Hai,
Here is the news appeared in New Indian Express on 5th Dec 2002
Kannur varsity students help reduce hardware cost
KOCHI: Even as talks between the State Government and Microsoft are deadlocked
over the issue of using legal software, the hardware optimisation for schools
in Kannur parliamentary constituency is being implemented on a free software
platform - GNU/Linux.
The IT@School programme will be taught in Kannur schools utilising this
facility.
The usage of Etherboot on GNU/Linux has helped in reducing the hardware cost
of the project to less than 66 percent and will help schools to have more
computers. All this was possible because of the technical support rendered by
a bunch of students of Kannur varsity's MSc Computer Science course and the
Social Entrepreneurship Promotion Society on Information Technology (SEPSIT),
the charitable society they floated recently for promoting use of software
under General Public Licence (GPL).
The money for the project comes from the MP's fund and the savings can be used
to buy more than 50 additional computers, says Manoj T R, a third semester
student of the MSc Computer Science course and director of SEPSIT.
The organisation, which has the backing of the faculties of the Kannur
University MSc Computer Science, aims at enhancing social entrepreneurship
among IT professionals and nurturing technology education geared to creation
of public intellectual property in IT. The society, which has the active
participation of nearly 70 software professionals, will operate throughout
the State from its office in Dinesh Software Park.
SEPSIT had to work overtime to convince the officials of the National
Informatics Centre which is the nodal agency for approving computerisation
projects under the MP's fund. The order for 140 computers worth Rs 26 lakh
was given to Keltron Controls, Aroor, only after it was convinced of the
technology utilising Etherboot on GNU/Linux platform. Keltron Controls is
supplying 43 server configurated PCs and 97 nodes for the project.
Each school will have a server and four or five diskless nodes. The drastic
cost reduction is possible because devices like hard disks, floppy drives, CD
drives and UPS can be cut down in the client server mode. There is a saving
of Rs 9000 per school and the money can be used for purchasing more
computers. Around 185 computers in Linux platform can be purchased using the
Rs 45 lakh pledged by Kannur MP A P Abdullakkutty against the 130 that can be
bought while using proprietary software.
Keltron Controls has also bagged the order for computerisation of schools in
Alappuzha district from V M Sudheeran MP's fund. The order for over 700
computers (5 PCs for one school) using proprietary software is pegged at Rs 2
crore.
SEPSIT has now formulated a strategy to train the teachers of these schools in
Linux Administration, usage of free software tools like Open Office (and
other free office tools), Xine (and other multi-media applications), and
BASIC programming on GNU/Linux platform. SEPSIT also has the computerisation
project of Kannur University using free software tools in hand.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Dear All
Below is a report of the Tactical Media Lab at Sarai which was held
on the 14, 15 16 of November. Feedback welcome. Also available online
at www.sarai.net/events.htm
best
M
Tactical Media Lab @ Sarai
On November 14 - 16, 2002, Sarai hosted the South Asian Tactical
Media Lab (TML), one of a chain of such events, that are taking place
in different parts of the world (Amsterdam, Barcelona, Cluj, New
York, Delhi and Sydney) as a run-up to the fourth Next 5 Minutes
Conference (N5M4) in Amsterdam in 2003.
Over three hectic days free software enthusiasts, programmers,
graphic designers, filmmakers, artists, activists, members of NGOs,
telecommunications experts, students and media practitioners from
Mumbai, Dehradun, Kolkata, Dacca, Kathmandu, Tehran & Delhi shared
ideas, experiences, problems and grievances, explored varied uses of
tactical media, discussed strategies, designed posters and websites,
disbanded opinions and formed new ones through panel discussions,
presentations, installations, workshops and a film screening.
The event lent itself naturally to the crystallization of a loose
coalition of tactical media enthusiasts in the Asian region. From the
very begining it was positioned as being a 'process' in the course of
which the participants would uncover the energies of a network ...
after three days this network was brimming with ideas of many
possible collaborations to counter everyday local situations. We hope
to sustain these energies in the months to come.
Day 1 of the Tactical Media Lab at Sarai, November 14, 2002
The first day began with a very well attended public conversation
between Shuddhabrata Sengupta from Sarai and the TML's "Mystery
Guest" - David Barsamian. David Barsamian , the founder and director
of Alternative Radio,
an independent, award-winning, weekly radio program produced in
Boulder, Colorado, is well known in Delhi through the publications of
his interviews with Noam Chomsky, Edward Said and Eqbal Ahmed.
Barsamian, who happened to be visiting Delhi at the time was invited
by Sarai to open the Tactical Media Lab, which he did with a very
inspiring invocation to media activists to be positive, energetic,
creative and humorous and not turn into moaners with dwindling
audiences!
The conversation with him led to a very lively discussion in which
the question of "free speech", particularly in conflict ridden
societies like South Asia's was actively discussed. The TML got off
to a very active and lively start as a result of this and
through the next few days the importance of free expression, new ways
of reaching the public domain and the necessity to be inventive and
creative recurred several times in the conversations and
presentations.
The afternoon of the first day featured presentations by the people
at Sarai working on the Cybermohalla (Cyber Neighbourhood) Project.
Shveta Sarda, Ruchika Negi, Joy Chatterjee and Ashish Mahajan from
Sarai, with Azra Tabassum from the LNJP colony Cybermohalla
Compughar, talked about the processes involved in setting up digital
media labs using free software in the LNJP squatter settlement and
the Ambedkar Nagar Resettlement Colony in Delhi.
Issues of access, technological flexibility, creativity and different
ways of looking at the city were discussed. Shveta presented some of
the work done by the Cybermohalla project, Joy and Ashish spoke of
the software and hardware configurations involved in operationalizing
each lab, Ruchika read from the journal that she is keeping of her
interactions with people on the street, and Azra spoke of how the
process works to steadily remove layers of fear in terms of her
engagement with the urban environment.
Following this, Pradip Saha, Managing Editor Down to Earth magazine,
spoke briefly about using humour and subversive fun as an essential
element in designing an effective communication strategy by activists
This intervention was followed by a panel composed of Shekhar
Krishan, PUKAR , along with Sanjay Bhangar from Indymedia, Mumbai;
Arun Mehta, telecommunications engineer and Internet activist; Partha
Sarkar of the
Bytesforall Network, from Dhaka, and Shilpa Gupta, from the Open
Circle Artists' Collective in Mumbai.
Each presentation featured candid discussions on the possibilities
and limitations of media activism in South Asia. While the panelists
were often of the opinion that, barring very specialist fora, online
discussion lists have not taken off as expected in South Asia, they
emphasized the need to develop effective communication strategies
that engaged with public concerns in a demonstrably public manner.
The Indymedia Mumbai group spoke of their efforts to involve
communication students in the university to develop an effective web
presence, especially in the context of online actions commemorating
the anniversary of the Bhopal Disaster of 1984, in tandem with the
World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, earlier this
year. Arun Mehta spoke of the feasibility of low-cost and low-tech
strategies for radio as a tool for building sustainable, community
controlled communications networks in the rural areas of Orissa in
Eastern India. Gaurab Upadhyay from Bytesforall, Kathmandu,
intervened with his experience of alternate radio networks in Nepal
and discussions revolved around how to use the technology, and
available networks, to suit urban conditions.
Partha Sarkar spoke about the experience of building the Bytesforall
network, which he initiated from Dhaka, together with Fredrick
Noronha, who is based in India. Bytesforall has now grown into a
pro-active South Asia wide network for people interested in the
social usage of information and communication technologies. He led us
through the evolution of Bytesforall as an online forum where
technicians, activists, and people interested in the issues of
development network and brainstorm together. He also pointed out how
discussions on Bytesforall have, by being focused on concrete and
practical issues, and by discussing all matters in a spirit of
knowledge-sharing as peers, have so far managed to transcend the
fractious 'political' barriers that exist in South Asia.
Shilpa Gupta from the Open Circle collective talked of public art
intervention experiments that she and some members of her group have
been involved in, especially the Aar Paar Projects that brought
together artists from India and Pakistan for exchanges of portable
art objects and posters which were then exhibited in tea stalls,
grocery stores, and other public spaces. She also spoke about the
another artist-led initiative called "The Reclaim Your Freedom Week"
earlier this year in response to, and in protest against, the
violence in Gujarat in March 2002.
The discussions that followed the presentations focused on the need
for creating an active discursive community of artists, practitioners
and others that could step out of the "responding to events" syndrome
that seems to characterize much of artist/practitioner inspired
activism, in order to move towards more sustained forms of
public-practitioner interfaces that draw on the energies of everyday
forms of resistance and communication. Event-centred protests, often
take on a "token" character, even as they sap the energies of the
artists/practitioners/activists who get involved, and also lead to
hierarchies of people who "deliver a message" as opposed to people
who passively "receive a message".
Day 2 of the Tactical Media Lab at Sarai, November 15, 2002
The second day was devoted to Free Software. The morning session
started with a general presentation on Linux, its ideas and practices
by Kishore Bhargava from Linux Users Group, Delhi. This was followed
by a presentation of Knopik and LAP (Linux Access Project) by Supreet
Sethi from Sarai.
A lot of pertinent issues and queries were raised on the
implementation, usage and the philosophy of the projects. Arun Mehta
from www.radiophony.com demonstrated the software that has been
developed for Stephen Hawkings
(http://indataportal.com/software/hawking.htm)which was written in
visual basic and he made a public request to the audience to render
the same on a Free Software platform.
The second half of the day concentrated on the localization efforts
within the Free Software /Open Source platform. Ravikant, from the
language programme of Sarai, briefed the audience about the problems
non-English users face - related to fonts, encoding standards,
keyboards and web design. Gaurab Upadhyay (bytesforall, Kathmandu)
and Arash Zaini from Linux Iran, talked of the progress being made in
localising Nepali and Persian respectively. Gaurab discussed the
differences between Nepali Devanagari and Hindi Devanagari and was of
the opinion that Unicode is so far the best available solution. From
the audience Niyam Bhushan clarified certain basic issue about fonts,
glyphs and typefaces. But the presentation that truly inspired
everyone was Arash Zaini's who has recently translated the KDE
desktop in Persian. (KDE is a Linux-based-programme package that
provides efficient mail handler, calendars and organisers apart from
the usual functions for browsing, editing, word processing, graphics
and games). After interactions we realised that with only slight
modifications the same desktop can be used for writing in Urdu as
well. Arash then took us inside KDE and showed how effortlessly and
flawlessly each of the applications worked. It was a revelation to
learn that only four people could create this in just four months. He
also fielded questions on the whole idea and process of translation
and the public reception of the package.
The concluding panel of the day was an open discussion on
'Collaborations and Contributions: Practitioners and Users in the
Free Software Movement - the making of a creative community'. This
discussion, attended by Raju Mathur, Leo Fernandes, Kishore Bhargava
and others from the Linux Users Group, Delhi; Sharad Kukreti from
Dehradun, Trevor Warren from Media Lab Asia, Mumbai, and other
participants, focused on issues of freedom and programming culture
and aroused strong reactions from both Free Software practitioners
and others in the audience. Critical debates in the international
Free Software/Open Source community were reiterated in local
contexts.. debates that were mirrored in the film, 'The Code: Story
of Linux', that was screened at the end of the day.
Day 3 of the Tactical Media Lab at Sarai, November 16, 2002
The third day of the Tactical Media Lab began with a session
moderated by Ravi Sundaram from Sarai on "ICT and Civil Society: Can
we think beyond the Development Paradigm". The participants in this
discussion were Leo Fernandes of the Free Software Foundation
(India), Trevor Warren (MIT Media Lab, Asia), Gaurab Upadhyay
(Telecom activist, Kathmandu), Arun Mehta (Telecom Activist, Delhi),
Jeebesh Bagchi (Sarai) and Shekhar Krishnan (PUKAR, Bombay)
The discussion focused on the problems of limiting software
interventions within a social frame strictly of "instrumental" and
"developmental" paradigms. This was based on a critique of the notion
of "development" itself, and how it often perpetuated top-down models
of social processes.
The second session of the day was a presentation by Shaina Anand of
her Tellavision Project and the allied Chitrakarkhana.net website.
This project aims to document social and political processes in
Bombay, post September 11.
She showed footage from her film in progress and made a presentation
of the website and hopes to tie in responses from the film viewing
process on to the interactive parts of her website.
The discussion focused on what needs to be done to create a language
of image-making and viewing that ties into everyday concerns of young
people in a way that reflects their lives and conditions, rather than
reproduce a "political" rhetoric that might serve also to alienate
and distance large numbers of people, while speaking only to the
converted.
The final session of the day was a round table on the need for a
network of new media networks in Asia. The participants from Iran,
Bangladesh, Nepal and various parts of India, spoke of the need to
carry the energies that they had discovered through their meetings
into the future. Plans were made to set up a Tactical Media Asia
discussion list hosted by Sarai, and everyone was keen to initiate a
cluster of collaborative processes, like for instance a free software
desktop in the Urdu language as a concrete instance of collaboration
between people at Sarai and the LinuxIran group.
The TML ended on a very positive note, with people taking away many
ideas for future collaborations, and everyone agreed on making a
strong Asian representation and platform at the next Next 5 Minutes !
WORKSHOPS:
Cybermohalla Workshops:
Leading up to the TML a series of workshops were conducted at the
Cybermohalla labs in the working class settlements of LNJP basti,
Central Delhi and at Dakshinpuri, South Delhi).
Workshop 01
November 1 & 2, 2002
Furthering the Cybermohalla experience of writing the city, this
workshop explored the insider/outsider binary, problematising it
through the sharing of daily encounters within the neighbourhood and
outside it, through life stories, stories about migration, work and
labour in the city, narratives of meeting spaces within the basti, of
contested spaces, the production of criminality. The primary forms
were writing and conversation.
Workshop 02
November 8 & 9, 2002
This was a fun, hands-on workshop with reels of paper, transparency
sheets, colour pens, crayons, scissors, pictures and glue, to produce
a wall magazine. Over twenty enthusiastic participants spent two days
writing, cutting and pasting material, working on their own and each
others' work. The theme for the wall magazine was 'water' - daily
routine around it, the material objects, related with it and
conversations around community taps. The idea was to explore forms
that would allow for a playful text-image relation and collaborative
work to create content for a common output, through the concepts of
hypertext and hyperlinking employed in print publications.
Emphasis was also on the design elements used to produce a
publication that would be reproducible through photocopying.
The content generated in the two workshops, along with other forms
that have been explored in Cybermohalla (mails, diary entries,
ethnographic notes, notes on conversations at the labs) was compiled
and circulated among visitors at the TML as a photocopied
publication, Cybermohalla Notebook 01.
Print & Web Design Workshop
November 14-16, 2002
The workshop, held on all three days of the TML, was conducted by
Pradeep Saha, Managing Editor Down to Earth magazine and Mrityunjoy
Chatterjee from the Sarai Media Lab.
It was held at Sarai Public Access Zone using free software tools
like Open Office [text, vector image design & HTML editor], Gimp
[raster image editor] & Scribus [publishing layout software].
The workshop started with an introduction to Tactical Media and
different approaches to it. The fourteen participants - students,
filmmakers and activists - were shown flyers and broadsheets as
examples of tactical media and were introduced to varied print design
strategies and to web technology. After this the participants were
split into two groups and asked to design a campaign that could be
put to use outside the workshop area. As most of them were from the
Delhi University they chose to work on issues that are of immediate
concern to the student community - Sexual Harrassment & Communal
Violence.
Throughout the workshop participants discussed ideas and strategies
and on the final day Shuddhabrata Sengupta talked briefly on visual
rhetoric and other tactical principles.
At the end of three days each group designed a website and a print
campaign. People from both groups presented their work, describing
them and their experience in detail to all those who had assembled
for the TML.
The first group designed a poster campaign on 'Sexual Harrassment in
the City' while the second adopted a satirical position on communal
violence - 'How to Orchestrate Riots'. The websites were extensions
of the same ideas with more links and images.
The works were warmly appreciated. The participants too enjoyed the
process of making creative use of low-cost, easily available
materials and designing tools. Many of them were already making
posters for their campaigns, and the workshop opened up a wide range
of ideas and strategies and helped them to put these in perspective.
INSTALLATIONS AT THE INTERFACE ZONE
There were three installations(Video/sound, Flash/sound, HTML)
playing all through the Tactical Media Lab at the Sarai Interface
Zone giving visitors a virtual spatial sense of the city.
The works originated from the idea of quintessentially focussing on a
sound piece, i.e to make a psycho-geographic scape of various kinds
of urban networks, right from electronic communication portals like
the telephony networks, internet cafes and call centers to more
physical networks like transport portals in Delhi, which would
include public transport portals like the Inter State Bus Terminus
and the railway station. The idea was to make textural sound
recordings at these sites and then develop a panoramic navigational
sound scape of several of these co-ordinates in a non-linear pattern.
Installation 1. Traffic media: Modem Telephone Line Parenthesis
by Dylan Volkhardt, independent media artist in residence at the
Sarai Media Lab
The installation was an attempt to look at the (dis)location between
the liquid architecture (the sound scape) of the telephone
communication network and the physical aspects of labour and cabling.
The video was shot just outside the CSDS where some cable work was
in progress. The installation, work on which finished just the day
before the TML, consisted of three 15" TV screens playing a video
loop at different speeds. The sound track was a long loop playing in
the background all through the day, of locational sounds recorded at
PCO booths and call centres and worked on in the Sarai Media Lab.
Installation 2. Traffic media: Platform no 12
by Renu Iyer, Sarai Media Lab
This was a 2 minute audio/video scape playing as a continuous loop
on a computer screen. The video was a 4 box per frame flash movie,
shot at the New Delhi Railway Station.
The idea was to look at the Railway Station as an urban navigational
spatial network, and attempted to highlight our collective memories
of our fragmented everyday recordings of these sites. The soundscape
was a layered piece of recordings made at the Station, with ambient
sounds and conversations with travellers. Visitors could listen to
the soundtrack with headphones.
Regulars at the Sarai caf�, cast curious, at times even perplexed,
glances at the screen playing in the background and then went over to
engage with the works.
Installation 3. Dilliwale Kaun? Baharwale Kaun?
A web installation
by Syeda Farhana Zaman and Mrityunjoy Chatterjee
This is an HTML web installation of hyper-linked images and texts,
looking at the migrant communities in Delhi. The work is based on
photographic documentation and conversations with emigrants living
in slums and in shrines in Delhi. It explores issues of citizenship,
of migration and of related harrassments and hardships faced by the
many Bangladeshi migrants on the streets of Delhi. Mrityunjoy
Chatterjee, from the Sarai Media Lab, helped Farhana convert
photographs and texts to build web-based narratives of the experience
of being an outsider.
The installation was available on a computer screen, as was the Sarai
digital Interface which is always available on the local network at
the Sarai Interface Zone.
Posters were also put up - made from photographs taken at the Delhi
Metro construction sites and cyber cafes.
Installation 4. Weather Report
by Rustam Vania, Centre for Science & Environment, Delhi
The installation which takes a satirical look at the politics of
Climate Change was made for the World Climate Change Conference held
in Delhi in October 2002.
The panels were put up all over Sarai and the CSDS.
--
Monica Narula
Sarai:The New Media Initiative
29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054
www.sarai.net
_________________________________________
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Thank you very much Jody. I will circulate for the attention of all
interested. There surely must be many interested and convinced about the
importance of such a task. The challenge is to find them! FN
PS: There's a lot happening on the Indianization of GNU/Linux, but the
efforts need to be further coordinatated. My friends Tapan Parikh, Joseph
Koshy, Karunakar, Vijay Pratap and others were sitting down on the lawns
of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore during the LB/2002 meet to
discuss this very issue... unfortunately I had to run to catch a bus back
to Goa. Maybe some of them could update us all on the trends planned.
On Thu, 5 Dec 2002, Jody Goldberg wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 30, 2002 at 09:35:31AM +0530, Frederick Noronha wrote:
> > Dear Jody, Am sending you copies of some IndicComputing material, put
> > together by a friend of ours Karunakar, who is at the forefront of this
> > campaign. Thanks for your time and attention. Frederick
>
> Interesting. As you collect people interested in helping please
> send them my way. I'd love to get gnumeric ready for use in various
> indian locales. We now use pango which should help with basic
> script display. However, getting the input method handling right
> and having the documentation (we have alot of documentation)
> translated is a huge task.
>
> thanks
> Jody
>
Hi Mr. MTP,
I was expecting this reply. Especially you being a lawyer. See how easy it
is to find out if there is a bit of commonsense. I am registered as a
volunteer and also in the business directory. If you really cared you could
have easily found out. i suppose that is what these things are there for in
the first place. now inspite of being a techie, though i should not dare to
contest a lawyer, i will try in good spirit.
My brother, you are intentionally misquoting me and i can understand. Asking
for help and knowing the credentials of people becoming a part of a sincere
effort is nothing bad; especially when the product has been approved at
savannah as a project. Now, asking for help for a project registered at
savannah does not amount to recruitment dear SIR.
And believe me, i have had a good response. There are people who are willing
to join me in the spirit of free software and GNU.
In your entire mail you have mentioned my "Trying to Recruit" people a total
of four times. I can again understand. I think once was enough.
[REPETITION OF ABOVE] techies can comptete anyways ...
Now your entire mail is on assumption that i have not disclosed myself.
- Did you check the volunteers list ?
- did you see the business directory ?
You did not, but others did and they contacted me at my office and we are
meeting soon to discuss the software. The software is free and open to all.
>Thanks for being considerate. I expected worse from you. You will
>please refer back to the first line I quoted from your letter. You >were
>asking somebody for help to configure your 'linux' installation. And before
>helping *you*, that guy should convince you of his credentials. Is that how
>you seek help?
you are right. my response would have been more outright if i did not care
about the spirit of free software and openness to criticism. Brother, i am
still not contesting you but your opinion and the language used by you in
your first mail.
As far as knowing a bit about people is concerned, if i have asked people
about them, i have written back to them about me. AND I AM NOT RECRUITING
ANYBODY !! They are still helping !!
Now, like you , i repeat ... you i could know you, you could do it too.
Now, no matter what, using offending language is not justified even if you
disliked something. You could have advised me to improve and i would have
accepted gladly. But writing "haha" "hehe" and "without regards" is just
hilarious. (ref: your mail that triggered it all).
i will try and end it all by being apologetic about offending you in what
ever manner.
Now, lets put an end to it.
WITH REGARDS to MTP and all others,
tarun gaur
_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
Hi Mr. MTP,
I was expecting this reply. Especially you being a lawyer. See how easy it
is to find out if there is a bit of commonsense. I am registered as a
volunteer and also in the business directory. If you really cared you could
have easily found out. i suppose that is what these things are there for in
the first place. now inspite of being a techie, though i should not dare to
contest a lawyer, i will try in good spirit.
My brother, you are intentionally misquoting me and i can understand. Asking
for help and knowing the credentials of people becoming a part of a sincere
effort is nothing bad; especially when the product has been approved at
savannah as a project. Now, asking for help for a project registered at
savannah does not amount to recruitment dear SIR.
And believe me, i have had a good response. There are people who are willing
to join me in the spirit of free software and GNU.
In your entire mail you have mentioned my "Trying to Recruit" people a total
of four times. I can again understand. I think once was enough.
[REPETITION OF ABOVE] techies can comptete anyways ...
Now your entire mail is on assumption that i have not disclosed myself.
- Did you check the volunteers list ?
- did you see the business directory ?
You did not, but others did and they contacted me at my office and we are
meeting soon to discuss the software. The software is free and open to all.
>Thanks for being considerate. I expected worse from you. You will
>please refer back to the first line I quoted from your letter. You >were
>asking somebody for help to configure your 'linux' installation. And before
>helping *you*, that guy should convince you of his credentials. Is that how
>you seek help?
you are right. my response would have been more outright if i did not care
about the spirit of free software and openness to criticism. Brother, i am
still not contesting you but your opinion and the language used by you in
your first mail.
As far as knowing a bit about people is concerned, if i have asked people
about them, i have written back to them about me. AND I AM NOT RECRUITING
ANYBODY !! They are still helping !!
Now, like you , i repeat ... you i could know you, you could do it too.
Now, no matter what, using offending language is not justified even if you
disliked something. You could have advised me to improve and i would have
accepted gladly. But writing "haha" "hehe" and "without regards" is just
hilarious. (ref: your mail that triggered it all).
i will try and end it all by being apologetic about offending you in what
ever manner.
Now, lets put an end to it.
WITH REGARDS to MTP and all others,
tarun gaur
_________________________________________________________________
MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE*
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus
This is an RFC 1153 digest.
(1 message)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message-Id: <200212021610.41960.stefan.meretz(a)hbv.org>
From: Stefan Meretz <stefan.meretz(a)hbv.org>
Sender: owner-list-en(a)oekonux.org
To: list-en(a)oekonux.org
Subject: [ox-en] Fwd: FSF's Position on Proposed W3 Consortium "Royalty-Free" Patent Policy
Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 16:10:41 +0100
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Subject: FSF's Position on Proposed W3 Consortium "Royalty-Free" Patent
Policy
Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2002 15:34:26 +0100
From: "Georg C. F. Greve" <greve(a)fsfeurope.org>
To: discussion(a)fsfeurope.org
Cc: announce(a)fsfeurope.org
Hi all,
in case you haven't read (and done) this already, please take a look
at the patent policy proposed by the W3C consortium and make sure you
protest that draft.
Otherwise we risk seeing an increasing amount of W3C standards that
cannot be implemented as Free Software.
Regards,
Georg Greve
FSF Europe, President
[ http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/w3c-patent.html ]
FSF's Position on Proposed W3 Consortium "Royalty-Free" Patent Policy
25 November 2002
The Free Software Foundation, represented by its General Counsel,
Professor Eben Moglen of Columbia University Law School, participated
in the W3 Consortium Patent Policy Working Group from November 2001
through the current Last Call draft. The Foundation regards the
current Last Call draft, which proposes the adoption of a
"royalty-free" or "RF" patent policy, as a significant step in the
direction of protecting the World Wide Web from patent-encumbered
standards. But the proposed policy is not an adequate final outcome
from the Foundation's point of view.
The proposed policy permits W3C members participating in W3 technical
working groups to commit their patent claims "royalty-free" for use by
implementers of the standard, but with "field of use" restrictions
that would be incompatible with section 7 of the GNU General Public
License. Such "field of use" restrictions, in other words, would
prevent implementation of W3C standards as Free Software.
Section 7 of the GNU GPL is intended to prevent the distribution of
software which appears to be Free (because it is released under a
copyright license guaranteeing the freedoms to use, copy, modify, and
redistribute) but which cannot, in fact, be modified and redistributed
because of patent license restrictions that limit the use of patent
claims practiced by the software to a particular purpose. Though other
Free Software licenses may not happen to contain provisions equivalent
to GPL's Section 7, this does not imply that programs released under
those licenses will be Free Software if the patent claims contributed
"royalty-free" to the standard those programs implement are limited to
a particular field of use.
As an example, W3 members may contribute patent claims to a standard
describing the behavior of web servers providing particular
functionality. A Free Software program implementing that standard
would be available for others to copy from, in order to add
functionality to browsers, or non-interactive web clients. But if, as
the present proposed policy permits, the patent-holder has licensed
the practicing of its patent claims "royalty-free" only "in order to
implement the standard", reuse of the relevant code in these latter
environments would still raise possible patent infringement problems.
For this reason, the proposed policy does not actually protect the
rights of the Free Software community to full participation in the
implementation and extension of web standards. The goal of our
participation in the policy making process at W3C has not been
achieved. The Foundation urges all those who care about the right of
Free Software developers to implement all future web standards to send
comments to the W3C urging that the policy be amended to prohibit the
imposition of "field of use" restrictions on patent claims contributed
to W3C standards. The address to which such comments should be emailed
is <www-patentpolicy-comment(a)w3.org>. The deadline for receipt of
comments is Tuesday 31 December 2002.
--
Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)fsfeurope.org>
Free Software Foundation Europe (http://fsfeurope.org)
GNU Business Network (http://mailman.gnubiz.org)
Brave GNU World (http://brave-gnu-world.org)
-------------------------------------------------------
--
Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft ver.di
Internetredaktion
Potsdamer Platz 10, 10785 Berlin
--
mailto:stefan.meretz@verdi.de
maintaining: http://www.verdi.de
private stuff: http://www.meretz.de
--
_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/
------------------------------
End of this Digest
******************
--
Raju Mathur raju(a)kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/
It is the mind that moves
cDate: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 17:26:11 +0530
>From: Mahesh T Pai <paivakil(a)vsnl.net>
>CC: fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in
>Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] Invitation to become a FSF Member ...
>
>Tarun Gaur wrote:
> > I operate out of these three places.
>
>(See below)
>
> > Can you give me any URL on any website where i could read about your
> > work.
>
>What about giving details about your firm? Your qualifications?
>Software you have already developed?
>
> > i am working on some enterprise software where you could help me
> > configure linux for the specific purposes.
>
>Kids play.
>
>You, operating a company from three locations, better hire a plus two
>kid from a LUG in the locality for that.
>
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8.
> > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>Nice. Operating from three places, and not even an own e-mail. Forget
>about a URI.
>
>Hoo!! boy!!!
>
>Without regards,
>Mahesh T Pai.
Dear Mr. M T P,
It is really disgusting to have people like you on this mailing list. Be
very sure that i have no intentions of being a part of an intellectual
mailing list that has members like you trying to insult others. I come here
to learn and contirbute. As far as emails are concerned, i own more personal
emails than the money in your bank accounts.
---------------------------------------------------------
I would please request others not to tolerate these kind of mails towards
anyone. It could be you next time. I dont know what has offended Mr. MTP ?
These kind of people are not worth an intellectual forum, no matter how
intelligent they are.
Mr. MTP, it is guyz like you who discourage people like me to disclose their
professional emails. be very sure some good people have and will get my
contact addresses. If you had a bit of commonsense you could have found out
on your own, forget writing linux software. You call it a kids play; brother
i do serious work and want serious help. And i have a habit of keeping away
from brilliant and boasting people (though they are not) who dont have basic
manners on how to be a part of an intellectual forum.
You have been disgusting in your response.
Is this forum created to insult people ? Can people like MTP promote an
ideology. I think they can promote dislike and hatred.
All my friends, i leave you with this thought,
Regards to all,
tarun gaur
_________________________________________________________________
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