Fsf-friends January 2008

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

8 participants
19 discussions

OFFTOPIC: The house that social networking built

by Frederick Noronha [फ़र ेदरिक नोर ोनया]

Kindly share with your architect friends too. FN The house that social networking built By Elsa Wenzel, News.com Published on ZDNet News: Jan 25, 2008 4:00:00 AM Tags: Elsa Wenzel, Digital media, Social Networking, Web, Network, Africa, Settlement, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., Laptop Computer, Open Architecture Network, Sinclair, Now House, Web 2.0, Open Source, Internet Forget about showy "starchitecture" from the likes of Frank Gehry. Architect Cameron Sinclair sees the future of his field in the slums, where the United Nations projects that one-third of the world's population will dwell by 2030. Sinclair insists that nothing short of a design revolution is needed to construct innovative housing solutions from the ground up. The Open Architecture Network, a Web site he co-founded that applies the principles behind open-source software to the construction of the material world, is working toward that sweeping global goal. The project is an offshoot of Architecture for Humanity, founded in 1999 by Sinclair and his wife, Kate Stohr. The nonprofit has worked to provide affordable housing in the tsunami-trampled Indian Ocean region and post-Hurricane Katrina U.S. Gulf Coast, as well as HIV clinics and soccer fields in sub-Saharan Africa. Its call to arms serves as the title of Architecture for Humanity's 2006 book Design Like You Give a Damn. That cry reached influential ears in the tech world when, in 2006, Sinclair won the coveted TED Prize, from whose spoils Sinclair and others at Architecture for Humanity launched the Open Architecture Network last March. It enables designers anywhere to share blueprints under Creative Commons licenses. The network, which has more than 9,100 members, is currently hosting the AMD Open Architecture Challenge, a design contest for technology centers in remote parts of Ecuador, Kenya, and Nepal. Behind the contest is the overarching aim of AMD's 50x15 program to expand Internet access to half of the world's population. CNET News.com caught up with Sinclair at his San Francisco office last week before he headed to Davos, Switzerland, to speak at the World Economic Forum. Q: How have things changed since the TED Prize? Sinclair: What's interesting about the TED prize is, good and bad, that everyone thinks that you're now loaded. Bono got it. Clinton got it. It doesn't bring money, but what it does bring is incredible resources. For instance, Sun Microsystems donated not just their services and technology but also a team of engineers, super geeks, who built the back end of the Open Architecture Network. And also AMD provided us with hosting. Open Architecture Network With this new technology, open source, and the Creative Commons, it cleared the vision of what we were doing so we could explain to people why we used technology or what the role of the architect is. What are some highlights from recent trips you've made? How was Africa, what happened there? Sinclair: We do a lot of work here in the Gulf Coast and also on Native American reservations. Internationally, the big thing has been the Open Architecture Challenge. We have three sites on three different continents and I've recently been to all three. It's not just like you go in and look at land and then survey it. It's actually spending a lot of time with communities...We were in the slums of Kenya prior to the election when it was very tense. We went right to the heart of the Nakuru slum, which is fascinating because on paper it just looked like any other settlement. They'd had a huge influx of Somali refugees, a recent, strong Muslim community, and it was in the industrial area, so they were dealing with the effects of post-industrial land, problems with drinking water. What's possible with the Open Architecture Network that would not happen without the Internet? Sinclair: Architecture for Humanity would not have existed without the Internet. We've been very fortunate because our focus has been what the Internet is supposed to do, which is the exchange of ideas and information not for financial gain but for social gain. On my laptop were about 2,000 projects--cool, innovative stuff that could change the world--and they just sat on my laptop. Someone said, "Why don't you just put them on a server somewhere?" Originally, the network was going to be a repository of proven ideas. But as we began building it with the engineers, we realized here was an opportunity to create a project management system so that designers could implement projects on a really cost-effective basis. Our FedEx bills have dropped massively. We don't send anything; it's all on the network. Our overhead is less than 8 percent and the rest goes into the construction and design of the buildings. It's not just a bunch of gray-haired white guys in academic institutions. We're talking about architects on the network representing 104 nations, so if you're looking for an Afghan architect, chances are they're on the network. It enables localized innovation with a top-down approach. When you travel, how do you show people the site? Sinclair: I put it on my laptop, but the big question is connectivity. Only 20 percent of the world is online. In Africa and South America it's much, much less, 6 percent in South America and like 3 percent in Africa. There's 1.6 billion people living in areas that are going to be flooded as a result of global warming. Most of these are in unplanned settlements. That's a lot of work to be done. I keep telling people, most of the planet that's not online doesn't want to go to Facebook. They don't want to see the streaming Britney Spears court date or Steve Jobs live. Seriously, what they want to do is look at the tools that improve their lives. When you talk about tools people in the developing world have that we don't, "leapfrogging" technologies, what are some that look really cool? Sinclair: There are two in South Africa that I really love. One is the Hippo (water) roller (a barrel-shaped container designed to transport water in rural areas where water has traditionally had to be carried laboriously atop the head). The real genius, and it sounds kind of silly--as well as rolling it, it also flattens the road. The other one I actually used a couple of years ago when there was a blackout in New York City. I had a Freeplay wind-up radio. There was a crowd of 50 people around me listening to the news. I had my coffee and my radio cranked up, sitting on the street corner in New York, and people were like, "Where did you get that?" And I'm like, "Africa." In terms of housing, a lot of it is about using simple materials, bamboo and rice bale construction, an advancement of straw bale--using interesting materials such as hemp and also hybrid materials. What designs look really fresh to you? And how much of what the network deals with might be considered sustainable design? Sinclair: A couple are dealing with informal settlements, housing in the margins. How do you create dignified housing where there's no land? Someone's working on a $700 house. The Now House is a World War II retrofitted home that's carbon-neutral...There's a spinach-powered house, there's a grow-your-own clinic, a clinic you eat. All of these projects have to be sustainable. Let's talk about the geeks, the tech community. What kind of feedback do you get from them? Sinclair: What's been really great is that we have folks at Sun and AMD, engineers who are calling us and saying, "Hey, I want to work on this." The Open Architecture Network has been in beta right now for the last year. Over the next year we're looking to add a whole bunch of resources, materials, and libraries. Tech people are saying, "Hey, I'm looking to develop a carbon calculator." We're working with Autodesk Freewheel, the first Web application that allows you to see CAD drawings rendered live, working to integrate it within the next few months so you can run Web meetings and comment on the drawings live. What do you think about the Web 2.0 trend? Sinclair: It's a label. The people who make the most money will make the Web 2.0 apps that appeal to the most people--but on the fringes there are people that can actually do some amazing stuff of a collaborative nature. We're still waiting for Web 2.0 to catch up to the way we work on a day-to-day basis...We use all that stuff, Google Apps, Google Earth. What's nice is we actually e-mail the people who make Google Apps every time we see something wrong. So do the Google people get back to you? Sinclair: Yeah, really rapidly. It's amazing. For the 3D modeling and 2D conception drawings, we are their key constituency. If they had to go to a for-profit it would be very costly to develop their R&D. What does SketchUp or Autodesk look like in an emerging market? Well, we're doing it. We'd say, what is the computing power it takes to do this? We ask bizarre questions because most of the clients we have are using low-power thin clients, things like that. What do you think about efforts such as One Laptop Per Child? Sinclair: I want to hack it, I want to break it. I want to turn it into one laptop per innovation. If you gave me one, I'd take it to the streets of Kenya or India and I'd give them to the most innovative people working in the slums, the guy who's making flip-flops out of recycled plastic bottles. Then you just install some sort of CAD program on there and teach them how to use it so their innovations could be shared. What's the power of improving their living standards if you've got that going on? Maybe version 2.0 should have the tagline "It's not just for kids" or "One Laptop Per Adult." How will big environmental changes--in terms of global warming, ecological and manmade disasters, even the high price of energy--affect your work? Sinclair: Someone was joking that I'm the luckiest architect on the planet because there's no shortage of clients. There's 1.6 billion people living in areas that are going to be flooded as a result of global warming. Most of these are in unplanned settlements. That's a lot of work to be done. Can I make a $1,000 house? Can I make solar power affordable for someone in the slums of Angola? Is it feasible, and if it is, how can you make it aesthetically beautiful? It's convincing the heads of corporations who fund these initiatives but are saying, "Take the design out." We've kind of bucked that trend and proven you actually do have to design something that's beautiful. What's the bad side of an open-source community? Sinclair: The biggest challenge is that we're in the business of constructing things, so there's a health and safety aspect. If it's completely open source and someone takes a design and another design and doesn't follow the legal information included in the design, then what are the ramifications of doing that? Can you see this model working for other fields? Sinclair: Industrial design is an obvious one. And what if you had cancer researchers collaborating in an open-source manner and didn't have competitive studies? Instead of billions of dollars wasted, maybe you'll cure cancer...Or education, figuring out open-source curriculums so you're getting multipronged history. Do you ever talk with people in other fields who are interested in something like the Open Architecture Network? Sinclair: I've talked to a lot of doctors who do AIDS-related projects in Africa. It's their biggest challenge trying to share information with each other. When you say "open source," the people who make money from it get worried, so there's a lot riding against open principles. But Linux and Drupal can do it. That's the beauty of the world we live in. You don't need one big giant to control everything. Is the site still just in English? Sinclair: It's a big problem. We just need to find volunteer translators. Really important are Chinese, Hindi, Swahili--right there I've just named 3 billion people, half the planet. Do you run into resistance when you travel? Sinclair: We've had death threats, all sorts of things because we were shaking up the apple cart, trying to make people more self-sufficient. Death threats coming from...? Sinclair: All over the place. We've done some gender violence projects, whether it be pimps in Calcutta or bandits or people who are controlling corrupt officials, they're going to be upset. We're an easy target seen as protecting or giving empowerment to a community that has been disenfranchised for many years. We don't believe in making placards. It's a waste of wood. We'd rather build houses. (c)2007 CNET Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. CNET , CNET.com , and the CNET logo are registered trademarks of CNET Networks, Inc. Used by permission. http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6227610.html -- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph +91-832-2409490 The Goa books blog: http://goabooks.wordpress.com Goa1556 (alt.publishing.goa): http://goa1556.goa-india.org

15 years, 10 months

[OT] Made a blog

by shirish

Hi all, Made a blog about free software & what I like. Its a work in progress. I'm sure of something, not sure of others. Please go through the couple of posts I made at http://freesoftwareacademia.blogspot.com/ of course the name isn't about free software in academia but I also hope to write something about it as well in the coming days. Feel free to comment, flame & whatever u think is right. -- Regards, Shirish Agarwal This email is licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ 065C 6D79 A68C E7EA 52B3 8D70 950D 53FB 729A 8B17

15 years, 10 months

A Field Guide to Free Software Supporters

by Praveen A

A Field Guide to Free Software Supporters Hearing the terms "free software" or "open source," you might imagine that they referred to a single school of thought. Even "free and open source software" (FOSS) suggests only two different outlooks: Free software, which values political and philosophical freedom, and open source, whose main interest is enhanced software quality. Full story http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/12068_3723131_1 An interesting analysis of different schools of thought. Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ <GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call! <DRM> What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak? (as seen on /.) Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

15 years, 10 months

Linux @ Gun Shot

by Omshiva prakash

This is what came in my mind when I started training a new bunch of trainees in my company. They have started learning Linux now and we have plans to continue training people are new to Linux and have never worked on computer as geeks. Its a challenge which we have taken up to build the man power required for the company. Also adding newbies FOSS community. http://platonic.techfiz.info/2008/01/21/linux-gun-shot/ Its all about filling in confidence to explore a new world of possibilities. What can bring attention of a newbie to learn more about a technology? How we can make him/her hack into the in depth features of a technology to crack the master's test? At the end at least we want him/her to be a jack of the technology to let him/her face the challenges which he/she may encounter in future. Many people who peep into Open Source world know that its "hot" and many might not have got a chance to understand what is it all about. There are job opportunities, which demands little smartness from a newbie. I got a chance to spend some time with around 20 fresh college graduates who are looking forward to make a great carrier in Open Source and learning Linux from scratch. Many of them have not looked into any "Operating System" or "Personal Computer" as administrators and it has been just used it as a machine to accomplish some of their projects forced by the educational system of our country. Few others have used it as an entertainment box, for playing games, music, videos etc. There is another bunch which is forced by this era to use computers to type in the resumes to grab new job opportunities available in the IT industry. There have been lots of efforts put in to mold new techs in to better administrators from their user or power user status at work place. But always it lacked the zeal required to fill in the hackers attitude and passion for Open Source into their heart. This might be due to more theory which was poured into their mind instead of practical exposure which is a very essential part of a system administrator's training life cycle. We are working towards creating opportunities for those who are almost new to computers or at least new to Open Source. They need to be comfortable with the operating system and they must explore the "FREEDOM" of Free and Open Source software to gain the initial confidence and interest required to work as administrators. If a newbie finds the work as a monotonous process of remembering commands and repetitive, he/she might not think of sailing in this sea for quite a long time. Linux wants newbies to create their own shields against the Gun shots of upcoming challenges, attacks, vulnerabilities and growth of technologies. Hence you never find the work to be boring. Working with Linux has never been found to be monotonous and repetitive for me so far and its always an adventure. Bringing technology close to someone needs patience, self confidence on the technology, skills required to be one of those who are with us to learn it and little bit humor to fill in fun at the learning desk. Its always fun to explore what can be done with a gadget or a software, presenting what you feel about it to your audience will always be a challenge. A newbie finds it easy to explore the voyage during hands on training. Let him/her be free to try out new things and build a strong foundation with your guidance. Practice makes them perfect, show them how to climb to top. -- -- "A well-directed imagination is the source of great deeds" -- With Best Regards, Omshivaprakash.H.L WebPage : http://platonic.techfiz.info Phone: 91- 9902026518 / 9343726518

15 years, 10 months

FOSSMeet@NITC 2008

by Kishore Asok

Hi, We are pleased to inform you that National Institute of Technology, Calicut will be hosting its annual free and open source software conference, namely FOSS Meet @ NITC 2008, on 21st, 22nd and 23rd of March 2008. This time the focus of the event is to get more students actively involved in FOSS. As usual, there will be talks, BOFs, workshops etc. - details of which will soon be put up on our website – http://www.fossmeet.in/nitc . In addition to that, this year, we are starting a contest called FOSSDev, to promote student participation in and contribution to FOSS. Basically, a team wishing to participate has to find a mentor who will help them contribute to a project of the participant's choice. FOSSDev is a year long event. There will be three "checkpoints" at which progress will be evaluated and prizes will be given accordingly. Total prize money is Rs. 23,500. You can read more about FOSSDev at http://fossmeet.in/nitc/fossdev . This meet is organized by the GNU/Linux Users Group Calicut(GLUGC) in association with Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Student Branch NIT Calicut [IEEE], Computer Society of India, Calicut Chapter [CSI], Computer Science and Engineering Association [CSEA] and all the volunteers from various walks of life. See what these people have to say about their previous FOSS Meet@NITCexperiences - http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Calicut/NIT/FOSS_Meet/07 , http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Calicut/NIT/FOSS_Meet/06 and http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Calicut/NIT/FOSS_Meet/05 for some comments from previous participants. Looking forward to meeting you at FOSSMeet@NITC. Note: Please register yourself on the website as soon as possible. Regards, The Core Team FOSSMeet@NITC2008

15 years, 10 months

Re: [Fsf-friends] [ifsa] The Free Software hardliner, the corporation, and the shotgun wedding

by Praveen A

2008/1/21, Ringo Kamens <2600denver(a)gmail.com>: > I don't think it's an issue of strategy or stages. Purely speaking, if > we sacrifice our ideals then we will accomplish our goals faster. For > instance, it would take much less effort for somebody who wants an > anarchist or socialist revolution to go in and kill every important > member of government. The problem is that they are sacrificing their > values. If somebody really wants equality, respect, etc. then they > can't go around doing violent acts. What happens after the government > collapses? The masses haven't learned from the past and the new > government will be just as bad as the previous one. If a revolution is > caused by mass participation, the end result lasts longer and is > better. This is the same with free software. If you say that closed > source software is exploitive, if you say that it is wrong, then don't > use it. Period. I say capitalism is wrong yet I buy some things. It's > an issue of survival, but that same argument can't really be applied > to your choice of software. > Comrade Ringo Kamens Excellent points Ringo. Thanks for sharing this. You can look at a glimpse of how we did it in Kerala what result we got here http://www.fsdaily.com/Beginner/Teachers_becoming_Free_Software_advocates_a… Teachers are now advocates of Free Software, they are ready for sacrifices for Freedom because they are taught to value Freedom over convenience. The case in point is about printer drivers, many of the commonly used printers (for example canon ip1000) does not have a Free driver but one teacher responded to it like this, "Of course there is some problems in Printer Driver but it can be solved in the new versions" If we want Freedom and software that works at the same time, you can't reach there by starting at non-free software. But if you insist on freedom you will get it. See what happened with java and flash for example. We said gratis is not enough, we need libre and now we have those. Instead if we wer content with non-free but gratis java and flash we would not have the Free tools now. Same can be said about the graphics drivers. When companies like Dell start offering Intel graphics card because they work out of the box with Free Software NVIDIA and ATI will feel the heat and would follow. ATI already released their specs for some graphics cards. Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

15 years, 10 months

Re: [Fsf-friends] [ifsa] The Free Software hardliner, the corporation, and the shotgun wedding

by Praveen A

2008/1/21, john saylor <js0000(a)gmail.com>: > i would definitely concur that freedom is important. and it's much > more easier to make a computer run than to convince someone of the > value of freedom [esp when it contravenes capitalism]. > > but shouldn't we support getting free[-ish] software in the middle > schools? maybe one of those students will take it further. it's not > perfect, it goes against a statement of st. ignucious, a good point. > free software is more than switching a computer from windows to > ubuntu. no doubt. > > is it better to take no steps? > The point RMS makes is people supporting the two stage approach never tries to do the stage 2. If everyone does only the stage 1, who will do the stage 2? "Well, this two stage solution might work well, if it were properly tried, but when people propose this, almost always they go and work on stage one. In fact, I've come to recognise that this two stage solution idea is really an excuse to work on stage one and ignore stage two." The problem is there are a lot of people and doing stage one where as not many people doing stage one. And hence there are so many of "linux" users out there who never come to know about GNU or Freedom and are not taught to appreciate the importance of Freedom. The result is, we get a weak community and it is so easy for them to lose the Freedom. When someone show them something is better they have no second thoughts about switching back. Free Software movement was started to protect user Freedom and teaching people how important it is to be able to collaborate. Free software never was a movement to overthrow Microsoft and put Adobe, Nvidia or ATI there. I know it is tough and I have also done stage one without stage two. But we need people like RMS to remind us why we started it and what will happen if we forget it. You know what when one student sent me a mail saying. ... i had said "We have had enough of philosophy, now we want more technical sessions".. That time i was not much bothered about the philosophy.. now i'm. I find this one user finding the value Freedom more worth than the hundreds of people who use "linux" because I gave then CDs or helped fix their problems. If we had listen to them and stopped at stage one, we would have never been able to build such a great community there. We need more people to do stage two because there are a great number of people who have crossed stage one but can never make it to stage two because they don't see anyone teaching them importance of Freedom. See http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Bangalore/BMSCE for more about what we have been doing there. -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

15 years, 10 months

Google Highly Open Participation Contest

by CK Raju, Thrissur

http://code.google.com/opensource/ghop/2007-8/ Limited projects, limited tasks, limited scope. However, Content Management Systems (Drupal, Joomla, Plone and Silverstripe) all allow localisation efforts in Indian languages. So also the case with Moodle - for education purposes. Students, please hurry... CK Raju

15 years, 10 months

Re: [Fsf-friends] [ifsa] The Free Software hardliner, the corporation, and the shotgun wedding

by Praveen A

2008/1/20, Christian Einfeldt <einfeldt(a)gmail.com>: > IMHO, the fight for freedom is a numbers game. The higher the locked down > installbase, the more power goes to the dark side. > > At the public middle school that I am moving to Free Software, the teachers > just don't care about freedom. But they do care about educating children. > IMHO, we must be humble and serve the needs of the end users first. We need > to convince them that Free Software will do what THEY want it to do. So > now, all of the student-facing computers at this public school are Free > Software computers, unless you don't consider PClinuxOS or Ubuntu to be Free > Software. There are still some non-Free software components on those boxes, > but we are working steadily to get them off. Rome was not built in a day. > It will take patience and perseverance. > Lets see what RMS has to say about it. "Many people suggest a two stage solution. They say, first, let's teach people to use Free Software, and then, once they're using it, we'll teach people to appreciate the freedom. Well, this two stage solution might work well, if it were properly tried, but when people propose this, almost always they go and work on stage one. In fact, I've come to recognise that this two stage solution idea is really an excuse to work on stage one and ignore stage two. Stage two is what I work on. So if you really believe in a two stage solution, come join me and work on stage two because the problem is that so much of our community has focussed on stage one, and so much of our community has talked about practical benefits while ignoring freedom, that in fact, at this point, if you start using the GNU/Linux system, you may not hear anyone talk about freedom for years. In other words, our community has not just begun to forget about the goal of freedom, it has almost completely forgotten. With the result that now it is a struggle to teach people in our own community about the freedom which is the reason why we built this community. Of all the operating systems in history, all except one were developed for commercial reasons or technical reasons. GNU was developed for the sake of freedom. The users need to know this. And I would like to ask you to join in helping to teach them this. This is why I dedicate myself now to spreading these ideas of freedom. There are more than a million contributors to Free Software now. The community doesn't need me that much as a programmer, and besides, I'm getting older, I probably can't do it as well as I used to. But there are not a million people teaching the users to appreciate the value of freedom and the value of specifically the freedom to cooperate in a community. This is where we urgently need more people. " http://www.fsfeurope.org/documents/rms-fs-2006-03-09.en.html#we-urgently-ne… Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

15 years, 10 months

The Free Software hardliner, the corporation, and the shotgun wedding

by Praveen A

We called it Free Software at first. It wasn't until we started calling it Open Source that the punditry line counts began creeping up higher than the code line counts. We had this baby and we were proud of it, and the deep rooted insecurity born of being the ridiculed and utterly misunderstood underdogs made us require the approval of business and Grandma Bessie before we could ourselves be satisfied. Well, now we've got it, and in some ways Open Source is not better off because of it. Thanks to the cavorting evangelists in the Ubuntu community who were converted on the strength of a cheaply-gotten sense of technical superiority over their peers who still use Windows 98, "Free" is now a dirty word since it stands so often in the way of converting more people, faster. Free Software wasn't originally meant to be a cult with a membership statistics monkey on its back; the idea was, like, to be "Free." Full story http://www.linux.com/feature/124564 -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

15 years, 10 months

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Fsf-friends January 2008