Fsf-friends May 2003

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

29 participants
60 discussions

To open software within three years
by Manjush G.Menon 26 Sep '05

26 Sep '05

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

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PERUVIAN EFFORT COULD BAN MICROSOFT ON GOV. COMPUTERS (fwd)
by Frederick Noronha 16 Sep '04

16 Sep '04

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)

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Re: Linux users stats for India
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 30 May '03

30 May '03

Would anyone have suggestions for my journalist colleague? FN On Fri, 30 May 2003, Keya Acharya wrote: > Hi Fred, > I'm doing a story for Panos on the usage of opensource and proprietory software, and was wanting to know what percentage of computer-users in India use Linux right now. Safe to say 2% ? Any numbers you can give me ? > Thanks a lot, Keya > Ms. Keya Acharya > Journalist > B 122 Century Park > 48 Richmond Road > Bangalore 560 035 > India. > > Ph: +91 80 5594597 > Fax: +91 80 559 9745 > email: keyaa(a)vsnl.com > -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) | http://www.fredericknoronha.net Freelance Journalist | http://www.bytesforall.org http://goalinks.pitas.com | http://joingoanet.shorturl.com http://linuxinindia.pitas.com | http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks ------------------------------------------------------------------------- T: 0091.832.2409490 or 2409783 M: 0 9822 122436 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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INTERVIEW: Free software carnival... LatinAm FLOSS
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 30 May '03

30 May '03

FREE SOFTWARE CARNIVAL: Latin America takes to FLOSS in a big way... Latin America seems like a world away. But Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) there is growing much like in South Asia, and arguably, better. Recently, a study of FLOSS in that part of the word pointed to the contribution of GNOME (started in 1997 by Mexican devloper Miguel de Icaza), Brazil's Sorceforge-like Codigolivre.org.br portal site, the simple UTUTO distro from Argentina, and the widely-popular PHP-Nuke content management system from Francisco Burzi of Venezuela. This distant continent has also challenged the role of proprietorial software and Microsoft (as done by Peru), and come up with interesting university-based software solutions (see www.univates.br) from Brazil. For instance, the Brazilian UNIVATES says it has saved more than R$500,000 (about US$ 130,000) by *not* acquiring copies of proprietary software for servers and desktops. It saves R$200,000 (US$70,000) each year on software upgrades and maintenance. This is enough to pay the salaries of the development group. Meaning, Univates can effectively produce technology for its own use (and which others can also make use of) at virtually no cost! To understand the larger canvas of the Free Software scene in Latin America, FREDERICK NORONHA <fred at bytesforall.org> spoke to Cesar Brod (39). Brod <cesar at brod.com.br> is vice-president of the Brazilian free software cooperative SOLIS (Cooperativa de Solucoes Livres). More importantly, he coordinated the Latin American leg of a recent Finland-conducted study on the significance of Free/Libre and Open Source Software for the developing countries. After studying Physics at the University of Sao Paulo and the Federal University of Rio Grande de Sul, he dropped out of college to enter the exciting world of software at a young age. "I abandoned university because I was travelling too much," he recalls. Getting involved with computers at the age of 20, he started work with multinationals, and shifted from being a hardware analyst to being a software programmer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- To start with Cesar, could you give us an overview of what's happening on the Free Software front in Latin America? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think almost every country (in Latin America) offers a very good story on Free Software. They have very good projects, but the only thing that is actually missing is communication -- people talking with each other about what exactly they have. For instance, you have in Peru, a very good start-up project, which is an ERP for rural agriculture and the environment. This is some kind of thing that is exactly needed all over Latin America, and probably for every Third World country. But the people just dont know about it. In the meantime, this software is very localised. So, the way it is, it won't serve other countries. But with very little effort, and probably very little financing too, it could be adapted to fit a lot of other geographies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Can you give us some other examples of interesting projects you came across in the course of your recent study on FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) in Latin America? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- One of the most interesting ones was the FreeMed Project from Cuba. Its a very simple project. It just aims to establish a network connection between doctors in several different hospitals, in order to share information and diagnostics about people and diseases. Another good one is the Free Education Network that was put together by the state of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. It's using Free Software to teach young people how to use computers, how to do their Math, and actually to use Free Software as a learning aid for all their first grade disciplines. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Which countries, in your view, are the best off in this field in Latin America? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- In terms of Free Software production, Brazil. In terms of software projects allying with the GNU project, it would be Mexico, with Chile getting very close. In terms of a user community, Uruguay has a lot to teach us. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Do you see some Latin American countries lagging behind? Why? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The truth is I don't know if they are really lacking, or they are simply not communicating enough. For instance, in the first version of my report, I have nothing about Chile. And when the people in Chile got to know what I was doing, they collaborated with a wonderful report, and they actually have a lot of things going on which I was not aware of. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- In terms of revving up the FLOSS engine for take off, what is it that is actually required on the ground in any Latin American country? Is it a good technical base, access to the Internet, the ability of keeping in touch with the outside world, or what? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thats a very good question. I think if you just give computers to the people and just some base training -- very little basic training -- you'll be amazed by the kind of progress that can be made. I'm basing my reply on one experiment done in Uruguay, by MIT professor Etienne Delacroix. He has his programming-and-art workshop, where he introduces people to computers in a very artistic way. For instance, he asks people how can you be sure that this motherboard will work once we know how a hair-drier works... and he compares the small streams of energy that goes into the mother-board with the electric plug of the hair-drier. And he asks people to identify where the big rivers of energy inside those small streams of the motherboard are located. By doing that, he makes people peep into a motherboard, and get it working... and just by doing that he gets people together with technology. People who even lacked access to that kind of technology before. And after a couple of weeks, those people would be programming in C language. So, what's missing is (the means) to re-connect people with technology. The Third World is a technology consumer; once you reconnect people with technology youll see a lot of good things happening. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- What are the three best things that Free Software can give to Latin America that proprietorial software cannot? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Technology independence, regional development. (After some thought) its knowledge-freedom actually.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- What would you see as the main roadblocks that stop FLOSS from getting ahead in Latin America? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Proprietorial software lobbying, meaning actually Microsoft lobbying. There's also fear of the perception of the unknown technology. You can't say the technology is unknown (but that's the perception created). And, still, the lack of support. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- What does Latin America have to give to the rest of the Free/Libre and Open Source Software world? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I think we have already given a lot of good examples (laughs). Just to give one, the Gnome platform. Then, there's the PHP Nuke project. And a lot of KDE-standard tools that are coming out from Chile and Brazil. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- While studying the contribution of Latin America, what did you learn? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- That we have been reinventing the wheel in so manycountries that we have been researching. We should communicate a lot more. Actually for a community that lives on the Internet, it's amazing that we still dont know enough about each other's projects. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Do tell us about UNIVATES and yourself? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- UNIVATES is a very small university centre in the south of Brazil, and I work for them as the technical consultant. Probably because they are so little and don't have any money, it's a community-owned university. That means we have to be very creative in terms of technology adoption. That's why, in 1999, I have started for them the Free Software Project that ended up in several products to be used inside the university. That became quite popular, initially all over Brazil and now, in the Mercosur (the Southern Cone countries). (See http://www.univates.br/freesoftware) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- And about yourself? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I got to know of Linux just by chance in 1993 -- the kernel and the GNU tools. At that time, I needed a Unix to run in my notebook as I was supporting a customer far from where I was living, and didn't want to travel that much. But a SCO/UNIX license was too expensive. Since then, I have been using Free Software and doing some consulting jobs on that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Has it made a difference to the way you work and think? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's interesting to think about that. I pretty much left the centre of the country, Sao Paulo and Rio, where you make the big bucks, and have moved back to the city where I was born. My life is a lot cheaper... and I have a lot more fun. I started using Free Software because I didn't want to travel; in the past year it took me to Finland and Sweden twice. (ENDS) -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) | http://www.fredericknoronha.net Freelance Journalist | http://www.bytesforall.org http://goalinks.pitas.com | http://joingoanet.shorturl.com http://linuxinindia.pitas.com | http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks ------------------------------------------------------------------------- T: 0091.832.2409490 or 2409783 M: 0 9822 122436 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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President of India - Think different
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 29 May '03

29 May '03

<http://presidentofindia.nic.in/S/html/speeches/others/may28_2003_2.htm> a quote Think different I would like to narrate an event that took place in Rashtrapati Bhavan a few months back when I met Bill Gates, the CEO of Microsoft. While walking in the Mughal garden, we were discussing the future challenges in Information Technology including the issues related to software security. I made a point that we look for open source codes so that we can easily introduce the users built security algorithms. Our discussions became difficult since our views were different. The most unfortunate thing is that India still seems to believe in proprietary solutions. Further spread of IT which is influencing the daily life of individuals would have a devastating effect on the lives of society due to any small shift in the business practice involving these proprietory solutions. It is precisely for these reasons open source software need to be built which would be cost effective for the entire society. In India, open source code software will have to come and stay in a big way for the benefit of our billion people. I2IT has to play a major role in this national mission.

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Take on Gates, Kalam tells Indian techies
by Raj Mathur 29 May '03

29 May '03

[Cross-posted] Take on Gates, Kalam tells Indian techies TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 2003 11:31:30 PM ] PUNE: A few months after a disagreement with Microsoft CEO Bill Gates on the issue of software security, President A P J Abdul Kalam on Wednesday called on Indian IT professionals to specialise in open source software rather than relying on proprietary solutions. Full story at: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=477… (URL may wrap) -- Raju -- Raj Mathur raju(a)kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5 0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F It is the mind that moves

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FSF India goes proprietary?
by H S Rai 29 May '03

29 May '03

Following mail is in circulation on various GLUGs/Lugs. Please do some image building excercise. -- H.S.Rai http://www.grex.org/~hsrai | Registered Linux User # 223684 http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=223684 ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Hi, Today I received a mail from FSF India list about a new logo for FSF India. Curious to see how this fine logo was produced using free software i checked it up using pdfinfo, here is the result [raj@swathi fsf]$ wget -q http://gnu.org.in/graphics/FSFIndia.pdf [raj@swathi fsf]$ pdfinfo FSFIndia.pdf Title: FSFIndia.pdf Creator: Adobe Illustrator 9.0 Producer: Adobe PDF library 4.800 CreationDate: Sat Apr 26 04:18:34 2003 Tagged: no Pages: 1 Encrypted: no Page size: 595.275 x 841.89 pts File size: 56828 bytes Optimized: no PDF version: 1.3 I was shocked and surprised at this blatant use of proprietary software by FSF India. Now cu rious to see if this is an aberration or a practice, I checked other posters from the site. [raj@swathi fsf]$ wget -q http://gnu.org.in/graphics/poster01.jpg [raj@swathi fsf]$ ./jhead -v poster01.jpg Exif header 5530 bytes long <snip> Software = "Adobe Photoshop 7.0?" DateTime = "2003:03:18 15:14:43?" <snip> nuff said, but insults to Stallman and FSF do not end here, The text in poster5, http://gnu.org.in/graphics/poster05.jpg asks all of us to use "Linux" that too in bold red colour. It is also a good exercise to check other pdfs in that page. I do not want to make any comments about the hypocrisy of FSF India, as facts speak for themselves. But one thing is sure, people responsible for this have no clue about the principals of Free Software or GNU project or are least bothered about all that. If there is some one in FSF india who care about the stuff written in the posters please bring out a public apology for doing exactly opposite of what you all have been preaching for long and redo all the graphics using free software. raj PS: The pages referred here are from http://gnu.org.in/graphics/. I know this is a bit off topic here, but the main FSF list do not tolerate any critisism of FSF India.

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LINK: Free Software news... from Brazil
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 29 May '03

29 May '03

UNIVATES, a university centre committed to Free Software development HIGHER education institutions aim at the advancement of human knowledge and the dissemination of such knowledge. Free software is completely aligned with this task. UNIVATES, a university centre located in the city of Lajeado, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), has adopted Free Softwareas the basis for its intranet/Internet servers since 1997. BY END 1999, Univates started the development of SAGU (Portuguese acronym for Sistema Aberto de Gestao Unificada, or Open Unified Management System). SAGU went live in July 2000 and is now responsible for managing the academic and financial relationships between students and the varsity. Incidentally, SAGU is also the name of a delicious local dessert! EVEN BEFORE SAGU went live, Univates demonstrated its commitment to Free Software development by publishing the full source code of SAGU on the Internet, allowing the coders' community to see it evolving. It also provided technology-transfer workshops. UNIVATES has saved more than R$500,000 (about US$ 130,000) by *not* acquiring copies of proprietary software for servers and desktops. It saves R$200,000 (US$70,000) each year on software upgrades and maintenance. This is enough to pay the salaries of the development group. Meaning, Univates can effectively produce technology for its own use (and which others can also make use of) at virtually no cost! THE UNIVATES IT Group is now recognised as the most important centre of excellence in Free Software development in Brazil. SOME OF ITS projects: o MIOLO, a set of PHP-based object-oriented database connectors, handlers and presentation features that allow fast system development even for the most complex needs It handles transaction and communication between modules written using MIOLO, thus making life easier for a programmer who wants to build a system with several interdependent modules. http://miolo.codigolivre.org.br o EasyPHP: a no-database, hassle-free tool for creating simple web presence with an easy-to-use administrative tool. o QUALITAS: document control for quality management systems o PILA, bookstore system with front-end point-of-sales, stock, catalog and financial sales reports. o FRED (content management system), a full-featured system for creating services portals for MIOLO-based applns. o IRRATIONAL TULIP: A group of classes and tools for MIOLO application development, such as dia2sql (converts database diagrams into SQL database creates and inserts), MIOLO-IDE (an IDE for developing GTK applications using MIOLO). o CODIGOLIVRE2: Hosting and tools for cooperatively developed Free Software.A MIOLO version of the existing http://codigolivre.org.br (a SourceForge Brazilian fork maintained by UNIVATES). o SCOTTY, support calls and customer relationship tracking, management and statics system. GNUTECA http://gnuteca.codigolivre.org.br GNUTECA is a library automation and catalog-collaboration system. It includes a circulation control system and, when used in an educational institution, it integrates with SAGU (though it also works as a standalone). It is intended to go a step further from the existing (gratis, but not Free Software) UNESCO CDS/ISIS program, and it does provide an easy migration path from it. GNUTECA adheres to all widely-used library standards. It now handles over 80,000 library items offered to over 6,000 students and teachers. GNUDATA http://gnudata.codigolivre.org.br This started as the database support for their regional database which provides demographic and economic information of 40 cities in the Taquari River Valley. It is a database framework for implementing nearly every kind of database in which you need to get comparative/statistical information (demographics, etc). It has a 'query auto-pilot' which allows non-technical users to drill down the database searching for all kinds of stored data. It does percentages and other calculations which the user may want to include in queries. The development version also provides graphics. SAGU - Free Software for academic administration http://sagu.codigolivre.org.br It automates the relationship between students and their educational institution, from the moment a student enrols for an entrance exam until she graduates. SAGU subsystems try to mimic the functions of the university. So it has modules that handle the entrance exam (optical reading of the student's answers, classification, classroom assignment), the enrolment process (which courses the student may chose for a given term, pre-requisites), the academic data (grades, academic history), financial and accounting data (payments, credits, scholarships, interface with the bank and other accounting/ERP systems) and reporting tools. Today, SAGU is being rewritten using Object Orientation techniques... (MIOLO is also the Portuguese word for the inner part of the bread, as well as a brand of a very fine wine produced in southern Brazil!) AGATA REPORT http://agata.codigolivre.org.br Agata Report is a report generator with an EIS tool (graph generation) written in PHP-GTK that allows you to edit and get SQL results from several databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle, SyBase, MS-SQL, FrontBase, Informix, and InterBase). It connects to a database, lists its tables and fields, and allows you to link among tables... The result is exported to a PostScript, text file or spreadsheets. It's interface has English, Portuguese, Italian, French, German and Swedish support.... More details from Cesar Brod <cesar at brod.com.br> www.univates.br or sagu at univates.br -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) | http://www.fredericknoronha.net Freelance Journalist | http://www.bytesforall.org http://goalinks.pitas.com | http://joingoanet.shorturl.com http://linuxinindia.pitas.com | http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks ------------------------------------------------------------------------- T: 0091.832.2409490 or 2409783 M: 0 9822 122436 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Updated Graphics
by Kanti Jadia 29 May '03

29 May '03

The FSF-India's proposed logo has been updated. http://www.gnu.org.in/graphics/ Everybody is requested to submit their comments. regards Kanti

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Re: [LIG] FSF India goes proprietary
by Raj Mathur 29 May '03

29 May '03

[Misposted to fsf-friends, resending] >>>>> "Raj" == s raj <Raj> writes: Raj> Hi, Today I received a mail from FSF India list about a new Raj> logo for FSF India. Curious to see how this fine logo was Raj> produced using free software i checked it up using pdfinfo, Raj> here is the result Raj> [stuff about Adobe tools being used to produce pdf anf jpegs snipped] Actually none of those documents has bee produced by FSF, India or other. They are all contributed by individuals, on the invitation of FSF-India to make appropriate posters, logos, etc. I guess you could carry advocacy/fanaticism to the point of not accepting any document (which includes pdfs and graphics) that has been produced using proprietary tools, but it'd be a bit extreme IMO. Similarly, the Kandalaya logo was produced by a professional using Adobe Photoshop. I have no compunctions in putting it up on my web site, even though I myself wouldn't use Photoshop (and not just because I don't even know how to draw a circle in Gimp either!) Regards, -- Raju -- Raj Mathur raju(a)kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5 0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F It is the mind that moves ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: ObjectStore. If flattening out C++ or Java code to make your application fit in a relational database is painful, don't do it! Check out ObjectStore. Now part of Progress Software. http://www.objectstore.net/sourceforge _______________________________________________ Linux-india-general mailing list Linux-india-general(a)lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-india-general

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Fsf-friends May 2003