Fsf-friends April 2007

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

28 participants
41 discussions

Demystifying Interoperability - Express Computer
by Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay 12 Apr '07

12 Apr '07

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Imagine a hypothetical scenario of a business transferring funds from an overseas bank account to their supplier in India. The transfer takes place without the appropriate conversion between the foreign currency and Indian Rupees. Or a landlord, dealing with two different municipal departments, suddenly finding his property tax rates shooting through the roof because one department’s system recorded the extent of his property in square meters whilst the other ‘sent’ the value in square feet! Though these examples are hypothetical, they illustrate the consequences of IT systems failing to ‘communicate’ or ‘interoperate’ with each other. http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20070402/technology03.shtml - -- You see things; and you say 'Why?'; But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?' - George Bernard Shaw -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Red Hat - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGHcQIXQZpNTcrCzMRAkGyAJ9Bw7kQ0AlqhMPPaGASwL1ypDYVwQCgymLc 7MVGaUDl7pm5Vew1wXNjU20= =EP6N -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

2 2

Free network infrastructure for free knowledge and free software in Mumbai
by Nagarjuna G. 11 Apr '07

11 Apr '07

We did it finally, and we will take it forward and expand the free spectrum. Thanks to WSFII for motivating me to take interest in free network, particularly Saul, Fred, and Julian, who donated the routers for this initial setup, and of course more important transfered the technology, The entire freifunk team deserves a special thanks. Thanks to all the volunteers from the GNU/Linux user's group who helped in setting this up. We will document the progress at http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/WirelessMesh. Nagarjuna

1 0

Report of workshop on Font Encoding Converters
by Harshita 11 Apr '07

11 Apr '07

Hi all, A workshop on Font Encoding Converters was held on 6th April, 2007. Outline of the workshop proceedings: * Introduction to font encoding problem * Introduction on Padma Firefox extension (http://padma.mozdev.org) * Status of converters available in Padma (about 40 font families covered) * Unicode Convertion Gateway (http://uni.medhas.org and http://sf.net/projects/unigateway) * Discussion on the reverse engineering techniques applied to design a new converter * Introduction to Punjabi font converters developed by Gurpreet Lehal (about 40 font families covering 120 fonts) A discussion on future course of action lead to the following TODO list: * Setup central place for hosting software, documentation and collaborating effort * Documentation for existing font encoding converters * Documenting the list of font families and unsupported * Create a database of font to font family mappings * Create standard forms that can be filled by a typical user to help create font converter easily (possibly with a gui tool) * Create a C/C++ api * Create test documents to verify each converter * Explore OpenOffice integration * Develop more converters: ** Bengali: Bangsee Alpona, SolaimanLipi, Prothoma Adarshlipiexp, likhan ** Tamil: amudham, shree-tam-0802, tmnews, lt-tm-barani, webtamil, bamini ** Gujarati: Govinda, Surya, Divya ** Oriya: OR-TTSarala ** Malayalam: Shree-mal-0502, ** Devanagari: webdunia, yogeshweb, shree704, sushreeMJ, Boisakhi, Rupali, Satyajit, Shree-dev-0714, Shree-pudhari, MilleniumVarunWeb, Manjusha, ITRDeshdut ** Others: guruLipi, AnmolLipi TCS team working on Telugu GNU/Linux localisation and IIIT Hydearabad have decided to contribute efforts to fulfil the tasks at hand. Regards, Harshita

1 0

Re: Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 48, Issue 6
by Mishi Choudhary 10 Apr '07

10 Apr '07

i hope we can replicate the success of awareness in delhi too please come forward to put our efforts together to spread more awareness Warm Regards Mishi Choudhary

1 0

Job opening on the FSF campaign team
by Anivar Aravind 10 Apr '07

10 Apr '07

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 FSF Campaigns Manager Job Description The Campaigns Manager implements the FSF communications strategy and works as part of a team to develop and implement issue campaigns and community resources, acting as a spokesperson on matters of software freedom. The Campaigns Manager handles writing, editing, speaking, and research related to these activist and program efforts; coordinates the GNU Chief Webmaster and the other webmaster volunteers to develop FSF and GNU web sites; plans and implements proposals to increase fundraising; and serves as a main point of contact between the Foundation and the free software community. Background This is an opportunity to work for the organization that started the GNU project, authored the GPL, and launched the free software movement. Working as part of a team of two, you will help direct FSF campaigns and communications strategy. Requirements * You must be a free software activist with a commitment to computer user freedom. * Excellent written communication skills, able to demonstrate that you can work in a precise way whilst handling multiple tasks. * A good public speaker with experience of handling press relations. * Experience of organizing events and handling community relations in a diplomatic way. * Possess the technical skills of a Webmaster. * Candidates must support the principles of Software Freedom and demonstrate their knowledge of the policies and work of the Foundation. Other Details The job must be worked on-site at FSF's downtown Boston offices. An on-site interview will be required with both the Executive Director and FSF President. This job is a union position. The salary is fixed at $50,057/year and is non-negotiable. Other benefits include the following: * full family health coverage through Blue Cross/Blue Shield's HMO Blue program, and subsidized dental plan. * four weeks of paid vacation annually, * seventeen paid holidays annually, * public transit commuting cost reimbursement, * 403(b) program through TIAA-CREF, * somewhat flexible work hours, Resumes and cover letters must be submitted via email to <hiring(a)fsf.org>. The email must contain the subject line, "Campaigns Manager". Resumes should be attached in ASCII text or PDF. Cover letters must be in ASCII directly in the body of the email message. Resumes not sent via email or email submissions that do not follow these instructions will be ignored. Initial interviews will be held in the week commencing April 22. - -- John Sullivan Campaigns Manager | Phone: (617)542-5942 x23 51 Franklin Street, 5th Fl. | Fax: (617)542-2652 Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA | GPG: AE8600B6 _______________________________________________ GetReady mailing list GetReady(a)badvista.org http://badvista.fsf.org/mailman/listinfo/getready - -- Anivar Aravind Global Alternate Information Applications(GAIA) Peringavu.P.O Thrissur-680018 India Ph. +91 9446545336 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFGGuisF+jWtLmEaycRAkRyAJ0Y9FgHhQ3re3XWqKIrEMEbr1U15wCeJ3AQ uTpVYETgwt+5gzc7vpnnf5I= =/tz1 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

1 0

FSD: campaign to spread Free software awareness in Karnataka
by Vikram Vincent 09 Apr '07

09 Apr '07

Dear Sujith, On 08/04/07, sujith h <sujith.h(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Dear friends, > <snip> > ...meeting was very high even though they have slight misconceptions > about some terminologies. I hope our Friends like Vijoo, Vikram etc > on FSD can correct it soon . </snip> Just a clarification, while the FSD is trying out certain endeavours, I am *not* a member of FSD nor am I a part of their planning committee. -- Regards Vikram Vincent +919448810822 http://groups.google.com/group/bangalore_alive/ http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=19591248

2 2

FSD: campaign to spread Free software awareness in Karnataka
by sujith h 09 Apr '07

09 Apr '07

Dear friends, Today I attended a meeting of Forum for Science and Development(FSD), Banglore. They are planning 2 start a campaign to increase the spread the awareness & usage of free software in colleges, schools and among NGOs in Karnataka. The energy, motivation & the spirit in the FSD meeting was very high even though they have slight misconceptions about some terminologies. I hope our Friends like Vijoo, Vickram etc on FSD can correct it soon . But I feel that this campaign needs a lot of volunteers to achieve the goals. I think Free software Community in Bangalore must support & help FSD to make this dream into reality. We can make use of our experiences in Spreading free software awareness in Bangalore Colleges for this purpose. Even the students become active through our recent campaigns on colleges like BMS can also contribute a lot to this campaign. waiting for your suggessions. -- സുജിത് ഹരിദാസ൯ http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign Bangalore -- സുജിത് ഹരിദാസ൯ http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign Bangalore

4 4

Fwd: Etch in the hands of the Stable Release Managers
by Praveen A 08 Apr '07

08 Apr '07

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Andreas Barth <aba(a)not.so.argh.org> Date: २००७ अप्रैल ८ १८:२४ Subject: Etch in the hands of the Stable Release Managers To: debian-devel-announce(a)lists.debian.org Hi, You might read about now in debian-announce [1] that we have just released. Please don't upload all your new software instantly, but wait a few days until the archive is set up properly for Lenny. At this point, we would like to thank all people who have helped to release Debian 4.0 (Etch). Only through the work of the community we were able to get to this point. It's hard to write "thank you"s for a project as big as etch because there are *so many* people involved in pulling this off, but they deserve recognition for etch as much as we do -- people like the ftp team, the installer team, the CD team, the mirror team, the porters, the release notes editors, the translators, and an amazing group of "release minions" who just worked wherever it was necessary like Steinar Gunderson, all of whose contributions were essential for getting us to this point. Special thanks to all those who have worked through the weekend for those finishing touches that brought the release together, including Ryan, Anthony, Frans, Steve McIntyre, Frank Lichtenheld, Mattias Wadenstein, Alexander Schmehl, and many others. And of course, thanks to the Debian Project as a whole, including the innumerable mass of people who have provided patches, reported bugs against testing or contributed in some other way. This is your release, friends. We also want to apologize to the translations teams and thank them for their work on the localisation of the release notes, our provided deadlines were quite tough. Thanks for handling this so well. Preparing the first point-release ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are already some packages known that will need an update in stable soon. Best known is the kernel, which has some annoying bugs with pending fixes. If you are aware of any important bug that is waiting in unstable and didn't make the release because of time constraints, send a mail to debian-release(a)lists.debian.org. The usual rules that were in place for freeze exceptions are also mainly valid for the first point release of the Etch life cycle. It will be possible to accept packages directly from unstable to stable-proposed-updates. If you want the stable release team to do that, wait with new uploads until you got a confirmation that the package was accepted. Also we might accept bug fixes to meet our release goal of LSB 3.1 compliance. Continuing with Lenny ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ After the release is before the release. We don't have too specific plans for the Lenny release cycle yet, but there are a couple of things that are already known: * Lenny should be kept in a releaseable state most of the time (with the exception of breakages caused by one of the big transitions; but we should try to keep even these as small as possible). This means that there are no excuses for not fixing an RC bug. The problems that were uncovered by piuparts runs in the past two weeks have been mostly ignored for Etch, but they need to be fixed for Lenny. These are trivial fixes, please apply them and upload soon. * Please coordinate your uploads a bit, so that the testing transition of packages stays possible. Everybody uploading new software usually makes britney cry and hinders the transition of new versions. * We will work with release blockers and release goals again for the Lenny release cycle. If you have anything that you feel belongs in one of these two categories, send a mail to -release, so that we can include it in our plans. However, we want you to remember that -release is not a discussion list. * We want to restrict the release cycle for Lenny to less than 2 years, we want to discuss experiences of Etch first though to get a more accurate time planning. We'll soon send a more in-detail information about what we think we learned from Etch, and a few more things for Lenny. We'll also try to have an Lenny-kick-off-meeting soon - we'll announce that in time as well, so that anybody can feed us with ideas. Now, we'll party and let the SRMs do the rest until Etch is out. Thanks again to all of you for the great support Debian got. Yours Debian Release Team Andi, Steve, Luk, Marc -- http://release.debian.org/ [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFGGOX0mdOZoew2oYURAj9lAJ0cKv1NTX7qsFSlqWeAeD4dTu9f3gCgtEAC akW/tZk2WQARKq+AcoJbBAc= =DMRL -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

1 0

Workshop on Font Encoding Converters
by Harshita 06 Apr '07

06 Apr '07

Dear all, This is to inform you that there is a workshop on Font Encoding Converters which is going to be held on 6th April, from 7pm to 10pm in IIIT, Gachibowli, Hyderabad. This might be the late invitation, but we will be glad if you attend the workshop and make it a successful event. We are looking for your valuable suggestions. A brief introduction about the workshop is given below. Harshita, Swecha Telugu Localistation Team Phone: 9440849626 P.S: Dinner and transportation shall be arranged by IIIT. Please contact us for further details. Introduction about the workshop: Duration: 3 hours Time: 7pm to 10pm Date: 6th April, 2007 Location: International Institute of Information Technology, Hyderabad For quite some time now, non-standard encodings introduced by proprietary fonts developers have caused hurdles to information processing both for end users and researches alike. Vast amounts of data is locked up in these non-standard encodings. Lack of wide-spread usage of fonts, applications and tools that are based on Unicode technologies has lead to continued production of the content in these "font encodings". Numerous efforts have been made in the past and continue to be made to address this problem. Community based approaches like Padma Firefox Extension have made great strides in solving this issue. Time has come to standardise the converters. There are also many gaps to be filled in before the converters can be put to use universally. Agenda: * Review the current status of various font encoding converters * Discuss various techniques for reverse engineering font encodings * Attempt to bring all efforts on font encoding converters under one umbrella * Understand requirements of various groups for font encoding converters: ** What encodings are to be handled? ** Need a programming API? ** Need command line/GUI tools? ** What are the operating environments? * Chalk out future activity * Gather help from the involved teams in the following areas: ** Language expertise, reverse engineering and verification ** Programming, documentation and packaging

2 1

DRM-free Music from EMI through Apple iTunes
by Praveen A 02 Apr '07

02 Apr '07

Hi, April 3, 2007: EMI, the world's third largest music company, said today that it was making its music available online without a key anti-piracy measure in a deal with Apple Inc. to boost sales of digital music. Read the full story http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/03/technology/03music.web.html Great news for the DRM elimination crew!! Lets continue educating the consumers about the evils of DRM. Join the DRM Elimination Crew today !! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign "If consumers even know there's a DRM, what it is, and how it works, we've already failed," Peter Lee, an executive at Disney http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4342418 Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

1 0

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

Fsf-friends April 2007