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National Conference on Free Software 2008 (Day 1)
by Rakesh 'arky' Ambati 15 Nov '08

15 Nov '08

Hi, A brief blog post about day one of the National Conference on Free Software 2008 in Cochin (Kerala). Cheers --arky Rakesh 'arky' Ambati Blog [ http://playingwithsid.blogspot.com ] National Conference on Free Software 2008 :: Day 1 ------------------------------------------------ http://playingwithsid.blogspot.com/2008/11/national-conference-on-free-soft… The YMCA camp building is just a stone throw away from the Cochin backwaters, I spent some time looking the slow churning waters and the sun rise above green coconut groves beyond it. Time it seems has a different pace over here, it is a far cry from the bustling city life. My reverie was broken with the arrival of the delegates from Karnataka and I was glad to few familiar faces from my adopted city Bangalore. Its been almost two years since I attended any of the free software events, I least expected the National Conference on Free software here in Cochin, kerala would see such a large gathering from from all over India. If there is something experience thought me, it is best to beat the crowds to the common bathrooms first thing in the morning. The organisers of the event certainly messed up the event, this is evident to me standing outside the YMCA camp until 9:00 waiting for the transit bus to arrive, I had already downed couple of tea's while I waited. We were expected to reach the CUSAT campus for the morning breakfast and registration. Even after the bus arrived, things didn't improve, there wasn't any sign of volunteers, I went around asking people to get into the bus so that we can make it to the event and have some chow. The bus dropped us off near the building where the breakfast was arranged, the sight of idly, vada and puri renewed my hunger pangs. Its 9:35 AM and I am so hungry, but the catering staff is asking me for the food coupons, Darn!, a good samaritan in form of event volunteer came to our rescue in time and explained that we haven't registered yet and requested the catering team to let us have our breakfast first. Registration for the event was no different, it was packed with people. Thank god there were counters for different states. And by the time I reached the registration counter with a filled form, the cost of the event increased. I had to shell out Rs.300 for registration, food and accommodation. Its not that its a huge amount but perhaps the organisers could have clearly stated so on their website and subsequent correspondence when we registered online. Most of the fellow delegates just payed the registration fee and choice to eat at the canteen anyway. The registrations were stopped midway so that people can attended the inaugural ceremony at the CUSAT Open Air Auditorium. The events keynote address was delivered by the octogenarian Justice V.R.Krishna Iyer over a video link. I won't be surprised if the video link was setup with proprietary software solution. The Minister for Education and culture M.A. Baby , Government of kerala and the Vice Chancellor of the Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) addressed the gathering. There were the usual gaffs about free software and apologies for having to leave early to catch a flight and rants about the political injustices, but not in that order :p . The most exciting part of any free software conference for me is on the sidelines, I had a wonderful time meeting old friends and make new friends and associating faces to their cyberspace avatars. We headed to the Indian Coffee house for quick lunch, Anivar treated us to nice lunch of vegetable rice and I quickly downed it with a dash of lemonade. I choose to attend the 'Swathanthra Software Philosophy and its Relevance' in the free software stream at the SMS Auditorium, CUSAT. The first lecture was delivered by Dr.Nagarjuna Chairman of Free Software Foundation of India (FSFI). The talk titled 'On right to decode and encode and copyleft politics' is perhaps the best one yet in this event. I think the talk begs its own separate post so I choose not to write much about it here. The second talk of the session was given by Sasi P.M of CDAC, he briefly talked about the history and some key points of the free software. Perhaps the slides were prepared for some other event since it was generously peppered with 'open source' phrases all over it. Later Dr.Nagarjuna and I traveled to the STIC Auditorium for his 'Gnowledge' talk, the schedule of the conference is so baldly prepared that it was totally chaos. Reaching the STIC building we saw that there were anybody there to attend the talk. Sameer who guided us to the STIC building saved the day by going back and sending few students over to attend the talk while we grappled with issue of getting an Internet connection using our wireless Datacards. The Gnowledge talk was more informal with Dr.Nagarjuna engaging the students at the end of main talk with a conversation about his work at the Gnowledge knowledge labs, the SELF project, OLPC XO children's machine and the Open Moko Free Runner. We barely had time to make it the exhibition area, most of the stall had already cleared when we reached there. I spent the next few hours talking to new breed of free software advocates who took over the reins of the free software activities in Bangalore. Meanwhile I missed the Plenary session in the due course. The first day of the conference ended with the cultural program. Watching the graceful performances I wished I could stay back but my day isn't over till I blog about it :) Add more friends to your messenger and enjoy! Go to http://messenger.yahoo.com/invite/

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Free Software Free Society
by Arun M 14 Nov '08

14 Nov '08

Dear Friends, Kerala government is organising a conference on free software and free knowledge movements from 9th to 11th December. Please see http://fsfs.in for more details. We invite you to join us in this conference. Please inform other friends also about this conference. with warm regards, arun.

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Freedomwalk : The Freedom walk reaches Trivandrum
by Praveen A 13 Nov '08

13 Nov '08

Hi all, The Freedom walkers are reaching Trivandrum. This is an invitation extended to all to take part in the Freedom Walk in its final stage. The final leg of the walk will start from Sreekaryam tomorrow , at 12:30 PM and should reach Christ Nagar School , Vellayambalam by 5:00 where a public function will be held to mark the end of Freedom Walk's most active part. Do forward this to your friends and colleagues . Ask them to check http://freedomwalk.in for more info Regards, Praveen - പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ <GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call! <DRM> What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak? (as seen on /.) Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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nfm_program_final
by anilankv＠gmail.com 12 Nov '08

12 Nov '08

I've shared a document with you called "nfm_program_final": http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pBfQgyVG21wDabud0zkTcYw&inv=fsf-frie… It's not an attachment -- it's stored online at Google Docs. To open this document, just click the link above. Program schedule of National Conference on Free Software is shared with you. - Anil

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FREE SOFTWARE : The Book!
by Anivar Aravind 11 Nov '08

11 Nov '08

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Patrice Riemens <patrice(a)xs4all.nl> Date: Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 8:20 PM Hi All, The SELF project (*) and the Open University of Catalonia have jointly produced the book "Introduction to Free Software", a really wonderful compendium of all you want to know, and to share, about Free Software (formerly 'F/OSS' or 'FLOSS') (**). It's 200p + 80 p appendixes. Free to download at: http://tinyurl.com/6f8xuo You must then go to (down the page, 'attachments'): Introduction_to_FS--SELF.pdf 2.09 MB for the book, and to: Introduction_to_FS--SELF_errata.pdf 38.18 KB for the errors (a few) A print version is also available, but even at costprice, pricey: Euro 11 + postage (add the same amount...). So what you could do is to print it on locale and distribute it around. The whole thing is of course copyleft! ------------------------- (*) Now formally terminated, and is being continued thru the Free Knowledge Institute (http://www.freeknowledge.eu/) (**) After that book I decided to do away with the cumbersome, confusing, and ill-defined 'Open Source'. For me it's now Free Software all the way. Never mind people who still think it's about beer... ;-) Cheers to all, patrizio & Diiiinooos! -- Any responsible politician should be encouraging a home grown Free Software industry because it creates the basis for future jobs. Learning Windows is like learning to eat every meal at McDonalds.

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Update FSUG Bangalore wiki
by Anivar Aravind 08 Nov '08

08 Nov '08

Dear Friends, Please Update Following Sections in our Wiki Users Help Users: Find a person in your area to help you with Free Software http://bangalore.gnu.org.in/index.php/FSUG-Bangalore:Users_Help_Users CD/DVDs to Grab http://bangalore.gnu.org.in/index.php/FSUG-Bangalore:CD/DVDs_to_Grab GNU/Linux Hardware Compatibility Database http://bangalore.gnu.org.in/index.php/FSUG-Bangalore:GNU/Linux_Hardware_Com… Write Reviews on hardware, Free Software Applications or Distributions at http://bangalore.gnu.org.in/index.php/FSUG-Bangalore:Reviews Anivar -- Any responsible politician should be encouraging a home grown Free Software industry because it creates the basis for future jobs. Learning Windows is like learning to eat every meal at McDonalds.

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Re: [Fsf-friends] [OT slightly] Rant .gvfs & gnome-clock issues (specifically libgweather)
by shirish 01 Nov '08

01 Nov '08

Hi all, A small mistake the suggestions for a new site/portal are asked on http://www.imd.gov.in/ And I know how ghastly it looks, really yucky. -- Regards, Shirish Agarwal This email is licensed under 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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[OT slightly] Rant .gvfs & gnome-clock issues (specifically libgweather)
by shirish 01 Nov '08

01 Nov '08

Hi all, Sorry for the cross-post but this I felt is important enough to be sent to atleast the groups I need to. I made a rant at http://flossexperiences.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/rant-gvfs-gnome-clock-issu… Both of the issues outlined are upstream issues, i.e. both of them are GNOME issues. I also filed the bug at bugzilla http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=558568 This is when Pune is set to become part of Metro club. http://www.sakaaltimes.com/2008/10/31004015/Pune-set-to-become-seventh-mem.… So, if anybody knows how this can be done better please put some info. on the bug therein please. I think it might be good to also use the bug to update if there are details of your city but is not in the database they have. such as the coordinates. Not so sure about weather stuff though. Another interesting point through that journey is my stoppage at http://www.imd.ernet.in/ where they are thinking of overhauling the website. I do hope some of the people here or anywhere else make sure that these guys use open standards and the portal doesn't just become another one-way traffic but truly a two-way sorta communication from where we the indian public can use the data being generated (more so in villages and not so connected places) Comments, suggestions all invited. -- Regards, Shirish Agarwal This email is licensed under 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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Re: [Fsf-friends] Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 13, Issue 15
by Anoop Krishnan G 30 Oct '08

30 Oct '08

This must be a topic of Discussion as the world is moving so fast than v think ________________________________ From: "fsf-friends-request(a)mm.gnu.org.in" <fsf-friends-request(a)mm.gnu.org.in> To: fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in Sent: Tuesday, 28 October, 2008 11:30:01 PM Subject: Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 13, Issue 15 Send Fsf-friends mailing list submissions to fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to fsf-friends-request(a)mm.gnu.org.in You can reach the person managing the list at fsf-friends-owner(a)mm.gnu.org.in When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of Fsf-friends digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: LINUX II (Linux Kernel having Microkernel Architecture) (Raj Mathur) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 10:51:36 +0530 From: Raj Mathur <raju(a)linux-delhi.org> Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] LINUX II (Linux Kernel having Microkernel Architecture) To: fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in Message-ID: <200810291051.36189.raju(a)linux-delhi.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" On Wednesday 29 Oct 2008, Anoop Krishnan G wrote: > Now its time for another revolution inside LINUX ..... lets call it > LINUX-II ..... The monolithic architecture had become age old now its > need a change , we can start this change before the COPYRIGHT people > starts this revolution , the COPYRIGHT people had already set for it Umm, Linux and all GNU programs are already copyrighted! > .... so lets begin this revolution ...... "A LINUX WITH MICROKERNEL > ARCHITECTURE" .............. lets celebrate freedom in a new domain of Isn't that what Hurd is supposed to achieve? Anyway, there are arguments both for and against the microkernel architecture, so why don't we first debate whether that architecture is actually a major step forward or not? In the immortal words of some anonymous genius: If it ain't broke don't fix it :) Regards, -- 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 ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Fsf-friends mailing list Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends End of Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 13, Issue 15 ******************************************* Add more friends to your messenger and enjoy! Go to http://messenger.yahoo.com/invite/

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Free Software and School Education
by Arun M 30 Oct '08

30 Oct '08

Dear Friends, In order to strengthen our campaigns to migrate schools in India to free software we must understand current situation. This mail is a request for volunteers from around the country to document current situation. We need to collect information from every state and document it is a public wiki. I suggest following format for collection of data. Feel free to modify. 1. State Name 2. Organisation setting the curriculum 3. Contact Details 4. Website 5. Curriculum details 5.a. Does curriculum includes IT/CS - Yes/No 5.b. Is IT/CS a compulsory subject - Yes/No 5.c. Does the curriculum specify any particular software - 5.d Is IT/CS an optional subject ? - Yes/No 6. IT/CS Syllabus 6.a. Does the syllabus specify software - Yes/No 6.b. Is it based on - Free Software/Proprietary Software/Both/ 7. Other information 7.a. Is there an external agency for IT training - Yes/No 7.b. Is there any training being provided to teachers - regards arun

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