Fsf-friends September 2009

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

17 participants
18 discussions

Kerala school training material
by Raj Mathur 14 Oct '09

14 Oct '09

Hi, Can someone point me to a comprehensive collection of materials used for training in Free Software in schools in Kerala? Any and all of these would be appreciated: - Teachers' training material - Teachers' training curricula and time frames - Ditto for the Train the Trainers programme - School curricula on and using FS - Accompanying textbooks, training guides, etc. Anything else that is available apart from this would be great. Thanks, -- Raju -- Raj Mathur raju(a)kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5 0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F PsyTrance & Chill: http://schizoid.in/ || It is the mind that moves

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Check out my photos on Facebook
by Siva Kumar Epari 30 Sep '09

30 Sep '09

Hi fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in, I set up a Facebook profile where I can post my pictures, videos and events and I want to add you as a friend so you can see it. First, you need to join Facebook! Once you join, you can also create your own profile. Thanks, Siva To sign up for Facebook, follow the link below: http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=821098587&k=S4D3PVRSRT6E2EFGQCZ42USVWWJK6X2… fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in was invited to join Facebook by Siva Kumar Epari. If you do not wish to receive this type of email from Facebook in the future, please click on the link below to unsubscribe. http://www.facebook.com/o.php?k=6c5737&u=1247270151&mid=12d0f04G4a57d507G0G8 Facebook's offices are located at 1601 S. California Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94304.

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NEWS: RMS comes under attack again
by Frederick Noronha [फ़रेदरिक नोरो नया] فريدريك نورونيا 27 Sep '09

27 Sep '09

http://www.itwire.com/content/view/27980/1090/ RMS comes under attack again by Sam Varghese Thursday, 24 September 2009 It appears to be open season for launching attacks on the head of the Free Software Foundation, Richard Matthew Stallman, the man who is in large measure responsible for the status that free and open source software enjoys today. Featured Whitepaper Legacy Tools: Not For Today’s Helpdesk The latest attack on Stallman is a lengthy post by ZDNet blogger Jason Perlow and is based on remarks that Stallman is said to have made during the Free Software Day celebrations in Boston. There is no audio or video file of the remarks, just the one blog post by Ubuntu developer and Ubuntu evangelist Martin Owens whom Perlow quotes. The relevant portion of Owens' blog post which Perlow uses as the basis for his attack is the claim that Stallman called Miguel de Icaza, the current vice-president of Novell, a traitor to the free software community. I asked the FSF for a transcript of Stallman's remarks; this was the reply I got from operations manager John Sullivan: "His talk was primarily answering questions, so there's no draft or transcript. I can't confirm those comments as a whole, but if you want to ask about specific ones I will do my best." Let's assume that Stallman did make the remarks. Is he mischaracterising de Icaza's current position? The short answer is no. The software activities that de Icaza is involved in right now serve the ends of Microsoft. Read about it here. And here. The one thing that amazes me about Perlow's post is that he has made no mention of de Icaza's current billet at Novell, the company that signed a patent licensing deal with Microsoft, a deal that sold out the entire FOSS community, and made Novell some kind of a pariah. Add to that his tendency to tell half the story to build his argument and you have a classic case of spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt. Page 2 and 3 http://www.itwire.com/content/view/27980/1090/1/1/ http://www.itwire.com/content/view/27980/1090/1/2/ Miguel snuggles closer to Microsoft http://www.itwire.com/content/view/27785/1090/ CodePlex Foundation will help spread use of Mono http://www.itwire.com/content/view/27941/1090/ -- FN +91-9822122436 P +91-832-2409490 Updated: http://goabooks.wordpress.com

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Free software best suited for UI card project (Vivek Varghese Cherian)
by Roopesh P Raj 26 Sep '09

26 Sep '09

Hi Cherian, I would invite your attention to RMS' blog : http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/rms-entry-20041128/view?searchterm=PDVSA RMS' words : *[I spent a week in Venezuela, giving a speech and some interviews at an event which invited speakers from all across Latin America. During the event, the state oil company PDVSA announced its decision to switch 100% to free software. Their decision is not based on convenience or cost; it is based on sovereignty. Their computers used to be handled by a US company, SAIC. When opponents of President Chavez tried to drive him from office by shutting down oil protection, the US government helped out by telling SAIC to prevent them from using their computers. PDVSA therefore knows from experience that using non-free software means you are at the mercy of the developers, and has decided to solve the problem for good and all.*] Now I invite your attention to another an RMS interview : http://www.itnews.com.au/News/128452,qa-richard-stallman-founder-of-the-gnu… In which RMS was asked the following question : *[Qn. Do you think public authorities should be leading the way with free software? Ans: Every public agency has a duty to maintain its control over its computing, as a matter of sovereignty. Using a non-free program means giving the program's developer control over that computing. Thus, public agencies must reject proprietary software and move to free software. Venezuela and Ecuador are on the right track.]* Cherian, In PDVSA case SAIC acted an arm of Amerian establishment. UID project is a project which involves the security of our nation. Microsoft is a US company, what is the guaranty Microsoft will not follow the SAIC way? As far as I know FSMK followed what Richard Stallman has said regarding use of proprietary software in public agencies, which is nothing but compromising our country's soveriegnity. Now, is it a crime to follow Richard Stallman? No, for sure. So kindly stop making stupid comments, and I request you to apologise for doing the same. Last time you posted what you do in your home, helping your wife and all, for posting a BBC news link which revealed Microsoft's racist hind side. My friend sent me the following link, which will give you a clearer picture of Microsoft. Do read it : http://www.ecis.eu/documents/Finalversion_Consumerchoicepaper.pdf Warm Regards, Roopesh

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Free software best suited for UI card project
by haynes davis 26 Sep '09

26 Sep '09

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/26913/free-software-suited-ui-card.html There are compelling arguments to support the use of a free software, but advocates of free software doubt if the government would decide on one, given the money involved and the weight the companies owning proprietary software carry. But use of proprietary system, they feel, would be tantamount to compromising national security. “A software can be termed as secure only if the freedom to examine or modify the code lies with its user, in this case, the Government of India,” proclaims the Free Software Movement of Karnataka (FSMK), a body that supports use of free software and propagates its usage in various spheres of activities. Naturally, the movement finds Microsoft’s proposal to undertake the project ‘disturbing.’ While on one hand — a write up in the FSMK newsletter claims — Microsoft’s involvement would sabotage a state’s, and by default its citizen’s, right to control the software on which the most crucial data would sit, it also paints an alarming picture of the IT giant’s associations with the US government and slips in the suggestion that it would let the Americans sabotage the whole network as a part of a cyber attack if things come down to that.

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Fwd: [IndiChix] [ann] Free Software Foundation's Women in Free Software
by Anivar Aravind 25 Sep '09

25 Sep '09

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: vid <vid(a)svaksha.com> Date: Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 11:18 AM Subject: [IndiChix] [ann] Free Software Foundation's Women in Free Software To: LinuxChix - India <indichix(a)linuxchix.org> Folks, Earlier FSF had announced a mini-summit[0] on Women in Free Software. The MoM[1] has been released and they have also created a mailing list (Yeah, YAML :)) for women in free software[2]. [0] http://www.fsf.org/news/summit-on-women-in-free-software [1] http://groups.fsf.org/wiki/Womenscaucus/9.19.2009 [2] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/womeninfreesoftware -- vid http://vid.svaksha.com || _______________________________________________ IndiChix mailing list IndiChix(a)linuxchix.org http://mailman.linuxchix.org/mailman/listinfo/indichix -- "The resources of the world are for us all to share. Let us affirm our faith in that common cause" - Dr. Ilina Sen

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Petition to Cancel Proprietary Tender by NIC
by Siva Kumar Epari 24 Sep '09

24 Sep '09

Swecha appeals to the community, organizations and individuals to sign the following petition to cancel the proprietary tender issued by the NIC for procuring laptops for the Supreme Court of India. Organizations can add their name in the wiki<http://www.swecha.org/wiki/index.php?title=Petition>page provided and individuals can sign the petition <http://www.swecha.org/node/23#form>. All the respective organizations are requested to host the petition and gather the signatures of members associated with them. Swecha would gladly provide the space for petitions of the respective organizations. The tender is available at http://tenders.gov.in/ <http://tenders.gov.in/details.asp?tempid=1&tid=del242328&work=1&cno=0> Regards Siva Swecha

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FOSS implementation @ University of Calicut
by Vimal Joseph 24 Sep '09

24 Sep '09

The Univeristy of Calicut, Kerala set a model by implementing their software in FOSS and later sharing it with other universities. http://www.thehindu.com/edu/2009/09/08/stories/2009090850120300.htm contact: madhuvt at gmail dot com Note: They use GNU/Linux/Python/postgresql combination. Details are available in the book "Free Software Projects in Public Enterprises of Kerala" http://space-kerala.org/downloads/foss.pdf Another interesting news is that the university is also including Free Software in their curriculum. See : http://pramode.net/2009/09/19/report-on-python-and-free-software-for-scient… regards, ~vimal

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[ANN][X-Post] Two Day Workshop on Python
by Kadambari Devarajan 23 Sep '09

23 Sep '09

Hello, As part of the MHRD funded open source mission at IITB, Asokan P and Prabhu Ramachandran are planning a 2 day Python workshop, along with Bhaskaracharya Pratishthan: Topic: Programming with Python Date : Oct 10th and 11th, 2009 Time : 10 am to 5 pm Venue : Bhaskaracharya Pratishthan Instructors: Prabhu Ramachandran and Asokan P. Website : http://www.bprim.org/mathsoftwk/python/pythonwk09.php Intended audience: College and University Teachers/Professors/Lecturers from any Engineering or Science domain, and Engineering students who would like to use Python for their basic computing and plotting needs. Prerequisites: Participants should be comfortable computer users and be familiar with programming constructs such as loops, conditionals. Familiarity with programming editors-- scite, notepad++, vi, emacs- will be a plus. Familiarity with using the commandline will be another plus. Objectives: At the end of the program the participants will have a good understanding of the Python language, and selected libraries. They will be able to write good modular procedural code and use objects. They will get a overview of the other major topics, features and libraries and be able to learn these on their own if required. Coverage: * Motivation, background and design philosophy. * Basic data types: int, float and string * Core data structures: lists, tuples and dictionaries * Functions * Tool chain * Overview of the standard library * Matplotlib * NumPy and Scipy * 3D plotting * Debugging and testing Methodology: Completely hands on, exploratory mode with minimal lectures introducing essential concepts and techniques. Typically we will have short 10-15 minute lectures, followed by series of graduated problems. The participants will solve them exploring the documentation to do so and the solutions will be discussed. Laptops can be brought by participants, and additional laptops/computers can be provided for use for those required. Charging points will be available. As far as installations go, you would require the following: -- For Debian/ Ubuntu and the like: (a) IPython (b) Python doc (c) the Python Profiler (d) Scipy/Numpy (e) Matplotlib (f) Mayavi2 (optional) -- For Windows XP (x86), Windows Vista (x86), Mac OS X 10.4+ (x86), RedHat 3 (x86, amd64), RedHat 4 (x86, amd64), RedHat 5 (x86, amd64), and Solaris 10 (x86, amd64) : (a) get the EPD (http://www.enthought.com/products/epd.php) bundle and you'll have everything you need! This is available for free for those in academia and others can utilize the free 30 day trial version for now. In any case, we will be providing live DVDs containing all the required installations and some additional tools on site. Registration : You are requested to fill up the form on the website with signature and a stamp from your college. Alternatively you can mail the form by email and submit the hard copy at the time of the workshop. There is no registration fee. Admission will be on first come first serve basis. The number of seats is limited. Travel and Accommodation : Travel support will also be provided for second class train fare/bus for outstation participants who are college teachers. Accommodation will be provided at the venue. Lodging and boarding will be provided free of charge for outstation participants. Arrangement of lunch for all participants will be taken care of by the organisers. All participants will get a DVD containing Python and other Open Source software. Details of the workshop will be updated on the website periodically. The number of seats is limited. Contact: Those who intend to participate should send an e-mail to bhaskara_p(a)vsnl.com, or call Mrs. Manjusha Joshi, Coordinator, Ph. No. 9822 319328 (4 pm - 7 pm) or the Bhaskaracharya Pratishthana Office (020- 25434547,25410724) between (12-6). Thank you. Regards, Kadambari Devarajan. -- Check out my blog at http://kadambarid.livejournal.com

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FSUG-Goa, a new network...
by Frederick Noronha [फ़रेदरिक नोरो नया] 23 Sep '09

23 Sep '09

Free Software User Group-Goa This group is dedicated to discussions on the philosophy, politics and technical aspects of free software. It is an attempt to create a community space for GNU/Linux users in Goa to discuss and share information and expertise on this subject. An important objective of the group shall also be to spread the message of free software and the principle governing its development and usage. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/fsug-goa/ -- FN +91-9822122436 P +91-832-2409490 Updated: http://goabooks.wordpress.com

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Fsf-friends September 2009