Fsf-friends December 2003

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89 discussions

Question in Indian parliament
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 13 Dec '03

13 Dec '03

Below is the text of a question raised in the Indian parliament: Government of India * Ministry of Communications and Information Technology * Departemnt of Information Technology * Rajya Sabha unstarred question No 976 * To be answered on 11-12-2003 Promotion of Free/Libre and Open Source Software Will the Minister of Comunications & Information Technology be pleased to state:- (a) what steps have been taken since the announcement of the Linux India Initiative by Government on the issue of promoting free/libre and open source software within the country; (b) the level of usage of FLOSS products in Government and semi-Government organisations; and (c) whether the research benefits of publicly-funded computing institutions would be made sharable to all, by placing the same under the General Public Licence (GPL) or similar licences that do not restrict sharing of knowledge due to copyright restrictions? ANSWER Minister of State for Communications and Information Technology (SU Thirunavukkarasar) (a): Two more consultative meetings have been held since then for in-depth discussion on projects and policy positions to be taken -- one with the Government and associated agencies and another with NGOs/Civil Society. Various related initiatives, as planned, under Linux India Initiative exercise are also being pursued. (b): They are growing. (c): Research benefits of publicly funded computing institutions are being shared wherever appropriate. For instance, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) had added components relating to a number of Indian languages for Linux available under General Public Licence (GPL) in September, 2003. Similarly, open office solutions have been provided for Indian languages under GPL developed by C-DAC, CollabCAD software developed by National Informatics Centre (NIC) package has also been put in a limited sharing mode within certain agencies of Government. C-DAC has also put its Indian fonts in public domain. Wherever appropriate, software developed under public funded efforts are being shared under GPL or similar licenses that do not restrict the sharing of knowledge due to copyright restrictions **** Forwarded through: -- Frederick Noronha : http://www.fredericknoronha.net Ph 0091.832.2409490 Freelance Journalist : http://www.bytesforall.org Ph 0091.832.2409783 http://fredericknoronha.blogware.com Cell 0 9822 122436

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RE: [Fsf-friends] Looking for an alternative Knowledge Base Softw are....
by Senthil_OR＠Dell.com 12 Dec '03

12 Dec '03

> -----Original Message----- > I'm looking for 'Free' (as in Freedom) alternatives. Tried > to find something > on Freshmeat, but no joy. Anyone knows what something like > this would cost to > make and where to post such a request? > > Prefereably it should work on PHP/MySQL. > A Wiki software would serve the Best Knowledge Base tool. All your requirements are present therein. At sf.net you may find a variety of wikis suitable to your needs,taste and dressings ;) Senthil .O. ..O OOO

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CBSE syllabus
by Mahesh T. Pai 12 Dec '03

12 Dec '03

Hi All!! Some of you had put in some efforts to get the CBSE to include free software in their syllabus. Will you please be kind enough to post me (on or off list) details of that?? Even contacts of people who put in the efforts / pointers to list archives will help. I remember that people from the Delhi LUG had done something, But cannot exactly remember it. We need to do something about -- http://www.cbse.nic.in/curric~1/syllabus_sample.htm -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://in.geocities.com/paivakil +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+

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Need help on how to respond to insecure CEOs
by Ramanraj K 12 Dec '03

12 Dec '03

Rishi Gangoly wrote: >What if the competition uses my code and shuts my company down? >How does one respond to the fear? >The reason I'm having difficulty is because I'm not sure about this either. The concept of sharing is ubiquitous in free software - in the kernel itself through time sharing of processor and other resources, in the distribution through the free licence, and in all of us through the free software philosophy. Sharing is innate in society, and we can easily adapt to this environment. But I do not know if anyone could guarantee that it will not shut down a company that is not resourceful. Most users of free software are intelligent, and they would be able to identify you as the author of your code, and one could reasonably expect them to seek your assistance when appropriate. The legal and medical professions have been living for long, comfortably in such an environment. Many drug companies market paracetamol using different brand names, and it does take one to other areas like brand building and marketing in the ultimate analysis. But really, we are in the transition period from the Industrial Age to the Information Age, that should hopefully lead us to the Space Age [no-war, total peace and prosperity, with ample resources for adventuring into inter-galactical space missions], and there are tons and tons of things waiting to be done. There are enough problems confronting mankind at present. To the best of my knowledge, there is not even a program that prints [to a printer] a html page with css as required by the w3c specification. If a company solves a problem, let us all feel happy about it, even rejoice together, and identify the next problem to tackle with vigour and move on. We could solve the AI problem. We could port all the laws - natural and man made to computers. Only with free software, we can even attempt to work without duplication, and this in itself should take us places. I think the realisation of this strength and truth behind free software is the best antidote for the fear.

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Re: Free Software CD's (Clean Distributions) and learning to reason
by Ramanraj K 12 Dec '03

12 Dec '03

Mahesh T. Pai wrote: > >Users can get source packages in both RPM and Debian's dpkg system. Necessity is the mother of invention, and rpm and dpkg do have their use. Many users cannot compile or never have to bother with sources, and it suits such needs well. But today, with better hardware and software, compilation can be done reliably and quickly. Compiling directly from the sources may be the most preferred method, and if this fails or is not possible, others could be opted. SRPMs give the sources, but then, can we not more directly distribute and use *tar or *bz2 released by major free software project teams?

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Cerberus Helpdesk Public License: Version 1.0
by Rishi Gangoly 12 Dec '03

12 Dec '03

Hi Would this software be considered "non-free"? http://cerberusweb.com/license.php I use this application in our office as a helpdesk / bugtracker in our office. Does anyone know of a 'free' equivalent? I don't mind paying for it, as long as it is free as in freedom. I tried PHP Projekt, but it wasn't as feature rich. Regards Rishi -- Things will be bright in P.M. A cop will shine a light in your face.

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Freedom in Cyberspace
by Ramanraj K 11 Dec '03

11 Dec '03

Living in Cyberspace, I am ashamed to say, I never knew about the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace by John Perry Barlow, until a friend wrote about it to me today. Please do visit: http://www.eff.org/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/barlow_0296.declaration http://www.eff.org/~barlow/library.html http://www.eff.org

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OpenSource TelephonyConference (fwd)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 11 Dec '03

11 Dec '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Ann: 1st International Conference "Open Source-Telephony" Dear members of the Linux-User-Group we here with proudly announce the first "Free Software / Open Source-Telephony-Summit" which will be held from January 16 - 20, 2004 in Geilenkirchen, Germany. The summit is hosted by GUUG (German Unix User Group) with the kind support of Open Source Centrum Europa e.V. as well as CSB-SYSTEM AG. After a three-day developer workshop, the project will be presented to user public during a conference day (Jan. 19) and a tutorial day (Jan. 20). For more details please point your browser at: http://www.guug.de/veranstaltungen/telephony-summit-2004/ We kindly endorse the distribution of this announcement among your members and potential summit visitors. Kind regards, OSCE - Open Source Centrum Europa e.V. European Association for the Advancement of the Use of Open Source Base Technologies Circus 16 D-18581 Putbus auf Rügen Germany Phone: +49 2451 625-444 Fax: +49 2451 625-445 E-Mail: baeumer(a)osce.de

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hi fsf-india
by fiju 10 Dec '03

10 Dec '03

hi fsf-friends, i new to fsf-friends regards sylvester

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U.K. gov't considers Sun in open source software push
by Soundara Rajan N.S 09 Dec '03

09 Dec '03

U.K. gov't considers Sun in open source software push Government begins trials to evaluate costs and usability of Sun's JDS and JES software By Scarlet Pruitt, IDG News Service December 08, 2003 LONDON -- The U.K. government has signed a five-year agreement with Sun Microsystems Inc. to potentially offer the company's new Java Desktop System (JDS) and Java Enterprise System (JES) software to public sector agencies as part of an overall open source push. The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) purchasing authority said Monday that it will soon begin trials of the software to evaluate costs and usability in the hopes of saving money on hardware and software upgrades. No definitive agreement has yet been made to purchase and deploy the software, however, as the OGC said that it is evaluating all of its options before making a final decision. The government has already been performing similar trials with IBM Corp.'s open source server software, according to OGC spokesman Martin Day, and is particularly interested in an open source alternative for the desktop. Read more at http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=4D03D1:1F429AC +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Posted by N.S. Soundara Rajan, Mysore, India Freelance IT journalist Columnist "Deccan Herald" Spoken English Teacher Knowledge networker ...connecting people to people and people to knowledge

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Fsf-friends December 2003