A brief note on the Consilience 06 event on Free Software that took
place last week at National Law School, Bangalore, is available at
http://freeshell.in/~ramanraj/kr_nlsiu.txt
-Ramanraj K
__
Consilience 06 * Law and Technology Committee * el~ték * NLSIU
A Conference on Free/Open Source Software
SCHEDULE
26th July, 2006- Day One:
========================
10:00 AM to 11:30 AM- Session on Intellectual Property and FOSS
* Hon'ble Mr. Justice Yatindra Singh, Judge, Allahabad High Court
* Mr. Sunil Abraham, Manager, International Open Source Network
11:30 AM to 11:45 AM- Refreshment Break
11:45 AM to 1:30 AM- Session on Using FOSS in Public Administration
* Mr. Ramanraj K, Lawyer, Chennai
1:30 PM to 2:30 PM- Lunch
2:30 PM to 4:00 PM- Session on Licensing Matters
* Mr. Neel Mason, Lawyer, Delhi
27th July, 2006- Day Two:
========================
8:30 AM- Richard Stallman address via videoconference:
Why software wants to be free, followed by discussion.
11:45 AM to 2:00 PM- Session of FOSS Business Models
* Mr. Atul Chitnis, Sr. Vice President,
Geodesic Information Systems Pvt. Ltd
* Mr. Anand Babu, Member, FSF India & Software Developer
10:00 AM to 11:30 AM- Session on Protecting FOSS Assets
* Mr. Kenneth Gonsalvez, NRC-FOSS, Chennai
11:30 AM to 11:45 AM- Refreshment Break
2:00 PM to 3:00 PM- Lunch
3:00 PM to 5:30 PM- Session on Policy Implications of FOSS
- An Indian Perspective
* Dr. Nagarjuna, Chariman, Free Software Foundation of India
* Mr. Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Consultant,
Planning Commission of India
5:30 PM to 6:00 PM- Open discussion and debate on conference points
and follow-up
6:30 PM to 9:30 PM- Closing session at Hotel Central Park Plaza with
accompanying dinner/mixer
VENUE
Primary conference sessions for the 26th and 27th will take place at
the Training Centre in the National Law School of India University
(NLSIU) campus at Nagarbhavi (Near Chandra Layout off Mysore road;
12km from city centre). Closing session and dinner will take place at
Hotel Central Park Plaza (In Manipal Centre, near M.G. Road). The
accomdation for the keynote speakers will be provided for at the
Training Centre in the NLSIU campus.
WEB SITE
http://www.nls.ac.in/consilience2006/index.html
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Monica Narula <monica(a)sarai.net>
Date: Aug 2, 2006 6:14 PM
Subject: [PRC] BLAG
To: Free/Libre and Open Source Software Project List <prc(a)sarai.net>,
cm_translation(a)sarai.net
Hi all
was wondering what the word on the street was about Blag (http://
www.blagblagblag.org/), and if anyone had used, had experiences with it?
As the site says:
blag - le brixton linux action group
works to overthrow corporate control of information and technology
through community action and spreading Free Software.
blag - blag linux and gnu
blag is an operating system. blag has a suite of graphics, internet,
audio, video, office, and peer to peer file sharing applications.
you can replace a windoz installation with blag. if you would like to
install and run blag, download and burn it to cd.
best
M
Monica Narula
Raqs Media Collective
Sarai-CSDS
29 Rajpur Road
Delhi 110054
www.raqsmediacollective.netwww.sarai.net
Knowlege is power... share it equitably!
_______________________________________________
prc mailing list
prc(a)sarai.net
https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/prc
There is some thing which has to be removed. 13.[8] Geographical
Limitations.
Which is there in the G P L v2,other open source licenses released by O S I
and in all non-free software license like EULA....but in our case,the
freedom which we all think,enjoys,inspires and fight for......is that good
to have such a statement like geographical limitation??
Should we support that??While we support such a license phrase,how can we
shout against the FREEDOM OF BLOG and such thing?While the freedom of
usage,study,modification and the redistribution is not allowed to citizen of
certain countries or geographical region,I think it as a matter of caging
freedom.What we matter [as I think] is freedom;not just for me but for the
whole community,there my enemies are too included [Or you say that Microsoft
or Adobe or Autodesk guys are not allowed to use GNU].
I am not an expert in these and I am just a new one to the field on free
software and this movement.Do help me to understand the real concept.
|* Hiran Venugopalan |** http://hiran.movingrepublic.org |**# 09846951870 |*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bangalore to Host the Fourth International Conference
on GPLv3
India will host the Fourth International GPLv3
Conference in Bangalore,
this August 23-24, 2006. A part of the world-wide
drive to create awareness
about the upcoming version three of the GNU General
Public License (GPLv3),
the two-day conference is expected to draw delegates
from across the
communities - legal, bureaucrat and academia. While
the first day will see
Richard M Stallman and Eben Moglen, the original
architects of the GPLv3
license, communicating latest updates on the GPLv3
final draft, the second
day holds panel discussions on localisation, awareness
and adoption of
GPLv3 and threat of Digital Restrictions Management
(DRM).
The event to be held at the Indian Institute of
Management - Bangalore
is a sequence to the Third International GPLv3
Conference that took place
in Barcelona, Spain. Similar events have already been
held in the USA and
Brazil. The international GPLv3 conferences are part
of a year-long public
consultation process to update the GNU General Public
License (GPL).
The version 3 of the GPL, essentially, takes into
account changes in terms
of legal and technical environment, in which software
licenses operate, and
the need to increase protection against new threats
such as software
patents and Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). The
worldwide awareness
drive for GPLv3, is to ensure that, all users of
software distributed under
its terms, have the freedom to examine, share, and
modify that software.
For registration kindly visit GPLv3 conference website
http://gplv3.gnu.org.in
For Details, kindly contact:
Arun M (FSF-I) arun(a)gnu.org.in
Prof Rahul De' (IIM-B) rahul(a)iimb.ernet.in
Abhas Abhinav (FSUG-Bangalore) abhas(a)deeproot.co.in
Venue: IIM-B
Date: 23, 24 August, 2006
Contact numbers:
Abhas Abhinav (FSUG-Bangalore) #080-41124785
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is Linus probably presupposing that the 'users' of free software may not transform into ethical beings ('sharks with lasers')? There are recent findings that 15 odd (even less) people, in most of the free software projects, do some 80% of the actual development work as 'core developers' - not strictly Eric Raymond's huge bazaar. What is not known is the real reason behind his 'fairness' concern? Philosophers like Nagarjuna are better equipped to analyse these issues...
For us, how different are things going to be, if we continue to get free software in combination of GPL2 and GPL3? In any case if there are huge stumbling blocks - a fork can always be invoked - if we have the requisite talent of 15 odd core developers and the persuasive skill of the 1 or 2 'maintainers'?
Despite knowing that RMS rejects religions - yet is not averse to accepting few from any of them - why does Linus raise 'crusader' and 'GOD' metaphor?
CK Raju
============Hurd Announcement=============
=======from Frans Pop <elendil(a)planet.nl>==
A week since the planning was posted, time for an update.
Thanks to James, the upload of d-i was processed very quickly. Since then
various, mostly minor issues have been identified and resolved.
We are now at the stage where final tests before the release can be done
for all arches, so if you have some time, please run an installation on
your favorite architecture(s).
Please file an installation report with your results, or, if you are a d-i
team member, update [0] directly.
Beta 3 candidate images are available from the following locations:
Full CD and DVD images:
links "weekly snapshot" images on [1]
Netinst and businesscard CD images:
links to "daily built" images on [1]
the "daily" images now point to the etch_d-i builds [2]
Images for other installation methods:
http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/sid/main/installer-/current/images/
Known issues:
- S/390 Beta 3 candidate images are broken; will be fixed with next upload
- Lowmem settings in Beta 3 images are not yet correct; see below
On Monday 24 July 2006 11:52, Frans Pop wrote:
> One important TODO item is updates to debian-cd, especially for
> architectures that are dropping 2.4 support in d-i. If your
> architecture needs such changes, please contact me. Joey and Steve can
> probably help with the changes where needed.
As far as we know all needed updates in debian-cd have been made and
successful builds for all types of CD images are now available. A fair
amount of changes were needed, so please test CD-based installs.
> All this does mean that the current lowmem levels need serious review
> for all architectures. The good news is that memory requirement for a
> "bare" install (lowmem level 2) looks be hardly changed.
An updated lowmem was uploaded today and will be included in the final
upload for Beta 3. The "level 1" limits have been increased substantially
for all arches. For a few arches "level 2" limits have been adjusted as
well.
We will need to get back to this before the RC releases.
Release planning
================
We are mostly running according to schedule.
> 29 Jul Last chance to upload udebs for inclusion in intrds
Last expected uploads (localechooser and lowmem) now done.
> 30 Jul Testbuild of weekly images (using d-i images from unstable)
Images for all architectures are now available.
> 1 Aug Final upload of d-i images
There is one issue that will probably delay the final upload of d-i
images. A new upstream version of directfb was uploaded recently which
FTBFS on powerpc. This breaks builds of d-i on arches which support the
graphical installer. Hopefully this will be resolved soon.
> 2- 5 Aug Testing
This can already start now.
> 2 Aug Last chance to upload udebs not included in initrds
> 4- 6 Aug Preparation of release notes, errata, etc.
> 5 Aug Migration of d-i to testing
> 6 Aug CD builds
> 7 Aug Release
Will slip too depending on when the issue mentioned above is resolved.
Cheers,
FJP
[0] installer/doc/devel/release-checklist
[1] http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
[2] If you need to test sid_d-i images (using daily built d-i images), use
http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/daily-builds/etch_d-i/arch-latest//iso-cd/
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It is reported at http://news.com.com/2061-10795_3-6099985.html that
Linus Torvalds has sharply criticised GPLv3 draft terms as "inferior"
to GPLv2.
Several elements in the GPLv3 draft unfortunately make it plain that
the shift is from "freedom" to "slavery", "hate" and "fear". If the
GPLv3 ever comes into effect with such terms, it may even make
non-free licenses look very respectable.
I recently modified the licensing terms of the Calpp project that I am
maintaining, so that modifications to the Calpp code base would be
only under GPLv2 until further notice, to ensure a comfortable level
of freedom for its developers and users.
The most important reason why most people appreciate the GPL are the
four freedoms:
0: freedom to run the program, for any purpose
1: freedom to study how the program works with source code and adapt
it to your use
2: freedom to redistribute copies and
3: freedom to improve and release improvements to the public.
The GPLv2 has implemented the freedoms as license conditions giving
rights to licensees to enjoy the freedoms listed above, and has not
only stood the test of time, but has created a good ecosystem of free
software where developers, users, businesses and governments have
benefited.
GPLv3 should ideally be towards giving better rights to developers and
licensees to make the freedoms more effectively usable and enjoyable.
Many clauses in the draft GPLv3 are unintelligible and ambigious,
giving open invitations for interpretations. Having provisions for
"additional terms" would make the GPL a non-standard license, and even
worse, they would only help to curtail rights and make the freedoms
illusory.
If the GPLv3 mission is alter the well known freedoms 0 to 3
substantially, then it is fairly important to discuss that in the
first place, before the actual license terms are discussed.
It is premature to discuss the GPLv3 draft, without arriving at a
broad consensus on what fixes are required to the basic freedoms
enjoyed by developers and licensees. I would request RMS and the FSF
to first make a restatement of freedoms 0 to 3 before proceeding
further with the GPLv3 process.
In India, most of the criticism about the GPL has been about making
the freedoms more practically available by making the GPL more
enforceable.
Many have asked if the GPL violates the "Rule against Perpetuity"
Most GPLed software is freely available for download by the public
from the Internet, and therefore, the terms in the GPLv2 that ensure
perpetuity for public benefit, advancement of knowledge, commerce and
other benefits to mankind make it valid and enforceable. This issue
in fact holds the key to the future progress of the GPL. Focus and
attention on the public nature of code contributions and examining
ways and means to strengthen the distribution of computer programs and
modifications on the Internet with better licensing conditions should
help. If the GPLv3 draft process ignores real issues, and side-tracks
into the private domain, it may just end up there, as a self-defeating
meaningless exercise for all of us.
Regards,
Ramanraj K