to the ideas of free software, open source, and the FOSS movement. When they said there is a cool group called the FOSSCell operating on campus and that we should join there too, I thought again, why not?
I ended up being an active member of the FOSS community and the IEEE by the end of the first year.