Fsf-friends September 2010

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

14 participants
19 discussions

Mozilla's Learning Freedom and the Web Festival, Barcelona
by Nagarjuna G 22 Sep '10

22 Sep '10

The internet is revolutionizing how we learn. It's exciting. And it's only the beginning. Mozilla's Learning, Freedom and the Web Festival will gather teachers, learners and technologists from around the world who are at the heart of this revolution. http://www.drumbeat.org/festival Taking place Barcelona from November 3-5, we're planning three days of making, teaching, hacking, inventing and shaping the future of education and the web. We want you to be a part of it: http://www.drumbeat.org/festival/register Whether your a teacher or a technologist, this is your chance to help shape the future of learning *and* the web. We hope to see you in Barcelona. Forward this email to a friend: http://us1.forward-to-friend.com/forward?u=603ab0aa30ca5d93fe51300d4&id=55d… -- GN

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Declaration adopted at Kozhikode conference
by V. Sasi Kumar 21 Sep '10

21 Sep '10

The declaration adopted at the National Conference on Free Software and Education in Kozhikode during September 10-12 is available at http://wiki.hipatia.net/index.php/DeclarationEduconf2010 for anyone to read and sign. If you wish to sign the declaration, you need to login there. This is made so to prevent spamming. You can login with the username fsedu and the password freeme and click on the Edit tab to add your name. Best Sasi -- V. Sasi Kumar Free Software Foundation of India http://swatantryam.blogspot.com

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clarifications regarding new conditions for cyber-cafes
by shirish शिरीष 18 Sep '10

18 Sep '10

Resp. Sir/Madame, I have been using the services of 'Prism net cafe' for the past six months or so. Since my desktop broke down. On 16th September, 2010 Pune Newsline carried a news item detailing how many unlicensed cybercafes are running in the city. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/police-chief-talks-tough-heat-on-unlicens… . Yesterday evening i.e. the 17th of September, 2010 i went to the above-mentioned cybercafe. They asked to have a scan of the identity proof. While I gave the relevant details and they were duly scanned. While I do understand and appreciate the work being done by the Pune Cyber Cell targeting terrorist/anti-social elements at large I am also concerned with the possibility of misuse of such information by unscrupulous individuals working in and around Cybercafes. I am sure you are aware of how common individuals/people's names and cell numbers are harvested routinely and sold for spamming/cold calling etc. While most of these are a nuisance rather than anything else, getting access to scanned identity information could have more issues. Possibility of cases of identity theft (couple or more which have already happened in India) may see a rise. how does Pune Police hope to secure the common public from such issues? While I have played out the State's predicament as well in my blog post http://wp.me/po8ay-1Y alongwith a copy of this letter I would appreciate a reply on the same. I have few poignant questions on the matter mentioned above as well :- 1. What if any new conditions are being made by Pune police for identity proof ? I looked for answers on the Pune Police website http://www.punepolice.gov.in/message_com.html and was none the wiser. 2. If a scanned picture of an individual along with relevant details are taken how is the police going to stop/save us from any possible misuse of our identity/information ? 3. If instructions have been issued/given to scan pictures for id proof, aren't they supposed to display those instructions on the display board. The above mentioned cybercafe is located off J.M.Road near Mamta Sweets. My cell number is 091-976-333-0874 . If people want to forward the mail to other socially relevant groups, please do so minus my contact no. A concerned citizen -- Regards, Shirish Agarwal शिरीष अग्रवाल My quotes in this email licensed under CC 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ http://flossexperiences.wordpress.com 065C 6D79 A68C E7EA 52B3 8D70 950D 53FB 729A 8B17

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RMS's message for software freedom day
by Nagarjuna G 16 Sep '10

16 Sep '10

http://www.softwarefreedom.com.au/resources/stallman-software-freedom-day.o…

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draft declaration at Kozhikode
by Nagarjuna G 12 Sep '10

12 Sep '10

==This is a Draft Declaration== We request all those who read this to suggest any changes before Monday 13th September 2010, so that the declaration can be released sooner than later. ==The Role of ICT and Education in Social Inclusion== Information & Communication Technology (ICT) is one of the most powerful technologies ever developed by humankind. It has drastically changed the way we do things, the way we communicate and even the way we think. Education is one of the spheres of human activity that is being strongly influenced by ICT. While the teaching of ICT has been incorporated at the school-level, ICT itself is being used in the classroom and outside for teaching and learning more effectively. However, access to ICT is not universal due to various reasons, including obscurity and the high cost of proprietary software. Education is a basic requirement for a comfortable life in today's society. In view of this, some countries, including India, have made it a fundamental right. This is certainly a move in the right direction. Education in ICT and ICT-enabled education are also becoming wide-spread. Part of the reason for this is the rapid decline in the cost of hardware. At the same time, the high cost of software is acting as a hurdle for further progress. Another factor that prevents more wide-spread use of ICT is the fact that the interface is not available in many languages, which bothers a lot of people. Obscurity stops people and especially students to learn how things work, software in particular. The right to use, know, change and share technical knowledge about modern artefacts is an essential human right in knowledge societies. ==Why Software Freedom is essential?== Proprietary software does not allow community participation in shaping the ICT to be used for education, and is not suitable for education since their solutions treat students as consumers. Free software community (sometimes called free and open source software community) on the other hand produced GNU/Linux operating system and a comprehensive stack of collaborative workspaces that enable students during the last 25 years. Most of the free software workspaces are made accessible for speakers of all languages of the world, including physically challenged students. The software freedom granted to the people (1. to use the software for any purpose; 2. to study how it works; 3. to modify it and 4. to distribute the modified software) is unquestionably the core source of the free software revolution that is being witnessed. Any software that grants these four freedoms is called Free Software. These freedoms are essential for students to learn how things work, and to share their experience, knowledge and collaborate with others without legal encumbrances. The software freedom makes it eminently suitable for any purpose, especially for education. The software used in education has to be freely available and accessible to all because education has to be universal. Moreover, the software has to be available in the language used by the community in that part of the world, however small the community may be. This is normally not possible with proprietary software because some communities could be too small to satisfy the commercial interests of the company. But the situation is different with Free Software. Since the source code is available for study and modification by anyone, students of computer science and software engineering are able to see code written by master programmers and learn from them, just as students of literature learn from works of great writers, or students of art or cinema learn from the works of great artists and movie makers. This is obviously not possible with proprietary software. Any community that has people with reasonable software skills can customise the interface to show the menu and other items in their own language. They can also create fonts for the language if they are not available. And they can localise applications to suit their culture and environment. Finally, the students who have computers in their homes can use the same software they use in their educational institutions without either breaking the law and using illegal software, or spending a lot of money to buy the same software. Thus, Free Software is undeniably the most ideal for use in all educational institutions at all levels; for primary, secondary or higher education. Proprietary software keeps people divided and helpless, while Free Software empowers them. Free software nurtures the much needed creativity by encouraging us to critical thinking and reasoning while proprietary software forces us to consume what they package. It is important for the graduating students to become entrepreneurs or join the various agencies for employment. Considering this requirement it is essential that the syllabus in educational institutions focuses on skills and not include any specific branded applications produced by a commercial company. Therefore, the syllabus should be neutral and not mention any particular brand. Just as the software requires to be free, it is essential that learning and teaching resources including documentation, books, journals, and other media should be released with a license (such as Creative Commons by Share Alike) which grands similar freedoms for other resources. All these resources must also be encoded in an open standard so that the exchanged documents are decodable in all platforms ensuring interoperability. ==Therefore== considering all the reasons mentioned above, we, the undersigned, call on all educational institutions, policy makers, students, teachers in all corners of the world to discard all proprietary software and use exclusively Free Software.

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Fwd: [fosscomm] Obituary to Our Friend & FOSS Activist Shyam Karanat
by Nagarjuna G 04 Sep '10

04 Sep '10

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Anivar Aravind <anivar.aravind(a)gmail.com> Date: Sat, Sep 4, 2010 at 11:56 AM Subject: [fosscomm] Obituary to Our Friend & FOSS Activist Shyam Karanat To: Fosscom Network <network(a)fosscom.in> Dear All, Our Friend, and member of This List Shyam Karanatt ended his life himself yesterday afternoon. Still most of his friends are still shocked and not recovered from the pain of this news. Shyam was a very active Free Software advocate and Activist. I like to recall his major contributions to Free Software Movement in India He was known to me initially through Google Summer of Code candiate for Swathanthra Malayalam Computing , for building the prototype for Malayalam Speech Recognition system. and he started that with a project named sharika based on CMU-SPINX library. He become an active volunteer of Swathanthra Malayalam Computing and part of various other LUGS like Swathanthra Software Users Group Malappuram, Foss Group in MES, FSUG- Thrissur etc. He become the project admin for Translating GNU.ORG webpages to Malayalam, and made a lot of progress with that work . He involved with Organising Various FOSS programmes in his college and varouos cities in Kerala . Shyam initiated the Syllabus Review page in FCI Wikia http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Syllabus_Review and compiled most of the data, in association with Venkiy . Which become a major intervention too later. He took a major role on realising the idea of GNU labs and implimenting the first functioning GNU lab in MES kuttippuram http://gnulabs.org/ Shyam was a good speaker in various FOSS conferences like FOSS.IN , Mukth.in etc and associate with Various FOSS Groups like IndLinux, SMC, FSUG-Thrissur, FSUG-Calicut, SSUG Malappurm etc His funeral is at Ramapuram, Pala, Kottayam District today Shyam's Photo From Niyam's collection http://www.flickr.com/photos/niyam/2399712870/ ~ in the memory of a good friend Anivar -- "[It is not] possible to distinguish between 'numerical' and 'nonnumerical' algorithms, as if numbers were somehow different from other kinds of precise information." - Donald Knuth _______________________________________________ network mailing list network(a)lists.fosscom.in http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in

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RMS at ISI Delhi
by Raj Mathur (राज माथुर) 01 Sep '10

01 Sep '10

Hi, RMS gave a short, unplanned talk on software freedom at the Indian Statistical Institute today (2010-09-01) just before lunch. Students and some faculty were present. Photos at: http://images.kandalaya.org/gallery2/v/raju/rms-isid-20100901/ Regards, -- Raj -- 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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Stallman speaking in Kozhikode
by V. Sasi Kumar 01 Sep '10

01 Sep '10

Richard Stallman will be speaking in the inaugural session of the National Conference on Free Software and Education in Kozhikode on September 10, 2010. Giving the keynote address, he will speak on "Free Software: Computing in Freedom". The conference will have speakers from India like Prof. Nagarjuna and Prof. Kannan Moudgalya. There will also be speakers from abroad like Marco Ciurcina (Professor of Law in Italy) and Diego Saravia (Professor, UNSa-CONICET. Argentina) who will speak through video conferencing. Those who desire to participate, please register quickly. Travel support available to a limited number of participants. Conference site: http://c11.space-kerala.org/fsinedu Best -- Dr. V. Sasi Kumar Society for the Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment C-11, Elankom Gardens, Vellayambalam, Thiruvananthapuram 695010, Kerala Ph: 0471 2318997

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[OT] [X-Post] Delhi-Mumbai courier for RMS
by Raj Mathur (राज माथुर) 01 Sep '10

01 Sep '10

Hi, Richard Stallman (RMS) has left a small package weighing about 10KG at my place that needs to be taken to Mumbai. Request you to contact me if you're going Delhi-Mumbai in the next few days and can carry it with you. Thanks, -- Raj -- 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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Fsf-friends September 2010