Stallman in the bright red t-shirt by the podium.The man was in the city to give a speech on "The dangers of Software Patents" at the CLT, IIT Chennai. Having got special permission from my boss and in the company of a colleague arrived at around 2.30pm to get a seat. The auditorium was fully crammed when Richard Stallman walked in late and just as you expected him to be, in jeans, red t-shirt with a backpack on. Before anybody could give the introductory speech or start with the formalities he took the podium and went straight to the topic at hand.He started by explaining the differences between a patent, trademark, copyright and quote Intellectual Property unquote (hey!, thats how he mentioned it every time he had to use the term...). Having laid the foundation he moved on to the actual dangers of software patenting. According to him software does not lend itself to patenting as well as it does for other industries because all software is simply a representation of abstract/mathematical ideas. Each software does not have a single idea but has thousands/millions of ideas (some of them are not considered ideas anymore because they've become structured like the if-else, while, for loop etc.), and ideas can be patented. And because software consists of abstract/mathematical ideas they can be grouped as using a different set of ideas by different people. Added to this is the convoluted legal language in which it is all written. So it is a nearly impossible thing to write software which does not have a single patented idea in it which can only happen if you have a totally new idea which is extremely rare. Most ideas are enhancements of existing ideas(like we have bubble sort, heap sort, quick sort,...if one was enough why the other?) even then that single idea cannot make a complete software it needs other ideas for other things it must do to appeal to a customer. So, the task of tracking down all the patent infringes of a particular software is massively time consuming and useless to be bothered about by a programmer. Infact, the penalty for infringing a patent without prior knowledge is lesser so its more feasible that way ;).He decried the moral ideal behind software patents is to protect the small entrepreneur from being forced out of business by a big company because he has a patent on his software that cannot be violated by the larger company. What happens infact is that the big company has numerous other patents which cover parts of the software developed by the entrepreneur that he is forced to cross licence.Another concern about software patents is that the party holding the patent may not issue a license thus effectively preventing the use of an idea (which would be called restrictive trade practices otherwise if not for patents). An interesting anecdote Richard Stallman shared was about a Paul Heckle. Another interesting tidbit was from IBM about the benefits of software patents for IBM from them
1. The license fees
2. The litigation and payments avoided by cross-licensing (which is a better benefit than the first one)On the whole the speech was a blast !!
Its been a long time since I found time to update this blog. Had lots of interesting stuff happening meanwhile. But, first things first :).About the movies...The Wind Game - is about the letters to an old writer from his young friend in search of his father. Most of it was really abstract and I had a difficult time figuring out whether I really understood anything at all. The scence kept changing from an elusive white horse among ruins, to an equally elusive old loremaster among the same ruins, to a pretty lady seated among cool fountains, to the main protagonist despairing over the parched desert surface, clutching about six small hollow bamboo sticks. When the movie got over I really had no idea if he found anything about his father. I'm still confused if I'm dumb or it was just meant to be that way.Clear Skies After Rain - is a story of a beautiful girl who likes to sing and likes to believe she is a good singer. How she is stuck with a rude, arrogant husband who thinks he is Sylvester Stallone and a slick agent type who is trying to seduce her.Ararath - is actually the name of a mountain in Armenia. Its shot using a really interesting concept of a movie inside a movie. In the movie "we" are watching a movie is being shot so, whenever there is a flashback to the original event the movie inside the movie kicks in. And when its done the the film smoothly transitions to the actual time (with respect to the movie that is...). The story is really complicated and encompasses both the timezones. The central character of the movie is Arshile Gorky who is a painter famous painter. Now he has only a token presence physically in the movie but everything in the movie is about him and a self-portrait of him with his mother which is actually painted out of a photograph. Gorky was a kid when the massacre of the Armenians happened and later he comes to Canada marries, has a daughter, marries again to a writer who has a son from a previous marriage(to an Armenian revolutionary who blew up someone). The step brother and siter share a incestous relationship. The daughter accuses the writer wife of murdering her father but the writer claims he commited suicide...There are several interconnections for example the painting hangs in a museum where the disgruntled daughter tries to wreck it, the security guard's gay partner stars in the lead role of the movie inside the movie and his father is a customs officer who (disapproves the marriage...) and on his last day of duty catches the son of the writer inadvertently smuggling drugs into the country but eventually lets him go. I know most of the above does not make too much sense :) but the movie was a great watch.Dance of the Wind - is a sad tale of a movie director who goes location scouting somewhere in tunisia for a movie he is going to shoot which is about a guy getting lost in the desert and dying...and the poor guy himself gets lost in the desert and dies(just like the movie he was going to shoot!! is it coincidence or what?).
Mademoiselle - is about a little excitement in the life of a happily married mother of two sales executive, who is out of town for a meeting and misses her train. She hitches a ride with the same entertainment troupe that entertained them the previous evening. This entertainment troupe consists of a married couple and a single guy. They call themselves the "Impromptu Company" and have no script ready for anything but pick each others cues excellently to astonish and entertain the audience. The sales executive does a little bit of impromptu herself and falls for the single guy and happily returns home to her family. (Realy cute
story...)
Three days in a row I had the opportunity to walk through one of my favorite streets (alleys?) in Chennai. Its no neat street with beautiful houses on either sides with lush green lawns (I've some of those too...but right now will settle for this one). Its a slightly dirty narrow street where two people sitting across two sides of the street can have a conversation without being bothered too much by the traffic (infact they do). Its got no posh houses lining it but a string of small houses with mostly around 2-3 small rooms per house (I can say because most of the time the doors are open and any passer by can look right through the house).
The first day (by no means the first, first simply first due to where I'm starting...) was Friday, 14 January. It was Pongal and having tucked in a lot of sweet pongal in the morning and noon, at sometime around 6 (vilakku vekkira neram or lamp lighting time...which is significant) decided to take a walk to Elliots Beach (not too far from home just under 2.5-3km). The next day returned home from office (at around 8) to find no one home and with no keys with the neighbours, so to spend time till my folks returned took a walk. Sunday's walk had a certain purpose as I was heading to Rajaji Bhavan to buy train tickets and this was late in the morning at around 11.
I usually avoid all the big roads and stick to small alleys and deserted roads which were abundant sometime ago in and around the Kalakshetra area(there are still some left...I'm not telling...). I take the usual left to enter my favorite street. A little walkthrough (sorta like the drivethrough for an F1 lap but not so racy...)
Immediately to the left is a thached home cum ironing shop exactly opposite to which is the side of another house just by the corner of the road. Immediately afterwards the road takes a mild left turn to accomodate a small temple to the right which actually faces the other side so has its back to our road. The temple has its own approach road not quite perpendicular to our road (It can be better visualized as a hangmans knot with the knot and the rope leading out as the road approach to the temple with the temple in the noose area containing the temple facing the knot, with the outer periphery of the rope touching our road (which should have confused any mortal sufficiently...my work here is done :-))). Probably 2 houses are there to the left and then we have a small Potti Kadai (which is just a small store which can sell anything from stationery to groceries). Just opposite to this store is a fenced house follwed by a string of small houses interspersed with narrow internal alleys. Next to the building housing the store the road again takes a small bend to the left where there is a small flat followed by a mechanic shop (which I have never found to be empty of young boys loitering about). There is a very small clearing next to the mechanic shop which serves as their parking. Just next to it is an apartment block with 4 blocks. Exactly opposite to this is a cow shed that houses something like 2 cows and 3 buffaloes. Almost halfway through and we have a small road leading to a dead end to the left. The row of houses to the right continues and there is a hand pump just before the road to the left. Just adjacent to the road to the left is the biggest house in the entire road which has a huge open verandah. The rest of the road has small houses on both sides and the road bend slightly to the right and joins another road.
One of the first things that strike you in that street is the smell of incense from the houses (remember its just little after vilakku vekkira neram plus the incense, flowers and camphor from the temple). A little down the road the mechanic shops smells of petrol and smoke. A little more and the stench of the cow shed and then again the smell of incense picks up like its never left you at all. As you are walking you just have to simply look down to realize that you are walking on a carpet of kolams (since it was Pongal the kolams were unusually large and took up most of the road and some were even pretty colorful). I've been through this road at several times of the day and never found it empty of kids scampering around, or mothers trying coax their young ones into eating something, or threatening them to come inside, or scolding them for making a racket etc.
I've never been able to pin down one good reason as to why I like walking down that road. I've been hooked to taking that road for about 3 years I guess and have never missed an opportunity to walk by that road (I usually take a different route to and fro but still manage to wiggle that road in between my route). I don't know why but walking by that road always gives me a peculiar sense of safety and serenity.
On the subject of movies, had the chance to be at the Chennai International Film Festival, but din't fully make use of the opportunity and only managed to see a few of them. Here's a list of the movies I saw (might have seen some movies only paritally, others have slipped my memory for obvious reasons).
The Wind Game - Ali Reza Ghani (Austria, 2004)
Clear Skies After Rain - Natalie Schmidt (France, 2003)
Ararath - Atom Egoyan (Canada, 2002) (pretty impressed by this one will probably be the first one to update)
Dance of the Wind - Taieb Louhichi (Tunisia)
Mademoiselle (France)
This is just an online checklist for me to update about later(hopefully in the near future...:-))
Just came back after watching "Kadhal", a real life story of a tragic love. Apart from few scenes where the emotion had been intesified to cater to the majority movie going masses. I must confess that this is one movie where I have not been a let down by the movie after hearing great reviews about it (usually the agony of expectation does not make up for actual reality...). One factor contributing to that I feel is the absence of any big names/stars. Apart from the hero and his friend there are no familiar faces (most of the starting credits had introducing...). This probably freed the director from the customary punchlines, stereotypical jokes etc.
The story by itself is simple. Girl with a rich and powerful family falls for a poor grungy mechanic(nothing new there for the average moviegoer, but this mechanic actually manages to look convincingly grungy and never fully cleans up to be a smashing hero). The fact that the girl is still studying in 12th standard (B section Roll No. 16 if I'm not wrong which is intriguing because the heroine's name is Aishwarya...unless there were many Aashas, Aakilas, Aanamikas, Aannapooranis and Aannalakshmis ahead of her...) does not deter her father (Rich, ugly, powerful wine shop owner and local ganglord) from arranging for her marriage. Girl panics and elopes with the boy to Chennai and after a street corner marriage, find refuge among the hero's friends who set them up in a rental house.
By this time the heroines uncle (fathers younger brother who misses his left arm but still rides around in a Bullet) tracks them down and convinces them to return back to town for a fitting marriage. Which does not happen (no happy ending here folks...). The heroine is forced into another marriage, meet the crazy hero a few years (and a baby) later. Breaks down feeling guilty for leading a normal life while because of her the hero is raving mad. The husband simply accepts both of them (i.e. puts the crazy hero in a mental institution and continues his life supporting both the lovers).
Read an interview of the director who had met the husband on a train. While in school I've read "Thirukkural"s by Thiruvalluvar stating that the presence of good samaritans brings rain. Now you know why it rains.
