"Linux vendor Red Hat, and 17 other vendors, have protested a Swiss
government contract given to Microsoft without any public bidding. The
move exposes a wider Microsoft monopoly that European governments
accept, despite their lip service for open source, according to
commentators."
See:
http://www.eweekeurope.co.uk/news/red-hat-sues-switzerland-over-microsoft-m…
Best
--
V. Sasi Kumar
Free Software Foundation of India
Please visit http://swatantryam.blogspot.com
It appears that the Union government is getting ready to throw free
speech and due process provisions into the pit. The provisions in the
act don't just specify news articles, but a broad range of information
like blogs.
From article by Manoj Mitta,Times of India, 22nd May 2009,
"Under the draft rules framed under section 69A of the IT amendment Act,
every state or Central government department will be empowered to decide
whether a certain news item, article, blog or advertisement relating to
its jurisdiction is safe to remain on the Net.
Once somebody sends a "complaint" against any information displayed on
the Net, the department concerned will take a call on whether the matter
in question affects any of the six concerns mentioned in section 69A:
interest of sovereignty or integrity of India, defense of India,
security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public
order or incitement to commit any cognizable offense relating to the
other five reasons."
See more here :
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Govt-gearing-up-to-gag-news-websit…
- Harish
-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Brett Smith <brett(a)fsf.org>
To: info-press(a)gnu.org, info-fsf(a)gnu.org
Subject: [FSF] FSF Settles Suit Against Cisco
Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 13:04:47 -0400
[This press release is available on the web at
<http://www.fsf.org/news/2009-05-cisco-settlement.html>.
FSF Compliance Engineer Brett Smith has written about what we can
learn from this settlement at
<http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/2009-05-settlement>.]
BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Wednesday, May 20, 2009 -- The Free
Software Foundation (FSF) and Cisco Systems, Inc. are pleased to
announce that they have reached a joint agreement.
Under the agreement, the FSF has agreed to dismiss its lawsuit against
Cisco.
Cisco has agreed to appoint a Free Software Director for Linksys, a
subsidiary of Cisco, to supervise Linksys' compliance with the
requirements of free software licenses such as the GPL (the GNU
General Public License). The Free Software Director will report
periodically to the FSF regarding Linksys' compliance efforts. Cisco
has further agreed to take certain steps to notify previous recipients
of Linksys products containing FSF programs of their rights under the
GPL and other applicable licenses, to publish a licensing notice on
the Linksys website, and to provide additional notices in a separate
publication. In addition, Cisco will continue to make the complete and
corresponding source code for versions of FSF programs used with
current Linksys products freely available on its website. Cisco will
also make a monetary contribution to the FSF.
The parties recognize Cisco's ongoing obligations under the GPL and
other free software licenses. The FSF will continue to independently
monitor Linksys' compliance with these licenses, and work with
Linksys to resolve any new issues that may arise.
"We are glad that Cisco has affirmed its commitment to the free
software community by implementing additional measures within its
compliance program and dedicating appropriate resources to them,
further reassuring the users' freedoms under the GPL," said Peter
Brown, Executive Director of the FSF. "Our agreement results in
making all of the relevant source code available in the fastest way
possible."
### About the FSF
The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to
promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and
redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and
use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating
system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free
software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and
political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites,
located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information
about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at
<http://donate.fsf.org>. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.
### Media Contacts
Brett Smith
Licensing Compliance Engineer
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942 x18
<brett(a)fsf.org>
###
info-fsf mailing list
info-fsf(a)gnu.org
Unsubscribe: http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-fsf
--
V. Sasi Kumar
Free Software Foundation of India
Please visit http://swatantryam.blogspot.com
Intel has been fined a record Euro 1.04 billion for anti-competitive
practices, beating Euro 497 million fined on Microsoft in 2004. They
paid retailers to avoid AMD products. So, it seems, these giants become
giants through trickery only!
See http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10239487-92.html?tag=nl.e703
Best
--
V. Sasi Kumar
Free Software Foundation of India
Please visit http://swatantryam.blogspot.com
Free Software Movement Karnataka(FSMK)<http://fsmk.org/> in
coordination with IEEE Bangalore section, IBM Linux Technology Centre
and BMSCE announces a Linux kernel tutorial.
IEEE announcement follows.
IEEE Bangalore Section
in association with
BMS College of Engineering and Free Software Movement, Karnataka
(FSMK) announces TWO DAY TUTORIAL
ON GNU/LINUX Kernel Workshop
By Eminent & Experienced Faculty from FSMK and IBM
Date: May, 9th and 10th (Saturday, Sunday)
Venue: BMS College of Engineering,
Bull Temple Road, Basavanagudi
Bangalore - 560 019
Prerequisites:
Its expected that all participants will have:
1. Basic knowledge of Operating Systems 2. Good working knowledge of
C 3. Hands-on experience desirable 4. Kernel programming experience
is a bonus 5. Basic scripting knowledge (ex: shell scripts) 6.
Working knowledge of Gnu/ Linux. Ex:
7. Booting a Gnu/ Linux system
8. Basic system administration (adding/removing users etc) 9. Basic
commands (ls, ps, chmod, mkdir, vi, etc)
We have planned to provide computer system for as many participants as
possible, but would encourage, especially non-student participants ,to
bring their own laptops so we can accommodate more numbers.
Program:
May 9th, (DAY 1)
8:30AM onwards: Registration
9:30 -10:30 AM:
Inauguration: (Venue: Auditorium, BMS College of
Engineering)
Chair:
Mr. K.. Ramakrishna ,
POWERGRID, Bangalore,
Chairman, IEEE Bangalore Section
Chief Guest:
Dr. S. Bisalaiah, M.A , Ph.D,
Former Vice- Chancellor, UAS, Bangalore,
Member, Managing Body, BMSET,
Chairman, Board of Management, BMSCE
Guest of Honour:
Dr. K Mallikharjuna Babu Ph.D.,
Principal, BMS College of Engineering
10:30-11:00 AM: Tea
11:00AM to 1:00 PM: SESSION 1
Basics of Gnu/ Linux Programming & Tools
1. Simple C programs
2. Simple Makefiles
3. gcc, stace, ltrace, gdb, objdump, nm, LD_PRELOAD [EXERCISE] 4.
Quick overview of a typical hardware on which Gnu/ Linux runs (CPU,
Memory, Interrupt controller, IO Bus etc) 5. Overview of the Linux
Kernel 6. Kernel Layout 7. CodingStyle 8. Important subsystems 9.
Kernel configuration 10. Building and booting a new kernel [EXERCISE]
1:00PM to 2:00 PM: LUNCH
2:00PM to 5:00PM SESSION 2
Linux Kernel Internals: An Overview (3 hours) 1. Process and threads
[EXERCISE] 2. Memory Management [EXERCISE] 3. Filesystems [EXERCISE]
4. Interrupts and exceptions & System Calls [EXERCISE] 5. Kernel
synchronization 4. How is the operating system changing [DISCUSSION]
5. What are the key areas of focus [DISCUSSION] 6. Generic questions
and answers
May 10th, (DAY 2)
9:30-10:30 PM SESSION 3
Device Drivers (1 hour)
1. Kernel module programming
2. Char and block drivers
3. ioctls
4. Writing simple char device driver [EXERCISE]
10:30:10:45 Tea
10:45-1:00PM SESSION 4
Kernel Debugging (2 hours , 15 Minutes) 1. printk 2. Dynamic
instrumentation techniques 3. SystemTap and tracing (ftrace and
markers) [EXERCISE] 4. kexec/kdump/crash analysis [EXERCISE]
1:00 PM to 2:00 PM LUNCH
2:00PM to 5:00PM
How You can contribute
1. Introduction to the free software community 2. How to contribute
3. New exciting areas of work in the kernel 4. Generic questions and
answers Tutorial is organized in various sessions as above. Lunch and
Tea are provided. Please report at 9am at the venue. Course Fee per
participant: Non-member: Rs. 1500/-; Student Rs. 700/- IEEE member
Rs. 1200/- ; IEEE Student member Rs.550/- Organizing Committee:
Sethuraman Ganesan Chair,PAC, IEEE Bangalore Section Hitesh Mehta,
Secretary, IEEE Bangalore Section Dr. T.Srinivas, SAC,IEEE Bangalore
Section Ravi Kiran A.,MDC, IEEE Bangalore Setion V V
Srinivasan,Treasurer, IEEE Bangalore Section Please send your
registration to: Mr. Sethuraman Ganesan
Chair - Professional
Activities IEEE
Bangalore Section
ABB Ltd,
Khanija Bhavan, 5th
Floor, West Wing, 49, Race Course Road
Bangalore 560001
Phone: +91 99014 99033
e-mail: sganesans(a)yahoo.com
Visit IEEE Bangalore Section at http://www.ieee.org/bangalore.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Prabhu Ramachandran <prabhu(a)aero.iitb.ac.in>
Date: Mon, May 4, 2009 at 3:51 PM
Subject: [JOB] Project on FOSS adoption in Indian education
Hello,
Project positions are open at IIT Bombay for a new government funded
project on adoption of Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) in Indian
science and engineering education. Applicants may email their resumes
along with a one page writeup on why they think they are well suited for
the project to:
admin.foss[at]iitb.ac.in
News, announcements and details regarding the project are available here:
http://www.aero.iitb.ac.in/~prabhu/Projects/FOSSEducation
Overview of the project
-----------------------
The eventual goal is to replace the use of commercial tools in Indian
science and engineering education at the college level. Towards this we
are working on the following broad themes:
- Python for scientific computing.
- Scilab (http://www.scilab.org, http://www.scilab.in).
- Multimedia authoring tool suited for Indian languages with a LaTeX
backend.
- Other projects related to the above.
I will be personally involved with the "Python for scientific computing"
component. This will broadly involve:
- NumPy (http://numpy.scipy.org),
- SciPy (http://www.scipy.org),
- matplotlib (http://matplotlib.sf.net),
- Sage (http://www.sagemath.org),
- Mayavi (http://code.enthought.com/projects/mayavi),
- ETS (http://code.enthought.com/projects),
- SymPy (http://code.google.com/p/sympy),
and various other packages of interest.
As part of the project you will have opportunity to work with the core
developers of these major projects.
Requirements
------------
The positions are all for a maximum duration of 3 years. The initial
appointment will be for a period of 1 year which will be extended based
on performance.
- Project manager: 1 position
- Technical writer: 1 position
- Software Developers/content generators:
- Python: 4 positions
- Scilab: 3 positions
- LaTeX: 2 positions
You will need to stay on campus or commute to IITB. Accommodation will
be provided if available, otherwise HRA will be provided.
Qualifications
---------------
Project manager:
- Good knowledge of programming and open source software community
- People management
- Communication
- Organizational skills
Technical writer:
- Excellent language and communication skills (spoken and written)
- Familiarity with computers
- Willingness to learn
Programmers/content generators:
- Willingness to learn
- Good programming skills
- Passion for FOSS
- Experience with FOSS
- Good math and science skills
System administration and web development skills are also required so
strong applications with those skills would also be considered.
Experience with Python/Scilab/LaTeX is a plus. Experience with working
on a FOSS project is a big plus.
Job description
---------------
As part of this project you will work towards creating material for
adoption of the various existing FOSS tools in the science and
engineering curriculum. This will involve generation of a significant
amount of documentation in the form of tutorials, audio/video
demonstrations, written material, and lectures. The material will often
go towards augmenting existing courses. The project will involve
working with several well known packages and improving them both in
terms of documentation and code to add features or fix bugs.
We will be hosting several workshops, sprints and conferences where you
will get to meet the developers of many important packages.
Remuneration
-------------
The pay will be in the range Rs. 10000 to 30000 depending on the
qualifications and experience. For extra-ordinary people the upper
limit is flexible. Accommodation will be provided on campus if
available.
Why you should apply
--------------------
- You get paid to improve and write FOSS.
- You get to do really meaningful work -- your work will influence
generations of future students all over India and potentially
elsewhere.
- You get to work on some of the most important projects that will
influence the future of science and engineering.
- You get to meet and work with the authors of various important
packages.
- You will be at IIT Bombay and will have best of both worlds --
good pay and an academic environment.
Thanks.
Prabhu Ramachandran http://www.aero.iitb.ac.in/~prabhu
--
Vikram Vincent
+919448810822
http://swatantra.org/http://fsmk.org/
