Fsf-friends January 2005

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FLOSS Meet @ NIT Calicut
by Dilip V 27 Jan '05

27 Jan '05

FLOSS Meet @ NIT Calicut A one day seminar/workshop on the Free/Libre open source softwares is going to be held in National Instute of Technology Calicut on 29th Jan 2005( Saturday) at NIT Calicut. The Seminar is intended to provoke the student community. The event will bring together academicians, students and the industry people who are involved in the Movement.The event is organised by 1.GNU/Linux Users Group Calicut 2. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) student Branch 3. Computer Society of India Calicut chapter The seminar is intended to highlight the development and need for open source software under GNU/Linux platform. The seminar will encourage the students to use this free software with presentations and interactive sessions by experts in the field. A large number of delegates from academic institutions and industry are likely to participate. About the Event The event comprises of two sessions. The morning session will be on the concepts and philosophy of free software. Free software alternatives like Openoffice, Octave, Apache etc, will be introduced and discussed with a view to bring out the advantages of these. It will also cover the security issues rising in the computer world. The afternoon session will be a workshop on the languages used in this context. It will be a live demonstration about the computer language Python, and SQLlite used on open source platforms. Contact Details Interested candidates can register either through the website http://glugc.nitc.ac.in/floss Or through email dilpu.v(a)gmail.com, pravi.a(a)gmail.com Mobile No 09447367875 Profile of the Speakers 1. Atul Chitnis -- He is one of India's best known technologists. He has been at the forefront of India's technology evolution. He was the chief organiser for Linux Bangalore 2004 2. Shanker Balan – He is working as a Systems engineer, Yahoo! Bangalore. In his spare time, he advocates the spread of BSD technology, an alternative open source platform to GNU/Linux. 3.Swaroop C H -- Software engineer in Yahoo! , His book A Byte of Python has been downloaded more than 24,000 times 4.Pradeep Kishore Gowda -- Senior Software engineer in ZeOmega infotech,a Bangalore based company deeply rooted in Open Source Software development. Sponsors The main sponsor for the event is M/s Tata Consultancy Services. Other sponsors are IBM ACE Centre, and Computer Engineering Associations. Regards, - - Dilip V, Mobile No : 09447367875 eey1071(a)nitc.ac.in, dilpu.v(a)gmail.com, Semester 8th, Electrical and Electronics, National Institute Of Technology, Calicut. (Formerly known as Regional Engineering College Calicut) Visit My Blog @ http://www.dilpu.blogspot.com

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[Fsf-friends] FLOSSNews: Bangalore, Pune, Jodhpur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Kerala..
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 27 Jan '05

27 Jan '05

We're just working to revive the news-content of the Linux-India-General mailing list. Kindly visit and check out the links. Once you're on the site below, please check out 'Indian news'. Your contributions and news-submissions would be welcome! FN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- ====================================================================== News from Linux-India * http://www.linux-india.org ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [Website being relaunched, by Raju Mathur of Delhi. Contributions in terms of content and tech support are welcome!] ====================================================================== Linux India: The India Linux Organisation Portal NGOs, searching long for alternatives, find flavour in alt.software Frederick Noronha reports -- Asia Source, being held in Bangalore from Jan 28 to Feb 4, 2005 hopes to bring together over a hundred people from 20 countries to increase the use and awareness of FLOSS among the non-profit sector in South and East Asia. GNUnify ... at Pune, Feb 13 to 15, 2005 Vidyadutt S <vidyadutt at gmail.com> has announced the GNUnify festival of Symbiosis at Pune, a regular event that takes place at this time of the year -- and has continued over the past two years -- at the central Indian city of Pune. GNU/Linux... in the life sciences Tarun Kant <tarunkant at linuxmail.org> from the SunnyLUG from Jodhpur for this useful piece of information. He says: "For people who are into life science research/bioinformatics, there are a few good linux distros available." This includes the VigyaanCD, the live Linux CD containing "all the required software to boot the computer with ready-to-use modeling software". Says Kant: "And let me tell you this (Vigyaan) is an effort by an Indian. Kudos to you Pratul K Agarwal for such a nice package." >From software... to culture Crimson Feet coordinator Prayas Abhinav is working on a "showcase" of audiovisual -- film, animation etc -- work produced by alternate methods, and plans an exhibition on February 5 and 6, 2005 at Ahmedabad. Open Source in Education, Mumbai meet on Feb 11, 2005 Sameer D Saharabudde <sameerds at it.iitb.ac.in> has sent in an early intimation of a program scheduled for February 11, 2005 on "Open Source in Education". Says Sameer: "Some 50 people involved in the education system, like university department heads, college heads, etc will be invited." Further details awaited. Sameer is a research scholar, KReSIT, IIT Bombay. Microsoft at the KSEB (Kerala) Satheesh S Pillai <satheeshpillai2000 at yahoo.co.in> recently drew attention of the Free Software User Group-Kochi to the report made by Centre for Computer Aided Power Sector Studies (C-CAPSS) in Kerala about the billing software developed by "a famous consultancy along with M$ as part of the e-Governance project". This report makes interesting reading, and has immense implications for many government computerisation plans. You can find the full report at http://www.kseboa.org/KSEB%20LT%20billing%20computerisation.pdf LaTeX for Malayalam 0.9 released TUG-India -- http://www.tug.org.in -- has announced that an update 0.9 for 'LaTeX for Malayalam' has been released at sarovar. This update enables the use of Type1 Malayalam fonts available with CDAC ISM Publisher, according to Alex. Download the package from: http://malayalam.sarovar.org/ . IITIANS Develop Linux-Based Cell Phone Tracking Software CXOToday.com writer Julia Fernandes has reported on how "three young Mumbai-based IITians, who have developed a Linux-based software application that tracks the location of mobile phones." Nithin Kamath's LinTux Newsletter A made-in-Mangalore product. Interesting compiliation of news and updates from the world of FLOSS across India and the globe. Check it out at Now in the 14th issue. Keep it up Nithin. http://groups-beta.google.com/group/lintux THE HINDU: A whiz-kid's tryst with Linux What do people do when they hear that doing a particular thing is very difficult? Most of them try to avoid it. But some people meet the challenge headlong. Sarath Lakshman a Standard X student of the Jawaharlal Nehru Government Higher Secondary School, Mahe, belongs to the second category. This article is from the national newspaper THE HINDU, reproduced here with gratitude to this publication for highlighting an issue which is important to understanding what makes sense to the young techies-in-the-making of South Asia. Low-cost CD outlet http://www.linuxbazar.com is run by Srinivasan <LinuxIndia at hotmail.com>. Says he: "I sell CDs at Rs 50 per CD. Spreading the word on my website is difficult .. still I have managed to ship Fedora to remote corners in India incl. Jammu." L10N How-To and Toolkit On Jan 19, 2005 Sunil Abraham <sunil at apdip.net> announced that the IOSN-CDAC L10N How-To and Toolkit is ready for a "final round of comments and feedback." The main page contents listing of the CD is available at http://anakin.ncst.ernet.in/~aparna/consolidated/CD. It has links to the guide, as well as the list of tools we will include in the CD. You can see the current version at: http://anakin.ncst.ernet.in/~aparna/consolidated in the HTML format. Feedback welcome! Font developer's guide Sayamindu Dasgupta <sayamindu at clai.net> is offering what he terms a "preliminary version of a font developer's guide". Check out what this determined young man has to offer at http://sayamindu.randomink.org/conv_guide/ Listing Indian LUGs, GLUGs, FSUGs and more... a list of links to various user groups in the Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) world. Please visit it at http://wikiwikiweb.de/LugsList/ Punjabi translation of Debian Installer comes closer to realisation Christian Perrier <bubulle at debian.org> said January 19, 2005 that the Debian Installer team has been contacted by Amanpreet Alam, who offers to start working on Debian Installer (and further Debian translations) in Punjabi. Says he: "The work on Hindi started about two to three months ago after a discussion here where Ravi Shrivastava offered to initiate it." ET's software stories Indian business daily, 'The Economic Times', has this link for software-related stories. Unfortunately just a few related to Free/Libre and Open Source Software in India ... a field where so much is happening! C-DAC launches Janabhaaratii FLOSS localisation project C-DAC, the Indian government-run Centre for the Development of Advanced Computing, has announced in October 2004 the launch of the launch of its "janabhaaratii" project for localisation of FLOSS. It suggested the goal would be "development, deployment and community building, and the work would be put out under the GPL/LGPL licenses. Govt open to open source software ... or just hedging bets? India's business newspaper reported in end-December 2004 that the Government of India "continues to evaluate options for using open source software, a move which would proliferate the usage of IT by bringing down its costs". IT secretary Brijesh Kumar was quoted as telling the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, an industry lobby group, that the "government continues to consider options available in open source software". There was a suggestion that "India should force proprietory software makers to share source code by threatening to shift to open source software", the ET reported, citing the case of China. _ _ _ _ _ | (_)_ __ _ ___ __ (_)_ __ __| (_) __ _ ___ _ __ __ _ | | | '_ \| | | \ \/ /____| | '_ \ / _` | |/ _` | / _ \| '__/ _` | | | | | | | |_| |> <_____| | | | | (_| | | (_| || (_) | | | (_| | |_|_|_| |_|\__,_/_/\_\ |_|_| |_|\__,_|_|\__,_(_)___/|_| \__, | |___/ ====================================================================== ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) Nr Convent Saligao 403511 GoaIndia Freelance Journalist P: 832-2409490 M: 9822122436 http://fn.swiki.net http://fn-floss.notlong.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://goabooks.swiki.net * Reviews of books on Goa... and more

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[Fsf-friends] Third National Colloquium on economic and social implications ofthe new patent regime.
by Arun M 25 Jan '05

25 Jan '05

Dear Friends, A meeting on new patent ordinance is being organised in Delhi on 1st Feb 2005. Richard Stallman will be the first speaker. Other speakers include Mr. B.K. Keayla of National Working Group on Patent Law Mr. S.P. Shukla, who used to be the GATT ambassador during Uruguay Round. Vandana Siva. Venue: India International Center, New Delhi. Program Details: ---------------- Forenoon session : New Patent Regime and its implications 10.00 am to 12.30 pm Press briefing 12.30 pm Afternoon session : Implications of extension of the new patent regime to software, plant varieties, micro-organisms, etc. 2.00 pm to 4.00 pm Tea : 9.30 am Lunch: 1.00 pm You are invited to kindly participate and enrich the deliberations. A line confirming your participation is requested. Relevant material on the topics would be made available only between 9.30 – 10.00 am.

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[Fsf-friends] NGOs, searching long for alternatives, find flavour in alt.software
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 24 Jan '05

24 Jan '05

GOs, SEARCHING LONG FOR ALTERNATIVES, FIND FLAVOUR IN ALT.SOFTWARE >From Frederick Noronha For an sector that talks of alternatives, the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or voluntary sector stays surprisingly aloof from one significant alternative that has really worked -- free software. But there are stirrings to bridge this huge chasm. In end-January, India's technology mecca Bangalore is to be the venue for an international 'camp' meant to promote FLOSS among the NGO sector. Others talk of building 'another world'; in free software, it is already there. Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS, using the newish acronomy that better describe both diverse strands that make it up) today allows just about anyone to avoid globally dominant players, and to find more freedom-oriented options. It also, at the same time, works very efficiently in the growing world of computing. Asia Source, as the 'tech camp' is called, will be held from January 28 to February 4, 2005 and "hopes to bring together over a hundred people from 20 countries to increase the use and awareness of FLOSS amongst the non-profit sector in South and South East Asia." There will be participants coming in from a range of backgrounds. Sucharat "Ying" Sathapornanon from Thailand looks after IT for the Asia-Pacific Regional Resource Center for Human Rights Edcuation. Umesh Pradhan comes in from Thimphu, Bhutan. Ujjwal from Nepal is a "technical supporter" of non-profits in Kathmandu, Nepal. Yee Yee Htun from Myanmar lives along the Thai-Myanmar border, and is a volunteer webmaster for AAPPB (Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma) -- www.aappb.org. Alecks Pabico from the Philippines is a journalist working with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. >From a range of Asian countries, NGOs and grassroots technology support professionals will come in "to learn new skills, exchange tips, and share experiences", organisers say. Local hosts reminded participants that Bangalore is famous for its silk, sandle wood, handicrafts, designer jewelery and (tasty vegetarian) food. But beyond the names and faces and local attractions, there's a more important message. FLOSS bestows on the user four freedoms -- freedom to use the software for any purpose; freedom to study how the software works; freedom to modify the software; and freedom to share the software with others. From a technical perspective, this can be used to reduce costs and hardware requirements while also improving security, reliability, performance, stability, and scalability. >From a wider philosophical perspective, FLOSS can transform patterns of access, usage, control and ownership of knowledge and technologies. Globally, FLOSS has grown after several hundred thousand hackers and students scattered across the globe collaborated to produce a unified body of knowledge without resorting to hierarchical structures and exploitative relationships. This movement is also seen by some to demonstrate how wealth can be created by entrepreneurs in the free market without using the proprietary copyright regime. In Bangalore, four themes will flow throughout the event. FLOSSophy for NGOs (or, why Free Software and Open Source makes sense), migration and access to non-proprietorial software, tools for content-building and communication, and the localisation of computing to make it relevant to countries across Asia. Elizabeth, originally Timorese (from East Timor), is currently doing her internship at the Open Forum of Cambodia with KhmerOS (Khmer Open Source). The KhmerOs is working to localise software to Khmer, the Cambodian language. Says she: "I'm learning from them while also preparing a localization document for Tetum, one of our national language in Timor Leste." Tetum uses the Latin script with some accents, since it has words imported from Portuguese. Talat Numanov from Dushanbe, Tajikistan works in Central Asian Development Agency as an IT specialist, and his goal is to learn more about FLOSS and distribute it to users. Says he: "My friends use Mandrake Linux (because it has been localised to Tajik)." Russell T. Kyaw Oo from Myanmar says: "I am focusing on localization, translation and modification." Guests from overseas should be meeting up with Guntupalli Karunakar, a soft-spoken extremely low-key Mumbai-based champion of localisation. He's one of the key movers behind the Indian Linux Project (http://www.indlinux.org). Explains Karunakar: "My primary experience is in F(L)OSS localization. I have been working on this for last four years, We have almost completed Hindi localization part." Not-so-friendly neighbouring regions are sometimes united by common concerns. From Pakistan, Sufyan told Karunakar in a pre-conference online discussion: "We at Open Source Resource Center of Pakistan (www.osrc.org.pk) will be grateful to you if you can give us an action plan for localization in Urdu." Localisation is an issue that many are addressing in the FLOSS world, and taking computing to communities which otherwise might just be seen as an unviable market. Javier Sola, a Spaniard living in Cambodia, is coordinator of the KhmerOS project. "Our goal is to make Cambodia OpenSource-Country by means of localization. I am an enthusiast of F(L)OSS localization. I believe that it is the key to adoption of F(L)OSS by users," says he. He has been also working on a "toolkit" on how to do FLOSS localization. In Javier's view, localization and making migration easy are the two "keys to FLOSS adoption". In Bangalore, he regrets not being able to attend both tracks. Hok Kakada, another Cambodian, works for the KhmerOS project, which she sees as aiming to "enable all the Cambodian people to use a computer in their own language". She says that by using FLOSS, their team has already localized a number of applications into the Khmer language -- actually, not just applications, but even the operating system as well. OVER A HUNDRED Over a hundred participants are expected at this global meet. Together with experts and specialists, they'll look at how technology and free and open source software makes sense within the non-profit sector -- in terms of access and content. Asia Source organisers -- the Dutch TacticalTech.org network and Mahiti.org in Bangalore -- say theirs will be the "first event of its kind" in the region. Peer-learning will take top priority. Participants will look at available options, learn how to select and apply alternative technologies. They'll access skills and tools to utilise this in their daily work. There will be experts to share the skills. Colin Charles, also from Malaysia, considers himself an "all round open source person, actively involved in The Fedora Project and OpenOffice.org." He has helped many NGOs, companies and individuals make the switch, first to the Windows-like Open Office and then to GNU/Linux. Soon-Son 'Shawn' Kwon from South Korea works with a "big corporation" by day and by night has been managing the highly-successful Korean Linux Documentation Project, "as a hobby". David Tremblay is a French Canadian volunteer working for Oxfam Quebec as an IT analyst in Ha Noi, Viet Nam. He says: "I'm implementing websites, intranet, extranet and networks using -- as much as I can -- open source, open standards and accessible technologies. I'm trying to build a strong open source community in Ha Noi. I'm also a proud [GNU]Linux desktop user." Tremblay argues that he wants "to raise awareness among my NGOs that are too often giving away computers without thinking what their are doing.... I want to raise awareness that software choice isn't genuine. Too often, they think of their computers as a hammer, and everything become a MS-nail." One of the more colourful and high-profile though is "Rasta coder" Jaromil. Denis 'Jaromil' Rojo is the maintainer of dyne:bolic, HasciiCam MuSE and FreeJ. He calls himself "a nomadic rastafari of south Italian origins" and a free software developer. Dynebolic (dynebolic.org) comes out with a GNU/Linux multimedia-oriented distribution. Jaromil sees it as being suitable for "audio/video manipulation, network radio streaming, veejaying and anything else we can come up with together". He points out that this is a "100% free" operating system. (In the world of FLOSS, the word 'free' doesn't refer to zero-cost, but refers to the freedom to run, study, redistribute and improve software.) At the 'camp', there will be a range of sessions. From planning and helping an NGO to migrate to FLOSS, to sharing tips and techniques on using tools for content development, advocacy and campaigning. In parallel to this they will look beneath user-level scenarios, and break-down tricky issues such as techniques for localising software and forms of understanding the real cost of technology use. Asia Source will be held in a small artists community on the outskirts of Bangalore. But perhaps this needs to be recognised as an endeavour that goes beyond just code. FLOSS ideals are spreading to other fields. It's amazing to see the manner in which the sharing of knowledge and information is catching on in other circles too. Today, like sharing Free Software, the same ideals are growing in fields like open law, open source biology, MIT's OpenCourseWare, Project Gutenberg and Books Online (that distributes e-texts free online), free dictionaries and encyclopedias, and the open music movement. VENTURES THAT MAKE SENSE Various experiments are seeing FLOSS being deployed to bridge the 'digital divide'. While the potential is vast, and significant achievements are being reported at the ground level, there probably just isn't enough awareness about it. Tomas Krag in Copenhagen runs a small non-profit called wire.less.dk. It works primarily with low-cost wireless solutions for remote areas (mostly in the so-called 'developing world'). With a background as a web-developer, technical architect, and technology evangelist, his interest is "in a variety of open (standards, source, spectrum, doors) technology solutions to bring more people on to the Internet, and make it a richer better place". Adi Nugroho lives in Makassar, a small town in Sulawesi Island in Indonesia. He's been using FLOSS since 1998. In March 1999, with some friends, they founded the Linux User Group Ujung Pandang, to learn GNU/Linux together and to help each other to migrate and use it. Way back in September 1999, they build iNterNUX, the first full-GNU/Linux Internet cafe in Indonesia, which use FLOSS for all servers and workstations. NEEDING A LEG-UP IN ASIA In the West, FLOSS grew early. But in Asia it is a younger development, mainly because widespread public access to tools vital for collaboration -- like the Internet -- grew in these parts only very recently. In Bangalore, the camp is being supported by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Aspiration. This event is sponsored by Hivos, the Open Society Institute, and the International Open Source Network (IOSN). This perhaps marks a shift in the approach of international development organisations, who have come to recognise that the Free Software approach to knowledge and skills makes the most sense in a world where poverty and illiteracy and unconquered enemies for a few thousands millions. Prior to this event, similar 'source' events have taken place in South East Europe, Southern Africa and are planned in 2005 in Western Africa. See http://www.tacticaltech.org/asiasource (ENDS)

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Query from a Silicon Valley Indian ... selling out education to proprietary s/w
by Frederick Noronha(FN) 24 Jan '05

24 Jan '05

V. M. Kumaraswamy, a Silicon Valley Indian, is keen to check out the possibilities of filing a public interest litigation over what he sees as the "wrong doings" of the GoK (Karnataka) and GoI e-governance secretatries and other officials recently. Please pass on any useful tips if you can to him at NovaMed(a)aol.com He writes: > This is V. M. Kumaraswamy from USA. 949-857-8578. > > We would like discuss HOW TO GO ABOUT PIL . > > This is in relation to wrong doings by GOK and GOI. Especially > e-Governance Secretaries in GoK and GOI. > > GOK has signed an MOU with MICROSOFT, without proper procedures and not > properly notifying it. It looks like they have sold Education Syatem to > MS. > > It looks like e-gov in GOK, is preselcting it's biddeers fro e-gov > projects. There might be corruption involved here. > > There are so many things I can list here for you. > > What can be done here to stop all these things. > > Can you enlighten us. FN

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[Fsf-friends] The VideoLAN project investigates possible violation of their intellectual property
by Praveen A 24 Jan '05

24 Jan '05

Following announcement by Cinema On the Web (COW) and DivXNetworks of the new COW video on demand service, the VideoLAN project team members were informed of a possible violation of VLC media player's license. The VideoLAN project, which owns copyrights to VLC, distributes VLC as free software exclusively under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). Full storey at http://www.videolan.org/pr2005-1.html Regards Praveen A -- "There is no system but GNU, and Linux is one of its kernels." A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org http://www.edathanattukara.com My Weblog at http://www.livejournal.com/users/pravi Visit me at http://www.pravi.tk Rediscover the web ! Get firefox at http://www.getfirefox.com Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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Software, politics and ideology...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 23 Jan '05

23 Jan '05

Not particularly new, but some interesting perspectives. FN Cathedral and the Bazaar, The Book available at http://catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/ Review: http://www.theassayer.org/cgi-bin/asbook.cgi?book=71 A pragmatists perspective of an Ideology. by cyent on 2000-12-29 03:14:01, review #68 content better than 99% writing better than 80% The Cathedral and the Bazaar is justly famous for explaining mechanisms behind the success of Open Source software. Its primary viewpoint is in laying bare the "inner clockwork" that makes the Open Source development model so successful. Its primary weakness is that of any analytic and objective analysis. There is an implicit assumption that only the objectively observable clockwork drives the process and thus discounts the role of spirit and ideology. Thus if you believe humanity can be explained by reductively in terms of cells, molecules and atoms, you will find this work satisfying. I have lived in some of the vast spiritual and ideological upheavals that have trampled over most of the world in the 20th century, leaving pragmatic and materialistic USA in relative peace... Thus I find Raymond's assessment of the role of the ideology behind Free Software a little shallow. Yet in this very shallowness lies its huge popular success. How can the pragmatic and materialistic USA, the main producer and consumer of software, be made comfortable with a methodology flowing out of an essentially radical ideology? By rubbing off the sharp edges, renaming "Free Software" to a less emotionally loaded "Open Source". By explicating the methodologies and mechanisms behind the success in the hope that one can take the mechanisms on board without swallowing the ideologies. By merging it with American right wing individualistic traditions. This Raymond does remarkably well. Whether you have more radical thoughts or are staunchly capitalistic, Raymond has done his job very well. Read it. Read it now. You need to read his triptych to understand what is going on. The Cathedral and the Bazaar Explains the mechanisms that make Open Source such a good software development model. Homesteading the Noosphere Is his analysis of the property and ownership customs of the open-source culture. The Magic Cauldron Is an excellent review of economic sense of Open Source. Conclusion of the Reviewer In conclusion it is well worth the read. Yes, you can, as many Open Source proponents do, take on the mechanisms but not the ideology. However, be aware that beyond the mechanisms, discounted, discarded and undescribed by Raymond, lie also a vast sea of extremely potent ideologies. You can argue long whether the ideologies are communistic (as many have accused), libertarian, or simply religious (eg. Larry Wall's Artistic License). Whatever your opinion is, the zeal of Free Software supporters does not permit a simply pragmatic explanation such as Raymond's. Look to the (global, not USA) history of the 20th century and wonder... What in the long run will have the most impact. The mechanisms, or the ideologies? As far as I'm concern the copyleft on this if even more left than two options imposed on me. See http://www.geocities.com/cy_ent/bugroff.html for details of the "No problem Bugroff" license. The above review is copyrighted by its author, and is copylefted under the following license: GFDL 1.1 FORWARDED VIA: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) Nr Convent Saligao 403511 GoaIndia Freelance Journalist P: 832-2409490 M: 9822122436 http://fn.swiki.net http://fn-floss.notlong.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://goabooks.swiki.net * Reviews of books on Goa... and more

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hi
by Thejesh GN 22 Jan '05

22 Jan '05

Hi All, I am new to tis group. I work for IT company in bangalore. My other hobby is running www.techmag.biz which is the terrific combination of Linux + apache + php + mysql

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[Fsf-friends] GNU/Linus distros for life sciences/bioinformatics researchers
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 22 Jan '05

22 Jan '05

Thanks to "Tarun Kant" <tarunkant(a)linuxmail.org> and the SunnyLUG from Jodhpur for this useful piece of information For people who are into life science research / bioinformatics, there are a few good linux distros available. I will be trying these out in the coming days and will keep posting my experiences. These are: 1. DNALinux DNALinux is a is a SLAX-based Linux distribution with bioinformatics software pre-installed. DNA and protein sequence manipulation software is included. Like EMBOSS, Primer3, ClustalW, T-Coffe and others. Website: http://www.dnalinux.com/ 2. BioBrew Linux BioBrew Linux is an open source Linux distribution based on the NPACI Rocks (www.rocksclusters.org) cluster software and enhanced for bioinformaticists and life scientists. While it looks, feels, and operates like ordinary Red Hat Linux, BioBrew Linux includes popular cluster software e.g. MPICH, LAM-MPI, PVM, Modules, PVFS, Myrinet GM, Sun Grid Engine, gcc, Ganglia, and Globus, *and* popular bioinformatics software e.g. the NCBI toolkit, BLAST, mpiBLAST, HMMER, ClustalW, GROMACS, PHYLIP, WISE, FASTA, and EMBOSS. It runs on everything from notebook computers to large clusters. Website: http://bioinformatics.org/biobrew/ 3. Bio-Linux Bio-Linux provides both standard and cutting edge bioinformatics tools on a Linux base. It is powerful, configurable and easy to maintain. Bio-Linux has been customised for ease of use and provides an ideal system for scientists handling and analysing biological data. Bio-Linux also comes with many development tools, providing a solid base for bioinformatics software development. It can also be easily deployed as a computer cluster. As of version 4.0, Bio-Linux is based on the Debian GNU/Linux distribution. Bioinformatics-related customisations include the inclusion of a large number of bioinformatics programs and programming libraries, the addition of graphical menus for much of the bioinformatics software, and links from the desktop to key documentation and applications. The system also includes a comprehensive, categorised and searchable documentation system for bioinformatics software. 4. Bioknoppix The University of Puerto Rico High Performance Computing facility (HPCf) and the Puerto Rico Biomedical Research Infrastructure Network (BRIN-PR) have release Bioknoppix. Bioknoppix is a live CD linux, based on KNOPPIX, and specialized to include tools for bioinformatics. Bioknoppix does not need to be installed on your computer, making it a perfect tool for workshops and demos. Some of the software included in the 0.3 release are EMBOSS 2.8.0, jemboss, artemis, clustal, Cn3D, ImageJ, BioPython, Rasmol, Bioperl, Bioconductor Website: http://bioknoppix.hpcf.upr.edu/ 5. Biolinux-BR BioLinux-BR is a project directed to the scientific community. The intention is to create a Linux distribution for people with little familiarity with the installation of the operational system and mainly for people that do not know how they must proceed to unpack a program, compile and install it correctly. For these reasons, this is a Linux system that aims to be easy to use and still offering packages that will be part of the BioLinux-BR. Website: http://glu.df.ibilce.unesp.br/ 6. Vlinux VLinux Bioinformatics workbench is a Linux distribution for Bioinformatics. It is easy to use, no installation required, CD-based distribution based on Knoppix 3.3. It includes a variety of sequence and structure analysis packages.It is an Open source product released under the GNU GPL License. Website: http://bioinformatics.org/vlinux/index.html 7. Vigyaancd VigyaanCD is a live Linux CD containing all the required software to boot the computer with ready to use modeling software. VigyaanCD v0.1 is also based on KNOPPIX v3.3. It contains programs for bioinformatics, computational biology and computational chemistry. It also has genomes from Eschercia coli (K 12) and Synechococcus sp. WH 8102 It is suitable both for beginners (12 demos and tutorials) and experts. ISO image size (v 0.1) is 647 MB. And let me tell you this is an effort by an Indian. Kudos to you Pratul K. Agarwal for such a nice package. In fact I just downloaded the CD and have casually tried it. Looks superb. It has the option for a persistant home directory on HDD, which is very essential for Live CDs. Every thing is very comprehensively arranged. Once again. Three chers for Pratul. Cheers -Tarun ------------------------------------------------------------------------ <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/SunCityJodhpurLUG/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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NGOs, searching long for alternatives, find flavour in alt.software (long)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 21 Jan '05

21 Jan '05

NGOs, SEARCHING LONG FOR ALTERNATIVES, FIND FLAVOUR IN ALT.SOFTWARE >From Frederick Noronha For an sector that talks of alternatives, the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or voluntary sector stays surprisingly aloof from one significant alternative that has really worked -- free software. But there are stirrings to bridge this huge chasm. In end-January, India's technology mecca Bangalore is to be the venue for an international 'camp' meant to promote FLOSS among the NGO sector. Others talk of building 'another world'; in free software, it is already there. Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS, using the newish acronomy that better describe both diverse strands that make it up) today allows just about anyone to avoid globally dominant players, and to find more freedom-oriented options. It also, at the same time, works very efficiently in the growing world of computing. Asia Source, as the 'tech camp' is called, will be held from January 28 to February 4, 2005 and "hopes to bring together over a hundred people from 20 countries to increase the use and awareness of FLOSS amongst the non-profit sector in South and South East Asia." There will be participants coming in from a range of backgrounds. Sucharat "Ying" Sathapornanon from Thailand looks after IT for the Asia-Pacific Regional Resource Center for Human Rights Edcuation. Umesh Pradhan comes in from Thimphu, Bhutan. Ujjwal from Nepal is a "technical supporter" of non-profits in Kathmandu, Nepal. Yee Yee Htun from Myanmar lives along the Thai-Myanmar border, and is a volunteer webmaster for AAPPB (Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma) -- www.aappb.org. Alecks Pabico from the Philippines is a journalist working with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. >From a range of Asian countries, NGOs and grassroots technology support professionals will come in "to learn new skills, exchange tips, and share experiences", organisers say. Local hosts reminded participants that Bangalore is famous for its silk, sandle wood, handicrafts, designer jewelery and (tasty vegetarian) food. But beyond the names and faces and local attractions, there's a more important message. FLOSS bestows on the user four freedoms -- freedom to use the software for any purpose; freedom to study how the software works; freedom to modify the software; and freedom to share the software with others. From a technical perspective, this can be used to reduce costs and hardware requirements while also improving security, reliability, performance, stability, and scalability. >From a wider philosophical perspective, FLOSS can transform patterns of access, usage, control and ownership of knowledge and technologies. Globally, FLOSS has grown after several hundred thousand hackers and students scattered across the globe collaborated to produce a unified body of knowledge without resorting to hierarchical structures and exploitative relationships. This movement is also seen by some to demonstrate how wealth can be created by entrepreneurs in the free market without using the proprietary copyright regime. In Bangalore, four themes will flow throughout the event. FLOSSophy for NGOs (or, why Free Software and Open Source makes sense), migration and access to non-proprietorial software, tools for content-building and communication, and the localisation of computing to make it relevant to countries across Asia. Elizabeth, originally Timorese (from East Timor), is currently doing her internship at the Open Forum of Cambodia with KhmerOS (Khmer Open Source). The KhmerOs is working to localise software to Khmer, the Cambodian language. Says she: "I'm learning from them while also preparing a localization document for Tetum, one of our national language in Timor Leste." Tetum uses the Latin script with some accents, since it has words imported from Portuguese. Talat Numanov from Dushanbe, Tajikistan works in Central Asian Development Agency as an IT specialist, and his goal is to learn more about FLOSS and distribute it to users. Says he: "My friends use Mandrake Linux (because it has been localised to Tajik)." Russell T. Kyaw Oo from Myanmar says: "I am focusing on localization, translation and modification." Guests from overseas should be meeting up with Guntupalli Karunakar, a soft-spoken extremely low-key Mumbai-based champion of localisation. He's one of the key movers behind the Indian Linux Project (http://www.indlinux.org). Explains Karunakar: "My primary experience is in F(L)OSS localization. I have been working on this for last four years, We have almost completed Hindi localization part." Not-so-friendly neighbouring regions are sometimes united by common concerns. From Pakistan, Sufyan told Karunakar in a pre-conference online discussion: "We at Open Source Resource Center of Pakistan (www.osrc.org.pk) will be grateful to you if you can give us an action plan for localization in Urdu." Localisation is an issue that many are addressing in the FLOSS world, and taking computing to communities which otherwise might just be seen as an unviable market. Javier Sola, a Spaniard living in Cambodia, is coordinator of the KhmerOS project. "Our goal is to make Cambodia OpenSource-Country by means of localization. I am an enthusiast of F(L)OSS localization. I believe that it is the key to adoption of F(L)OSS by users," says he. He has been also working on a "toolkit" on how to do FLOSS localization. In Javier's view, localization and making migration easy are the two "keys to FLOSS adoption". In Bangalore, he regrets not being able to attend both tracks. Hok Kakada, another Cambodian, works for the KhmerOS project, which she sees as aiming to "enable all the Cambodian people to use a computer in their own language". She says that by using FLOSS, their team has already localized a number of applications into the Khmer language -- actually, not just applications, but even the operating system as well. OVER A HUNDRED Over a hundred participants are expected at this global meet. Together with experts and specialists, they'll look at how technology and free and open source software makes sense within the non-profit sector -- in terms of access and content. Asia Source organisers -- the Dutch TacticalTech.org network and Mahiti.org in Bangalore -- say theirs will be the "first event of its kind" in the region. Peer-learning will take top priority. Participants will look at available options, learn how to select and apply alternative technologies. They'll access skills and tools to utilise this in their daily work. There will be experts to share the skills. Colin Charles, also from Malaysia, considers himself an "all round open source person, actively involved in The Fedora Project and OpenOffice.org." He has helped many NGOs, companies and individuals make the switch, first to the Windows-like Open Office and then to GNU/Linux. Soon-Son 'Shawn' Kwon from South Korea works with a "big corporation" by day and by night has been managing the highly-successful Korean Linux Documentation Project, "as a hobby". David Tremblay is a French Canadian volunteer working for Oxfam Quebec as an IT analyst in Ha Noi, Viet Nam. He says: "I'm implementing websites, intranet, extranet and networks using -- as much as I can -- open source, open standards and accessible technologies. I'm trying to build a strong open source community in Ha Noi. I'm also a proud [GNU]Linux desktop user." Tremblay argues that he wants "to raise awareness among my NGOs that are too often giving away computers without thinking what their are doing.... I want to raise awareness that software choice isn't genuine. Too often, they think of their computers as a hammer, and everything become a MS-nail." One of the more colourful and high-profile though is "Rasta coder" Jaromil. Denis 'Jaromil' Rojo is the maintainer of dyne:bolic, HasciiCam MuSE and FreeJ. He calls himself "a nomadic rastafari of south Italian origins" and a free software developer. Dynebolic (dynebolic.org) comes out with a GNU/Linux multimedia-oriented distribution. Jaromil sees it as being suitable for "audio/video manipulation, network radio streaming, veejaying and anything else we can come up with together". He points out that this is a "100% free" operating system. (In the world of FLOSS, the word 'free' doesn't refer to zero-cost, but refers to the freedom to run, study, redistribute and improve software.) At the 'camp', there will be a range of sessions. From planning and helping an NGO to migrate to FLOSS, to sharing tips and techniques on using tools for content development, advocacy and campaigning. In parallel to this they will look beneath user-level scenarios, and break-down tricky issues such as techniques for localising software and forms of understanding the real cost of technology use. Asia Source will be held in a small artists community on the outskirts of Bangalore. But perhaps this needs to be recognised as an endeavour that goes beyond just code. FLOSS ideals are spreading to other fields. It's amazing to see the manner in which the sharing of knowledge and information is catching on in other circles too. Today, like sharing Free Software, the same ideals are growing in fields like open law, open source biology, MIT's OpenCourseWare, Project Gutenberg and Books Online (that distributes e-texts free online), free dictionaries and encyclopedias, and the open music movement. VENTURES THAT MAKE SENSE Various experiments are seeing FLOSS being deployed to bridge the 'digital divide'. While the potential is vast, and significant achievements are being reported at the ground level, there probably just isn't enough awareness about it. Tomas Krag in Copenhagen runs a small non-profit called wire.less.dk. It works primarily with low-cost wireless solutions for remote areas (mostly in the so-called 'developing world'). With a background as a web-developer, technical architect, and technology evangelist, his interest is "in a variety of open (standards, source, spectrum, doors) technology solutions to bring more people on to the Internet, and make it a richer better place". Adi Nugroho lives in Makassar, a small town in Sulawesi Island in Indonesia. He's been using FLOSS since 1998. In March 1999, with some friends, they founded the Linux User Group Ujung Pandang, to learn GNU/Linux together and to help each other to migrate and use it. Way back in September 1999, they build iNterNUX, the first full-GNU/Linux Internet cafe in Indonesia, which use FLOSS for all servers and workstations. NEEDING A LEG-UP IN ASIA In the West, FLOSS grew early. But in Asia it is a younger development, mainly because widespread public access to tools vital for collaboration -- like the Internet -- grew in these parts only very recently. In Bangalore, the camp is being supported by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Aspiration. This event is sponsored by Hivos, the Open Society Institute, and the International Open Source Network (IOSN). This perhaps marks a shift in the approach of international development organisations, who have come to recognise that the Free Software approach to knowledge and skills makes the most sense in a world where poverty and illiteracy and unconquered enemies for a few thousands millions. Prior to this event, similar 'source' events have taken place in South East Europe, Southern Africa and are planned in 2005 in Western Africa. See http://www.tacticaltech.org/asiasource (ENDS) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha is a freelance journalist who writes often on Free Software, and can be emailed at fred(a)bytesforall.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) Nr Convent Saligao 403511 GoaIndia Freelance Journalist P: 832-2409490 M: 9822122436 http://fn.swiki.net http://fn-floss.notlong.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://goabooks.swiki.net * Reviews of books on Goa... and more

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Fsf-friends January 2005