Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use web browser extension to
help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It has been
developed by the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason
University http://chnm.gmu.edu and is now in use by thousands of
historians, anthropologists, journalists, lawyers and other
researchers.
Zotero is an open source alternative to citation tools like Endnote, and
lives inside of your browser, allowing you to automatically capture and
manage sources and citations in online catalogues, archives, and other
repositories, as well as taking notes, tagging these materials, and
exporting bibliographies in various formats. For more information and to
download and install Zotero, go to http://www.zotero.org
Zotero requires use of Firefox 2.0, the latest version of the popular
open source web browser from the Mozilla Corporation. If you don't
already use Firefox or haven't yet upgraded to the new version 2.0, go
to http://www.getfirefox.com to download it. Once you've installed it or
upgraded your earlier version, go to the Zotero site to download and
install the extension for Firefox 2.0.
Best,
S.K.
--
Shekhar Krishnan
400, West 119th Street, Apt.10D
New York, NY 10027
U.S.A.
http://www.mit.edu/~shekharhttp://www.heptanesia.nethttp://www.crit.org.in/members/shekhar
http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page11077.asp
<quote>
We [The Prime Minister's Office, UK] received a petition asking:
"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to make software patents
clearly unenforcible."
... ...
The Government remains committed to its policy that no patents should
exist for inventions which make advances lying solely in the field of
software. Although certain jurisdictions, such as the US, allow more
liberal patenting of software-based inventions, these patents cannot be
enforced in the UK.
... ...
</quote>
> Which part is funny ? Michael being President of OSI or Michael as a Red
> Hat Executive backing Fedora ?
a. Nice to see a Red Hat (for that matter any company) executive talking and
embracing 'Free Software' and not 'Open Source'.
b. Funny to see the OSI president leaning towards the FSF's stance on software
freedom and using the FSF backed terminology, and away from the OSI's.
c. It is not about hatred. I could not help smiling at this at a time when
the 'FSF is evil', 'RMS is a dictator', and 'non-free kernel modules make
a good desktop distribution'. 'Funny' was the most decent word I could come
up with at 04:30am. :-P
Cheerio,
Debarshi
Dear friends,
Free software activist in Andhra Pradesh is organising a convention
on free software
on 3rd and 4th of March. Event is supported by FSF India. We welcome
all the Free Software activists to the event. For more information see
the link below.
http://nationalconvention.swecha.org/WordPress/
regards
arun
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Gora Mohanty <gora(a)sarai.net>
Date: Feb 23, 2007 6:55 PM
Subject: When is a standard not a standard (sub-titled Microsoft and BIS)?
(This message is being sent primarily to the ILUG-Delhi and Sarai PRC
mailing lists, but is also copied to people that Venkatesh Hariharan
had sent the original message to. Please note that henceforth, I will
only be following up on the ILUG-Delhi list. You have to join the list
to post there (see
<http://www.linux-delhi.org/cgi-bin/anCMS/mailingList.cgi?action=mailingLists>
), but the archives are available publicly at
http://frodo.hserus.net/pipermail/ilugd/ and
http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi/ )
Hello,
I had the (mis-)fortune of attending a seminar on Information
Technology Standardization [sic] organised for the Bureau of
Indian Standards (BIS), by MAIT. The ostensible reason for the
meeting was to identify requirements of the IT industry in order
"to formulate effective, meaningful and implementable standards".
The background for this is an effort by Microsoft to push through
a 6000-page document on Office Open XML (OOXML), presumably as a
counter-standard to Open Document Format (ODF). Details on this are
available on Venky's blog at http://www.osindia.blogspot.com/
Due to other commitments, I had time to attend only the inaugural
session, which had a keynote address by Craig Mundie, the chief
research and strategy officer of Microsoft Corporation. Incidentally,
Microsoft was the only company represented on the panel, and allowed
to give a formal presentation, though representatives from open-source
companies, and the community were also present. Questions on the
talks were also not entertained. What was frankly disgusting was the
attitude of BIS officers, even those of senior ones, towards Microsoft;
going beyond courtesy, and even obsequiousness, to border on servility.
The HP laptop being used for the presentation prominently displayed the
Microsoft Vista logo.
Mr. Mundie's presentation was, in my opinion, a masterpiece of double-
speak, and fascinated me so much that I made sure to make a transcript
of his slides. Apparently, having solved issues with security, privacy,
and reliability, Microsoft has been focusing on inter-operability over
the last 1.5 years. While this might seem like great news, Mr. Mundie
was diligent in avoiding any specific commitments, such as the simple
one of guaranteeing that any Microsoft application will be able to
export to an openly-published, patent-unencumbered, standard format,
without loss of information. While the presentation went ahead to extol
the virtues of meta-data, and the use of XML data formats, Mr. Mundie
somehow omitted to mention that XML does not automatically imply
openness, or freedom from patent restrictions. Finally, it seems to be
the opinion of Mr. Mundie that industry standards are needed to keep a
check on "unconstrained innovation", which leaves me wondering how
Microsoft knows about innovation, unconstrained or otherwise.
Fun and games aside, I think that it is worthwhile for the open-source
community in India at large to formulate a coherent position on the use
of openly documented, and patent-free standards for any government data,
and to publicise the same to both government organisations, and the
media. It is our data, so we should have an absolute guarantee of
freedom in using it. I believe that Venky is drafting such a document,
that we can put up on a Wiki, and use as a basis for a formal policy
paper.
Regards,
Gora
Dear Friends,
DeepRoot Linux is pleased to announce a new release of the deepOfix
Mail Server! Version 3.1 of the deepOfix Mail Server is a major release
encompassing a large number of fixes, enhancements and additions.
Please do give the new deepOfix Mail Server a try. We are confident
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GNU/Linux and Free Software.
About the deepOfix Mail Server
------------------------------
The deepOfix Mail Server makes it possible for organisations with
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As always, we will eagerly await any feedback, criticism, bug reports,
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Cheers, Abhas.
Links
-----
* Download the deepOfix Mail Server Install CD (version 3.1)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/deepofix
* deepOfix Mail Server - Version 3.1 - What's new?
http://deeproot.in/deepofix/version-3.1
* Development websites
deepOfix Installer and OS - http://code.deeproot.in/deepofix
EasyPush Server Manager - http://code.deeproot.in/easypushhttp://deepofix.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/deepofix/
* Subscribing to deepOfix-related mailing lists
http://deeproot.in/deepofix/mailing-lists
--
i-take-charge at DeepRoot Linux
http://www.deeproot.in / +91 (80) 4112 4784 / 85
Getting GNU/Linux to work for you. Faster. Better. Today. Every way.