Fsf-friends July 2008

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9 participants
13 discussions

Internet, tech skills growing quietly in Goa...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 02 Sep '24

02 Sep '24

INTERNET, TECH SKILLS GROWING QUIETLY IN GOA PANJIM, April 30: Goa's BSNL internet service provider is already providing some 3000 broadband connections in the state, and roughly another 24,000 people dial-up to get access the Net using this central government-run service. These figures emerged during an informal discussion at the monthly meeting of the India Linux Users Group (Goa), a network promoting Free Software and Open Source in the state. ILUG-Goa, which holds its meetings usually on the fourth Saturday of each month at the Goa Science Centre at Miramar, sees a range of tech issues -- usually directly related to Free Software and Open Source in Goa. During it's meet on April 29, a range of issues came up for discussion, from how to partition your hard-disk (to install GNU/Linux side-by-side with Windows), to software tools to ehance productivity, and various internet and broadband options available to users in diverse parts of Goa. For instance, there are some useful Free Software tools to monitor your bandwidth usage on BSNL's broadband. One such tool is available for free download at http://tinyurl.com/qgu9p Called the Data One Broadband Statistics, this is a screen-scraper written using Perl to download usage statistics of BSNL's Data One (www.bsnl.co.in/service/dataone.htm) broadband service and total it. Generally, BSNL (www.bsnl.co.in) allows only the Microsoft-based IE and has no monthly total. But trust Indian software talent to find a work-around. This solution comes from the Free Software/Open Source network in Chennai. Meanwhile, the Goa free software network stays connected and announces its event via http://iluggoaannounce.notlong.com There are no fees for joining, all are welcome, and encouraged to form parallel user-groups in diverse parts of the state. Meanwhile, the Fedora Core 5 Free Software distribution has just become available on DVD in Goa. Number of foreign magazines are also available. Members of ILUG-Goa such as engineer Bijon Shaha and software pro Arvind Yadav gave diverse views on techies-only distros like 'Gentoo'. Debopriyo 'DP' Sarkar pointed to a 'mindmap' of various Free Software distributions or 'distros' available, which was illustrated at linuxhelp.blogspot.com Earlier, there was a brief presentation on FreeMind. FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java. It has the potential of playing the role of a high productivity tool. Operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster because of one-click "fold/unfold" and "follow link" operations. Other members raised a range of issues -- from how to get started in GNU/Linux, to playing around with tools like StumbleUpon, and how to encourage Free Software usage in schools and educational institutions. Remy Furtado of Rosary College, Navelim expressed an interest in working on the Free Software tool Moodle, ideal for distance education, as the Goa University moves to a pattern of semisterisation. Goa Engineering College's Prof George Easaw has done work on this platform, as have others. Reacting unofficially, BSNL officials said Goa now had six STMS 155 MBps connectivity, which was resulting in a speedy expansion of broadband to many parts of the state. But for broadband facilities to become available in village areas, at least 60 subscribers were needed to make operations viable. So far, broadband from BSNL is available in a growing number of areas in Goa: Panjim, Vasco (except Cortalim, but including Sada, Mangor, Bogmalo, Sancoale and other areas), Ponda, Bambolim, Merces, Dona Paula, Porvorim, Mapusa town, Calangute-Candolim, and Saligao, among others. Equipment has already been installed in Aldona exchange, and broadband facilities are expected to go functional -- ------------------------------------------------------------- | India Linux Users' Group, Goa | | Join the friendly user group | | Mail list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/join | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | http://groups.yahoo.com/group/teach-yourself-linux | | http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa-announce | | http://www.iosn.net/country/india/organizations/ilug-goa/ | ------------------------------------------------------------- , , / \ .-. * SOFTWARE ((__-^^-,-^^-__)) (. .) * FREEDOM `-_---' `---_-' / V \ * SHARING `--|o` 'o|--' // \\ \ ` / /( )\ KNOWLEDGE IS POWER ): :( '.^^_^^.' SHARE IT EQUITABLY :o_o: \_/ \_/ "-"

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Careers in FLOSS... (Dec 2003 issue of LFY)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 06 Jun '24

06 Jun '24

=========================================== LINUXForYou * Dec 2003 (Vol 1 No 10) In India Rs 50 (with CD) http://www.linuxforu.com Pages 102 * US$7.95 0 74470584957 =========================================== THIS ISSUE has probably reached your city. Saw it in Bangalore, and also got a complimentary copy from the LFY team at LinuxBangalore2003. But when I reached back to Goa on Dec 4, it wasn't in as yet. So it might take time to reach 'small town' India... FN REVIEWED: Mandrake 9.2 * PhProjekt * StarOffice 7.0 COMPUTERS AT TIS HAZARI, the session courts for the city of New Delhi, are being shifted over to Linux, courtesy the National Informatics Centre. - Rahul Chopra in this month's editorial. LINUX LEARNING CENTRE at Bangalore is offering courses in administration, security, development (internals and programming essentials, programming with Qt, device driver programming, MySQL & PHP), RHCE and Red Hat rapid track certification. www.linuxlearningcentre.com DotGNU RELEASES CD: It can now be used to implement application programs and Web services in C# and C applications under multiple operating systems, including GNU/Linux, FreeBSC, MacOS, MS Windows. The 219 MB release 0.1 CD is available as a free download at http://download.freedom.biz/dotgnu/dotgnu-0.1-cdrom.iso.gz.torrent e-Bridge calls itself "the new state-of-art training facility from eSpark Infotech is now open in the heart of Bangalore". It's offering embedded Linux courses (Linux fundamentals, programming Linux, embedded C & Linux, realtime C & Linux, Linux internals, device drivers, networking) and DSP courses (DSP fundamentals, TI/analog dev programming, audio/video, image processing, bio-medical systems). www.ebridgesolutions.net Linux.net provides a free e-mail service to those who want an e-mail address that ends in '@linux.net' MAJOR UPDATES and releases: OpenNA Linux 1.0, Gibraltar Firewall 1.0, Xandros Desktop 2.0, Onebase Linux 2.0, CUPS 1.120rc6. CAN YOU MAKE money with open source? Registration entails a "nominal fee" of Rs 5000 for a three-day conference. http://www.linuxasia2004.com/attendees/ February 11-13, 2004, New Delhi. SEND IN YOUR favourite slogans for a tee-shirt, and win five free copies of the shirt... LFYedit at efyindia.com MONEY CAN't buy respect, says Robert Adkins. Some of us might have met this guy at LB2003 in Bangalore. He's the CTO of Technetra Corp, and an advocate and implementer of FLOSS solutions for government. He can be contacted at radkins at technetra.com CAREERS WITH FLOSS: The number of students opting for courses in Open Source is growing steadily, even as industry experts predict a growing need for trained professionals in this expanding field. EXIT RED HAT, ENTER FEDORA: It's official now; the free (of cost) version of Red Hat Linux will not be available anymore. This has created a lot of FUD in an already unstable environment, thanks to the SCO episode. But is Red Hat closed for good? WEB-BASED COLLABORATION SOFTWARE: PHProjekt is an easy-to-install collaboration suite, which runs on the open source platform and databases. As the design of the system is developer-friendly, adding new features and components is a piece of cake. STAROFFICE: The latest version of Sun's office suite, StarOffice 7, may just be the right solution for the cost-conscious user. It loads faster than the earlier version, and sports some noticeable improvements. IN THE LFY CD THIS MONTH: Slackware (the "oldest Linux distro") and a range of GNU software for Windows users. FALLING BACK on backup systems. MAKING ADOPTION OF Linux in the enterprise easy. www.linux4e.com Business partners required: http://wwww.linux4e.com/partners ooWRITER HELPS YOU create your own templates and styles so that you can work with documents easily. Open Source is key to IBM's vision of computing. User empowerment is key to Microsoft's, writes Alolita Sharma USING DATABASE functions in Calc, a tutorial. (Wish there were more how-tos for the user in this mag! --FN) HALDIA DOCKS: it has a uniquely designed Linux installation with an active-active cluster set up, which is considered the best of its kind. This has ensured efficiency and cost-effectiveness. BASIC UNIX commands and concepts: an extract from *Running Linux* (Shroff Publishers, Pp 674 only Rs 425 in India). VxWorks and LynxOS are definitely the biggest embedded operating systems in use today. But slowly they are acknowledging the power of GNU/Linux and how it can help them maximise deployments. HELP LINUX GO INDIAN: By using various translation tools, you can join Language translation groups working across India to help translate GNU/Linux into your language. EXPERT INTRODUCTION: Multi-threaded programming under Linux. KICKSTART YOUR Linux installation (Part I): Installing Red Hat Linux on multiple machines one after another can be quite tedious. To avoid answering the same question over and over again, try the KickStart method, as it does not need any user intervention. WRITE CHEQUES. NOT JUST BOOKS: Niyam Bhushan on how anybody can turn thoughts into words, and words into wealth. NFS CLIENTS for Windows. OpenSSL PACKAGE offers a vast crypto library of algorithms WAIT QUEUES in Linux device drivers UNDERSTANDING recursive sub-routines INDIA-RELATED NEWS: HP launches GNU/Linux laptop Mandrake's latest distribution Oracle announces 10g for GNU/Linux Delixus offers India Linux CxProtect anti-virus mailing solution for mail-servers Trade management system from Network Programs Netweb Technologies unveils Tyrone MRO-Tek rolls out Network Management Systems Review of FLOSS at BangaloreIT.com =========================================== DISCLOSURE: This journalist (FN) writes a monthly column for LFY and gets paid for it. Promoting awareness about the content of LFY however is not part of the job, and is carried on with the intention spreading awareness about FLOSS among different GNU/Linux user groups in India. -- Frederick Noronha : http://www.fredericknoronha.net : When we speak of free Freelance Journalist : http://www.bytesforall.org : software we refer to Ph 0091.832.2409490 : Cell 0 9822 122436 : freedom, not price.

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Educational resoures... from azimpremjifoundation.org
by Frederick Noronha [फ़र ेदरिक नोर ोनया] 28 Jul '08

28 Jul '08

Sukumar Anikar <anikar(a)azimpremjifoundation.org> [1] and Prasad < prasad(a)azimpremjifoundation.org> managed to get across to me a copy of a DVD … and what a DVD at that! It contained a whole lot of fascinating educational software for school children. A couple of nights ago, I ended up 'playing' some educational games with Aren, 5, and told him that my friends had sent the same across free. "Did you say 'thank you'?" he asked me in turn. In fact, he kept 'playing' on these games, though it was almost midnight, and even though he's too small to obviously understand many of the concepts being taught here (decimal fractions, and what not … but big enough to be interested in the wild animals of the jungle and to try and comprehend how fruits and a balanced diet gives us the energy we need to do work). The 'games' sent across in this DVD work excellently and without flaw (so far) on my Ubuntu laptop. They have been adjusted to work with the GNU/Linux operating system. It drew my interest enough to dash across another email to Sukumar and Prasad, requesting more programmes.Given the medium of instructions being used (and subjects taught) in Goa, I am particularly interested in software dealing with: - English language - Hindi language - Maths - Environmental Science - General Science - Social Science - Co-curricular subjects Check out the long list of what's available. http://www.azimpremjifoundation.org/html/E_Learn_Mat_table1.htm The Azim Premji Foundation is actually keen to work with educational institutions (rather than with individuals, if I understood right) for obvious reasons. Said the APF in a mail to me: "We always support the state governments by providing them the Digital Learning Resource (DLR) for deployment in Government schools. Generally, the support is by providing the right to replicate our content to the state, without any costs. Our Digital Learning Resource is not provided if the intended use is for commercial purposes. We also share content with NGOs and other institutions who manage schools where there is no barrier on admissions and where no fee is being charged." And Mr Anikar added, "Almost all our titles or Digital Learning Resource are trilingual i.e. in English, Hindi and in any one of the regional languages. While we have just 10 titles in Marathi the same is not available for immediate release as they have to be validated by a state government. However, we will share other titles that are in English and Hindi. Further, we are also in the process of making our content compatible with [GNU]Linux platform and hence for the present we will be sharing only such titles which are compatible with both windows and Linux and those that have been tested. The remaining titles would be shared on a future date and on completion of testing. We will be clustering our titles in a couple of DVD's and send it across to you in the next week…. We also wish to state that there is a process that needs to be followed in implementing the Digital Learning Resource in schools which we will share the same with you once you confirm the receipt of Digital Learning Resource." And: "A note of caution — our Digital Learning Resource are not meant to help in computer literacy. The target group is children in the age group of 6-14 years and the Digital Learning Resource primarily presents concepts related to Maths, Science and Language related to the curriculum for classes Standard I to Standard VIII." By way of background, from their website: "Azim Premji Foundation has commenced the digital content creation effort in the year 2002. So far, Foundation has created over 100+ master CD titles for the classes 1 to 8 and the same have been translated into various regional languages in India including few tribal languages. The content is created with the pedagogical focus to enable the children to directly use and learn where the teacher will act as facilitator. The attributes of the content are; curriculum oriented, child-centered, self paced, interactive and multimedia based content." You probably know that Azim Premji is the Chairman and CEO of one of India's largest software companies, Wipro. Wikipedia [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azim_Premji] says he was rated the richest man in India between 1999 to 2005 (and is probably among the top five now). This impressed me: "Premji is known for his modesty and frugality in spite of his wealth. He drives a Toyota <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota> Corolla <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Corolla> and flies economy class <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_class>, prefers to stay in company guest houses<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guest_house_%28lodging%29>rather than luxury hotels <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel> and even served food on paper plates at a lunch honouring his son's wedding." Check it out. Really useful stuff. The educational content on the DVDs, I mean! – [1] Head - Technology for Education, Azim Premji Foundation, #134, Doddakannelli, Next to Wipro Corporate Office, Sarjapur Road, Bangalore - 560 035 Tel: 91-80-66144900/901/902 (Board) 91-80-66144922 (Direct) Fax: 91-80-66144903 Mobile: 09449820054 www.azimpremjifoundation.org -- FN * Independent Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org 784 Nr Convent, Saligao 403511 Goa India Ph +91-832-2409490 M: +91-9970157402 16,000+ photos from Goa: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/

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Is pigs flying? Microsoft adds GPL to Open Specification Promise
by Praveen A 27 Jul '08

27 Jul '08

Its indeed big story. Read it from PJ@groklaw http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080725152355696 -- 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

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[Fwd: [bytesforall_readers] Software body working on anti-piracy task force]
by V. Sasi Kumar 26 Jul '08

26 Jul '08

-------- Forwarded Message -------- From: Frederick "FN" Noronha <fredericknoronha(a)gmail.com> Reply-To: bytesforall_readers(a)yahoogroups.com To: bytesforall_readers(a)yahoogroups.com Subject: [bytesforall_readers] Software body working on anti-piracy task force Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 02:02:59 +0530 http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2008/07/21/stories/2008072150640200.htm Software body working on anti-piracy task force V. Rishi Kumar Hyderabad, July 20 Business Software Alliance is working towards creating an anti-piracy task force in coordination with industry bodies such as FICCI (Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry), Nasscom (National Association for Software and Services Companies) and the Government and favours some amendments to the Copyright Act to make it more stringent. The alliance promoted by some leading technology firms, including software companies Adobe, Microsoft, is in talks with both the Central and State Governments to spread awareness against piracy, according to Ms Lizum Mishra, Director of Business Software Alliance (India). Speaking to Business Line, Ms Mishra said that piracy numbers have shown that there is some improvement but a lot needs to be done to ensure that it is brought down significantly. "Apart from bringing down piracy level, particularly in the case of enterprises, we are also in parleys with Government departments, officials in the Ministry of Commerce and Information Technology and Communication to impress the need to bring about amendments to Copyright Act and make violations stringent," she said. Towards curbing piracy, dedicated Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and Anti Piracy Cells have been created at FICCI with a focus on protecting intellectual property and educating people on use of legally obtained software, Ms Mishra said. FIVE-POINT BLUEPRINT As a part of its efforts to bring down piracy levels, the alliance has come up with a five-point blueprint. This covers increasing public awareness of value of intellectual property and risks of use of unlicensed software and the need to update national copyright laws for more effective enforcement against digital and online piracy. The focus is on creation of enforcement mechanisms as required by the World Trade Organisation, dedicate significant Government resources (including IP enforcement units) and lead by example — using only legal copies in public sector undertakings. -- FN * Independent Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org Ph +91-832-2409490 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Goa http://www.linkedin.com/in/fredericknoronha __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages Yahoo! Groups Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format to Traditional Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe Recent Activity 8 New Members Visit Your Group Yahoo! Finance It's Now Personal Guides, news, advice & more. Need traffic? Drive customers With search ads on Yahoo! Best of Y! Groups Discover groups that are the best of their class. . __,_._,___ -- V. Sasi Kumar Free Software Foundation of India http://swatantryam.blogspot.com

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created a couple of blogs, need some comments.
by krishnakant Mane 22 Jul '08

22 Jul '08

hello, there are a couple of very strong blogs which I have created, I would like all fello hackers to visit and put their comments. fossimpact.blogspot.com migratetofoss.blogspot.com the first talks about the impact of free software while the second is about tips and tricks that worked for me when I did foss awareness workshops etc. happy hacking. KK

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IEEE wants its students to be slaves?!
by ശ്യാ ം കാ രനാട ്ട് | shyam karanattu 22 Jul '08

22 Jul '08

I just saw the letter and could not resist to write about it. http://swatantran.blogspot.com/2008/07/ieee-wants-its-students-to-be-slaves… Its not complete/formated but i am in a hurry now:) also Vote it here;-) *http://www.fsdaily.com/Community/IEEE_wants_its_students_to_be_slaves*** thanks Shyam K

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Microsoft is Paid for Ubuntu-based Dell PCs
by Praveen A 21 Jul '08

21 Jul '08

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PM, Please file your claim for share from M$, before going out.
by CK Raju, Thrissur 18 Jul '08

18 Jul '08

Rank Site Organisation First Seen Webserver OS - www.pmgsyonline.nic.in unknown August 2006 Microsoft-IIS/6.0 Windows Server 2003 - www.pmindia.nic.in unknown March 2000 Microsoft-IIS/6.0 Windows Server 2003 2007100 www.presidentofindia.nic.in unknown December 2002 Microsoft-IIS/6.0 Windows Server 2003 - www.sagar.nic.in unknown November 2002 Microsoft-IIS/6.0 Windows Server 2003 =============== All this and more from http://toolbar.netcraft.com/netblock?q=NICNET,164.100.0.0,164.100.255.255&p… and http://toolbar.netcraft.com/netblock?q=NICNET,164.100.0.0,164.100.255.255 ========== What a spectacular government ! CK Raju, Thrissur

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Fwd: [foss.in] KDE.in Monsoon Hackathon!
by Praveen A 06 Jul '08

06 Jul '08

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Pradeepto Bhattacharya <pradeeptob(a)gmail.com> Date: 2008/7/6 Subject: [foss.in] KDE.in Monsoon Hackathon! To: foss-in(a)yahoogroups.com Hi, Foss.in and Geodesic would be sponsoring a KDE Hackathon [ Bangalore, 11-13th July ]. Some details here[1]. We plan to hack on our favorite projects during the event. Thought that I should inform the list as well. Thanks, team(a)foss.in. [1]http://pradeepto.livejournal.com/15827.html Cheers! Pradeepto -- The KDE Project : http://www.kde.org KDE India : http://in.kde.org Mailing List : http://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-india ------------------------------------ -- The List Rules : http://foss.in/list-rules The Event Site : http://foss.in The Event Planet : http://planet.foss.in The Event Channel : #foss.in on irc.freenode.net The Event List : http://foss.in/list Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foss-in/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foss-in/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:foss-in-digest@yahoogroups.com mailto:foss-in-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: foss-in-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ -- 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

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Fsf-friends July 2008