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Natl conf on 'Open Source software: a new direction for India?'
by FN 22 Feb '03

22 Feb '03

What do you make of this? FN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Should you require any additional information, please do contact me. No.730, CMH Road, 1st Stage, Indiranagar, Bangalore ? 560 038 Telefax: 080-5215556, 5219016, 5202313 Email: maitsr(a)vsnl.com Website: www.mait.com PRESS RELEASE MAIT ORGANIZES NATIONAL CONFERENCE ON "OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE: A NEW DIRECTION FOR INDIA?" Sponsored by IBM India Ltd. at Bangalore � The Event is to explore and pave a new direction for the Country in its stride towards e-enablement and e-Governance. � Exhibition by leading Vendors coinciding the Conference Bangalore, February 20, 2003: MAIT, with the support of IBM India Ltd. and Department of IT & BT, Government of Karnataka is organising a one-day National Conference on "Open Source Software: A New Direction for India?" on the 26th of February, 2003 at Hotel Leela Palace, Bangalore. The Conference will be inaugurated by Mr. R V Deshpande, Hon'ble Minister for Large & Medium Industries, Government of Karnataka and the Keynote address and Valedictory address will be delivered by Mr. Abraham Thomas, Managing Director, IBM India and Mr. Ashok Soota, President, CII respectively. The event would witness a Panel Discussion on "Proprietary Vs Open Source Software" where the IT Secretaries of leading States and other Govt. officials who drive the IT in their respective States will be the Panelists. To name some of them would be, Mr. Rajeev Chawla, Secretary, e-Governance, Govt. of Karnataka; Mr. Vivek Harinarain, Secretary ? IT, Govt. of Tamil Nadu, Mr. Sanjay Singh, Secretary to CM & Secretary ? IT, Govt. of Madhya Pradesh and Dr. Harbakhsh Singh, Secretary ? IT, Govt of Haryana. Mr. Vinay Deshpande, Managing Trustee, Simputer Trust will be the Moderator of this discussion. The eminent speakers at this Conference also include Dr. Nadadur Janardhan, e-Governance Advisor & Program Integrator, DCA21; Prof. S Sadagopan, Director, IIIT Bangalore; Mr. Sandeep Menon, Linux Business Manager, IBM ASEAN/SA; Prof. D B Phatak, Head-KRSIT, IIT Mumbai; Mr. Sachin Dabir, Head Enterprise Sales, Red Hat India; Mr. Ashok Pandey, President & GM, Turbolinux Inc., Beijing, China; Mr. Frank Luksic, Country Manager, Software Group, IBM and Mr. Srikant Sundararajan, Vice President, Professional Services & CTO, HCL Infosystems Ltd. The implementation Case Studies from prominent foreign countries and also by NIC and C-DAC will be featured at this Conference. Coinciding the event, leading vendors like IBM, HCL, Red Hat, Netcore Solutions, Turbolinux, Altosys, etc. will be exhibiting their products. Describing the objectives of this Conference, Mr. Venkat Kedlaya, Chairman, Southern Region, MAIT, told ? "the event is to emphasise the importance and usage of Open Source Software as a viable alternative for rapid deployment of e-Governance in Government departments and other Government owned organisations. One of the key issues in deploying Information Technology solutions to improve Governance is the need for using non-proprietary software platforms. The Government agencies in Japan, France, Germany, China and the United States are adopting Open Source Software (OSS) in a big way. Developments and advances in OSS have helped user agencies to move to Open Source. Even big companies like IBM, Sun, and HP are supporting the OSS platform. He also said that the added benefit to Government is the ability to reduce Total Cost of Ownership when OSS is chosen. Government can now specify OSS as an alternative to proprietary software. Mr. Abraham Thomas, Managing Director, IBM India said, "As the importance of open source grows in the marketplace, governments around the world are increasing focus on Linux. Linux brings together all the essential features for an operating system like security, flexibility, independence, reduced cost, good performance, reliability and ease of migration. The use of open computing in the Government IT infrastructure would result in improved service to the citizen. We at IBM India have undertaken various initiatives to build awareness and encourage government policy makers to understand the value open computing brings to the national IT strategy" The conference would debate on issues and concerns like support, local language interface, stability, inter operability with legacy applications and the viability to use OSS in desk top environment. More than 200 delegates from Central and State Government Departments/ Agencies, Public Sector Undertakings, Corporate Sector and other Users of OSS and representatives from both IT and Developer communities will be taking part in this Conference. About MAIT: Set up in 1982 for purposes of scientific, educational and IT industry promotion, MAIT has emerged as an effective, influential and dynamic organisation. Representing hardware, training R&D and associated services sectors of the Indian IT Industry, MAIT's charter is to develop a global competitive Indian IT Industry, promote the usage of IT in India, strengthen the role of IT in national economic development and promote business through international alliances. For more information on MAIT please visit www.mait.com Thanks and regards, Vandana _________________________________________________________________ Vandana Rao Corporate Communications, IBM India Limited, 1st floor, Express Building, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002 (INDIA) ph # 91-11-23702020 Extn: 573 fx # 91-11-23702021 E-mail: vandanar(a)in.ibm.com

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Hello
by Arko Provo Mukherjee 22 Feb '03

22 Feb '03

Hello Friends, I am new to this group. I decided to join this group after I heard RMS' lecture in JADAVPUR UNIVERSITY in KOLKATA. I am a school student in class XII with my Board Exams infront. My fields of interest are GNU/LINUX, C PROGRAMMING and MUSIC Arko

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NEWS: Microsoft woos academic world
by FN 21 Feb '03

21 Feb '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- URL: http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/1588091 February 20, 2003 Microsoft Woos Academic World By [72]Thor Olavsrud Continuing efforts to woo academia, [73]Microsoft ([74]Quote, [75]Company Info) Thursday said it will release Visual Studio .NET 2003 Academic Edition to U.S. schools in conjunction with professional versions of the development environment. Additionally, the source code for a number of environment's components will be made available under Microsoft's [76]Shared Source Initiative through an Academic Tools Source License. The company also announced the [77]25 recipients of its 2003 Microsoft Research (MSR) University Relations Innovation Excellence research grants. Microsoft selected the 25 recipients from 152 submissions, and will award $3.5 million to the chosen projects. The open source community has made tremendous strides in the halls of academia, where a platform like Linux has great appeal for students because it is free and it can be taken apart and examined. This has the potential to become a big problem for a company like Microsoft, which is generally regarded with antipathy by the open source community for its perceived ruthless business practices and the jealous guarding of its secrets -- a practice that is at loggerheads with a culture that has grown up with the mantra "information needs to be free." A future in which generations of young programmers are brought into the Linux fold and not trained to utilize Microsoft platforms could be a disaster for the company. To combat this problem, Microsoft created the Shared Source Initiative, a program which gives access to the Windows source code to certain customers, partners, developers and academics. "Today's announcements are about working with academia to foster innovation and help students and professors be successful," said Eric Rudder, senior vice president for the Developer and Platform Evangelism Division at Microsoft. "Academic developers are defining the future at educational institutions around the world. Our mission is to make our software and programs so easily accessible that students and educators are limited only by their own imaginations." With the new Academic Edition, and the [78]Shared Source Common Language Infrastructure (CLI), also known as 'Rotor' -- which offers up the core source code of the .NET Framework -- Microsoft aims to give students and educators a look under the hood of its environment and allows them to use multiple programming languages, including Eiffel, Scheme, C# and Java to learn their craft. "The Shared Source Initiative, and particularly 'Rotor,' is vital in helping us achieve the learning objectives of our .NET MSc Distributed Systems Development graduate program," said David Grey, professor of computer science at University of Hull in England. "We strongly believe that providing our students with the inner workings of the .NET Framework and the Shared Source CLI as part of this degree program will give them a significant edge in research and in expertise needed to excel in the areas of Web services and mobile and distributed computing." Visual Studio .NET 2003 Academic Edition will be available through subscription to the MSDN Academic Alliance program, which computer science departments can join for $799. The Visual Studio .NET Academic Tools Source Licensing Program will become available through the Shared Source Initiative in summer 2003, providing access to the source code for Assignment Manager Server, Assignment Manager Faculty Client and Assignment Manager Student Client. The program will allow professors, students, academic researchers and independent developers to use, modify and redistribute the licensed source code of the Assignment Manager for both commercial and non-commercial purposes, including the creation and distribution of derivatives for non-Windows-based applications. (#)

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Software Patents hurt even M$.
by Arun M 21 Feb '03

21 Feb '03

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/53/29419.html SQL Server developers face huge royalty bills. How many, how much? A Washington court ruling could see SQL Server developers liable for millions of dollars in licensing fees. The judgment concerns a contract dispute between Timeline Inc. and Microsoft, over three patents relating to datamarts. In Microsoft's interpretration of its licence with Timeline, published in a press release in July 1999, "all users of Microsoft SQL Server 7, Office 2000 and other Microsoft products that utilize this type of technology are unencumbered by Timeline's patents."

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Re: [Indic-computing-devel] Testing OpenType support
by Arun M 20 Feb '03

20 Feb '03

> >> I am doing some testing for Telugu, using Pothana2000 font, on Gnome > > > > > > Is it a Free Font ? Can i get it ? > > > Free as in 'free beer' , available from > http://www.kavya-nandanam.com/Pothana2k-95.exe Any idea about Free as in 'freedom' Telugu OpenType font ? It would be nice if some one start working on converting Akruti Telugu font to OpenType. We should try to make one indian language OTF font. (Tamil, Malayalam and Bengla seems to be ready)

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RMS in Kolkata...
by FN 19 Feb '03

19 Feb '03

URL : http://www.ilug-cal.org/node.php?id=78 RMS Speaks [icon.gif] Submitted by [14]sankarshan on Wednesday, February 19, 2003 - 09:44 Richard M Stallman, more famous by his acronym RMS, spoke for the greater part of 120 mins at K P Basu Memorial Hall of the Jadavpur University, at the meet organized by JU. The iLUG-Calcutta members were part of the audience and this is a account of the proceedings. RMS was scheduled to speak on GNU/Linux OS & the Free Software Movement. While generally not deviating from his previous speeches and presentations, the occasion was made memorable by the packed audience. For a hall with a comfortable seating capacity of ~200, there were those who stood & sat on the aisle and passage(s) throughout the 2 hours. The session began with a prelude by Dr A N Basu the VC of JU, introducing RMS to the audience, though his frank admission was noted - RMS needs introduction to only a very few. His short introduction contained a viewpoint on the importance of societal knowledge and the need to perform acts for the greater good of the society. The Pro-VC of JU, Dr Ashok R Thakur, in his short speech integrated the need to program software with the concept of freedom [freedom as espoused by the FSF]. The freedom to run the program, the freedom to study how the program works and adapt it to one's needs, the freedom to redistribute the program to help users and the freedom to improve the program and release the improvements to the public. In this he used a Russian parable of Gorky to illustrate the untiring courage of path breakers and evangelists who had the courage and the vision to forsee the need to make people aware of freedom or the lack of it in their daily life. He so correctly pointed out that the issue transcends the economic sphere into a socio-political domain. The business model of proprietary and monopolistic software and the associated development model needs to be put under the scanner according to him. RMS expressed the need to speak about the socio-political issue associated with software development. In his opinion, every software project has a self-serving nature in that its richness is built when the community participates in its evolution. A community based development model implements good and moral rules of the society and thus helps in building up the community itself. The software slowly evolves like a city. By means of the now legendary Xerox laser printer model at MIT, he drew a picture of how the proprietary model involving Non Disclosure Agreement(s) stifle productivity and lead to a closed community of programmers working in secrecy. And although paradoxical, Free Software support actually follows the laws of market economics so as to ensure that the developmental model is not hindered or hampered in any way. While non-free software represents in his belief, a choice of "masters", the goal of Free Software is the one that should be more publicised. At this point he talked about the motivation for people who write/create free software. He thinks, and is aware of, the need for people to break the shackles. Some do it for the fun of it, some as a consequence of their political idealogical leanings while some do it for money and appreciation. But whatever maybe the reason for creation of such software, the GNU/Linux movement is a strong one. He expressed a desire to make people more aware of the role of the FSF in the proliferation of the strong and vibrant free software scene. The end part of his talk was dominated by the DMCA, Software patents as well as the trusted computing initiative from Intel & Windows. And hypothesizing about a time when such shackles on intellectual property would make it impossible to work in a computing environment. RMS's alter ego St IGNUcius of the Church of Emacs also dropped in with his holy blessings on the proceedings. Some of the memorable quotes of the day : On being asked if using vi [in the Church of Emacs was a sin] he admitted [as St IGNUcius ] that using vi was not a sin but a penance. On the restrictive and evil influence of monopolistic and proprietary business model, RMS described the incident with the laser printer and the need for a source code as "We became prisoners of our own software" At the end of the 2 hours, after the distribution of 'some GNU/Linux' stickers was over, the members of the ilUG-Calcutta had a short but interesting interaction with RMS. While personal doubts about the licensing regime and the FSF movement were answered, the individual feelings are best left to be discussed in a meeting. RMS's writings, speeches and quotes as well as reports on recent activities are available at his personal home page [16]www.stallman.org

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SITEWATCH: http://www.ilug-margao.org
by FN 19 Feb '03

19 Feb '03

In case any of you didn't yet reach here... FN ------------------------ URL : http://www.ilug-margao.org [1]Welcome to India GNU/Linux Users Group--GOA-Margao [2]signup | login ______________ search [3]Home [4]Photo Gallery [5]Contributions [6]Register! [7]Web Links [8]Feedback � [9]Home � [10]Contributions � [11]Meetings � [12]Members List � [13]Private_Messages � [14]Projects � [15]Surveys � [16]Tutorials � [17]Web Links � [18]Your Account Chat room for the GNU/Linux enthusiasts Nick Name: ____________________ Enter Chat Who's Online Members options: [login.gif] [19]Login [logout.gif] [20]Logout [magniglass.gif] [21]Lost password? _________________________________________________________________ Registered members [overall.gif] Overall 48 _________________________________________________________________ Become a member? You are Anonymous user. You can register for free by clicking [22]here LinuxWeeklyNews.... �[23]GUADEC 2003 to Attract Global Audience of GNOME Developers and Enthusiasts �[24]Debian Weekly News - February 18th, 2003 �[25]SuSE security updates to imp and mod_php4 �[26]Asian Open Source Centre launched (Bioinformatics.org) �[27]OpenPKG security update to lynx �[28]WiFi Caravan to Prove Extreme Mobile Connectivity �[29]Sun Microsystems Laboratories Contributes XACML Security Standard �[30]OpenPKG security update to php, apache �[31]OpenPKG security update to w3m �[32]Gentoo Weekly Newsletter -- Volume 2, Issue 7 [33]read more... About Us Welcome! The Margao GNU/Linux User Group [MGLUG] is a non-profit organization. Margao GLUG's primary aim is to bring together GNU/Linux Users, enthusiasts and professionals so as to discuss and share various issues/ideas pertaining to GNU/Linux. We are a focused group of enthusiasts who want to promote the idea of GNU/Linux and encourage the use of [34]Free Software. Most of the MGLUG members are actively involved in the [35]Goa Schools Computer Project [GSCP]. Newbies who are planning to migrate to GNU/Linux need not worry as we will gladly provide you with a framework and try our best to answer all your queries. For more info, go through the meetings section. Enjoy your stay! Please read the [36]disclaimer before continuing. CD Library! [37]announcements The much awaited CD library is now in place. [38]Click here for a listing of the current GNU/Linux software available for sharing. For those of you ordering personal copies, we will try and process the order within 48hrs.... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ....Tutorials have just been uploaded [49]announcements Tutorials which will help Newbies shift to Linux.....Dual Boot with Windows, Some Myths about linux..... Bash scripting and much much more...Just click on Tutorials ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Website maintained and updated by: Arvind Clemente & Andrew Suares

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Sun getting suburn
by vsasi＠vsnl.com 19 Feb '03

19 Feb '03

Here is a report from ZDNet India that should gladden our hearts (except that they say Linux, no Gnu) V. Sasi Kumar ------------------------------ Linux is giving Sun a burn Charles Cooper, Special to ZDNet India, February 17, 2003 When Sun Microsystems got started in 1982, companies such as Wang and Data General dominated the hardware business. In less than a decade, this upstart Unix outfit was a billion-dollar-plus phenom while the once-mighty minicomputer makers had been consigned to irrelevance. Such is the impact of what Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen calls a disruptive technology. Sun, which won IT converts by offering minicomputer customers less expensive and less proprietary systems, had come up with a technology-price recipe that the incumbents could not match. How times have changed nearly two decades later, with Sun now the one scrambling to remain relevant. As the Unix server market continues to shrink, sales of Intel-based servers running the Linux operating system nearly doubled in the fourth quarter of 2002 from a year earlier. For the record, Sun's brass is quick to dismiss this as a minor concern. Sun is not standing still. The company has ambitious plans to build more speed and functionality into Solaris while committing to using 32-bit Intel processors. In the meantime, the company also is filling out its product portfolio for managing data centers with a single, unified system under its recently announced NI initiative. "Am I worried about Linux?" says Jonathan Schwartz, the savvy executive who runs Sun's software group. "No. Am I worried about Intel? A little." Maybe he should take another look Rivals are selling gobs of Intel-based hardware running the Linux operating system. The pitch is that Linux on Intel is a less expensive and more open alternative to anything in the Sun technology arsenal. Even though Linux does not yet feature any special technological advantage over Sun's Solaris operating system, it is the fruit of open-source collaboration and thus does not belong to any single company. Sun argues all this is misleading advertising because of the hidden costs of ownership associated with building sophisticated data centers. When pricing Linux systems, customers can't ignore the cost of additional software they must buy to run on top of Linux. Sun also points out that it throws much of that into the package that comes with its Solaris operating system. Another Sun argument: What's written to Red Hat's Linux won't run on Linux distributions from SuSe, Monte Vista, and the rest of the pack. Fair enough. Though I contend that it's still easier to port from one Intel Linux to another than it is to port from one Solaris to another. Given the sharp year-to-year growth of Linux sales in the December quarter, more than a few data center administrators apparently agree. Consider the following, for the December quarter: * IBM raked in $159.9 million in Linux-related sales, up from $75.6 million a year ago. * Hewlett-Packard's share rose to $80.2 million, up 81 percent, from $44.3 million a year ago. * Dell Computer's Linux server revenue soared nearly 66 percent, compared with a year ago, to $77.1 million. * Sun, which started selling Linux servers in 2002, finished with just $1.3 million in Linux revenue. When measured against total IT expenditures on corporate data centers, those numbers are still relative drops in the bucket. But the Linux-on-Intel combination also allows Sun's rivals to beat it over the head on price. For IBM, a commodity operating system like Linux is a godsend because it can afford to subsidize its commodity strategy with revenue from its software and services businesses. Similarly, HP can count on its profitable printer business to offset the loss of margin elsewhere. (It also has a hardware line in the works that will run Linux top to bottom, unlike Sun. Linux is on Sparc if you want to do it yourself, but it's not popular.) And there's no company around that has been able to figure how to beat Dell at selling lower-end systems. Struggling to revive its moribund stock price (still just above $3 a share), the last thing Sun needs or wants right now is an even worse price war. With prices on Linux-Intel systems falling, the pressure is on a "higher value" company like Sun to justify the higher prices it charges for systems comprising proprietary Unix operating systems on RISC processors. Corporate data managers are especially anxious about reducing hardware costs. What's more, they know the migration to Linux from an existing proprietary Unix platform reuses a lot of the existing code and skills. Sun's retort is that data centers don't throw away existing architectures. That answer is eerily reminiscent of what the minicomputer crowd said back in the early 1980s--just before Sun turned them into also-rans.

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Richard M Stallman in India...[2003]
by FN 18 Feb '03

18 Feb '03

URL : http://www.gnu.org.in/events.html FSF India Coming Events of the Indian affiliate of the [2]Free Software Foundation Thursday,February 13,2003, 21:30 [3]Richard Stallman will speak on "Free Software Movement: A Perspective" at a public meeting organized under [4]JNU Science Forum. This speech will be hosted at Ganga Hostel of the Jawaharlal Nehru University. India. Friday,February 14,2003, 18:00 [5]Richard Stallman will deliver a speech entitled "The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System" at Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute([6]VJTI) College Quadrangle,Mumbai. The speech will be hosted at H.R.Mahajani Marg, Matunga, Mumbai, Maharashtra. Sunday,February 16,2003, 16:00 Symbiosis Vishwabhavan Auditorium, Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, Senapati Bapat Road, Pune. [7]Richard Stallman will deliver a speech entitled "The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System". Registration is required; simply send e-mail to gnunify(a)symbiosiscomputers.com. Tuesday,February 18,2003, 15:00 Jadavpur University, K.P. Basu Memorial Hall, Kolkata. [8]Richard Stallman will deliver a speech entitled "The Danger of Software Patents". Sunday,February 23,2003, 16:00 Ghosh Auditorium,ONGC Ltd., Kaulagarh Road, Dehra Dun. [9]Richard Stallman will deliver a speech entitled "The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System". Monday ,February 24, 16:30 IIT,Roorkee, Roorkee. [10]Richard Stallman will deliver a speech entitled "The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System". Tuesday ,February 25, 12:00 Press Club,Dehra Dun. [11]Richard Stallman will address a press conference at Press Club,Dehra Dun. _________________________________________________________________ Copyright (C) 2002,2003 Free Software Foundation of India. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. _________________________________________________________________ Updated: Mon Feb 12112:20:12 IST 2003 by knj References 1. http://www.gnu.org/graphics/agnuhead.html 2. http://www.fsf.org/ 3. http://www.gnu.org/people/speakers.html#Stallman 4. http://www.jnu.ac.in/ 5. http://www.gnu.org/people/speakers.html#Stallman 6. http://www.vjti.ac.in/poster.jpg 7. http://www.gnu.org/people/speakers.html#Stallman 8. http://www.gnu.org/people/speakers.html#Stallman 9. http://www.gnu.org/people/speakers.html#Stallman 10. http://www.gnu.org/people/speakers.html#Stallman 11. http://www.gnu.org/people/speakers.html#Stallman

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QUERY: What could Goa have done with a crore of rupees...
by FN 17 Feb '03

17 Feb '03

... if this money was not paid to Microsoft for software licences for Std XI science students, on the excuse that GNU/Linux is too-difficult for them to cope with.... o Set up a Free Software Research Lab that would have build assets of a permanent nature -- of the human kind o Invest in additional 500 computers, at approx Rs 20,000 per computer o Refurbish the CSI's computer lab and thus create a permanent training asset which could be optimally utilised o Built up about a hundred community centres, each with about five computers, o Invest in about 10,000 external 33.3 kpbs external modems (purchased in bulk at approx Rs 500 each) plus hundred hours of Internet access, to phenomenally expand Net access among students already owning computers in Goa o Buy about 20,000 books (each priced approx at Rs 500) that would give students a complete how-to understanding of GNU/Linux, inclusive of one or two CDs each containing an entire distro. o ... any other ideas you have, please add to this list. FN -- _____ _ _ _ | ___| __ ___ __| | ___ _ __(_) ___| | __ Freelance Journo, Goa India | |_ | '__/ _ \/ _` |/ _ \ '__| |/ __| |/ / http://linuxinindia.pitas.com | _|| | | __/ (_| | __/ | | | (__| < http://www.bytesforall.org |_| |_| \___|\__,_|\___|_| |_|\___|_|\_\ http://opennews.indianissues.org -- Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa * India 832.409490 / 409783 Writing with a difference... on what makes *the* difference

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