http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8938
Taking Free Software to the Farmers and Fields of India
By Frederick Noronha on Fri, 2006-03-24 02:00. International
FLOSS is behind an Indian Web site that brings together farmers and
agricultural experts to exchange ideas and information.
Thanks to work done by the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology
(IIT-Bombay) and its partners, IT-savvy and knowledge-hungry people
across rural India now can find relevant, demand-driven farming
knowledge on the aAqua.org Web site. So far, the site has been a great
way to bring together people such as Prasad Kaledhonkar, who has a clue
about what the white patterns emerging on tomato plant leaves are;
farmer's daughter Niyatee Nilesh, who wants advice on buying
agricultural land; and Shirish, from rural Maharashtra, who wants to
learn about using waste water from the school kitchen to irrigate
gardens and crops.
aAqua stands for "Almost All Questions Answered". Dr. Krithi
Ramamritham, IIT-Bombay's head at the Kanwal Rekhi School of Information
Technology, said, "It used to be called Aqua. We added a small 'a' in
front of it that stands for 'almost'. We want to be as realistic as
possible."
Dr. Krithi Ramamritham
In addition to connecting users, aAqua.org also provides crop
recommendations archived by keywords, a search tool to see if a
particular question already has been answered and a "crop doctor" with
photographs of diseased crops, archived by keywords. The bhav puchiye
(ask the price) feature has practical use. Market rates from across
India are displayed for farmers and agro-traders.
The aAqua Web site contains several forums in Indian languages (Marathi
and Hindi, currently) and in English. These forums deal with crops,
animals, officials' recommendations, market information and schemes for
farmers. The site now has 940 members, 1,364 topics and 3,321 posts.
"What we've done is sign up experts from various Krishi Vigyan Kendras
[the network of farm-extension services in India]", Ramamritham
explained. Anyone wanting information can sign up through a simple
process and start asking questions.
The aAqua project has brought together some diverse groups. To build a
solution that works in the field, IIT-Bombay merged Indic text input,
iconic interfaces, meaning-based searches, digital libraries, community
forums and water-quality sensors. This work brought together skills from
a variety of disciplines, including e-pedagogy, multimedia content,
computer-based training, education and light databases.
The project members have been working in an area in the central Indian
state of Maharashtra, around the Baramati, Pabal, Pune and Khed areas.
Work on the first aAqua prototype began in November 2003. Interestingly,
the project got its start in a school course. "We started working on it
in real earnest when we saw its full potential", Ramamritham said. "We
now are trying to scale up. Our challenge is aAqua's reach should be
larger", he added.
Tomcat, MySQL and mnvforum
When asked if Free/Libre and open-source software made the aAqua project
possible, Dr. Ramamritham said, "Very much so." The software behind the
aAqua Web site is based on lab-developed algorithms for translation,
caching and the like that use Java, JSP and Java Servlets technology.
The application currently is deployed on a Tomcat Web server, version 5.
The software also can run from any Servlet container that is compatible
with JSP 1.2 and Servlet 2.3. The Oracle 9i database, with Unicode UTF-8
support, is used as the site's backend software.
aAqua at Work
aAqua also has been configured to work with MySQL, with Unicode support
(version 4.1 onwards). aAqua can be viewed using any popular Web
browser, including Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Opera and so on. The
digital library software uses C++, Perl and Java and is deployed on a
Jakarta Apache server, version 2.0.52.
In addition, aAqua is built with mvnForum, a FLOSS-based discussion
forum application. mvnForum, in turn, uses other FLOSS components, such
as Lucene, an indexer and search engine; Tomcat; and many other
components.
Ramamritham said the team opted to use mvnForum because it is "easy to
use, easy to set up" and offered the option of attaching files to a
post, a fully customizable GUI. Among its attractive technical features
are support for Unicode characters, which is "a must given India's
multilingual orientation".
In addition, the MVC architecture behind mvnForum also supports most
popular databases, such as MySQL, Oracle 8i/9i, SQL Server, PostgreSQL,
hsqldb, Interbase/Firebird, SAPDB, db2 and Sybase. "We wanted industrial
strength support for databases as well as easy replicability, hence
multiplatform support was essential" Ramamritham said.
To deal with the many languages written and spoken in India, IIT-Bombay
used its active natural language processing lab when working on the
aAqua project. "We try to get most of the language translated
automatically, through an intermediate language known as UNL, or
universal networking language", Dr. Ramamritham explained.
Overall, Ramamritham said the aAqua project has been a "great learning
experience". The team's work has been presented with the Manthan Award,
an Indian prize for Web sites having useful content. As for the future,
Ramamritham said, "We're looking for deeper ways [of using] this
technology, for instance, forecasting diseases by using by census data
and other information. We want to enlarge its scope of applicability."
To this end, the project has received a request for information from the
Development Gateway Foundation, which is interested in the possibility
of building such portals for other countries. In addition, the
government of Western India's Maharashtra region has linked the aAqua
site to its own main page.
As for other uses of the aAqua model, the metrology department of Pune,
in central India, is interested in seeing what the model can do for the
department. MarathiWorld.com is interested in using the aAqua model to
answer career-counseling queries. And, Drishtee, a project in North
India project, sees potential in this model being used for a citizens'
complaints system.
In short, the aAqua model can be used in a variety of disciplines.
According to Dr. Ramamritham, "aAqua can be deployed in any
domain--education and health too. It's actually a very simple idea."
--
----------------------------------------------------------
Frederick 'FN' Noronha | Yahoomessenger: fredericknoronha
http://fn.goa-india.org | fred(a)bytesforall.org
Independent Journalist | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9822122436
----------------------------------------------------------
Pics from Goa: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/popular-views/
Hello all,
Has anyone came across any GPL'd recruiting/staffing management
application developed in PHP/Perl/MySQL . It should have minimum
functionality to track the recruitment procedures in mainly in HR
departments.
Thanks in advance
Manilal
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [GNU/FSF Press] Press Release: GPL tested in US courts in Wallace
Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 19:52:39 -0500
From: Peter Brown <peterb(a)fsf.org>
To: info-press(a)gnu.org
The GPL tested in US courts - Wallace Vs FSF.
The GNU General Public License stands firm.
On Monday March 20, 2006 US Federal Judge John Daniel Tinder, dismissed
the Sherman Act antitrust claims brought against the Free Software
Foundation. The claims made by Plaintiff Daniel Wallace included: that
the General Public License (GPL) constituted a contract, combination or
conspiracy; that it created an unreasonable restraint of trade; and that
the FSF conspired with IBM, Red Hat Inc., Novell and other individuals
to pool and cross-license their copyrighted intellectual property in a
predatory price fixing scheme.
Peter Brown, FSF Executive Director, responded to the news, "As the
author of the GPL and copyright holder on the largest body of GPL'd
covered free software, the FSF hears many theories of potential legal
claims and challenges to the GPL. We hear the fear, uncertainty and
doubt (FUD) expressed, that the GPL has never been tested in court, and
that somehow that is a sign of its weakness. Nothing could be further
from the truth of course. Put quite simply, if you don't accept the
terms of the GPL, then you have no rights to the copyrighted works it
covers. What is there left to test? The GPL is a software license, it is
not a contract. It gives permissions from the copyright holder. You
don't want to accept those permissions? End of discussion."
On Monday, a US Federal Court Judge dismissed Daniel Wallace's case
saying "[The GPL] acts as a means by which certain software may be
copied, modified and redistributed without violating the software's
copyright protection. As such, the GPL encourages, rather than
discourages, free competition and the distribution of computer operating
systems, the benefits of which directly pass to consumers. These
benefits include lower prices, better access and more innovation."
Brown continued, "Let us all stop and consider the consequences of what
this US Federal Judge has said. On being presented with the facts
surrounding the GPL, he was able to define a range of benefits available
to those that value the freedoms delivered by the GPL. The question we
are all left with is, why would anyone put up with the inferred
consequences of proprietary software?", and, "If you care about lower
prices, better access to software, or more innovation, then GPL'd
software is for you. Or as the Free Software would describe that, you
value freedom".
Having dismissed the case, and finding in favor of the FSF and against
Wallace. The Judge also allowed FSF costs against Wallace. Wallace, now
has thirty days to appeal the decision, but the FSF expects no relevant
news on this matter.
--
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. Their
headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.
_______________________________________________
FSF And GNU Press mailing list <info-press(a)gnu.org>
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-press
Dear friends,
Rabindra Sangeet Live is our endeavor from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.Here we have started a research community on Rabindranath Tagore. The purpose of the organization is doing research on Rabindra sangeet as well as Rabindranath Tagore. From Bangladesh we have a good response. The enlisted researcher of this organization are-
Dr. Karunamaya Goshwamy
Dr. Syeed Akram Hussain
Dr. Anisujjaman
Dr. Mridulkanti Chakraborty
Dr. Sirajul Islam
Dr. Manjurul Haque
Rezwana Chowdhury Bannya
Sadi Mohammad
&
a number of students of University of Dhaka & Bangladesh University of Engineering &
Technology
We will have soon a oline forum of this organization. We will let you inform about the
forum & interested people are most welcome to join to build this forum.
The first project of this organization is to collect the background stories(i.e, the
story behind, why written, in which particuar event the song is written) of the
Rabindrasangeets. The sotries of each song will help the audience a lot for better
understanding of the songs.
WE NEED TO GATHER ALL THE RABINDRANATH'S LOVERS UNDER THIS COMMUNITY THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. INTERESTED PEOPLE ARE HEARTILY WELCOME HERE TO JOIN US. IF IT SOUNDS INTERESTING
TO YOU PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO ALL OF THE GROUPS YOU BELONG TO.
(for further information please mail me back at ex_josephite(a)yahoo.com)
Thanks
Sami Chowdhury
Computer Science & Engineering
University of Dhaka
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