Fsf-friends April 2005

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29 participants
45 discussions

[Fwd: Summary of the Workshop at UoM on TRIPS Treaty and Computer Programs]
by Ramanraj K 13 Apr '05

13 Apr '05

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Summary of the Workshop at UoM on TRIPS Treaty and Computer Programs Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2005 22:06:48 +0530 From: Ramanraj K <ramanraj.k(a)gmail.com> To: ilugc(a)ae.iitm.ac.in Brief highlights of the Workshop on "TRIPS Treaty and Computer Programs at the Dept. of Legal Studies, UoM on 8th April 2005: The presentation slides are available at: http://wiki.ffii.org/Madras050408En Sivasankar started the discussion with the difficulties involved in testing "program equivalence", giving two short programs, based on the Goldbach conjecture, calling one as the goldbach (about 7 lines) and the other the ghost_of_goldbach (about 3 lines that always returns true). Testing program equivalence is at the heart of any "software patent" infringement suit, and Shiv proved that it is well impossible to scientifically research and conclude that two given programs are equivalent. There are not even any standard rules for scientifically testing and concluding "program equivalence". Sivasankar holds a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and has done M.E. in Computer Science, at IISc., Bangalore. He has worked for IBM, USA., and has presented several papers on computer science, and software development. Well, he is a typical expert who may be called to testify in a "software patent" infringement suit, to "prove" that a given computer program infringes upon a given "software patent". From what I understood, no expert can assert on oath that two programs are "equivalent" or that one is a copy of the other, except when the two are exact copies. Murali discussed the various business models used by software entities to do business. I basically summarised the recent events touching upon patentability of software patents under TRIPS that has mostly been discussed to death in our various mailing lists; and to enliven the proceedings; took the audience through the recent decision pronounced in Eolas v. Microsoft, to explain how the system works in the US, and that we should explore and research the steps that could be taken against the illegitimate practice of "software patents" which are a barrier against free trade. I would like to thank Raman who gave a demo, and all the participants from ilugc. Please post your comments/opinions to jur-parl mailing list at http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/jur-parl Thanks, Ramanraj.

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Fwd: [nagarjun@gnowledge.org: [ILUG-BOM] Tally and GNU/Linux]
by Nagarjuna G. 12 Apr '05

12 Apr '05

The forwarded mail may be of interest to all. ----- Forwarded message from "Nagarjuna G." <nagarjun(a)gnowledge.org> ----- > Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 14:45:14 +0530 > From: "Nagarjuna G." <nagarjun(a)gnowledge.org> > Subject: [ILUG-BOM] Tally and GNU/Linux > To: linuxers(a)mm.ilug-bom.org.in > Reply-To: nagarjun(a)gnowledge.org, "GNU/Linux Users Group, Mumbai, > India" <linuxers(a)mm.ilug-bom.org.in> > Organization: gnowledge.org > User-Agent: KMail/1.7.2 > > > I have been seeing that off and on this list keeps > talking about Tally and how to run this on GNU/Linux? > Tally is not a free software, and I dont see why users > should discuss this on this list. > > On the other hand availability of accounting packages > is a big problem and several hackers are addressing > this issue, including some of our own list members. We > should discuss those issues. > > This list is not for discussing propreitary software, > but free software. In fact we should be discussing the > issue of how to boycott the distributions that ship > propreitary software and have explicit tieups with such > agencies. This clearly shows that these distribution > companies do not have any interest other than being in > business. > > BTW, those of you who have some knowledge of this > application, can you do some research about how the > data is stored in Tally? Is this encoding a standard? > Does this application support Export of data to any > other standards? What freedom users have? Are > the users locked in? etc. > > Nagarjuna > > > -- > http://mm.ilug-bom.org.in/mailman/listinfo/linuxers ----- End forwarded message -----

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Re: [ILUG-BOM] Tally and GNU/Linux
by Nagarjuna G. 12 Apr '05

12 Apr '05

On Tue, Apr 12, 2005 at 03:28:51PM +0530, Philip Tellis wrote: > Sometime Today, NG cobbled together some glyphs to say: > > Finally, I don't believe in boycotting distros that provide non-free > software. That would be just as fascist as boycotting all free software > as viral. Each person is intelligent enough to make their own choice. > Our job as free software advocates is to educate people and not to force > them to do our bidding. If someone chooses to make the wrong choices, > we have to think about whether we want him on our side or not. > when we ask someone to boycott, we dont force with a gun point. we inform them of the dangers and campaign. Ultimately, it left to the users. When Mahatma called for boycotting British goods, it was an expression of protest. If free software community doesnt protest, freedom is never possible. This is a relentless job, because there is always someone who wants to take away our freedom. A protest will make the distribution company think twice before signing agreements with proprietary companies. My worry with Tally is that unlike even the proprietary databases like Oracle, (where the data is always available for you to take out of it, since the data is encoded in a standard), the data in Tally is entirely in a private form. I think that no country should let any company do business if export to an openstandard is not possible. This is a very serious issue. Who else will take notice of this and alert the users if not lists of this kind? Just informing people is not enough, we need to generate public opinion. Protest is one form of doing this. Nagarjuna

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IT@School
by Arun M 10 Apr '05

10 Apr '05

Dear all, We need contact in formation for free software activist from following districts of Kerala. Kollam, Idukki, Kottayam, Alappuza Palakkadu. Please mail me off list if you think you can help. regards, arun.

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Re IT@School
by doxa＠sancharnet.in 09 Apr '05

09 Apr '05

Arun, If the Curriculum is not yet finalised (or can be re-worked) we should also incorporate views on Copyrights/Patents alongwith it. IT education should also contain at least the legal issues that are emerging now, which can be incorporated without controversies. To have a better picture there should also be some kind of impact studies - on the politics of digital divide etc - emergence of a "pay per view society" at a time when the diffusion of Internet is gaining strength (An excellent link for researchers is at http://www.fepproject.org/policyreports/copyright2dexsum.html)- the rate of obsolesence of hardware & software technology - the role of the Planning institutions in India to promote diffusion of IT, the role of State Govts in promoting software /hardware through Govt policies - all these combined could be an effective curriculum for knowing about Information Technology - rather than forcing lakhs of students and a few thousand teachers to run after learning how to learn using Office tools. Institutions of higher engineering education are still pursuing (funded) courses like Software Engineering - that looks at the software development industries through the eyes of a proprietary software establishment - there are hardly any literature available that deals with Free Software software service components (resembling Cathedral-Bazaar ones). One of the arguments of the teachers here was whether it would not be appropriate to teach proprietary software. How can one go against the very philosophy of proprietary software establishments - to remain closed - by trying to open the knot of proprietariness through education. This would be very absurd, since it is paradoxical - on the one side, proprietary establishments want to have all the details of their products/services closed - and on the other side, they want us to learn their techniques. This is a dilemma that proprietary establishments need to overcome. The educational institutions cannot be part of their paradoxical dilemma. (One also needs to be aware of the cases if the patent rights of proprietary software are trampled upon or tampered with - the new global legislations arriving through GATS/TRIPS/WTO tries to put the onus of proving innocence on the accused - akin to our POTA/TADA legislations - Why should the educational teaching community in Kerala push our 25 lakh student community to such a risk ? The second argument that teachers forwarded had been on whether their community can ignore the "market share figures" for desktop OS. What relevance is there for such figures if there is a drastic shift in emergence of technologies - ferrying through waters will continue only as long as the bridge arrives - I suppose our issue should be on can we be one step ahead while designing the curriculum. After all Information Technology is Techne-o-logy of Information - where techne - stands of "arts and crafts of society" - not just dealing with craft - but "arts" as well, where the injustice (or distribution of justice) of "crafts" gets exposed in due course. CK Raju, Thrissur PS : This could have been taken to Kerala-IT-discuss forum, but wouldn't it be better to get some views on these issues ?

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Economic times - News
by Sarath Lakshman 08 Apr '05

08 Apr '05

Dear friends, Please look at the news heading in economic times newspaper on wednesday April 6th. --------------------------------------------------------- 'Linux, Windows have similar maintenance cost' Most US business say there is very little difference between the cost of maintaining a Windows versus a Linux-based corporate computing environment........news follows.... --------------------------------------------------------- Collect the Economic Times of 6th April to know abt this news report. Regards.. SarathLakshman __________________________________ Yahoo! Messenger Show us what our next emoticon should look like. Join the fun. http://www.advision.webevents.yahoo.com/emoticontest

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Economic times - News
by Krishna Pagadala 08 Apr '05

08 Apr '05

1) Free Software movement is not interested in TCO. We value freedom higher than anything else. 2) The whole issue has been dealth with by Rishab Aiyer Ghosh in his essay "License fees and GDP per capita: The case for open source in developing countries" http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_12/ghosh/index.html Please look at the section "Total cost of ownership and low labour costs" Sarath, Can you please look write a letter to "Economic Times" making use of the above information, and any other information that you have. Thanks, Krishna --- Sarath Lakshman <sarathlakshman(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > Dear friends, > > Please look at the news heading in economic times > newspaper on wednesday April 6th. > > --------------------------------------------------------- > 'Linux, Windows have similar maintenance cost' > > Most US business say there is very little difference > between the cost of maintaining a Windows versus a > Linux-based corporate computing > environment........news follows.... > > --------------------------------------------------------- > Collect the Economic Times of 6th April to know abt > this news report. > > > Regards.. > > SarathLakshman > > > > > > > > __________________________________ > Yahoo! Messenger > Show us what our next emoticon should look like. > Join the fun. > http://www.advision.webevents.yahoo.com/emoticontest > > _______________________________________________ > Fsf-friends mailing list > Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in > http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends > ===================================== To Reflect, to Inspire and to Empower http://www.employees.org/~krishnap/ The great moral question of the twenty-first century is: If all knowledge, all culture, all art, all useful information, can be costlessly given to everyone at the same price that it is given to anyone -- if everyone can have everything, everywhere, all the time, why is it ever moral to exclude anyone from anything? -Eben Moglen __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs

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Stallman on the state of GNU/Linux
by Vivek Varghese Cherian 07 Apr '05

07 Apr '05

Excerpt from an interview RMS had with OFB's Timothy R. Butler recently OFB: What GNU/Linux distribution do you presently recommend if someone comes up to you and asks how to get started with Free Software? Is there one that meets the FSF's criteria completely? RMS: Yes, there is. It is called UTUTO, and it is developed by committed free software activists in Argentina. The existence of this distribution is a big step forward for the free software movement. For many years there was literally no GNU/Linux distribution that I could ethically recommend to the general public. Most distributions contained non-free software; the few exceptions distributed non-free software from their sites. Read the complete interview at http://www.ofb.biz/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=353 -- Vivek Varghese Cherian Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org>

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Invitation to Eggheads
by Ramanraj K 07 Apr '05

07 Apr '05

If you are a highly qualified and experienced egghead, please consider yourself invited to the mailing list at http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/jur-parl The mailing list has been created "to collect and provide expertise on legal questions, as they become relevant for the work of FFII." To the totally uninitiated, "egghead" means a "very studious person". All Eggheads are honoured at the WTO site with an image that symbolises their position in society ! Please visit http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/trips_e.htm to get a view of the time honoured egghead image, and if you also find the documents there worthy of your time, to investigate ways to help to remove the thorn of "software patents" from the flesh of software developers, please subscribe to the jur-parl list and share your opinions. Thanks, Ramanraj.

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OpenSource Windows ?
by Praveen A 04 Apr '05

04 Apr '05

> > "For many years now I have realized that having a great deal of wealth is > a curse, and not a blessing. I would like to go back in time and do it all > again, but this time make Windows open source. And, with my experiences in > the last twenty five years, I believe I am well positioned to get the kind > of girls then that I could never get, well, then." --Bill Gates http://www6.tomshardware.com/column/20050401/index.html Note: Scroll down till the end to see this quote -- "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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Fsf-friends April 2005