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NEWS: IBM invests to develop open source software
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 08 May '03

08 May '03

IBM invests to develop open source software By Imran Qureshi, Indo-Asian News Service Bangalore, May 7 (IANS) IBM India Wednesday formally agreed to set up its Linux-based centre of excellence in Hubli, 400 km from here, in a bid to develop talent and technology devoted to open source software. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between Karnataka and IBM India provides the framework for the discussions that IBM chairman and CEO Sam Palmisano had with Chief Minister S.M. Krishna Monday. "The Hubli branch of the Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-Bangalore) is the single largest point of over 100 students working on open source in India," IIIT-B director S. Sadagopan told IANS. "IBM would help guide its emergence as a open source hub for not only talent but also technologies." The importance that Big Blue attached to the MoU signing ceremony could be gauged from the presence of Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive, software group, IBM Corp. Frank Luksic, IBM country executive, software group and developer relations, signed the MoU with Karnataka IT Secretary Vivek Kulkarni in the presence of Krishna and Abraham Thomas, managing director, IBM India. "IBM has developed several open source technologies that have been accepted by the world," Mills told reporters after the ceremony. "We could, perhaps, look at some of those developed at the centre of excellence after some time. Our investment spans a whole range of activities, including developing software skills and financial elements." However, both Mills and Luksic declined to specify the amount of the investment. "Investment in education cannot be quantified. We go by building skills and talent," said Krishna. The Hubli unit consists of 100 students drawn from seven engineering colleges of north Karnataka, all of whom are working on open source software projects. The branch is linked to IIIT on the outskirts of Bangalore through a virtual private network and the students listen to live lectures daily. The Hubli branch had already received a donation of Rs.10 million from Sudha Murthy, chairperson of the Infosys Foundation. "The setting up of the centre for excellence is a small effort to convert a downloading nation to an uploading nation," Sadagopan said. Said Mills: "IBM is committed to education and skill building. We are excited about this centre of excellence so that we can upload new ideas." "Customers now expect their technology infrastructure and solutions to work with hardware, software and solutions from multiple vendors, bringing to an end the era of proprietary systems. "Industry and governments will now cooperate closely to create innovative and reusable solutions through open source software," Mills added. --Indo-Asian News Service

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Keep an Open Mind About Open Source: It's the Law!
by searchlight＠sancharnet.in 08 May '03

08 May '03

Keep an Open Mind About Open Source: It's the Law! By Tiernan Ray E-Commerce Times May 07, 2003 http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/21454.html Representative Phil Barnhart of the Oregon state legislature in March introduced a bill that would compel the state to pledge to strongly consider Linux and other open source programs in all future purchase decisions. Barnhart's bill doesn't require that the state purchase Linux or any other software. It simply calls for an examination of the merits of open source software during the buying process. Regardless of what you think of Microsoft's newly released Windows 2003 server, Linux or any other piece of software, it's worth taking a closer look at what Barnhart is asking of the state. It may be throwing oil on the fire to add yet another complication into the practice of shopping for IT, but there are good reasons to consider instituting similar referenda inside most corporate IT shops. Chief among those reasons: to keep vendors honest. ******************************************************************** If companies were to take an oath to consider open source, it would be yet another spur to competition in the marketplace. ******************************************************************** Flying Without a Net A big part of the Oregon proposal has to do with saving money by buying freely available software. Barnhart writes in a comment on the legislation posted on his Web site that open source could save the state "millions of dollars." With IT spending growth worldwide still forecast to be between negative 1 percent and positive 6 or 7 percent in 2003, it's no surprise that programs that cost little or nothing are appealing to many. In that sense, Barnhart's bill really does take "free software" to mean "free as in beer," as Richard Stallman feared many would. Nonetheless, Barnhart's bill is not just about saving money. It's also about maintaining control over the software you buy. With Windows NT reaching "end-of-life" this year in terms of its support contracts from Microsoft, many IT shops are realizing that the software they bought from the big, reliable company will soon be unacknowledged by that same company. It's kind of like the old Mission Impossible caveat: "We will disavow any knowledge of this product." The Oregon proposition states in its findings that "It is also in the public interest that the state be free [...] of restrictions imposed by parties outside the state's control on how, and for how long, the state may use the software it has acquired[...]" It goes on to say that "Open source software contains no restrictions on how, or for how long, it may be used." The legislation does not say explicitly that Windows NT will cease to function after its end-of-life, but the formal language, and the comparison of open and closed source, serves as a tacit acknowledgment that proprietary software is essentially dead once the big, reliable vendor that sold it abandons its creation. Imagine No Vendors Even control, however, is not the ultimate issue. Companies still may find third parties that can help them with their aging software installations. In fact, many companies have been running Windows NT, Windows 2000 Server and other products for long enough that they have uncovered many of the bugs and discovered solutions they can implement without Redmond's help. Instead, the greater reason underlying the bill is contained in the simple proviso to "consider" the alternatives. "Consider," the bill says, "acquiring open source software products in addition to proprietary software products." No requirements, in other words, to buy open source, but rather a mandate to entertain the alternatives in a market. After more than five years of judicial football over the effects of monopolies, there is no better advice for the world's software users than to consider the alternatives. One of the most potent effects of Linux, StarOffice, the GNU codebase and the Mozilla browser, among other open-source projects, is to ensure an indestructible competitive presence in the marketplace. In answer to the proprietary vendors' caveat -- We may make your software obsolete -- open source is a memento mori: Remember that you may be passed over by customers. Amid the crazed turf battles and daily horror shows of building critical infrastructure, the exhortation to consider open source is a reminder that there are alternatives, and that users should always desire choice. Building such resolve into official IT practice is probably a good idea for every company that will buy software in coming years posted by N.S. Soundara Rajan, Mysore, India

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The Remote IT Village Project
by Raj Shekhar 08 May '03

08 May '03

I came across this project on Slashdot. The Remote IT Village Project attempting to connect several isolated villages deep in the Laotian Jungle to the rest of the world using wireless networks, pedal-power and Laonux (customized Linux installs translated into the Laotian language). Power surges can be a hassle when the nearest computer store is hundreds of miles away, but they're shooting for a May 18th "go live" date." <http://www.jhai.org/jhai_remoteIT.html> The conditions are almost(or exactly) like the Indian villages, so I thought to bring this to everyones notice. Please spread the word and if someone can whisper a word about this to our GREAT INDIAN BUREAUCRACY, it would be nice. -- Raj Shekhar http://geocities.com/lunatech3007/

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NEWS FROM BRASIL: Announcing SOLIS, a Free Software Co-operative (fwd)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 07 May '03

07 May '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- SOLIS, Free Software Co-operative Lajeado, RS, Brazil May, 7th 2003 What is a Co-operative? "Co-ops are based on helping each other and caring for others. A co-operative is a a type of business or organization. It is a group of people who are working together to solve their own problems and meet their needs. Co-ops are different from other types of organisations since they abide by three main rules: * Co-ops treat people fairly and respectfully; * Co-ops encourage people to work together towards solving their mutual problems; * Co-ops provide products and services to meet people's needs rather than solely for the purpose of making money." (Extracted from http://www.ica.coop/kids) What is Free Software? "Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software: * The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0). * The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). * The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this." (Extracted from http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/free-sw.html) Reading the definitions above, you will see Co-operative and Free Software share a common set of principles, based on community building and freedom. It seems natural to use a co-operative organization to produce Free Software. This is what SOLIS does. Started at the UNIVATES IT department (www.univates.br/freesoftware), SOLIS is formed now by almost 30 people who make their living producing free software (half of them working directly with free software development in projects such as SAGU, GNUTECA and others) and selling training, customization and services to customers who are able to understand and share the Free Software phylosophy. All software produced by SOLIS is licensed under the GPL. UNIVATES, an University Center in the South of Brazil, actually helped the startup of SOLIS by allowing the University's IT department to provide services and training on the software produced originally for the University. Amazingly enough, if you search Google (www.google.com) with the keywords: Free Software Brazil -- you will see UNIVATES pages as the first ones being displayed. Instead of capitalizing on top of free software services itself, UNIVATES decided to outsource its own IT services to the group already providing these services to the University, allowing the inauguration of SOLIS. By doing this, UNIVATES expects SOLIS will grow and provide a workplace for its computer science and other students, fostering regional development, once money spent on free software solutions stay in the region and won't go to proprietary software companies outside Brazil. SOLIS starts with a full set of products for academic administration, library automation and others, and it is setting up local partnerships in order to "free" (GPL) a comprehensive set of solutions for small and medium enterprises. "We understand by offering free software for our local industries and commerce, we will allow them to better automate their business and become more competitive, at the same time we create job positions for people who will be supporting this software and further developing it. Right now, the existing proprietary software solutions don't allow the automation of several businesses in our region.", says João Alex Fritsch, President of SOLIS. Because SOLIS is a cooperative, not a corporation, there is no danger that SOLIS will accept outside investment from people who have no ethical attachment to the principles of free software. Such investment has been the downfall of many free software companies, since the outside investors often decide to develop non-free software. For more information, please contact Cesar Brod, Executive Vice-President, at cesar at brod.com.br, or visit www.solis.coop.br Cesar Brod Executive Vice-President cesar at brod dot com dot br SOLIS, Cooperativa de Soluções Livres www.solis.coop.br 55 51 3714-7040

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Linux Desktop Myths Exploded
by searchlight＠sancharnet.in 07 May '03

07 May '03

STUDY: Linux Desktop Myths Exploded By James Maguire NewsFactor Network May 05, 2003 http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/21431.html Hype about Linux on the desktop is increasing, according to Gartner's recent study, "Myths of Linux on the Desktop." The goal of the research was to enable enterprises to be objective in understanding the benefits of the Linux OS on the desktop, separating open-source fact from fiction. "I want to stress that I didn't mean to be negative about Linux," Gartner analyst Michael Silver, the report's author, told NewsFactor. Linux's appropriateness for any given population has a lot to do with the specifics of each business' environment and its architectures of applications in use, he said. To understand the real benefits, enterprises need to realize that some common assertions will prove to be myths, Silver says. =================================================================== "Supported versions of Linux are not free," Gartner analyst Michael Silver notes. Consumer versions of Linux are basically free, but "enterprises that require vendor support for their client OS will need to pay for it." =================================================================== Myth: Linux Will Be Less Expensive Many Linux proponents argue that using Linux instead of Windows saves a substantial chunk of change because StarOffice/OpenOffice.org then can be used instead of Microsoft Office. "This is a bad argument," says Silver, because "StarOffice and OpenOffice.org can run fine on Windows." He noted that if users believe they will save money running StarOffice instead of Microsoft Office, they can run it on their current version of Windows without spending a fortune to migrate all of their applications to a new platform. Myth: Linux Is Free "Supported versions of Linux are not free," Silver notes. Consumer versions of Linux are basically free, but "enterprises that require vendor support for their client OS will need to pay for it." While these costs may work out to be less than the cost of a Windows license and support, they need to be understood. Many free, open-source applications ship with Linux distributions, but Silver raises this question: Are they the applications the enterprise needs? "Thus far, we have not heard of open-source movements to replace large enterprise resource planning systems ... and most current vendors do not charge less for a Linux user than a Windows user." Myth: Linux Means No Forced Upgrades "Many users complain that Microsoft forces them to upgrade to newer releases of Windows," Silver wrote. "However, we believe that things will not be that much different in a Linux environment." Linux vendors only support their consumer releases (and free distributions) for a maximum of two years, Silver noted. "Linux independent software vendors realize that they cannot support their products on every version of Linux that has or will ever ship," the report says. "So while there will always be the option of support from the open source community ... we believe Linux users will feel forced to move to newer releases of Linux just as Windows users feel forced to upgrade to new versions of Windows." Myth: Linux Management Is Easier Significant reductions in staffing are not likely to be achieved "simply by switching OSes without changing policies, lockdown or the degree of management tool implementation," according to Silver. He notes that from a software break/fix perspective, many support calls are due to users doing something that misconfigures their system. He expects Linux to have a slight edge over Windows for three reasons: 1) the existence of fewer viruses targeting Linux desktops; 2) fewer problems caused by conflicting applications; and 3) difficulty of understanding and repairing the Window registry. Since Linux is purely file-based, administrators may be able to troubleshoot application problems more easily. Myth: Linux Has a Lower TCO Management tools have been available for Windows for years, Silver observed, but many enterprises still have not been able to manage their Windows environment. This has often been due to too much complexity, lack of sufficient policies or standards, or cultural and political issues, according to Silver. If this is true with Windows, "we see little reason to believe that the cultural or political issues will change just because the enterprise is now using Linux," he observes. Myth: Linux Means Longer Hardware Life "It is true that a three- or four-year-old PC that is not powerful enough to run Windows XP and Office XP may be able to run Linux and StarOffice," Silver says. "However, enterprises need to budget for some additional costs to maintain older PCs." He points out that a new PC bought with Linux today with a goal of a six- to eight-year lifespan likely will require an expenditure for at least one OS upgrade during that time. Furthermore, "enterprises should realize that if they buy two different model notebooks and two different model desktops and keep their PCs for four years, they will have 16 different varieties of hardware to manage," the report says, and more varieties of hardware and software will be more difficult and expensive to manage. Myth: Skills Are Transferable "Although Unix skills are transferable to Linux, Windows skills are not as similar," Silver observes, noting that "most enterprises' Unix skills today exist in a server-oriented department in the IT reporting structure, which is usually separate from the desktop support group." Enterprises should consider whether their current structure will prevent them from leveraging skills across desktops and servers, Silver advises. Bottom Line The bottom line is that Silver sees some cost savings in migrating to the Linux desktop but says the move "will probably not eliminate all of the costs the enterprises expects." But there is undisputedly healthy market interest in this migration. Significant sales growth is expected within a three- to five-year time frame, according to Forrester analyst Ted Schadler. There are a number of market segments for the Linux desktop, he told NewsFactor, including Asian and Eastern European governments that want an alternative to Microsoft; direct point-of-sale Linux PCs -- what Schadler calls "the dedicated desktop"; and small enterprises. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- © Copyright 1998-2003 NewsFactor Network. All rights reserved.

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SITEWATCH -- Indic Computing: Design Axes for the Indian Language Computing Market
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 07 May '03

07 May '03

URL : http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net/designaxes _________________________________________________________________ [12]The Indic Computing Project > [13]Design Axes for the Indian Language Computing Market _________________________________________________________________ Design Axes for the Indian Language Computing Market Joseph Koshy The Indic-Computing project Copyright � 2003 by A. Joseph Koshy $Date: 2003/04/30 07:23:50 $ Abstract Despite nearly four decades of work, computing in local languages remains unavailable to the common man in the Indian subcontinent. In this article we identify seven core issues, namely [14]power, [15]usability, [16]interoperability, [17]locality of information, [18]value addition, the effect of [19]social structure and the quality of the supporting [20]development ecosystem, that need to be addressed before pervasive Indian language computing can become a reality. We analyse a few existing projects and show that the levels of success achieved by these is consistent with their tackling of these seven core issues. Finally, we present a ``road map'' for making computing pervasive in Indian society and list the areas where the [21]Indic-Computing Project hopes to make a contribution. Document status: Third draft. _________________________________________________________________ Table of Contents 1 [22]Introduction 2 [23]The Design ``Axes'' 3 [24]Analyses 4 [25]Road map 5 [26]Acknowledgments 1 Introduction The so-called ``digital divide'' remains a yawning gulf today for most Indian citizens. In a country with over one billion citizens, 99 out of 100 do not use computers. Numerous organizations have attempted in the past to increase the penetration of information processing technologies in the Indian sub-continent. Until date, these efforts have been relatively unsuccessful (see [27]the sidebar The Case of the Missing Market). Local language computing has not made inroads into mainstream Indian society. We believe that this situation has arisen because prior efforts have not taken cognizance of the core characteristics that underlie the Indian context. Rather unsurprisingly, these characteristics turn out to be different from those in the so-called ``developed'' societies--in other words, a successful product or service for the Indian subcontinent has necessarily to be designed differently from one aimed at a ``developed'' market. The major contributions of this article are as follows: * We identify seven core areas that a computing technology needs to address before it can succeed in the Indian context. * We provide a model explains the lack of success of prior initiatives to bridge the digital divide. The model can be used to evaluate the impact a new technology would have in the Indian context. * We offer for discussion, a ``road map'' for pervasive Indian language computing that has a higher probability of success than current efforts.. The Case of the Missing Market Estimates of the size of the Indian language computing market vary widely. A survey conducted by the [28]Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore described the existing Indian language market as predominantly DTP and print driven, with a market size of about INR 64 Crores (INR 640 million). However, an article in the [29]June 24th, 2002 issue of DataQuest, author Yograj Verma estimated that the potential size of the Indian language market to be as large as INR 65,260 Crores (INR 652.6 billion). According to this estimate, the potential size of the indigenous market rivals that of the existing ``export oriented'' software industry. In reality, computing infrastructure has yet to make significant headway into Indian society. The use of computers remains an essentially urban phenomenon, mostly restricted to the English speaking elite in the country. There clearly is a gap between what the market could be and what today's market players are able to provide. 1.1 Target Audience This document has been written with the following audiences in mind: * Planners designing computing infrastructure for developing societies. Many of issues highlighted here would be present in other developing societies, and the solutions developed would be of use there too. * Software developers and development managers interested in developing software for the Indian language software market. * Educationists, especially those in Indian technical colleges. * Open-source developers attempting to add support for Indian languages to open-source software. 1.2 Prerequisites Awareness of the technical issues in Indian language computing is assumed. The reader wishing to refresh his or her knowledge may find tutorial sections of the [30]Indic-Computing Handbook, and some of the questions and answers in the [31]Indic-Computing FAQ to be of help. 1.3 What this article is not A few statements about what the article does not cover would also be in order. * The article does not cover the benefits that a pervasive computing infrastructure brings to Indian society. It also does not go into the issues of the appropriateness of information technology; as with all tools, the use of information technology would be appropriate in certain contexts and inappropriate in others; the judgment call on this matter would need to be taken by the stakeholders involved. * We do not identify specific end-user solutions that are needed in the market today. Though there are many opportunities that we can see, discussing these would be out of scope for this article. In this document, we sketch the broad architectural characteristics that successful solutions in the Indian context would possess. 1.4 Structure of this document The rest of this article is structured as follows: * In [32]Section 2 we look at the seven core issues that need to be solved before any computing technology can succeed in a large-scale in the Indian context. * We then analyse a few existing projects in [33]Section 3 in the framework of our model. * [34]Section 4 lists some of the next steps that need to be taken up before pervasive computing can become a reality in the Indian context. This section also provides the rationale for the tasks that the Indic-Computing project has taken up. ______________________________________________________________________ [35]Next The Design ``Axes'' This, and other documents, can be downloaded from [36]http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net/. _________________________________________________________________ [37]Built With WebMake [38]Copyright � 2001--2003 The Indic-Computing Project. Last Modified: Wed Apr 30 12:56:11 2003 Webmaster: [39]jkoshy((a))users.sourceforge.net

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KDE has tea with Stallman... one view
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 07 May '03

07 May '03

URL : http://phil.freehackers.org/writings/tea-with-stallman.html KDE has tea with Stallman [1]Philippe Fremy Tea with Stallman For Linux Solutions 2003 (see my [2]report) , the french KDE team thought that we could take the oppurtunity to improve our relationship with RMS. He seems to accepts KDE as fully free software now. So we invited him for a tea, to show him the latest KDE and discuss. He accepted. As promised, RMS came to visit us and see KDE after his conference. We thought he would just had a quick look but it turns out that he stayed for an hour! We had tea, we had biscuits, we had chairs, knoppix with KDE 3.1 and a laptop for demonstration. One question I wanted to ask him for a long time is how often he runs X . The answer was the one I had forcast: "sometimes". Most of the time, he is using emacs in terminal mode for more or less everything. He asked me what I was doing and I talk about [3]KVim. He said something like: "I can't tell if I am more sorry for vim or for KDE". We then talked a bit about emacs and if an embeddable version could be made for KDE, like for the vimpart. Gerard ask him if emacs was using gettext and could be translated. It turns out emacs is not using gettext, which is a reason why it can not be translated. There are incompatible API for this but someone can tackle the problem. He asked whether KDE people were saying "Gnu/Linux" or just "Linux", and Open Source or Free Software. I told him some of us are using KDE/Gnu/Linux which pleased him as an answer. We told him quickly what was in KDE 3.1 and gave him a Knoppix with KDE 3.1 and OpenOffice, all in french. We thought he would then leave but he was willing to see KDE running. So Sebastien started demonstrating him Konqueror and other stuff. Sebastien was willing to make a quick overview of everything but Richard quickly stopped him, asking him to go very slowly, explaining each key he types and what exactly happens on the screen. He spotted a bookmark named Linux and asked immediately what was in it, Linux or Gnu software ("Should not that be Gnu/Linux) ? It turns out it was just a list of bookmark related to Free Software (freshmeat, linuxfr, dot.kde.org, ...). While discussing, we discovered that he was not subscribed to the linux kernel mailing list, he just receives cc: sometimes. He did not know about Kernel Traffic so we showed him (with konqueror of course). He was disappointed not to see his recent thread about Linux and Gnu/Linux mentionned. He receives something like 300 mails every day, and one third of that is spam. We showed him the konsole embedded into Konqueror. The first thing he did was to run emacs in text mode, which was successful. So we had emacs inside konsole inside konqueror. Fun! After that, he took the mouse and start wandering throught the control center. He checked a few things and seeemed to find it interesting. He had problems with the french keyboard, so we enabled a dual french/english keyboard. Since he was mainly a terminal user, I showed him the multi-terminal capability of konsole. This highlighted a bugs in emacs: it does not notice that the konsole window is resized. I told him vim could do that but he did not let the flamewar start :-) . I told him there is a kind of signal emitted by the terminal when it resizes (I don't remember exactly) and he wants me to send him more information on that. He asked for a C binding that would be used equally with Gnome/Gtk or KDE/Qt. I told him that this was more or less what WxWindows does, and that apart from that, this is not a good idea. First, both toolkits, although they have the same api, are internally very different. Second, it would prevent people from using the real interesting features of KDE or Gnome. He insisted quite a lot on that. This allow him to remind us that KDE is C++ and C++ is still not recommended for Gnu Software. I asked if C was still the recommended language and he answered negatively. He just points out that the FSF actually does not recommend C but recommands against C++! After one hour, he had to leave to visit other booth. All in all, this was a very nice and interesting meeting. He consider now KDE as a fully free desktop and we even discussed the possibility of getting into the Gnu project. He did not oppose the idea although many KDE hackers would probably not accept. Philippe Fremy

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SITEWATCH: www.ilug-cal.org
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 07 May '03

07 May '03

URL : http://www.ilug-cal.org Logo [1]home � [2]meeting minutes � [3]faq � [4]list messages � [5]articles � [6]list faq � [7]lug cds � [8]mailing lists � [9]pictures � [10]sponsors � [11]polls � [12]search � [13]user account � [14]links Welcome to iLUG-Cal Submitted by [15]webmaster on Tuesday, January 21, 2003 - 14:46 * About us: The Kolkata chapter of the Indian Linux Users's group (ILUG-CAL) is a non-profit, volunteer driven organisation dedicated to the propagation and usage of GNU/Linux in Kolkata, and in West Bengal. The organistion tries to provide suppport to the GNU/Linux community in Kolkata, as well as to increase the usage of GNU/Linux among the general computer users community in the city. It also organises workshops, seminars, etc for the local student community. * Membership: Anyone who is interested in GNU/Linux, or wants to try it out, or wants to learn more about it is welcome to join. One can become a member in two ways - either by joining the [16]mailing lists or by attending a [17]meeting. * Meetings: Meetings are held every month, usually on the 2nd Saturday - and the venue is usually announced on the mailing list. Meeting on Saturday, 10th May 2003 Submitted by [18]webmaster on Saturday, May 10, 2003 - 16:30 We have a meeting on the 10th of May, 2003 (Saturday) from 16:30 (IST) onwards. Please click on the "Read More" link below for more details. [19]add new comment � [20]read more [21]Meetings Slap the credits everywhere! Submitted by [22]sankarshan on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 19:50 Sankarshan (sankarshan(a)ilug-cal.org) writes as: A recent article on [23]Newsforge, by Hank Reiser (the architect of the Reiser filesystem and founder of namesys)makes for interesting reading. The article is posted below, while for the newsforge link click [24]here Slap the credits everywhere! by [25]Hans Reiser - [26]add new comment � [27]read more "Exec Shield", new Linux security feature Submitted by [28]webmaster on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 17:04 Here's the announcement: We are pleased to announce the first publically available source code release of a new kernel-based security feature called the "Exec Shield", for Linux/x86. The kernel patch (against 2.4.21-rc1, released under the GPL/OSL) can be downloaded from: [29]http://redhat.com/~mingo/exec-shield/ The exec-shield feature provides protection against stack, buffer or function pointer overflows, and against other types of exploits that rely on overwriting data structures and/or putting code into those structures. The patch also makes it harder to pass in and execute the so-called 'shell-code' of exploits. The patch works transparently, ie. no application recompilation is necessary. [30]add new comment � [31]read more [32]News Gitobitan Online - a noteworthy effort Submitted by [33]sankarshan on Saturday, May 03, 2003 - 11:39 [34]Somendra M Bhattacharjee of Bhubaneshwar has finally gone ahead and done it. Over an extended period of time, Somendra has been toiling over the important project of putting Rabindranath Tagore's Gitobitan online - something the Bengali speaking population worldwide would appreciate. It is finally available [35]here. [36]add new comment � [37]read more Get ready for another 'office suite' shakeout Submitted by [38]cybersiddhu on Monday, April 21, 2003 - 10:59 It seems that we are in the verge of watching the battle of best 'office suite' - combo-pack of softwares to perform common tasks like word processing, spread sheeting, presentation and e-mailing. And this time, hopefully it will not be a smooth sailing for the market leader Microsoft's "Office". [39]Full story [40]add new comment [41]Home Users Linux is... The Bachelor! Submitted by [42]webmaster on Saturday, April 19, 2003 - 05:52 [43]O'Reilly Net is featuring a hilarious article called "Linux is... The Bachelor!", which begins with..... Sun stood with one hand on her hip and the other twirling her long, pretty blonde hair. "I really like Linux. I think he's really got it together. I mean he has so much energy. I can definitely see myself as Mrs. Linux." . Read the entire article [44]here. [45]add new comment [46]News Bitstream/Gnome Release Vera Font Family Submitted by [47]webmaster on Friday, April 18, 2003 - 13:53 [48]Bitstream, a leading developer of font technology and digital fonts and our very own good old [49]GNOME have released the Vera font family under an open source/free license. The set of 10 fonts can be downloaded from [50]http://www.gnome.org/fonts/. I have personally downloaded the fonts, and to be honest - they rock!!! For the full press release on the deal, click [51]here. [52]add new comment [53]News Website updated Submitted by [54]webmaster on Thursday, April 17, 2003 - 02:02 As many of you know, [55]www.ilug-cal.org is run on a Free (GPL'ed) content management system called Drupal ([56]www.drupal.org). We had started with Drupal 4.0.0, and this morning I upgraded the system to Drupal 4.1.0. This upgrade adds a number of new features and optimization (including better performance and faster response). I expect the transition to be as smooth as possible. However, I would request all who are visiting the site to notify me immediately if they find any error (if a page is not rendered, or if a comment cannot be posted, or if there is any error from PHP). My email address is [57]webmaster(a)ilug-cal.org. In case of *extreme* emergency, ring me up at 24632431 and lemme know (I am at home throughout the day now). [58]add new comment [59]LUG News Review of "The Not So Short Introduction to LATEX2" Submitted by [60]Indranil Das Gupta on Tuesday, April 15, 2003 - 10:58 A review of "The Not So Short Introduction to LATEX2" done by [61]Rohit Vishal Kumar. The reviewed resource is an useful starter's guide to learning LATEX 2 by any TeX/LaTeX newbie. The review covers the structure of the above book and mentions where to get hold of this rather handy resourse. You can download Rohit's review from [62]here. [63]2 comments [64]Study Material

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[Fsf-friends] Invitation to join the Free Software Consortium www.fsc.cc
by Jaco Aizenman 05 May '03

05 May '03

The Free Software Consortium is a new initiative and business model to promote and comercialize free software. It is Global, descentralized and coordinated through the net. The FSC is very interested to have Indian members. There is a need for lawyers, technical people, political advisors, marketing people, etc. For more details and inscriptions please visit www.fsc.cc Feel free also to ask any questions to jaco(a)fsc.cc

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COMMENT: Slap the credits everywhere
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 04 May '03

04 May '03

URL : http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/04/28/1859244 Slap the credits everywhere! Friday May 02, 2003 - [ 03:00 PM GMT ] [20] Print this Article Topic - [21]Open Source - by [22]Hans Reiser - Free software is ego-propelled. People don't get paid, they get famous. Yet we as a community do far too little to prominently credit the names of the authors. I propose we change that by adopting a few simple practices. Free software is like radio and broadcast television -- easily accessible and available to anyone who wants it. As software programming gets to be as big as entertainment programming, it begins to copy it in other ways. We should consciously pick which of those ways we want and as a community create taboos to enforce them now before we drift into bad habits that take become de facto rules. Do we want free software projects to be as well-funded as soap operas? It would be nice if it were so. Do we want ads inserted into people's screen backgrounds suggesting they lose weight and look stylish by smoking Camels? I think not. Do we want people to know the names of the authors of all of the software that they frequently use? Sure -- it would result in more and harder-working authors. I propose that we as a community insist that all distros make the default screensaver be one that randomly displays a different detailed credit for one of the authors of Linux software every 60 seconds. I propose that we insist the default splash screen for booting also display a random detailed credit describing the software one of the authors wrote. I think we should make this crediting of authors a license requirement for our free software. Why is it necessary to make it a license requirement? Won't everyone just go along with it if it is a good idea? If you think that, you have not met many marketeers in suits. To a marketeer, consumer awareness is money, and there is no reason why anybody but their company should have any. Their job is to ensure that they get the highest possible fraction of consumer awareness. Marketeers tightly control credits on their products so that only the company gets credit on anything they can control. This is why distros install splash screens with their name and no one else's on them into kernels they mostly did not write. The splash screens serve the purpose of emphasizing their brand name and obscuring everyone else's. A very minor reason, but the only one they speak of publicly, is that it obscures information average users don't understand with a nice graphic by a third-rate corporate artist. (Anyone else think we ought to have an open art contest for that boot splash screen?) This is why distros drop the K from all the KDE programs: somebody else is trying to establish a brand name, and that is a market threat they want to cut off. This is why they change the user interface of desktops they didn't write to display their logo instead of the desktop authors' logos. Using the work of others without giving them credit is plagiarism. Academia has long had in place mechanisms for dealing with plagiarism and other failures to attribute. In academia, authors' work is examined by an independent review board before publication. If you don't attribute, your reviewers laugh at you, you have to add the attribution, and you might not get published at all if the error was not an honest one. There is a constant continuing struggle to catch failures to attribute, but the social mechanism is in place and fairly effective. By contrast, with free software publishing, the distros -- and appliance vendors -- determine the proper share of the credit. Because the distros have a vested interest in their brand, they don't even bother to try to give appropriate credit to the creative talent, let alone the people and companies that fund the work. Perhaps you think that those who contribute only money should get less mention than those contributing code? I disagree. Have you ever worked a day job to fund other coders? Pure hell, let me tell you, especially if you are also so essential that time off becomes unacceptable. Money is unimportant only to those who don't work to create it. Steps in the right direction This proposal is just the first round of struggle over this issue. There are going to be lots of issues to solve in the details of how authors ensure that their credits are not stripped out of their work. For instance, how do you define what is fair crediting if there are many authors? What if you don't agree with someone's assessment of what is their fair share of the credits? Do you either suffer with it or do without their software? This is not a new problem -- or don't you think actors argue over the size of their name on the screen? At some point we'll need an arbitrator to solve these disputes. At first, this will probably be the original author, but since the original author is not disinterested, it will eventually need to be someone else. Original authors who name their software after themselves (ahem) have an advantage as an arbitrator of credits in that it is easier for them to worry less about their presence in the rest of the credits. (I encourage more people to do as Linus and I have done. It is mostly the guys working for me who need the kind of mention I'm suggesting if they are to get their deserved due. Naming software is the best possible way to credit authors. Look for pieces of reiserfs to acquire programmer names in the future.) The Free Software Foundation has finally begun to do something about giving proper credit. As a prelude to V3 of the GPL, the Free Software Foundation has moved to the GNU Free Documentation License. The [23]GFDL allows authors to make their credits or their political statements irremovable. That's a step in the right direction, but what about making the credits visible? It seems V3 of the GPL only protects credits in the source code, and does nothing to guarantee that users actually see the credits of the authors instead of the credits of the marketeers. In other words, it is 99% irrelevant. Fewer than 100 people have read the source code to reiserfs, and while those 100 are important, they aren't as important as 99% of the public. Nobody responsible for deciding whether to sponsor us has ever read the source code that I know of. Protecting credits only in the source is inadequate. If you agree, perhaps you can help me influence V3's authors to provide relevant protection from plagiarism. If that doesn't happen, I will try to convince the community that we need to move to an anti-plagiarism license instead. Unfortunately there are those who don't want their software burdened with even credit for the authors. Debian, for instance, seems to be leading the resistance to the GFDL. But maybe this is a burden we should shoulder if we want better software. What do you think? I would love to see an arbitrator determine who gets what mention on the outside of GNU/Linux distribution boxes. When Richard Stallman isn't even mentioned on the box as an author because doing so does not further the mindshare capture effort of the distro, well, this is just wrong. I don't have to agree with Stallman's socio-economics to abhor seeing his voice obscured by suits who don't equal his contribution in code and leadership. I hope you agree with me. Hans Reiser is architect of the Reiser filesystem and founder of [24]namesys .

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