Fsf-friends July 2003

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

12 participants
23 discussions

Experiments in Zero G, now open source...
by Amol Hatwar 10 Jul '03

10 Jul '03

I recently came accross this text that talks about an anti-gravity craft at wired.com. Here's the link: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.08/pwr_antigravity.html Surprisingly you can make your own craft. It's rathr very simple. Here's the link: http://www.americanantigravity.com/ have fun, ah

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World Social Forum-4 ... and Free Software
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 09 Jul '03

09 Jul '03

WORLD SOCIAL FORUM-4 (IN MUMBAI, 2004) AND FREE SOFTWARE -------------------------------------------------------- JOIN OUR Latin American (and other) friends in an initiative to harness the power of Free Software for free speech and knowledge! Writes Martin Olivera <martin_olivera(a)yahoo.com.ar> from Argentina: "At first (this mailing list) was intended to organize the Hipatia (www.hipatia.info) participation in the WSF4 (World Social Forum 4). The main objective of Hipatia is the freedom of knowledge, leveraging free software as the key tool to do this. In this way, this list would like coordinate efforts to fulfill WSF4 software necessities (web, mail, communications, news, virtual spaces, anything...) using only free software, cooperating worldwide." WSF4 is to be held in the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) in January 2004. Do join this mailing list. It is open to everyone who could participate anyway for this: coordination, local (India-based) support, resources, free software selection/development/adaptation, content manmagement..." What possibilities we think of is restricted only by your imagination! FN List-Subscribe: http://listas.hipatia.info/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fsm2004 OR mailto: <fsm2004-request(a)hipatia.info?subject=subscribe> -- Frederick Noronha in India -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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Government Information Awareness
by Raj Shekhar 06 Jul '03

06 Jul '03

<http://opengov.media.mit.edu/gia.htm> I came across this site on slashdot. The concept is really nice. If this is scheme is implemented in India, we will have a nice database of sleaze. Read the details below. What is the Government Information Awareness Program? Government Information Awareness (GIA) is a research effort by the Computing Culture group of the MIT Media Lab. It aims to provide software and data to help citizens understand the complexities of their government. The premise of GIA is that individual citizens have the right to know details about government, while government has the power to know details about citizens. Our goal is develop a technology which empowers citizens to form a sort of intelligence agency; gathering, sorting, and acting on information they gather about the government. Only by employing such technologies can we hope to have a government "by the people, and for the people." The system presents itself to users as a Web site, but is actually a suite of information technologies that actively peruse data, accept contributions, and post alerts about government. The system will accommodate information of almost any type, allowing users to sort through volumes of information which would otherwise be unusable. More importantly, the system allows for people to submit any information, while retaining anonymity, but while also being identified as a consistent source. -- Regards, Raj Shekhar http://geocities.com/lunatech3007/

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Linus Interview...
by Amol Hatwar 06 Jul '03

06 Jul '03

Caught an interesting interview of Linus by Mercury News here: http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/6238207.htm Regards, ah

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DRAFT FAQ... for email users in Goa
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 06 Jul '03

06 Jul '03

RECENTLY, a shiftover of mail-servers in Goa (from Goatelecom to Sancharnet.in) caused quite a few glitches in e-mail access here. Below are some threads from the debate. We are trying to find solutions (many have been found), and seek your help in pointing us in the right direction. Please note that some of the suggestions below are tentative and not tested in all conditions. Hence, your suggestions on these, and pointing out of inaccuracies, would be more than welcome. Kindly send your responses to fred(a)bytesforall.org with subjectline reading EMAIL FAQ... FN ------------------------------------------------------------------------- DRAFT FAQ: FOR GNULinux EMAIL USERS IN GOA, INCLUDING THOSE ON SANCHARNET ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Compiled by FN for ILUG-Goa It is found that sancharnet does not accept webmail logging from konquerer, but from mozilla it works. I am using RH 7.2. Dialling through kppp script is also not smooth due to long time it takes for password authentication. Has anybody else in the list found the same problem? -- Bijon B Shaha <bbshaha(a)gmx.net> I had to enable the silent option in /etc/ppp/options to enable wvdial to connect. But this connect now takes ages at least 1.5 min from handshake tone to final connection. Is this a problwm with Sancharnet speeds? Or is it a problem with my machine? What's the best and fastest connect setting? I'm using wvdial.. no extra settings in the file. -- Ashely Delaney <delaneyashley(a)softhome.net> > > For me after the silent option I get the connection and it takes around > > 30 secs to connect. That's about as long as it takes for me also... This is almost 20-25 seconds slower then Windows based systems. I tried it out! I don't like my Linux box slower then something else :-( > In wvdial.conf, will Stupid Mode =1 be of use? Nope.. tried that. The stupid thing does just that. Starts ppp before username and password and hence disconnects almost immediately. BTW I must note that with the option passive it took 30 seconds, and with option 'silent' it took 1 min and the next time it disconnected. Any ideas??? -- Ashley Delaney <delaneyashley(a)softhome.net> Wvdial which used to work flawlessly for dialling to goatelecom has become unusable due to long authentication time required by Sanchanet. The program after starting desparelty ppp waits and waits and waits and eventually comes out to start redialling. Has anyone found a solution as many linux users use wvdial for automatic dialling? -Bijon B Shaha <bbshaha(a)gmx.net> I use wvdial and have to enable 'silent' option in /etc/ppp/options to make sancharnet dialing to work with wvdial. However after configuring using debian tool pppconfig and using pon and poff it worked in the first shot. Still there are problems while sending mails using sancharnet smtp. -- Rajesh Fowkar Use PAP authentication without dialup script or terminal. -- Derek Cordeiro <derek_cordeiro(a)gmx.net> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Does anybody know how to configure Mozilla mail to handover outgoing mail to exim? -- Mahesh T Pai Very simple. Just put your outgoing smtp server as localhost (or your machine hostname) Exim listens on the port 25 of your local machine as defined in your inetd.conf file. You don't need to edit it. Just a tip: If you use fetchmail to retrieve your email you can install one of the many available pop3 servers. UW i.e. university of washington pop3, imap is quite good. <derek_cordeiro(a)gmx.net> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wanna get your hotmail email in a linux email client? Use hotwayd proxy server http://hotwayd.sourceforge.net/ -- Derek Cordeiro <derek_cordeiro(a)gmx.net> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- There are problems while sending mails using sancharnet smtp. -- Rajesh Fowkar smra.sancharnet.in requires SMTP authorization. Old email clients do not support authorization. Change your email client. You may not be able to send email using an MTA such as sendmail, postfix, exim etc.. Use an email client directly or get the use of an alternative SMTP server(relayhost) -- Derek Cordeiro <derek_cordeiro(a)gmx.net> Strange -- I had no problems in setting up wvdial. It just worked with same options as for Goatelecom. Regarding the mail sending -- a line on CSI-Goa (Computer Society of India-Goa chapter) list helped. I got three helpful responses. Sancharnet requires authentication for sending mails. I set that option on Sylpheed and it is working. -- Anil Seth <anilseth(a)sancharnet.in> Thats good to hear. But does wvdial.conf have the option Stupid Mode = 1 enabled? Sylpheed supports SMTP auth. Not all email clients support the same. Older versions of kmail -- e.g. kmail on RHL7.2 Debian woody 3.0, Mandrake 8.1 -- do not support smtp auth. MTAs most probably will not support the same as they are full fledged SMTP servers and not any email client like Sylpheed. Sancharnet could, like many other servers, have allowed POP before SMTP authentication so that most users (using sendmail, postfix, old email clients) will be able to use the given SMTP server BTW users of old versions of ppp should use 'passive' instead of 'silent'. -- Derek Cordeiro <derek_cordeiro(a)gmx.net> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Debian vs Redhat: In Debian the wvdial package contains a file /etc/ppp/peers/wvdial-pipe whereas in RedHat Lnx the same does not exist. Is it that this file is not important?(Then why does it continue to exist even in Knoppix?) There is a utility called pppstatus in Debian Woody(and Knoppix). The same I downloaded and compiled on Mandrake, RedHat, But it fails to do the job (it provides a terminal interface graph). Has anyone tried it, Any answers? -- Derek Cordeiro I can add a lot to that since yesterday I made a mess of my dialup accounts. Redhat ppp dialer (rather the ifup-ppp script) also uses a file in the same directory. It is created with the names like ppp0, ppp1. It contains the command for connecting to the ISP using wvdial. (These files should actually be temporary and dynamic and should be cleaned up when the connection is closed. My problem may have been a side effect of abnormal terminations.) For the curious, I used a shortcut to make sancharnet correspond to ppp0. The idiot kept dialing goatelecom! I got rid of goatelecom entry in wvdial.conf. It then complained about no phone number. Oh, well. I learnt - short cuts are dangerous. Regarding the ppp status, from my experience with Modem Lights, I would guess that these programs actually use the Modem Lock file for the status. If the modem is using /dev/ttyS0 and the monitoring program is using /dev/modem, the status will not be shown. The file name will be something like /var/lock/LCK..ttyS0 -- Anil Seth <anilseth(a)sancharnet.in> These files i.e. ppp0, ppp1 to my knowledge only contain a command wvdial with different options. The file "wvdial-pipe" contains pppd options like "noipdefault" etc. That's the reason I want to know it's significance.(It does not contain the command wvdial) The RedHat Network control creates ppp0, ppp1,...only upto version 8.0. RHL 9.0 directly edits the /etc/wvdial.conf file. There are additional settings in /etc/sysconfig/network(network-scripts) folder-- Derek Cordeiro ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ILUG-Goa, a network with a difference: sharing software, knowledge and ideas ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Electronics makers rally around Linux
by Soundara Rajan N.S. 03 Jul '03

03 Jul '03

Electronics makers rally around Linux By John G. Spooner, CNET News.com 2/7/2003 URL: http://asia.cnet.com/newstech/systems/0,39001153,39138829,00.htm Several large consumer electronics companies are banding together to spread the usage of Linux in a range of new devices. Matsushita Electric, Sony, Hitachi, NEC, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung, Sharp and Toshiba on Tuesday announced the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum, or CELF, a consortium designed to adapt and advance the operating system for use in consumer electronics. Linux is widely used in large computers such as servers, but the eight companies wish to extend the operating system to other devices. While some companies, including MontaVista, have already created their own consumer electronics-oriented versions of Linux, the CELF wishes to spread out development work and take a more collaborative approach. CELF grew out of a Linux development alliance between Sony and Matsushita inked last December. At the time, the two companies agreed to collaborate on a new version of the open-source operating system for consumer electronics devices and said they would consider founding a forum to further those goals. The companies said their objective was to create a version of Linux that boots quickly and offers snappy performance for use in digital video recorders and other audiovisual devices. Digital video recorders capture TV programs and store them on a hard drive for later viewing. The CELF will cover the same basic objectives in a larger forum, with a steering committee made up of engineers from each of the eight companies, and will open up issues to the wider Linux community. Some of the CELF's initial goals will be to reduce start-up and shutdown times for the operating system, bolster its power management capabilities to help lengthen battery life in devices and reduce its memory requirements. The forum also will work to improve the real-time capabilities of Linux--in other words, the response times for devices that require precise timing, the consortium said in a statement. The forum will go about its work in a public manner, discussing ideas and then issuing requests and specifications for Linux developers to create software. The resulting software, once certified by the CELF, will be added to the consortium's source tree, a repository of Linux software. Individuals may join the CELF for free. Corporations wishing to join will pay fees ranging from US$4,000 to US$16,000, according to the forum's membership agreement posted on its Web site.

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Re: GNU/LinuxIndia... July 1, 2003
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 02 Jul '03

02 Jul '03

Ola Christiano! Thank you for your note. Will forward to a couple of programmer-based lists in India. Christiano is from Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil, and his note is self-explanatory. It would be really nice if we could link up more closely with the global network that is etching freedom into software! FN PS: Christiano, could you give us some tips on how we could get more people in India to look at the possibility of developing for Debian? On Wed, 2 Jul 2003, Christiano Anderson wrote: > Fred, > > Thanks for sending me the GNU/Linux India news. Please keep on sending > it. > > I think you can help me. Richard Stallman invited me to help on GNU > Directory[1] and I'm working to include new packages and organise all > the structure, category list, etc. > > I'm including new packages to the Directory and I it could be important > to include packages developed in India. > > Please ask developers to send me the URL of their projects. I will > check if the project is GPLed and if it's ok, I will put the reference > on GNU Directory list. > > If you have any question, please let me know. > > Regards, > > Christiano > > [1] http://www.gnu.org/directory -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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Release of GNOWSYS Version 0.4
by Nagarjuna G. 02 Jul '03

02 Jul '03

Release notes for GNOWSYS version 0.4. GNOWSYS: Gnowledge Networking and Organizing System. Useful for knowledge/content management, semantic web, building ontologies, building portal sites, link management etc. Learn more about it from http://www.gnowledge.org. In this version of GNOWSYS we have added a number of new modules. The core GNOWSYS engine of the earlier releases has been improved with better catalogue support. 1. Changes to GNOWSYS Core Semantic Engine: Amongst the main improvements to the core engine over GNOWSYS version 0.3 is that now the catalog support has been improved. All the Object Types, Objects, Association Types, and Associations entries are catalogued. Facet Types and Occurrence Types are yet to be fully supported by Catalog. This feature can be effectively used for large gnowledge bases, since ZOPE catalog increases the response time. In future releases Facet Types and Occurrence Types will also be catalogued. In GNOWSYS 0.4 the User Interface has also been changed. Amongst improvements to user interface. The layout of the index_html for an Object and an Object Types has been changed. We tried to get all the metadata of the objects visible. This may make the system a little slow, but useful for the users to know how to query for the most useful metadata of the objects. Users can modify all of this since we copy the entire template as dtml files in the instance. In association types now we have new associaton type called as rigid associations. By rigid association we mean: when an object is installed as an instance of an object type, which is defined as a role in a rigid association type, then the association will be automatically made. This works more like an RDBMS relation between two tables. Apart from these changes there are numerous other small changes and bug fixes. 2. New modules in GNOWSYS. In this release a number of new modules have been added, they are as follows. 1. Functional Representation (Execute) 2. Graphical Representation (Draw Maps) 3. Import Export (XML Data Exchange, TopicMaps (XTM)) 4. Publishing Module (Publish) Modules 2 and 4 may not work in non-UNIX operating systems without lot of tweaking. Most of this is due to the use of external programs like TeX and MetaPost. In future we will make this truly interoperable. 3. In future we will have: - authentication module (multi-user, role based with integration with the ObjectType Members), - work-flow (keeping track of objects and status), - RDF and OIL support for data exchange to make it ready for semantic web community. - XUL GUI for editing GNOWSYS sites effortlessly from Mozilla/Netscape and using a GTK/QT client. - UTF-8 support - skins or at least a style sheet - optimizing for speed - and improving all the above and continueing to fix bugs. Examples illustrating the use of GNOWSYS will be made and linked from the project website: http://www.gnowledge.org Happy gnowing! GNOWSYS TEAM Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education Nagarjuna -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ nagarjun at hbcse tifr res in. http://www.gnowledge.org/ I support Public Library of Science http://www.plos.org/

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GNU/LinuxInIndia (July 01, 2003)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 01 Jul '03

01 Jul '03

e88~~\ 888b | 888 | / 888 888 ,e, d888 |Y88b | 888 | L 888 888-~88e e88~\888 " /~~~8e 8888 __ | Y88b | 888 | I 888 888 888 d888 888 888 88b 8888 | | Y88b | 888 | N 888 888 888 8888 888 888 e88~-888 Y888 | | Y88b| Y88 | U 888 888 888 Y888 888 888 C888 888 "88__/ | Y888 "8__/ X 888 888 888 "88_/888 888 "88_-888 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Formerly LinuxInIndia * Compiled by Frederick Noronha * July 01,2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------- SAMBA HOWTO: Dileep M Kumar says he has "written a small samba howto". Check it out at http://kumarayil.net/samba.htm Don't forget: Comments welcome. SHARING KNOWLEDGE, THROUGH TINY TIPS: Your tech tips on how to sort out various issues are welcome on the GNU/LOST (Linux One Stanza Tips) network. Check out the howtos mailing list howtos(a)frodo.hserus.net or http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/howtos VOLUNTEER FOR HINDI-KDE: Tarun Kant <bobkant(a)yahoo.co.in> calls on volunteers to be part of the IndLinux-Hindi-KDE project and help in translating the K Desktop Environment to Hindi. Send Indlinux-hindi-kde mailing list submissions to indlinux-hindi-kde(a)lists.sourceforge.net To subscribe or unsubscribe, visit https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/indlinux-hindi-kde or send an email with subject or body saying 'help' to the address indlinux-hindi-kde-request(a)lists.sourceforge.net Contact the person managing the list via indlinux-hindi-kde-admin(a)lists.sourceforge.net BEGINNERS GUIDE TO CODING NETWORK DEVICE DRIVERS: Karthik <mnkarthik(a)yahoo.com> has a new site. Check out its GNU/Linux section at http://www.metlin.org/linux Says he: "I've also included some beginner's guide to coding Network Device Drivers there and soon plan on adding stuff on HCI in Linux." FREE SOFTWARE... TO THE WORLD FORUM: From distant Argentia, Diego Saravia <dsa(a)unsa.edu.ar> of the Hipatia network is keen to do something that would take Free Software to the World Social Forum, that is being organised in Mumbai in January 2004. Says he: "Perhaps we could setup an email list to work on the free software issue for the 4fsm/India. I could invite people involved in previous (World Social Fora) and the Free Software Forum-India could invite Indian enthusiasts." See www.hipatia.info or via email info(a)hipatia.info or visit the list http://listas.hipatia.info/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/coordinadores-hipatia DESILINUX.COM: "ttyl - Jonnas" recently announced the new *desilinux.com* bulletin-board. This, he says, "aims to foster discussion in technical, business and legal matters related to Linux. I am looking for a founding group that can bring their issues to the BB." His favorite topic currently is Linux on embedded devices. Other than this, he also would like to discuss "what is going to the climax show-down between MS & Linux when Linux hits the desktop market in a big way (I'd estimate somewhere in early 2005)". Says he: "To help build yet another comprehensive Linux community, visit http://www.desilinux.com " FLOSS GIVES INDIA A BOOST IN MANY MARKETS AND ENDEAVOURS: From banks and hospitals to software houses and prestigious technological institutions, the charm of free/libre and open-source software (FLOSS) is casting a spell in India that is pushing many here to venture into uncharted fields. Full Story http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6958 HELP FROM AFAR: A friend from Finland, Aschwin Van Der Woude <aschwin.van.der.woude(a)linux-aktivaattori.org> of the group working to kickstart and fuel ("aktivaattori") further interest in Free/Libre and Open Source Software is willing to volunteer to "download, burn and send" CDs to India, if these could be of help here... and if we can build a system for sharing the same. Any takers? FREEBSD OPTIONS: FreeBSD enthusiast and developer from Bangalore Joseph Koshy < a_joseph_koshy(a)yahoo.co.in> says, in response to a query from one youngster: "We don't have a central body that directs FreeBSD. It is more like a collection of peers, the only criteria for admission is (proven) competence on FreeBSD. There are a number of mailing lists that carry FreeBSD related technical traffic. Do check www.freebsd.org for more information. For example, press, publicity and the like are discussed on freebsd-advocacy. There is no 'certification' on FreeBSD that I'm aware of." Koshy is also the self-described "founder-manager-programmer-peon" of the Indic-Computing Project (http://indic-computing.sf.net) NOT FLOSS, BUT BASED ON IT: The South Asia IT list run by Irfan Khan from nearby Pakistan is an interesting source of news on how IT can help this sub-continent get a better life for its millions. It's not directly focussed on FLOSS, but runs on a Free Software platform (Mailman). See the s-asia-it mailing list at http://mailman.apnic.net/mailman/listinfo/s-asia-it ......................................................................... . . FIRST PERSON... TEMPTING SOLUTION? Prof G. R. Bhat <grbhat(a)exocore.com> . formerly of the Goa University, describes his experience with Reliance, a . big player in the Indian mobile world. This comes in via the ILUG-Goa . mailing list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa : . . Hi, I was at the Reliance web world last night with my notebook just to . check whether the rconnect service works as advertised at least for Linux. . We reached there just as they were about to close for the day (8.30 pm), . but the person there was gracious enough to let us in and allowed us to . outstay our welcome for whopping hour and a half after closing time while . we put the service through a "linux compatibility" test. . . The staff there was unaware of Linux but again thats OK. They were sales . and marketing, not technical and hence forgiven ;). The Binary ran fine on . Redhat 9 (my notebook) - it asked me what device I was using (USB or . Serial). I said USB, so it went and made /dev/rmodem a soft link to . /dev/usb (strange!) and then proceeded to change /etc/ppp/options, . /etc/ppp/ip-up.local and /etc/ppp/ip-down.local without any warning (and . without backing up my versions). The README clearly said that my files . would be backed up with a .old extension. My ip-up/down files are pretty . much standard so no problem there. But this could be a major problem for . those who do a lot of magic in their up/down scripts . Back Up!. . . After all this - when I ran the prescribed "rconnect" it did not work. . . That's when I checked the stuff that was going on under the pretty . interface. I doubt if it installed any driver on my notebook. Once I . figured that all they were using was a dialout (the ususal pppd + chat) . script coupled with some changes to files in /etc/ppp, and making a blind . softlink with whatever device was entered in the installer form, I decided . to try my luck myself rather than use the install program, . . I got the Samsung handset to dial out using the standard USB ACM Modem . drivers that come with RH9 (modprobe ub-uhci; modprobe acm), changed the . /dev/rmodem to point to /dev/input/ttyACM0 (my /var/log/messages told me . that the stock RedHat9 USB ACM driver had attached itself to this device) . and ran the script that came with rconnect. . . It works! . . I got an IP assigned to me and my /etc/resolv.conf was set correctly to . point to the Reliance DNS server (I had usepeerdns in /etc/ppp/options) . and I happily pointed my browser to www.gnu.org :). The service was great . (no one in the shop hassled us to leave inspite of the fact that it was . well past closing time, In fact they watched with a lot of interest and . gave me free run of the place), but the bandwidth was much lower than what . I expected - about 1.7K/s consistently from 9 pm to 9.45 pm on the night . of 25 June. Did I buy it? Well I didn't yesterday on account of the rather . poor bandwidth that I got, but I will be definitely waiting and watching . the throughput on my friends handsets with a lot of interest. . . A mobile IP gateway that I can carry around is too good to resist :) . ........................................................................ THE WORK IS ON: G Karunkar <karunakar(a)freedomink.org> reports in a different context that you can find some resources and links to groups working on different Indian languages at http://www.indlinux.org. Says he: "We are also working on a bootable CD with Indic support (right now based on Morphix). The Indic components come as a seperate release (see http://www.indlinux.org/downloads/ ), which can be installed on any distro (with a bit of tweaking though). There will be another release next week which will work on RH 8/9, MDK 9.x and Debian unstable (with Gnome 2.2)." Karunakar, a low-profile and hard-working campaigner on the Indic computing front, adds that since much of their current work is based on Gnome 2, you need to have that if you wish to use the IndLinux-Hindi release. Adds he: "The stuff is all bare bones, not good for any production use. That'ss still few months away -- till we have KDE, Gnome, Openoffice, Mozilla etc all supporting Indic at all levels." LINKING YOUNG TECHIES, MENTORS: Project Resource Centre is a mailing list and network that puts students and young techies in touch with potential mentors. It also gives them a chance to discuss their ideas and get feedback. More details from http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/prc GOING FAR MORE DEEPER: Comments Mahesh T Pai, LL.M. of Kochi (http://in.geocities.com/paivakil): "The approach by the guys at indlinux.org takes language far more 'deeper' into the OS than (attempts by proprietorial software). Language enabling is much more than mere translation of help files, enabling fonts, and input methods. The KBIPS is directly involved with Free Software Foundation-India (at least, that is what I understand, about the FSF-India's involvement) for enabling Malayalam on GNU/Linux systems." Mahesh, a close and perceptive watcher of the Free Software scene in India, can be contacted via paivakil(a)vsnl.net Says he: "I believe that the Indlinux team has spent far less during its entire existence that what (proprietorial software major players have) spent on a single foreign jaunt for its team leader/s. Not that I grudge the individuals' benefits; but I cannot help reacting when the government subsidises efforts, fruits will be controlled by private corporates while giving a cold shoulder to efforts which would be under public control." CALLING VOLUNTEERS: Linux-india.org website is expected to get an overhaul, with volunteers coming forward to support the work of webmaster Raj Mathur. If you'd like to volunteer too, contact Raj Mathur raju(a)kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ ADAPTING LINUX TO INDIA: Venky <venky(a)indlinux.org>, a persistent lobbyist on this front, said in a public discussion: "One issue that is important in terms of adapting ICT to Indian needs is that the technology should speak the user's language. At IndLinux (www.indlinux.org) we have been working on adapting the Linux operating system to Indian languages and have done a significant amount of work in Hindi. We would like to get an active group going in Punjabi too so that Punjabi-literate individuals too can benefit from using computers. Can you please help us get volunteers who can translate computer terms like "files", "folders" etc to Punjabi?" 'PIRACY'... AS A FAKE CONCEPT: "The concept of piracy being propagated by multinational companies is fake and do not hold water in the perspective of our social commitment. I feel we have to launch resistance and fight against it," said Manabendra Mukherjee, West Bengal's minister for information technology and environment department, while delivering a lecture at a seminar on `Linux initiative in e-Governance applications'. See http://www.business-standard.com/today/story.asp?Menu=23&story=17114 INDIANIZATION, INTERNATIONALIZATION: Jaco Aizenman <jaizenman(a)fsc.cc> of the Free Software Consortium is looking out for Indian supporters to help with the internationalization of their "Government Distro". This Free Software package is being launched in July 2003, by this global organisation "dedicated to the promotion and commercialisation of Free Software" The Government Distro is a compilation of programs widely used by the public sector in Brazil, Argentina and Spain. It contains the GNU/Linux Operating System, an Office-like suite called Open Office, email and instant messenger, a calendar, a database, a web browser application and many other programs. Say its promoters: "All these applications have been used and tested previously in dozens of Latin American and European users, in order to certify their functionality. They have all been designed by highly talented programmers from all around the world." -------------------------------------------------------------------------- YOUR INPUTS and criticism to this newsletter are welcome. Contact us at fred at bytesforall dot org COPYLEFT 2003. May be freely circulated provided entire text and credits is left intact. FN -- 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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Former French PM condemns software patents
by Raj Mathur 01 Jul '03

01 Jul '03

[Cross-posted] Michel Rocard opposes the patentability of software "Everyone copies, and this is a good thing" By Florent LATRIVE and Laurent MAURIAC Liberation, Monday June 30, 2003 "A civilization should be preserved where the place of the world outside the market and of the human intellect is respected." One does not find a computer on the Parisian desk of Michel Rocard. He admits it freely: he is not "one of the generation which has an easy facility with the computer". However, as president of the Committee for Culture in the European Parliament, he has had to plunge himself, with an "evil madness", into software patentability, "words which even a year ago were unknown to me". Today, if he speaks about it in such an animated way, it is because hiding behind the technical aspects there is a real issue about civilization. For the ex prime minister, the introduction of patents on software in Europe would be "very serious". It would call into question the freedom of movement of human knowledge. Until now, software has been officially excluded from patentable subject-matter in Europe, just like mathematical equations or cooking recipes. But for several months, a very polemical draft Directive has been before the institutions of the European Union which aims to modify this regime. It will be put to the vote in the European Parliament at the beginning of September. Q.: Why do you reckon that Europe should not authorize patents on software? Since the cave of Lascaux, it is not clear that humanity has progressed in its aesthetic capacities. As for its ethical capacities and morals, one is even more doubtful. On the other hand, in the field of technical knowledge and the control of nature, the progress is astounding. The dizzying growth of knowledge is the key to this history. Knowledge was spread by copying, everyone recopied everyone, and that was good. With the patentability of software, one is re-writing the statutes on human knowledge. All of the intellectual exchange in the creations of the human spirit, the means of bringing knowledge together, will be achieved more and more by software. If patentability is introduced, i.e. a cost, a prohibition, one sets up a new rule. It is worrying. ... Full translation at: http://www.aful.org/wws/arc/patents/2003-06/msg00221.html Original (French) story at: http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=121303 -- 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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