Fsf-friends June 2005

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[OT]Doing arithmetic with computers
by Ramanraj K 10 Jun '05

10 Jun '05

While doing arithmetic, how is infinity represented on a computer? Thanks, Ramanraj.

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Fwd: [GNU/FSF Press] Free Software Directory reaches 4, 000 packages
by Ramanraj K 10 Jun '05

10 Jun '05

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Sullivan <johns(a)fsf.org> Date: Jun 9, 2005 10:27 PM Subject: [GNU/FSF Press] Free Software Directory reaches 4,000 packages To: info-press(a)gnu.org Boston, MA, USA - Thursday, June 9, 2005 - The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced that the FSF's Free Software Directory registered its 4,000th software package. The Directory, which accounts for more than 40% of the traffic on the FSF's Web site (receiving 2.25 million hits per month, an average of 321K per day), has grown and improved steadily in the past year: one year ago, the Directory had 3153 packages; it now has 4,029. The Web form, which lets developers enter packages themselves, has been refined and expanded. The category structure has undergone a fourth revision to reflect the increasing depth of free software packages available. Mathematics, formerly part of the Science category, is now on its own, while the Science category itself has deepened considerably: there are now 11 subcategories under Science, including Artificial Intelligence, Meteorology, and Genetics. The size and depth of the Science category reflects free software's popularity in academia. The variety of real-world applications of free software also increased greatly: there are now enough fax-related, barcoding, and e-commerce software for them to have their own categories. Moreover, you can now run the following businesses with free software: an ISP, an animal shelter, a medical practice, a travel agency, an Internet cafe, a real estate office, an alternative energy company, a pizza parlor, a winery, a library, a bookstore, a search-and-rescue team, and a full service restaurant. Free software is increasingly being used in creative fields. 'CinePaint' is an image retouching software that has been used in the production of (among others) Harry Potter, Scooby-Doo, and Stuart Little. 'diskWriggler' is a newer package intended as a benchmarking tool in film and post-production. Individual video and multimedia artists are also using free software, and many of them are writing their own tools. 'LiVes' and 'veejay' are popular free software video editors; 'FreeJ', 'MoB', 'EffecTV', 'PureData', 'piksel', and 'PiDiP' are tools for working with video and creating various effects. The recognition the Directory has received has also increased. It was profiled on lwn.net on August 25, 2004 [http://lwn.net/Articles/97521/]. At the FSF's first annual members' meeting, in March 2003, Richard Stallman, President of the FSF, named the Directory as his first choice of the two most important projects the FSF had undertaken in the past five years. Almost 90% of the packages in the Directory are licensed under the FSF's own GPL or LGPL licenses. The continuously rising number of packages in the Directory is proof that usable, productive free software exists for a variety of business, personal, and artistic contexts and can be found at http://directory.fsf.org/. -- About the Free Software Foundation: The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software - particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants - and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software. Their Web site, located at www.fsf.org, is an important source of information about GNU/Linux. They are headquartered in Boston, MA, USA. (This announcement can be found at http://www.fsf.org/news/fsd.html .) Boston, MA, USA - Thursday, June 9, 2005 - The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced that the FSF's Free Software Directory registered its 4,000th software package. The Directory, which accounts for more than 40% of the traffic on the FSF's Web site (receiving 2.25 million hits per month, an average of 321K per day), has grown and improved steadily in the past year: one year ago, the Directory had 3153 packages; it now has 4,029. The Web form, which lets developers enter packages themselves, has been refined and expanded. The category structure has undergone a fourth revision to reflect the increasing depth of free software packages available. Mathematics, formerly part of the Science category, is now on its own, while the Science category itself has deepened considerably: there are now 11 subcategories under Science, including Artificial Intelligence, Meteorology, and Genetics. The size and depth of the Science category reflects free software's popularity in academia. The variety of real-world applications of free software also increased greatly: there are now enough fax-related, barcoding, and e-commerce software for them to have their own categories. Moreover, you can now run the following businesses with free software: an ISP, an animal shelter, a medical practice, a travel agency, an Internet cafe, a real estate office, an alternative energy company, a pizza parlor, a winery, a library, a bookstore, a search-and-rescue team, and a full service restaurant. Free software is increasingly being used in creative fields. 'CinePaint' is an image retouching software that has been used in the production of (among others) Harry Potter, Scooby-Doo, and Stuart Little. 'diskWriggler' is a newer package intended as a benchmarking tool in film and post-production. Individual video and multimedia artists are also using free software, and many of them are writing their own tools. 'LiVes' and 'veejay' are popular free software video editors; 'FreeJ', 'MoB', 'EffecTV', 'PureData', 'piksel', and 'PiDiP' are tools for working with video and creating various effects. The recognition the Directory has received has also increased. It was profiled on lwn.net on August 25, 2004 [http://lwn.net/Articles/97521/]. At the FSF's first annual members' meeting, in March 2003, Richard Stallman, President of the FSF, named the Directory as his first choice of the two most important projects the FSF had undertaken in the past five years. Almost 90% of the packages in the Directory are licensed under the FSF's own GPL or LGPL licenses. The continuously rising number of packages in the Directory is proof that usable, productive free software exists for a variety of business, personal, and artistic contexts and can be found at http://directory.fsf.org/. -- About the Free Software Foundation: The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software - particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants - and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software. Their Web site, located at www.fsf.org, is an important source of information about GNU/Linux. They are headquartered in Boston, MA, USA. (This announcement can be found at http://www.fsf.org/news/fsd.html .) -- John Sullivan Program Administrator | Phone: (617)542-5942 x23 51 Franklin Street, 5th Fl. | Fax: (617)542-2652 Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA | GPG: AE8600B6 _______________________________________________ FSF And GNU Press mailing list <info-press(a)gnu.org> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-press

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Fwd: [GNU/FSF Press] GPL Version 3: Background to Adoption
by Ramanraj K 10 Jun '05

10 Jun '05

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: John Sullivan <johns(a)fsf.org> Date: Jun 10, 2005 2:06 AM Subject: [GNU/FSF Press] GPL Version 3: Background to Adoption To: info-press(a)gnu.org Boston, MA, USA - Thursday, June 9, 2005 - The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today released the following article by Richard M. Stallman and Eben Moglen discussing the forthcoming GPL Version 3. GPL Version 3: Background to Adoption by Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen The GNU General Public License (``the GPL'') has remained unmodified, at version level 2, since 1991. This is extraordinary longevity for any widely-employed legal instrument. The durability of the GPL is even more surprising when one takes into account the differences between the free software movement at the time of version 2's release and the situation prevailing in 2005. Richard M. Stallman, founder of the free software movement and author of the GNU GPL, released version 2 in 1991 after taking legal advice and collecting developer opinion concerning version 1 of the license, which had been in use since 1985. There was no formal public comment process and no significant interim transition period. The Free Software Foundation immediately relicensed the components of the GNU Project, which comprised the largest then-existing collection of copyleft software assets. In Finland, Linus Torvalds adopted GPL Version 2 for his operating system kernel, called Linux. That was then, and this is now. The GPL is employed by tens of thousands of software projects around the world, of which the Free Software Foundation's GNU system is a tiny fraction. The GNU system, when combined with Linus Torvalds' Linux---which has evolved into a flexible, highly-portable, industry-leading operating system kernel---along with Samba, MySQL, and other GPL'd programs, offers superior reliability and adaptability to Microsoft's operating systems, at nominal cost. GPL'd software runs on or is embedded in devices ranging from cellphones, PDAs and home networking appliances to mainframes and supercomputing clusters. Independent software developers around the world, as well as every large corporate IT buyer and seller, and a surprisingly large proportion of individual users, interact with the GPL. During the period since 1991, of course, there has developed a profusion of free software licenses. But not in the area covered by the GPL. The ``share and share alike'' or ``copyleft'' aspect of the GPL is its most important functional characteristic, and those who want to use a copyleft license for software overwhelmingly use the GPL rather than inventing their own. Updating the GPL is therefore a very different task in 2005 than it was in 1991. The substantive reasons for revision, and the likely nature of those changes, are subject matter for another essay. At present we would like to concentrate on the institutional, procedural aspects of changing the license. Those are complicated by the fact that the GPL serves four distinct purposes. * The GPL is a Worldwide Copyright License As a legal document, the GPL serves a purpose that most legal drafters would do anything possible to avoid: it licenses copyrighted material for modification and redistribution in every one of the world's systems of copyright law. In general, publishers don't use worldwide copyright licenses; for each system in which their works are distributed, licensing arrangements tailored to local legal requirements are used. Publishers rarely license redistribution of modified or derivative works; when they do so, those licenses are tailored to the specific setting, factual and legal. But free software requires legal arrangements that permit copyrighted works to follow arbitrary trajectories, in both geographic and genetic terms. Modified versions of free software works are distributed from hand to hand across borders in a pattern that no copyright holder could possibly trace. GPL version 2 performed the task of globalization relatively well, because its design was elegantly limited to a minimum set of copyright principles that signatories to the Berne Convention must offer, in one form or another, in their national legislation. But GPL2 was a license constructed by one US layman and his lawyers, largely concerned with US law. To the extent possible, and without any fundamental changes, GPL3 should ease internationalization difficulties, more fully approximating the otherwise unsought ideal of the global copyright license. * The GPL is the Code of Conduct for Free Software Distributors Beyond the legal permission that the GPL extends to those who wish to copy, modify, and share free software, the GPL also embodies a code of industry conduct with respect to the practices by which free software is distributed. Section 3, which explains how to make source code available as required under the license, affects product packaging decisions for those who embed free software in appliances, as well as those who distribute software collections that include both free and unfree software. Section 7, which concerns the effect of licenses, judgments, and other compulsory legal interventions incompatible with the GPL on the behavior of software distributors, affects patent licensing arrangements in connection with industry standards. And so on, through a range of interactions between the requirements of the license and evolving practices in the vending of both hardware and software. The Free Software Foundation, through its maintenance and enforcement of the GPL, has contributed to the evolution of industry behavior patterns beyond its influence as a maker of software. In revising the GPL, the Foundation is inevitably engaged in altering the rules of the road for enterprises and market participants of many different kinds, with different fundamental interests and radically different levels of market power. The process of drafting and adopting changes to the license must thus approximate standard-setting, or ``best practices'' definition, as well as copyright license drafting. * The GPL is the Constitution of the Free Software Movement The Free Software Foundation has never been reluctant to point out that its goals are primarily social and political, not technical or economic. The Foundation believes that free software---that is, software that can be freely studied, copied, modified, reused, redistributed and shared by its users---is the only ethically satisfactory form of software development, as free and open scientific research is the only ethically satisfactory context for the conduct of mathematics, physics, or biology. The Foundation, and those who support its broader work, regard free software as an essential step in a social movement for freer access to knowledge, freer access to facilities of communication, and a more deeply participatory culture, open to human beings with less regard to existing distributions of wealth and social power. The free software movement has taken advantage of the social conditions of its time to found its program on the creation of vast new wealth, through new systems of cooperation, which can in turn be shared in order to further the creation of new wealth, in a positive feedback loop. This program is not, of course, universally shared by all the parties who benefit from the exploitation of the new wealth created by free software. The free software movement has never objected to the indirect benefits accruing to those who differ from the movement's goals: one of the powerful lessons the movement has learned from previous aspects of the long-duration Western movement for freedom of expression is the value of working with, rather than against, conventional economic interests and concerns. But the movement's own goals cannot be subordinated to the economic interests of our friends and allies in industry, let alone those who occasionally contribute solely for reasons of their own. Changes to the GPL, for whatever reason they are undertaken, must not undermine the underlying movement for freer exchange of knowledge. To the extent that the movement has identified technological or legal measures likely to be harmful to freedom, such as ``trusted computing'' or a broadening of the scope of patent law, the GPL needs to address those issues from a perspective of political principle and the needs of the movement, not from primary regard for the industrial or commercial consequences. * The GPL is the Literary Work of Richard M. Stallman Some copyright licenses are no doubt known, in the restricted circle of one firm or law office, as the achievement of a single author's acumen or insight. But it is safe to say that there is no other copyright license in the world that is so strongly identified with the achievements, and the philosophy, of a single public figure. Mr. Stallman remains the GPL's author, with as much right to preserve its integrity as a work representative of his intentions as any other author or creator. Under his guidance, the Free Software Foundation, which holds the copyright of the GPL, will coordinate and direct the process of its modification. * Conclusion The GPL serves, and must continue to serve, multiple purposes. Those purposes are fundamentally diverse, and they inevitably conflict. Development of GPL version 3 has been an ongoing process within the Free Software Foundation; we, along with our colleagues, have never stopped considering possible modifications. We have consulted, formally and informally, a very broad array of participants in the free software community, from industry, the academy, and the garage. Those conversations have occurred in many countries and several languages, over almost two decades, as the technology of software development and distribution changed around us. When a GPLv3 discussion draft is released, the pace of that conversation will change, as a particular proposal becomes the centerpiece. The Foundation will, before it emits a first discussion draft, publicize the process by which it intends to gather opinion and suggestions. The Free Software Foundation recognizes that the reversioning of the GPL is a crucial moment in the evolution of the free software community, and the Foundation intends to meet its responsibilities to the makers, distributors and users of free software. In doing so, we hope to hear all relevant points of view, and to make decisions that reflect the many disparate purposes that the license must serve. Our primary concern remains, as it has been from the beginning, the creation and protection of freedom. We recognize that the best protection of freedom is a growing and vital community of the free. We will use the process of public discussion of GPL3 drafts to support and nurture the community of the free. Proprietary culture imposes both technology and license terms; free software means allowing people to understand, experiment and modify software, as well as getting involved in the discussion of license terms, so that everyone's ideas can contribute to the common good, and the development of each contributes to the development of all. Copyright Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen, 2005. Verbatim copying of this article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. -- About the Free Software Foundation: The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software - particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants - and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software. Their Web site, located at www.fsf.org, is an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support their work can be made at <http://donate.fsf.org>. They are headquartered in Boston, MA, USA. -- John Sullivan Program Administrator | Phone: (617)542-5942 x23 51 Franklin Street, 5th Fl. | Fax: (617)542-2652 Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA | GPG: AE8600B6 _______________________________________________ FSF And GNU Press mailing list <info-press(a)gnu.org> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-press

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Re: [Fsf-friends] [OT]Notations for representing infinity
by Ramanraj K 09 Jun '05

09 Jun '05

On 6/8/05, V. Sasi Kumar <sasi.fsf(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, 2005-06-08 at 08:32 +0530, Ramanraj K wrote: > > (BTW division by zero is assumed to be infinity and afaik there is no proof > > for that). > > If I remember my math, division by zero is properly said to be > indeterminate, and not infinity. Infinity is not a number, but a concept > -- if that does make sense. Commonly, division by zero is treated as an illegal operation. But, Bhaskara in his Lilavati gives khahara (infinity) as the answer to 1/0 and it does seem to make sense, though there is no proof for this hypothesis or the claim that division by zero is an illegal operation. Interestingly, 1/0 is also a notation for khahara - infinity in the works of our ancients. Now, we may follow the same notation n/0, where the numerator n may stand for the initial value of an infinite range of values. > > There should be a way to represent ... or infinity in the above > > equation on computers. If there are no standard ways of doing it > > then, we should devise a way to do it. It is fairly important to be > > able to represent infinity on computers just as easily as we represent > > numbers, because it has many practical uses as well. We may have to > > define max and min values for variables, and sometimes it has to be > > set at infinity. > > > > If there are no standards for this, then: > > [1] A special character could represent infinity (lemniscate : > > sleeping 8 :) or three dots ... > > > > AND/OR > > > > [2] The last bit could be used to represent infinity. If a n bit word > > is used to represent integers, then the allowed integers have values > > between -2^(n-1) and (2^(n-1)) - 1. The maximum integer value could > > be reserved to represent infinity > > I am a little confused. Are you talking of writing infinity? In that > case, the infinity character is available. But when you want to do > actual computation, you cannot obviously do an iteration an infinite > number of times. So there we are forced to select an appropriately large > number that could stand for infinity. Both issues have to be dealt with almost simultaneously: [1] How could we represent infinity within the byte words used for numbers; and [2] Explore the means for doing actual computation once its representation and notation can be taken for granted. There is a discussion at ieee on whether there should be a representation for -0. After all, 0-0 = 0 and there is nothing wrong in having a representation for -0 for the sake of balance, and further is would also help to represent infinity in a simpler manner. The integer values allowed are in the range -2^(n-1) and (2^(n-1)) - 1 and there is a slight imbalance there. If -0 is also represented, then the imbalance would be corrected and then the range would be just -2^(n-1) and 2^(n-1). The values -2^(n-1) and 2^(n-1) themselves could represent negative and positive infinity respectively. > It may be interesting to know that there are different kinds of > infinity. For instance, there are an infinite number of integers. But > there are an infinite number of rational numbers between any two > integers. So these two infinities cannot be considered to be of the same > kind. If I remember right, they are represented by the Hebrew alphabet > aleph. So we have aleph1, aleph2 and so on. Thanks for the info about aleph. I am using both types of infinities to define legal data in the calpp project. Any given procedure could have a number of steps, and by using rational numbers to represent steps, any future new steps created, could always be inserted between any two given steps taking advantage of the infinite number of rational numbers between two integers. If we need to use infinity in our computations, we can implement them on our own, making our own rules, but standardisation would be better. The max and min values possible for integers and floats could represent -∞ ∞ and -א א respectively. Assignment could be done more simply using the notation of our ancients in the form n/0 Thanks, Ramanraj.

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Inviting you to join in Software Freedom Day, September 10, 2005
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 09 Jun '05

09 Jun '05

We would like to invite you and your user group to join this network of grassroot marketing for Free/Libre and Open Source Software! Looking forward to having you with us on September 10, 2005 in whatever way you would like to mark the event! -FN (Frederick Noronha) Introducing Software Freedom Day 2005! Mark September 10th 2005 on your calendar! It is the second annual Software Freedom Day. We will be staging a range of events around the world to raise public awareness of Free and Open Source Software. This is a global grassroots effort, and we invite the Free and Open Source Software community around the world to join in the celebration and help spread the word! Over 70 teams joined the celebration in 2004, organising a range of events at schools, universities and public places. This year, we have every opportunity to grow and make an even greater impact on community awareness. What will happen? You may celebrate the day locally however you would like, but we encourage you to engage in some sort of outreach activity to spread the FOSS message in your community. For example, you could organise a seminar or an installfest or simply invite people to meet up in the park for a picnic. If you want to participate, please stop by the SFD website (http://softwarefreedomday.org/) and register a team so that others in your area can find you and hook up. Our website and wiki have pictures and reports from some of the SFD2004 events, so you can get an idea of what worked well. If you participated last year, please join us again, and please share your experiences with the new teams. How does it work? As last year, we will prepare special promotional materials for distribution by the SFD teams. In 2004 this included ISO images of a custom version of TheOpenCD and a custom version of Knoppix along with some printed materials. Due to our budget constraints we were only able to produce CD covers while the local teams did a great job of burning their own CDs and copying materials. This year we have funding for up to 15.000 of our custom CDs shipped out to 150 teams world-wide. Be sure to sign up (http://softwarefreedomday.org/) for supplies before the July 1st deadline! In addition, other supplies (such as t-shirts and balloons) will be available, but the quantities and distribution process of these items is not yet determined. What can I do? The best way to participate is to start forming a SFD team and make sure you register with us http://softwarefreedomday.org/index.php?option=com_mosforms&mosform=1&Itemi… and apply for sponsorship (http://softwarefreedomday.org/). We also need help with lots of things on the global level: * Writing * We would appreciate well-written articles about SFD or about FOSS in general that can be submitted to local media or distributed on the day. Form letters that can be sent to schools, businesses government organisation, etc. will also be useful. * Material Design * We have some artwork already, but we need designs for the SFD2005 CD labels and covers, as well as T-shirts, balloons, stickers, or even temporary tattoos! If you or your friends have some artistic inclinations feel free to pop into the SFD Forums (http://softwarefreedomday.org/index.php?option=com_simpleboard&Itemid=47) to share your ideas and your work. * Donations: * SFD funds cover the costs of material and logistics support that we provide. Any surplus funds can be used for advertising in the week before the event. You can Donate Online http://softwarefreedomday.org/index.php?option=com_static&static file=donate.html&Itemid=51 if you would like. http://maitri.ubuntu.com/softwarefreedomday/wiki/index.php/LaunchDoc

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Site@School, the CMS for primary schools, Version 2.3 released!
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 09 Jun '05

09 Jun '05

>From Dirk Schouten <schoutdi(a)knoware.nl> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Site@School, the OSS/GPL website content management system for primary schools has many improvements and added functionality in version 2.3. For example: - A chat module: unlimited and safe chatpages with logging (*). - Template editor: now every school can create a beautiful site without knowing HTML. - TV module: use a tv set as kiosk browser. - Now in 16 languages: Dutch, French, German, English, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, Polish, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Portugese-Brazilian, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese, Bulgarian. - Maximum of 99 homepages per pupil. Improved e-mail alerts for teachers when pupils add or change their page content. - An Intranet for teachers. - Teachers can have their own webpages. - Project pages where pupils can collaborate. - Simplified site management: every admin, teacher or pupil can manage a section of the site. - Improved and simplified installation. - Bugfixes, numerous small improvements to modules, etc. - Comprehensive users' guide with over 300 screenshots. - Coding guidelines and a developers manual. - And much more .... (*) These modules are available: advertisments, agenda, picture gallery, calendar, class pages, e-mail, forms builder, forum, guestbook, news,newsletters, search, sitemap, up/download. Siste@School is Open Source Software, licensed under the General Public License, usable under Linux and Windows. Cordial greetings and good luck with S@S, The Site@School Development Team Links: Site@School download (software, users' guide, etc.): http://sourceforge.net/projects/siteatschool Site@School homepage: http://siteatschool.sourceforge.net

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[FSFE PR][EN] FSF Europe Newsletter (fwd)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 08 Jun '05

08 Jun '05

---------- Forwarded message ---------- 1. General Assembly in Vienna, Austria 2. Access to Knowledge (A2K) meeting in London, UK 3. Romanian discussion mailing lists 4. LinuxWorldExpo in Milano, Italy 5. Linuxwochen Wien, Vienna, Austria 6. Software patent conference in Udine, Italy 7. Alessandro Rubini in Bologna 8. FSFE very active in Brussels 9. Freedom Party in Berne, Switzerland 10. FSFE looks for new intern 1. General Assembly in Vienna, Austria On 7th May 2005, the general assembly of FSFE met in Vienna, Austria to review the activities of the past year and plan ahead for the next year to come. As this was the end of the second electoral period for FSFE's extended executive committee, the executive committee presented another two-year executive summary. The general assembly thanked its executives for their excellent work of the past two years and unanimously reelected the entire extended executive committee. http://www.fsfeurope.org/documents/reports/es-2005.en.html 2. Access to Knowledge (A2K) meeting in London, UK The A2K initiative has its background in the ongoing debate of a reform of the UN World Intellectual Property Organisation. On 12th and 13th of May, representatives of various civil society initiatives, universities and governments as well as independent activists met to discuss a possible treaty on "Access to Knowledge" to be proposed on United Nations level. Georg Greve took part in the meeting for FSFE and provided input on issues such as Free Software, software patents and open standards. He also chaired the session on Authors and Performers. The A2K treaty would be an important milestone to truly transform WIPO into a "World Intellectual Wealth Organisation." http://www.fsfeurope.org/documents/wiwo.en.html 3. Romanian discussion mailing lists After he translated several pages of the FSFE website to Romanian, Adi Roiban volunteered to manage a Romanian speaking discussion mailing list about Free Software topics (fsfe-ro at fsfeurope.org) and one about Free Software in education in Romania (edu-ro at fsfeurope.org). The FSFE happily hosts these lists, along with several other mailing lists on Free Software topics. http://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo 4. LinuxWorldExpo in Milano, Italy Most people of the Italian team were present at the LinuxWorldExpo in Milano. Stefano Maffulli held a speech about the Fellowship and participated in a round table discussion about open standards and free software. Alessandro Rubini spoke about documentation and licensing issues in free software development; he also served as chairman of the "Linux for embedded devices" session. Emmanuele Somma of the Italian team spoke about free software adoption in financial institutions, and Free Ekanayaka presented the Agnula project. Thanks to the work of the Italian team and volunteers, the highest amount ever of donations from an Italian event was achieved. 5. Linuxwochen Wien, Vienna, Austria Linuxwochen Wien (Linux weeks Vienna), Austria's biggest Free Software event, took place from 24 to 27 May. Karin Kosina opened the event with a keynote on 24 May and held a speech about the importance of the term "Free Software" on May 26th. On 25 May, Georg Greve gave the keynote for the "B2B and public administrations" day. Both also took part in several panel discussions. 6. Software patent conference in Udine, Italy Italian team members Stefano Maffulli, Alessandro Rubini and Fabrizio Veutro participated as speakers in a conference about software patents organised by the Udine University. University staff members organised this event to counter ongoing efforts to push for unlimited patenting during University activities. 7. Alessandro Rubini in Bologna On 20 May, Alessandro Rubini talked in Bologna, in a lesson organised by Prof. Renzo Davoli within the "Master in Tecnologia del Software Libero e Open Source", about the economic models of Free Software development. 8. FSFE very active in Brussels Ciaran O'Riordan, FSFE's full-time representative in Brussels, is still working closely with the FFII on the software patent issue. He met several members of the European Parliament and had good contacts with the press, for example the German magazine Spiegel and the Wall Street Journal Europe. He also organised a Freedom Party on 2 June in Brussels where Fellows of FSFE and other friends of Free Software could meet and celebrate digital freedom together. 9. Freedom Party in Berne, Switzerland FSFE's associated organisation Wilhelm Tux organised the first Swiss Freedom Party in Berne on 21 May. The party, although small, gathered some 25 people from all over Switzerland. Myriam Schweingruber, president of Wilhelm Tux, explained the work of FSFE and presented the Fellowship and its CryptoCard. Alex Schroeder, vice-president, recalled the importance for the Swiss, although not in the EU, to collaborate actively with the FSF Europe on such important issues as software patents, proprietary software monopolies and more. 10. FSFE looks for new intern FSFE intern Karsten Gerloff has just entered the last month of his internship. His work consists of handling most of FSFE's office tasks, promoting the Fellowship and assisting Georg Greve in the Hamburg office, as well as sometimes on his travels. The FSFE is looking for someone to succeed him as soon as possible. http://www.fsfeurope.org/contribute/internship.en.html You can find a list of all FSF Europe newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html _______________________________________________ Press-release mailing list Press-release(a)fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/press-release

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OFFTOPIC: Wipo in Singapore
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 07 Jun '05

07 Jun '05

http://www.eians.com/stories/2005/06/07/07sing.shtml Global patents body launches Singapore office Print this page.. Indo-Asian News Service Singapore, June 7 (IANS) The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) opened its Singapore office Tuesday in a bid to foster closer ties between the with the various intellectual property (IP) offices in the Asia-Pacific region. The office, the first in the region, is expected to facilitate constructive dialogue on issues in the international IP agenda and creating a culture of respect for IP, reports Xinhua. "The Asia-Pacific is rapidly emerging as an exciting region of new growth for IP," said Singapore Senior Minister of State for Law Ho Peng Kee at the opening ceremony, adding that the office will help countries in the region to develop IP as a tool for economic growth. Also Tuesday, the Asia-Pacific Regional Symposium on Intellectual Property for Development opened here, the first major meet organised by the inaugurated office and Singapore's Foreign Ministry. Participants in the conference will exchange views on issues such as effective IP strategies for national development, balancing competing priorities in IP policy and the new business role of IP offices in the 21st century. The WIPO has offices in Geneva, Washington, New York and Brussels. Indo-Asian News Service

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Indian Consitution
by Annamalai Gurusami 07 Jun '05

07 Jun '05

Hi All, I came to know that I can get Constition of India in a CD-ROM. But this will cost INR 515/-. http://indiacode.nic.in/coiweb/cd.htm Instead of this I thought it is better to buy a hard copy of Constitution of India. Can anybody tell me where I can order for one? I enquired at nicsi(a)hub.nic.in, asking why the CD is so costly. But I did not get any response. My thoughts were that, if Indian Constitution is in Public Domain, shouldn't the cost of that CD-ROM be just about INR 100/- or so? I asked them if I can resell it, but I didn't get _any_ response. :-( What are your thoughts on this? Thank you. Rgds, anna -- As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs. -- Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949

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[Fsf-friends] Re: [Ilugc] [Photos] FSFS Conference, May 28-30, 2005, Kerala
by Ramanraj K 07 Jun '05

07 Jun '05

On 6/7/05, Shakthi Kannan <cyborg4k(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > Greetings! > > I have uploaded the photos (32 of them) taken during > the Free Software, Free Society Conference held > between May 28-30, 2005 at Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala > at: > > http://www.shakthimaan.com/Mambo/gallery/GNU-Linux-FSF-Community-Work Shakthi, thanks for uploading the photos so quickly. One minor correction: In photo No:30 of the album,Dhusasana and Duriyodhana are seen (not Krishna). The Special Kathakali performance was part of Duryodhana Vadham upto the end of Dhusasana. I should thank Dr. Sasi Kumar who explained in detail about the various costumes used in a Kathakali performance. The good characters are painted in green, and the villains are usually painted red along with other fearsome face props but also have funny noses. Draupadi was also played by a male artist. A kathakali artist trains himself for as many as 15 years before playing serious roles, and their perfection in performing their role should be seen to be believed. More information about kathakali is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathakali > P.S.: I am one of the unfortunate ones who couldn't > get a ticket to travel to Kerala :( Argh. I missed so much. The next meet might be at Venuzuela - let us not miss that :)

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Fsf-friends June 2005