Photos from the Candle Light Vigil for Document Freedom organised by Free Software Users Group Bangalore. Many carried placards and banners in support of Open Document Format and against OOXML.

The Candle light vigil demands India to appeal ISO approval of ooxml based on its comments and no vote. We also demands the Department of IT to draft a clear national policy for the use of Free standards for data storage.

This programme is planned as a starting point for various events & awareness campaigns on Document freedom.

When: 15 April 2008, 6pm

Members of the Free Software User Group stage a candle light vigil to protest patenting of software in front of Twonhall in Bengaluru on Saturday.

Yesterday I blogged on my greatest contribution to the Say No To Software Patent event to be held at Bangalore - a piece of web banner. Today there is something more. A sticker and t-shirt design!

Twenty-two organizations across 60 countries are taking part in DocumentFreedomDay (DFD) to raise awareness about what happens when formats are no longer supported by proprietary software.

Free Software Foundation chairman and all around computer freedom guru Richard Stallman has written an article for the BBC entitled ‘It’s not the Gates, it’s the bars’.

Not so very long ago, most standards were set in a largely collegial atmosphere by career professionals who met in face to face meetings over a period of years. Along the way, they came to know each other as individuals, and established relationships that helped the process move forward and allowed for productive give and take.

"...There is no compatibility between education and proprietary software, not at the ethical level. The source code and the methods of Free Software are part of human knowledge. The mission of every school is to disseminate human knowledge. Proprietary software is not part of human knowledge. It's secret, restricted knowledge, which schools are not allowed to disseminate.

"Lots of news this month!