Original Message -----
From: "IT@School" <itschool(a)asianetindia.com>
To: <manjushmenon(a)hotmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, October 05, 2002 5:08 PM
Subject: Reply
> Mr.Manjush G. Menon
> We are not giving to depend totally on Ms. Products. Rather MS
> Office is taught along with open office and Windows along with Linux
> from this year. Arranging the resource persons for training an open
> software, making available the software, the maintenance of a help desk
> etc. are logistical issues which could not be immediately undertaken.
> We plan switch out to open software within three years.
> Executive Director
>
---- Original Message -----
From: Manjush G. Menon
To: itschool(a)asianetindia.com
Sent: Friday, October 04, 2002 5:46 PM
Subject: Respected sir,
From
Manjush G. Menon,
Sr.Programmer,
Sofker Solutions Pvt Ltd,
Kochi-18.
To
The Executive Director,
'IT @ SCHOOL' Project,
SCERT Buildings,
Poojapura,
Thiruvananthapuram-12.
Respected sir,
SUB: In protest against the inclusion of products from multinational companies
in the syllabus of 'IT @ SCHOOL'
It's a very dissappointing fact that when the whole world is moving towards
Free software, we at kerala are going behind a major MNC - Microsoft. I hereby register
my protest in such an act from 'IT @ SCHOOL' Project team.
Breaking of prototypes will definetly help us in finding economical and high quality
products for our future generation.
For students and programmers, the GNU Linux contains 'GNU Compiler Collections'
which includes C, C++, FORTRAN, PERL, TCL etc. Also, for DTP and other publishing purposes,
it includes GNU Office utilities like Abi-Word, gedit, and other worksheet utilities,
all these with a nominal cost of Rs 700-800/-. The software as it is, is free and
the cost is accounted towards the media (CD + Documentation) included.
By this letter, I urge you to take this matter seriously and suggest necessary modifications
in the action plan of 'IT @ SCHOOL' project.
Wishing you all the best and wishing all 'Students @ SCHOOL' a bright future,
Thanking you,
Yours faithfully
Manjush G. Menon.
______________________________________________________
Check out all the latest outrageous email attachments on the Outrageous Email Chart! - http://viral.lycos.co.uk
Thanks to George Lessard for posting this across. FN
---------- Forwarded message ----------
PERUVIAN EFFORT COULD BAN MICROSOFT ON GOV. COMPUTERS
Peruvian Congressman Edgar Villanueva is pushing legislation to obligate all
public institutions to convert exclusively to open-source software.
Open-source programs, embodied by the Linux operating system, have
underlying code available to anyone who wants to modify or customize it.
Such software, in unadorned form, can be downloaded from the Internet for
free. Villanueva hopes his measure triggers activity in Peru's software
industry by freeing programmers from the constraints of working with coding
controlled by a few large companies. Open-source could take the expense out
of software upgrades; which is important for a country like Peru that owes
about $30 million in overdue software license fees.
[SOURCE: San Jose Mercury, AUTHOR: Associated Press]
(http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/3531007.htm)
World Social Forum and FSF India.
http://www.gnu.org.in/fsfiwsf.html
Background
The World Social Forum, 2004 is being held at Mumbai, India, from
January 16th to 21st. Click here for more details about the event.
Free Software Foundation of India, as an organization committed to
promoting and propagating swatantra software in India is organizing
seminars on free software at the WSF. Details will be posted here soon.
The WSF, according to its charter, is
" ... an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic
debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of
experiences and inter-linking for effective action, by groups
and movements of civil society that are opposed to neo-
liberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any
form of imperialism, and are committed to building a society
centred on the human person".
We are seeking active participation from all people interested in
helping us. You can help us in the form of:-
1. Monetary Contributions - we need funds to cover the travel
expenses of volunteers for FSF - India at the WSF
2. Hardware loans - the FSF - India is planning to put up stalls
for demonstrating free software at the venue. We require
hardware for demonstrating capabilities of free software.
3. Volunteers - people to run the stall the FSF-India will be
putting up at the venue of WSF India; volunteers should be well
versed in the concepts and philosophy of free software and also
should be able to demonstrate software and applications to
visitors -- a thorough knowledge of the GNU history and
philosophy pages is required.
If you can help in any way, including, but not restricted to above,
please feel free to mail us at gnu at gnu dot org dot in.
--
Arun M <arun(a)gnu.org.in>
FSF India
This offer is from the editor of Linux For You. Would FSF-India be
interested? FN
On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, rahul wrote:
> From: rahul [mailto:rahul@efyindia.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 5:41 PM
> To: 'Frederick Noronha (FN)'
> Subject: RE: For Rahul (LFY)
>
>
> Hi Fred,...
>
> As for Free Software--we surely could provide a free stall booth to free
> software team. As soon as the forms are ready, will have those sent to
> you--with no payments involved....
This is a report from the Australian press.
V. Sasi Kumar
A shut Gates on open
source
James Riley
OCTOBER 23, 2003
MICROSOFT founder and
chairman Bill Gates has
slammed moves by
political parties in
Australia and elsewhere
to legislate the
adoption of open source
software.
In an interview with The
Australian at the
Microsoft Office System
launch in New York, Mr
Gates said any such
moves by government were
wrongheaded and would
result in a reduction in
public sector
productivity.
Mr Gates claimed the
open source system was
"inferior" and said it
represented a false
economy in relation to
lost opportunities to
improve productivity.
"Our position is that
organisations should
simply buy the best
software for their
situation," he said.
"Forcing people to use
software that is
inefficient? Do you want
your Government to be
efficient?
"Governments are very
information-driven. They
are not factories. It's
all just information,"
he said.
In the past 10 months,
politicians at various
levels in Australia,
Brazil, China, South
Korea and Japan have
suggested that
government procurement
procedures should
mandate at least the
consideration of open
source alternatives to
reduce overall IT costs.
China, South Korea and
Japan have outlined
tentative plans to
design their own open
source operating system
to compete with
Microsoft Windows and
applications to compete
with Microsoft Office as
a means of reducing IT
pressures on the public
purse.
"I think it's just
commonsense that people
won't choose to use
inferior software.
People want their tax
dollars to go as far as
possible, and in most
cases they will see more
value in the offerings
that we provide," Mr
Gates said.
The Australian
Government, particularly
the Australian Taxation
Office, Centrelink and
various health agencies
had invested heavily in
XML-based technologies
and processes.
Mr Gates said the
argument that its
software was too
expensive was simply
wrong. And despite
complaints from some
Third World governments
about Microsoft's global
pricing - where the
company's software
essentially carries the
same list price wherever
it is sold -- he
maintains the company
has been the primary
driver in pushing down
the cost of IT systems.
"Our business model is
entirely oriented toward
high volume, low price,"
Mr Gates said. "In any
IT project, our software
is going to be just 1 or
2 per cent of (the
project cost)."
Meanwhile, Mr Gates has
renewed Microsoft's
recent pledges to
radically improve its
security procedures in
conjunction with the
rest of the industry
following the
unprecedented levels of
virus and worm outbreaks
in recent months.
"This is a case where
the industry and
Microsoft need to do
better, (although) the
vast majority of our
customers have not been
affected by these
problems," Mr Gates
said.
"But we take
responsibility for the
fact that it was too
hard for people to know
whether they had their
firewalls up the right
way, and that it was too
hard for them to keep
their (security patch)
software up to date.
"If we can make those
(functions) incredibly
easy, then we'll bring
down the scale of these
incidents and the
frequency very
dramatically."
He said that improving
security on all
Microsoft functions had
been made a primary
focus of the company's
$US6 billion ($8.6
billion) research and
development budget.
An open letter to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer Letter
By newsdesk(a)theinquirer.net
The Letterman: Saturday 25 October 2003, 15:16
Messrs William Gates Jnr & Steven Ballmer
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond Washington,
USA
Dear Sirs
I see you have been active again in making interesting and to some degree highly amusing statements about Free/Libre Open Source Software and the many and varied people who make up its community. I in particular would like to thank Mr. Steven Ballmer for your entertaining exposee of Linux's deepest, darkest secret - that it can seriously worry the senior executive of a convicted predatory monopoly, without that ever having been the intention of its principal software designer and initial developer. I would also like to thank you for humming and hawing around the question of the release of source code to people who can use it, in the light of the new MVP source code entitlement program. Well, are they deserving members of the Windows development team or not? In relation to your comments, Steve Ballmer, on Linux's "road map", I will refrain from expounding on Linus Torvalds' comment on the cover of one of Bill Gates' books, showing him standing in the middle of an empty road. It's not nice to make jokes like that, is it, Your Billness? Road kill is no joke, even if some enterprising chef has written a book about it. No, I have something else on my mind, something much more worthy. I would like to challenge you to a software coding bake-out, a bet to see which methodology works, and which doesn't. You have made some progress with your NT source tree, anyone can see that - Windows 2k3 is a more serious product than Windows XP, and definitely a more realistic - and much more massive - product than Windows 95. Congratulations. You have also declared that Windows 95, Windows NT 3.x and NT 4.x are discontinued, end-of-line, unsupported products. And Windows 98 is shortly going to be in the same category, having already been discontinued. And Microsoft is attempting to roll the Win9x features into the NT line. XP is the nearest you have come to success. In the process, Windows users have enjoyed an interesting remote use of RPC and other features that might otherwise bug you. And in the process you have put back Longhorn's release date.
My challenge is this - release the entire range of discontinued, end-of-line and unsupported Operating Systems mentioned above (Win9x, NT 3.x and Win4.x) and their related utilities and Productivity Applications, as Open Source under the BSD/MIT license, since you have stated at sundry times and in diverse manners that that license is one you can live with. You are of course expected to sanitise the source trees - we don't want trouble with absurd IP cases. Release the sanitised source trees, minus any bits and pieces of third-party encumbered code Microsoft may have in the Win9x and NT 3.x and 4.x source trees, to the ftp servers at the MIT, ibiblio, the U of Calif. at Berkeley, and the U of Cambridge, UK, with prominent notices stating that they are released under the terms of the BSD/MIT licenses placed in slashdot.org, newsforge.com, computerworld.com, news.com.com, www.theinquirer.net and www.theregister.co.uk and other industry news outlets.
My bet is that in the time it takes Microsoft to come up with a half-way decent Windows product, the Open Source development process starting from an earlier, identical initial source tree without constraints will produce one better. The length of time is going to be the same. On one side you have the multi-billion dollar transnational corporation, on the other you have an amorphous world-wide community. One has a head start, but the code bases for this challenge are the same. The only catch - Microsoft is not allowed to use the source code produced by the open source effort until after it has rolled out Longhorn - thus preserving the independence of the challengers, who will not have access to the Longhorn source tree. After the challenge has finished and the bets have been tallied up, then it is a totally different story, because the BSD/MIT license doesn't prohibit incorporation within a closed-source code base, only the denial of attribution. But should Microsoft use the independent effort's code during such a challenge, it would be an admission that the Free/Libre Open Source community is right, and must be met with an appropriate forfeit - the sanitising and opening of the Longhorn source tree. I propose in the interim that the challenge in the interim be named something other than Windows or Office - precisely what will have to be decided upon later.
So, there you have it. Are either of you betting men, able to face a challenge?
Yours Sincerely
Wesley Parish
(wes.parish(a)paradise.net.nz)
Source: http://www.theInquirer.net/?article=12331
Microsoft selling anti-Linux speech on CD
Volish partners to pay for brainwash?
By Fernando Cassia: Wednesday 22 October 2003, 13:30
"Public relations wizards concoct and spin the news, organize phony 'grass-roots' front groups, and conspire with lobbyists".
"Toxic Sludge is Good for You: lies, damn lies, and the Public Relations Industry".
IT IS NOT news that Microsoft would like to see the Linux airship go down in flames like the Hindenburg. In June 2001, the PR wizards at the Vole's Marketing Department created a document titled 'Partner Guide: Competing with Linux'. It was a training course for Microsoft partners who were obviously getting increasing competition from Linux.
That document was dissected and debunked at the time. But now some of our readers whispered to us that Microsoft is selling an updated -we guess- version of this marketing weapon of mass destruction, in the form of a CD-ROM disc to their "Business Partners" which is linked from the web page dedicated to the company's sales and marketing efforts.....
Read more at http://www.theInquirer.net/?article=12276
--- "Mahesh T. Pai" <paivakil(a)vsnl.net> wrote:
>
> I recall that it used to ISO 8859 or some such.
Yes the HTML says "charset=iso-8859-1", but they are using something else
cheers
Biju
________________________________________________________________________
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Hi all,
Can somebody tell me is it possible to view
http://www.madhyamamonline.com/ in GNU/Linux
If so how?
I tried installing
http://www.madhyamamonline.com/font.zip
Their FAQ tell it is not possible to view in netscape.
If I know the "char-set encoding" used
I can http://www.madhyamamonline.com/
my mozilla extension to do auto switching
http://downloads.us-east3.mozdev.org/quicktools/AutoCharacterCoding.xpi
--- nasir nasir <kollathodi(a)yahoo_com> wrote:
hi biju,
Sorry if I am wrong to contact you for this.
But I came across your name while googling for a
malayalam font
issue.(http://gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2003-October/001214.html).
I was unable to view malayalam fonts in my GNU/Linux
and thanx to your hack, its working now. But I still
have a problem, even though I am able to view most of
the sites like www.manoramaonline.com, I am unable to
get www.madhyamamonline.com with this. I think they
use different character set. I have downloaded and
installed the font also. Still not working. Could you
please check and suggest me what to do ? I am not a
web designer and not familiar with these language
settings and all. So plesae ignore this mail if its
something trivial. Once again thanx for your great
work.
Regards,
Nasirudheen
________________________________________________________________________
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Messenger http://mail.messenger.yahoo.co.uk
Dear Countrymen,
There is perhaps no other nation that remembers and celebrates freedom
as much as we do. Diwali reminds us about the the end of the cruel
demon, who finally wished that we rejoice his gory conquest and the
triumph of freedom, with sweets and festivities. Free software is yet
another reason we have to celebrate, not once a year but every moment
of consciousness. It heralds in an era when we can find freedom from
the modern day demons of corruption, concoction, commission,
collection, concession, capitation, congestion, cunningmen,
chickenmen, and cynicalmen. We could call all these together as c10n.
This is c10n - version 1.0, updates are welcome!
Regards,
K. Ramanraj.
