Fsf-friends April 2004

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

34 participants
79 discussions

:) FREEDOM - I value it as much as you !!
by Tarun Gaur 29 Apr '04

29 Apr '04

Hi Friend ... FREEDOM DOES NOT MEAN BAD SOFTWARE !! AND I AM NOT DECRYING LINUX BROTHER. I know and value freedom as much as you do. But i also believe that each user shifting base from Windows to Linux matters to me. To me FREEDOM means freedom of free software to masses and i am sure Free Software is reaching there; sooner or later. LETS AGREE TO DISAGREE. Just to remind you friend, I have been associated with FSF for a long time, contributed in number of projects and am running a project at Savanah with 16 members in it. Alsp i have contributed a lot of code in APACHE. So who can understand the movement better ... regards and cheers, tarun _________________________________________________________________ Post Classifieds on MSN classifieds. http://go.msnserver.com/IN/44045.asp Buy and Sell on MSN Classifieds.

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[Fsf-friends] Free as in free beer Re: Freedom {X VS X} AND Rich User Experience
by rajeev joseph sebastian 28 Apr '04

28 Apr '04

Dear Mr Gaur, Free as in Freedom, not Free as in Free Beer. > Dear Rishi, > > "WE" here stands for FSF evanglists who value > FREEDOM as much as you do. I > really wonder whether FREEDOM again means not trying > to write good software. > What you call FREEDOM for yourself is the hard work > of countless Open Source > guys towards a common goal - promoting Free > software. Not really, FREEDOM arose from the GNU conception of Free software, not the OSI conception of free software. Of course free software is doing a LOT. Apache, et al are doing a marvellous job at the cost of fragmentation, which is the holy grail of Software Configuration Management (which I learnt in Semester 7). In any case, the end-user as you said does not _care_ whether software is Free. (but whether it is free matters to them a lot.) In that case, wouldnt it better to make Free software, than merely free software ? The usefulness, flexibility, usability etc of software is a totally seperate consideration from whether software is Free or not. The former is measured by the way the artifact operates (ie, engineering values and metrics), and latter considers the means of distribution, utilization and improvement (ie, social values and social perception of the process of engineering) > > So you mean to say that if the software come for > FREE I should not expect it > to be good. What a foundation "WE" (FSF evangalists) > are laying down for > others to follow. > I still wonder whether you are arguing on the side of Free or free software. > Let me remind you I am not talking about "you", the > IT guy. I am talking > about the end user for whom computers is a tool to > do his work. And trust me > he values "RICH USER EXPERIECE" more than getting a > free software. IS THIS > WHAT YOU CALL FREEDOM? > > FREEDOM for who? You or the MASSES? I repeat lets > move from "PHILOSOPHICAL > MINORITY" to "MASS MAJORITY" and for masses your so > called "SHALLOW" user > experience matters. > > Windows market share is a testimony to this SHALLOW > concept. windows market share is due to the inferiority of the masses: they are not fit to evaluate the choices available to them (I am also making a point abt democracy here). windows market share is due to heavy marketing ... when was the first time you saw a GNU/Linux ad on TV ? (I saw the IBM ad about 2 weeks ago) I saw the Microsoft "1 degree seperation" .NET ad about a year back (if i remember correctly). However, look at the technical market for OSs and professional software ... almost every one of those runs on Unix and variants. The technical market knows their options, and more importantly understand them. This is the method I take the side on - make every company on Earth dependent on Linux, and the rest (your so-called shallow tool-Lusers) will follow. Morover i dont see anything "RICH" about about the dry packages that comes with an MS-XP install (Solitaire, Minesweeper, Notepad, Wordpad, anything else ? oh yeah regedit). Whereas the basic install of PCQLinux .... I really LOVE gnofract4d and Celestia and OpenOffice ... that pretty much makes for a VERY rich user experience than XP could hope for (then again i'm talking from the viewpoint of a _legal_ basic installation :) ) > > I remind you again ... i am not decrying linux .... > of FSF. I am myself a > strong supporter and have followed linux from its > nacence. > On a side note, a "strong" supporter would call it GNU/Linux not merely linux ;) just joking ... Rajeev J Sebastian Stendek R&D Kochi __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover

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:)
by Tarun Gaur 28 Apr '04

28 Apr '04

Hi Friends, I understand and respect your confidence and am myself a staunch follower of FSF and open source. Infact the company where i am working is a live example where i have ensured that they have moved to linux rather than win 2003 and .NET. But Dear Rishi and Anivar, Let me give you a backgrounder. Mr. Ram Reddy is the editor at "The Hindu" and has been referred to me through another friend of ours at FSF. The reason I sent a copy of what he wrote about Linux is to initiate a debate and i am happy that we are discussing this further. Now, he is a live example of an END USER PERSPECTIVE on Linux Desktops. Let me remind you I am not talking of Linux as a Server. If you were at Microsoft or even IBM and giving statements like "I care a Damn on what Mr. Ram Reddy" thinks .... you know the result. Now I have a question for you ... are "Diversity" and "Flexibility" synonyms of "Complexity" and "Non-Rich User Experience"?? No! You can be as flexible as you want and still be Flexible and diverse. And I am not decrying Linux, i know we are reaching there slowly but surely and we all know Microsoft is struggling to retain 2 million Windows NT base. So, when the competetion picks up it is the BUYERS market and you have to be very agile to pick up a market share. And we have to behave very responsibly and look at the world from customer's perspective. We have a big resposibility here. Remember we are not a market leaders but intend to be. You like it or dislike it Microsoft is still there on 94% of wold's desktops. You know why .. because they dont ignore the suggestions of guys like Ram Reddy. Please do not look at this as a Developer, try looking at it as a business man or an end user. We have have done a lot to reach here, lets not assume that we are the best, lets plug each and every hole one by one ... cause thats the only way we can turn from a philosophical minority to MASS Majority. Please do not take this note as personal, it is for every Linux Evangalist who thinks we are the best. If you still think so, please read the mail sent by Mr. Ram Reddy (and you can be sure that he is a responsible guy giving genuine opinion) once again. Lets continue to improve, to end the note .. I am going to Mr. Ram Reddy's place this weekend and be sure we will win one more guy for FSF !! Hail FSF, regards, tarun >From: Rishi <rishi(a)gangfam.com> >To: "Anivar Aravind" <anivar(a)linuxmail.org>,"Tarun Gaur" ><gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com>, fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in >Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] I'll restore Linux and your confidence too !! >Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 09:18:03 +0530 > >On Tuesday 27 Apr 2004 9:25 pm, Anivar Aravind wrote: > > "Tarun Gaur" said on Mon, 26 Apr 2004 07:42:56 +0000 > > > > > I am sure i will be able to restore your confidence in Linux and open > > > source. On our front we will make every effort to ensure that the >Linux > > > is made easy for the end users. > > > > i have enough confidence on linux kernel. if u want to restore anyones > > confidence plz send personal mails to them. i dont want any mail in the > > class "opensource" through free software foundations list. > >Hi Anivar, > >I guess Tarun was just trying to get us to help Mr. Reddy. Maybe we could >be a >little helpful... what say? > > > Is FSF is alotted FSF friends list as Tarun Gaur's personal mail box? > > then rename it as gaur's-friends and unsubsribe me from it > >Just some thoughts on how to re-phrase the sentence above to achieve the >same >goal but with a more gentle approach. ;-) > >======================================================== >Hi Tarun, > >In future, could you forward the e-mail to the FSF list requesting for >assistance in helping you with getting Mr. Reddy to stay motivated with >using >free software, instead of BCC the fsf-friends list? >======================================================== > >Regards > >Rishi > _________________________________________________________________ Dont miss out on jobs that are not advertised. http://go.msnserver.com/IN/47510.asp Post your CV on naukri.com today.

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Re: PlayFair project
by Anand Babu 28 Apr '04

28 Apr '04

Hi RMS, ,----[ Richard Stallman <rms(a)gnu.org> ] | Whether PlayFair would be considered legal in the US is a hard | question, given the details of what it does. I think it is safer to | host it outside the US, in countries where there is really no law like | the DMCA. | | I am looking for help in the Brazilian government. | | If people interested in hosting the program want to talk with the | PlayFair developers, can you serve as an intermediary? `---- PlayFair author has already made me (Anand Babu) as official project-maintainer and I am part of the development team. So I will be the contact-person for this project. People from FSF-India are actively exploring possibilities to help PlayFair project, both in terms of hosting service and legal guidance. Fighting DMCA is no easy task. We would like to get as much help as possible. Thanks -- Anand Babu Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org>

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I'll restore Linux and your confidence too !!
by Tarun Gaur 28 Apr '04

28 Apr '04

Hi Ram Sir, I am sure i will be able to restore your confidence in Linux and open source. On our front we will make every effort to ensure that the Linux is made easy for the end users. Infact the current state of Linux is that there are multiple initiatives going on to catch up with proprietry software (especially Windows), in the process you will come across multiple versions (distros) of Linux. Each one of them is unique and has its own features and set of specialization though all of them are now converging fast. These are some drawbacks of open source but the very spirit with which we have reached so far is worth acknowledging and trust me sir, the day is not far when you will see Linux replacing Windows not only on the server side, but desktops too. In your case i think the best version is Red Hat / Fedora. I will make sure that i carry them with me when i visit you. Or else if you have a special affinity towards the Mandrake magic, then we will bring that one too. regards, tarun >From: Rammanohar Reddy To: "Tarun Gaur" <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com> >CC: KG Kumar <kg(a)tug.org.in> >Subject: Re: Pleasure to help you Sir >Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 12:12:26 +0530 > >Thanks, Tarun > >Perhaps we should think of the next weekend -- it may otherwise be very >diffficult. > >But I must warn you that right now I am terribly disappointed with Linux -- >my attempt toload Mandrake for the 4-5 weeks have failed. And right now I >can say more Windows' reliability!! > >best > >Ram Reddy > _________________________________________________________________ Ready cash in just 72 hours. Apply Now !!! http://go.msnserver.com/IN/46922.asp

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[Fwd]: [Fsf-friends] "The free software option" by C. Rammanohar Reddy in "The Hindu"
by Mahesh T. Pai 28 Apr '04

28 Apr '04

----- Forwarded message from Ramanraj K <ramanraj(a)md4.vsnl.net.in> ----- > Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 10:12:19 +0530 > From: Ramanraj K <ramanraj(a)md4.vsnl.net.in> > Subject: [Fsf-friends] > "The free software option" by C. Rammanohar Reddy in "The Hindu" > To: fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in, rms(a)gnu.org > User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.1a) Gecko/20020610 > > "The Hindu" newspaper has published in its issue dated 22nd November, > 2003, at page 10, an article titled > > "The free software option" > by > C. Rammanohar Reddy > > This is also available online at: > > http://www.hindu.com/2003/11/22/stories/2003112200721000.htm > ----- End forwarded message ----- -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://paivakil.port5.com +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+

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Re: [Fsf-friends] I'll restore Linux and your confidence too !!
by Suresh Titus John 28 Apr '04

28 Apr '04

On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 Rishi wrote : >On Wednesday 28 Apr 2004 9:26 am, Mahesh T. Pai wrote: > > I am not sure that we need to tell Mr. Reddy the concept of freedom in > > software. IIRC, he actually wrote on this a few months back. > >Whoa! Sorry. ;-) >Then what's his problem? >Can you point me to that article if it's on the NET? I'd like to first read it >and then write to him... > Hmm, i think this is the one: http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mag/2002/12/01/stories/2002120100100300.htm suresh

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Re: [Fsf-friends] I'll restore Linux and your confidence too !!
by Anivar Aravind 28 Apr '04

28 Apr '04

"Tarun Gaur" said on Mon, 26 Apr 2004 07:42:56 +0000 > I am sure i will be able to restore your confidence in Linux and open > source. On our front we will make every effort to ensure that the Linux is > made easy for the end users. i have enough confidence on linux kernel. if u want to restore anyones confidence plz send personal mails to them. i dont want any mail in the class "opensource" through free software foundations list. <snip> > These are some drawbacks of open source .... </snip> i subscribed only fsf lists. i dont want to here such spam contents of this list.this is the draw back of moderator of this list. <snip> >the day is not > far when you will see Linux replacing Windows not only on the server side, > but desktops too. i am not interested in just linux replacing windows. but in freedom replacing proprietory ie GNU replacing proprietory > In your case i think the best version is Red Hat / Fedora. I will make sure > that i carry them with me when i visit you. Or else if you have a special > affinity towards the Mandrake magic, then we will bring that one too. Is FSF is alotted FSF friends list as Tarun Gaur's personal mail box? then rename it as gaur's-friends and unsubsribe me from it ~Anivar Aravind -- ______________________________________________ Check out the latest SMS services @ http://www.linuxmail.org This allows you to send and receive SMS through your mailbox. Powered by Outblaze

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For C Rammanohar Reddy
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 27 Apr '04

27 Apr '04

Dear Mr Reddy: Like you, I hesitated for a for a year-and-half before being able to take the leap. What was worse, I had GNU/Linux installed on my PC, but just didn't dare to change. To add to my discomfort, I was a founder member of the local [GNU]Linux Users Group in Goa ;-) Today, I use Free Software for 95% of my work. The other 5% is in a cybercafe or at some other office, over which I simply don't have any choice. My main complaint is that my old systems simply go on and on and on working, without giving any major (or, often, minor) problem either. The only time I fidget with the PCs (often getting someone else to do so, agreed Free Software isn't as easy as the click-on-the-exe-file usability... but then, that's compensated by security and that fact that a virus also finds it tough to get control) is when there's some upgradation done. For years (since 2001-02), my computers have not been hit by a virus. The only time a Trojan actually got in -- all my data was restored, nothing lost -- was when I stubbornly clung on to Redhat 6.2, inspite of repeated warnings that it was too long outdated and that security flaws had been reported. My suggestion is get someone else to do the installation. Changing over to a new OS can be rather frustrating, since everything "seems different". For sometime, one doesn't even know where to start searching. But that is soon done with. As Stallman says, even if Free Software was an inferior product, I would still continue using it... just because of the principles behind it. FN in Goa. > >From: Rammanohar Reddy To: "Tarun Gaur" <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com> > >CC: KG Kumar <kg(a)tug.org.in> > >Subject: Re: Pleasure to help you Sir > >Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 12:12:26 +0530 > > > >Thanks, Tarun > > > >Perhaps we should think of the next weekend -- it may otherwise be > > very diffficult. > > > >But I must warn you that right now I am terribly disappointed with > >Linux -- my attempt toload Mandrake for the 4-5 weeks have failed. And > >right now I can say more Windows' reliability!! > > > >best > > > >Ram Reddy -- --------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa, India f r e d e r i c k n o r o n h a @ v s n l . n e t Ph 832.2409490 / 832.2409783 Cell 9822 122436 Phone calls: preferably from 1300 to 0500 (IST) Try landlines is mobile is temporarily unavailable http://linuxinindia.pitas.com http://www.bytesforall.org ---------------------------------------------------------

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GNU/LinuxinIndia * April 25, 2004
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 24 Apr '04

24 Apr '04

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 * Apr 25 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ########################################################################### --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Patents and copyrights are totally different, and the way to help people understand them is never to mix them up or lump them together.... Software patents bring nothing to our community except danger. I am glad that Red Hat is getting some patents to use to defend against Microsoft's patents. (I hope Red Hat never turns around to use them for aggression.) But the only help these patents give us is to block part of the danger of patents -- and only part of it! They have no positive effect. Taken all together, the patents do not play any role in the vitality of our community. Most patents threaten us, and a few may partly defend us from the threat of the rest. We would be much better off if nobody had any software patents. India has wisely refused to allow software patents. Every supporter of free software in India should be helping to support that policy. Would you please help? Please don't invite people to lump together a hypothetical future Indian law (software patents) that can kill our community and an existing Indian law (copyright) that has no such power. -- Richard M Stallman <rms at gnu.org> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ########################################################################### --------------------------------------------------------------------------- FROM BANGALORE, Kartik N <kartikn79 at symonds.net> sent out a recent reminder about plans for April's BLUG (Bangalore Linux Users' Group) meet, which was held on April 23. The agenda focussed on talks on filesystems in GNU/Linux (by Arun) and the CD file system features (by Sreekiran). BLUG meets usually take place between 6 to 8 pm at Hotel Ashraya International Infantry Road, Opposite Police Commissioner's Office, Phone : +91 (80) 2262921. Map - http://linux-bangalore.org/images/ashraya-map.png Cover charge is Rs.100 per person (includes dinner). More details at: http://linux-bangalore.org/meetings/200404/ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ LOCALISATION LIST from Bangalore is at http://lli.linux-bangalore.org ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ GNUS GRAZING @ BANGALORE: Fans of the Free Software movement meanwhile announced a meeting at Bangalore. It was called on Sunday, April 18 at the unearthly hour of 10 am (no offence meant, I'm usually fast asleep by then). The rendezvous-point was in front of Gangaram's Bookstore on MG Road. Difficult to miss. You could get more details via Fsf-friends mailing list Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ AFFORDABLE CDs ARE AVAILABLE VIA MAIL-ORDER FROM swathantra software <s2s2(a)linux.net> One recent email announced that available CDs included: * CD with more than 2000 HOWTOs just for 100 Rupees (Learn more about server setup, programming, kernel, network, installation, adminstration, troubleshooting, and more.) * Other popular distributions also available RedHat 7.1(2 CDs), 7.3, 8, 9 -set of 3 CDs Rs 120 Redhat 7.3,8 single CD with autoinstallation (GLUE CD) Rs.60 * Fedora Core 1 set of 3 CDs Rs 120 * Mandrake 9.2 set of 3 CDs Rs.150 * Mandrake 10-set of 3 CDs Rs.180 * K12LTSP (a popular distro with terminal server and a lot of educational softwares) set of 4 CDs Rs.250 * GISMorphix Rs.100 * Knoppix 3.3 (Debian) single live CD Rs.70 (HD installation possible) * OpenOffice 1.1, Mozilla 1.5, Mozilla Firebird 0.7 (Linux/WIndows) Rs 80. Shipping charges extra as applicable. (Rs 20 by courier, Rs 10 by ordinary parcel). Send demand draft in favour of Swathanthra Software Solutions and Support payable at Kannur (Kerala) or money order. Or contact by email or phone Sujeevan, Swathantra Software Solutions & Support (S2S2), 33, Brigade Center, Gr Floor, Nr Prabhat Building, Fort Rd, Kannur 670001 Kerala Phone: Off 0497-2761182 Res: 0497-2790811 Cell :9447449107 Email: s2s2<at>linux.net Web site http://www.s2s2net.netfirms.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ GET A FREE linux.net email address: http://linux.net Powered by Linare Corporation http://www.linare.com/ Check the Chennai link... ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ CONGRATULATIONS, CRV: Radhakrishnan aka CVR <cvr at river-valley.org> recently announced his marriage to Vidya, "my long time friend and colleague for a decade". The big-day was April 18, 2004. The marriage was marked by what CVR calls "a very simple function attended by our family members and closest friends alone". Take a peek at http://tug.org/~cvr/knot/ Congrats to this longtime champion of TeX and the Tug User Group down south. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ FROM THE PHILIPPINES GNU/Linux mailing list (see details or subscribe at http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug-misc ) Holden Hao <holden at philonline.com.ph> writes in to say: "Linux For You is a great magazine. Anybody know if this is already available in the Philippines?" Here's hoping India can meet the potential when it sees it! ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ KDE, KPPP AND INTERNET DIALERS: Guntupalli Karunakar <karunakar at freedomink.org> is working on the KDE live CD, and is planning to have kppp ("the cool KDE Internet dialer") to include some prominent ISPs across India configured for it -- e.g. VSNL, BSNL (Sancharnet), Satyam, etc. Says he: "I need their dialup numbers and any other setting that are used for them. Ideally you one could just send me /home/user/.kde/share/config/kppprc (of course with the username / password removed ). We will have an internet dialup icon on desktop or panel, clicking which will make the kppp dialog to come up. All the user would then need to do is select his ISP number and give the username and password, and dial. At present it would work with external modems only." Please do help, if you can! ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ THIS NOTE IS FROM INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST Frederic Dubois <frederic at cmaq.net> of Montreal in Canada who says: " I have written an article on free software in India and Canada. You can read it at: http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?sh_itm=3d9755aef06d3654ab98d07488 e37a5a&r=1 There is also a discussion happening in the babble section: http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=31&t=000211 " ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ WANNA BUY A SIMPUTER? Check this note from S D Sudarsan, a member of the senior research staff at the CRL-BEL in Bangalore <sudarsan_crl(a)yahoo.com> who informs: "I've been receiving enquiries on buying Simputers from BEL. The contact details are as below: Deepak Kumar MMF Division Bangalore Complex Bharat Electronics Limited Jalahalli PO Bangalore - 560 013 Tel: 080-23618184 Cell: 98800 88396 As I understand the lowest model is below 10K and goes upto 20K for the Amida Simputer. You can contact Mr Sudarsan at crl-bel bangalore - 560013 tel: 080-28381125/26/27 fax: 080-28381168 sdsudarsan at crl.bel.co.in or sudarsan_crl at yahoo.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ QUOTE... UNQUOTE: We in India have a Vision 2020... Can we reach there by keeping security holes in the armour? Don't we need to have some IndLix, Bhartix or Tricolix, duly certified by (computing institutions like) NCST, C-DAC etc that will work for the whole of country and sort out the interoperability issues also along with it? -- J.S. Sandha CEO Jagriti e-Sewa (www.jagriti.com) Jalandhar 098141-84878 <jsandha at vsnl.net> ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ HERE'S SOME MORE GOOD NEWS courtesy Tarun Kant <tarunkant at linux.net> who says: Mandrake Linux is available in 66 languages and Hindi is one of them. Check out the following link and you will be pleasently surprised: http://www.mandrakelinux.com/l10n/hi.php3 To know about what other languages are supported check out: http://www.mandrakelinux.com/l10n/translations.php3 [ Dr Kant is a scientist at the Forest Genetics & Tree Breeding Division, Arid Forest Research Institute, Jodhpur http://www.geocities.com/bobkant/ ] ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ THREE CHEERS TO KERALA: This input is from linux_schools at yahoo.com (Herald), who writes: Kerala is leading in Free/Libre and Open Source Software front. 200 schools multiplied by 100 students on an average gives 20 thousand GNU/Linux users. Children are very curious and fast in experimenting and learning new things. When they go home and talk about it, the elders also will be automatically interested in checking what this software is. Similarly the Engineering students will start getting interest in Free Softwares.... In Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh there are only the private schools to harvest as the government ones have been captured by Microsoft. Check http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/linux_schools/ MAHESH T PAI added earlier: About 200 schools in Malappuram district installed GNU/Linux. The driving force behind this initiative, AFAIK, is one Mr. Sujeevan P, of an organisation called IIRC, S2S2. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ CHECK OUT THE linux-india-programmers mailing list linux-india-programmers(a)lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-india-programmers ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ READER-RATED WEB-PAGES From Arun Sharma <arun at freebsd.org>, a message that came in via the FreeBSD list: I've been experimenting with a new way of separating the more interesting content on the web from the less interesting ones. Mainly by using human intelligence. http://www.sharma-home.net/software/vote/vote.html If you find this interesting, you're welcome to download this small piece of open source software and try it out. The more users there are, the more useful this tool will be. The mozilla firefox extension requires you to customize the toolbar and manually add the new button to the toolbar. It takes about 5 mins for a new submission to show up on the results page. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ INTERESTED IN FREE BSD? Check out http://www.bsd-india.org/mailman/listinfo/bsd-india ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVING GNU/LINUX: Shrave <shrave1 at yahoo.com> who does much to keep active the mailing list http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/blore-linux/ comments: The following I feel are the top three areas that need to be addressed for moving Linux into the massive consumer and small office markets. 1) I would suggest students to try and target one critically important piece of the Linux desktop puzzle: USB synching of OpenOffice documents and a cross platform PIM such as Chandler. This would allow Linux notebooks and tablets to be deployed en masse in most Windows based offices. Market share would then likely be built very rapidly as the case with Palm Pilots and their USB connected strategy. With market share, follows developer support, and a relatively quick destruction of the Microsoft desktop monopoly. 2) Adding a GOCR module to OpenOffice should be another high priority goal. GOCR is the open source optical character recognition project (OCR). For those that are not familiar (with the concept), OCR is used to convert paper based documents into editable word processor documents using a scanner. GOCR is currently command line-based, but works very well. Developing this into a GUI version that could become an optional add on module for OpenOffice would be very useful for small offices and home offices considering a Linux desktop. Unlike developers, most end users live in a sea of paper-based documents and adding a bridge to access these documents digitally allows businesses to go to Linux desktops much more confidently. 3) Adding a photo-editing module to OpenOffice similar to Apple's iPhoto. This would tend to really help in promoting uptake of OpenOffice and Linux desktops in consumer market. Digital cameras are now outselling film cameras and this is going to get even more important in the next few years. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ INTERESTED IN FLOSS in Mangalore (coastal south-western India)? Find more about us at http://www.linux-mangalore.org ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ LOCALISATION NEWSLETTER: G Karunakar <karunakar(a)freedomink.org> who is the IndLinux.org coordinator, says: On behalf of the Localization community in India we are happy to bring out the first issue of the Localization Newsletter. Aim of this newsletter is to highlight localization activities based on Free/Libre and Open Source Software, present a complete picture, and to serve as a mouthpiece for all localization teams and their volunteers. HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS ISSUE: * Headlines : Bengali, Punjabi supported languages in Gnome 2.6, Hindi and Tamil supported in KDE 3.2 * In News Bits : PCQLinux2004 with Indic support, Devanagari & Gujarati Opentype fonts, Mozilla build with Indic support. * In Team Watch : Sayamindu Dasgupta speaking on Ankur Bangla project. Read complete issue at http://www.indlinux.org/nl/nl150404.html A pdf of it is available at http://www.indlinux.org/nl/nlvol1.pdf (238KB) Comments are welcome, and can be mailed to the editorial team or posted on http://www.indlinux.org/wiki/index.php/NewsletterFeedback If you would like to recieve copy of newsletter regularly you can subscribe to the mailing list http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/indlinux-news ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ SOME MORE ON LOCALISATION: "Arky" <rakesh_ambati at yahoo.com> says: Perhaps being children of lesser god we don't have such resources, yet localization work is going at a good pace (see http://www.indlinux.org/wiki/index.php?LocalizationNewsletter ) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ MADE IN INDIA, WELCOMED IN THE GULF: A comment from the Gulf region, where Manoj Menon <manojcmenon at yahoo.com> recently commented on the Linux-middleeast(a)yahoogroups.com newsgroup: Linux based PDA for less than 1000 AED ... and best of all, its made in India. http://www.amidasimputer.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ASSAMESE LANGUAGE: Jyotirmoy Saikia <jyotirmoy_saikia at yahoo.com> of Picopeta, the Simputer guys in Bangalore, asks an interesting query: Can I type Assamese from Yudit using Inscript? Assamese and Bengali scripts are same except two consonants: (i) Consonat RA (this is character U09F0 in Assamese and character U09B0 in Bengali) (ii) Consonant VA (this is chracter U09F1 in Assamese, which is equivalent of Devanagari character U0935). As far as I know, there is no consonat VA in Bengali. I have looked at the Open Type Akaash bengali font and found that the characters U09FO and U09F1 are present in the font. But using the Inscript keyboard layout for Bengali, I can't type these characters. I believe we need a seperate Inscript keyboard map for Assamese. What is the suggestion from other people in the group? Similarly, we'll need a Assamese keyboard map for the Milan release also; am I wrong? ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ OFFICIAL SUPPORT FOR LOCALISATION WORK? Jitendra Shah <jitendras at vsnl.com> reports that it is now "certain" that he will be working from C-DAC Mumbai (formerly NCST) on a Central Government Localisation project with the objective of localising Free/Opensource (GNU/Linux) in indian languages with three angles: development of localised software (OS and some applications for SOHEdu), deployment, and building a community of developers and users. Says he: "I think the objective is broad enough." Sometime back, Shah started the work with a volunteer team. "It is heartening to see that there are souls in the government who can identify and support such noble causes too. While I believe such work will have to be done by dedicated people without a pre-condtion of government support, there can be no doubt that progress can leapfrog when there is official backing, particularly when such support includes support for community participation rather than excluding it." Shah has a team of "good people who may want to contribute". But he's also looking out for others who could get involved and help. He adds: "Since the work is at all three levels -- system level, application level and (only to some extent) content level, many people can contribute." Shah and team have also been working on the conversion of legacy documents to Unicode. He adds: "I am trying to convert the silos of legacy data from ISFOC/Akruti/ShreeLipi/whathaveyou to unicode. This has been welcomed by the (Maharashtra) State government as well as Central government and corporates. I propose to use the programs to help generate sustainance for the developers through services rendered and eventually all programs will be free/open source. I have now converted the Rajya Sabha webpage into Hindi and also IITBombay pages." -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 are left intact. You can subscribe to receive this FREE newsletter (free beer, free speech!) by subscribing directly at http://www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/list?list_id=linuxinindia -------------------------------------------------------------------------- COMPILED BY --------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa, India f r e d @ b y t e s f o r a l l . o r g Ph 832.2409490 / 832.2409783 Cell 9822 122436 Phone calls: preferably from 1300 to 0500 (IST) Try landlines is mobile is temporarily unavailable http://linuxinindia.pitas.com http://www.bytesforall.org ---------------------------------------------------------

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Fsf-friends April 2004