Fsf-friends October 2006

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

34 participants
35 discussions

Re: Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 41, Issue 26

by Vihan Pandey

> 4 I hope the FLOSS cell can give/get some donations of even outdated (by > a few years) technical books to the schools' FLOSS cell. A library of > books is very very helpful. Plus they need to have motivational books > such as Rebel code, Just for fun by linus torvalds, cathedral and the > bazaar, etc etc just to understand the opensource culture/history. Hi Githin, A great place to start up with books would be the offcial GNU doucumentation which you can get here : http://www.gnu.org/manual/manual.html http://www.gnu.org/doc/other-free-books.html A good edition would also be Free Software Free Society by RMS and Free as in Freedom by Sam Williams. These are all available freely online, printed copies for all may not be very easily obtained in India, but you could start with the ebooks. In fact you could have a community of like minded people who could pool some money together and get what you want printed and bound. What better way to start a FOSS cell :-) Regards, - vihan

15 years, 7 months

Linus Torvalds -just for fun

by kush

Hi all, I recently read "just for fun" by Linus and another writer. Came to know that he started playing/tinkering with calculators/computers of those days when he was around 10 or 11. Also he could write system software (assemblers, device drivers,linkers, loaders, disassemblers, etc) much before he started the linux project. So he was in a unique position to actually do this contribution for humanity because he had been honing his skills for a long time without even planning for it consciously. His getting hands on the Andrew Tanenbaum OS book (700 plus page book and studying it extremely thoroughly in 2 or 3 months) also was one of the points in his history which led him to develop this linux OS. Surely somebody (some mentor/teacher/classmate etc) would have guided him to this book or it happenned by chance. It is mentioned that he studied it so thoroughly that it became second nature to him-- he used to sleep with it. Also the student in western system of education decides what they want to really study whereas we in India are asked to cram any and everything to give us so called "more rounded" knowledge --ultimately the course is so vast that we just get superficial knowledge of everything and hardly learn much. Most private engg colleges have low standards and students just try to pass by hook or crook. Programming exercises are copied and there is no system of competitive learning by sharing and open discussion. I think we should have our elective known to us in 2nd year and study should be according to that elective. For Torvalds, his elective subject became system software programming --specially Operating system development even before he started his course. He learned other subjects (such as tcp/ip etc etc) related to the main project with the passing of time from other hackers as well. I think once he rewrote the kernel as well since something was implemented badly earlier. (his high standards --make the best software possible) There is another difference when I compare with Indian colleges/universities --methods of teaching. Linus had information about textbooks/recommended reading books much much before his course started and therefore was able to prepare in advance whereas in our college days we used to wait for the teacher to tell us which books to buy after the term started or was half way thru. We used to save on books by borrowing from the library (generally badly stocked) or get earlier editions /hand me downs. The information on how a programmer can do a great job by reading or learning about the thought processes of such unusual people and geniuses as the mathematician Gauss etc was also very interesting. (story of teacher asking a class to calculate the sum of numbers from 1 to 100) It shows that Linus was already by that time far ahead in his problem solving skills as he was somehow reading above and beyond his school/college course --biographies and stories of famed geniuses always help. His insight into how a question is framed which ultimately leads to a better solution is also something worth understanding. His sister Sara actually made him improve his english because of the sibling rivalry, playful competition, fighting between the children etc etc and also because he had to understand the manuals etc which were written in english for all his machines from abroad. When one compares him with Richard Stallman who also has great strengths, the only reason one sees him more successful in influencing something is because he is always in a continuous learning mode (even in non technical areas as the other writer has written) and also because he somehow understands the concept of not getting attached to one's possessions/ideas/beliefs too rigidly because everything is relative. I hope I can read some book/biography on Stallman too --please let me know if you know of any. Thanks, Kush

15 years, 7 months

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by mayank raj

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15 years, 7 months

Re: [Fsf-friends] better english

by Ajay Pal Singh Atwal

----- kush <corporalster(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Have observed that if we have to really reach the top of any > organisation (research or commercial), our english has to be good > since > english is the defacto language of science and technology. MPO: In community projects this may not be always true. > Indian techies have weak english specially when we have to compete > against the best in the world. Even Linus Torvalds was a non native > english speaker but everybody there speaks/writes good english. Then why not write in the original language (mother tongue) of the writer and maybe some good translator can do the translation. > However if people are happy with the chalta hai attitude, then they > should not complain if they are overlooked within any organisation. reminds me of the good ol wikipedia, write once and improve forever, why static HTML, someone better in english can improve on it. -- Sincerely Ajay Pal Singh Atwal Dept of CSE & IT BBSBEC, Fatehgarh Sahib Punjab, INDIA -------------------------------- http://www.bbsbec.ac.in http://www.ajaypal.com -------------------------------- ajaypal[at]bbsbec.org, ajaypal[at]acm.org

15 years, 7 months

better english

by kush

Hi all, Have observed that if we have to really reach the top of any organisation (research or commercial), our english has to be good since english is the defacto language of science and technology. But most of Indian techies have weak english specially when we have to compete against the best in the world. Even Linus Torvalds was a non native english speaker but everybody there speaks/writes good english. The recent post given for some documentation on fonts has a lot of grammatical mistakes. http://avi.alkalay.net/linux/docs/font-howto/Font.html However if people are happy with the chalta hai attitude, then they should not complain if they are overlooked within any organisation. Kush

15 years, 7 months

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Fsf-friends October 2006