Fsf-friends

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

3393 discussions

LINK: Debian desktop user's guide... (fwd)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 28 Mar '03

28 Mar '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: TekMate <tekmate(a)nospam.hotmail.com> Subject: Debian Desktop User's Guide Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 19:40:40 CST The Debian Desktop User's Guide is a project to bring up-to-date and effective documentation to new Debian users. This document is based on the Progeny user's guide. This guide is planned to be released in conjunction with Sarge. We are currently looking for volunteers to help with some of the sections check the proposal and changelog for more information. http://cafecomputer.com/guide/users-guide.en.html -- ===== Yet another Linux FAQ 2.2 http://www.cafecomputer.com/faqindex.htm ########################################################################## # Send submissions for comp.os.linux.announce to: cola(a)stump.algebra.com # # PLEASE remember a short description of the software and the LOCATION. # # This group is archived at http://stump.algebra.com/~cola/ # ##########################################################################

1 0

COMMENT: Why India looks to GNU/Linux with hope and anticipation..
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 28 Mar '03

28 Mar '03

WHY INDIA LOOKS TO GNU/LINUX WITH HOPE AND ANTICIPATION.... By Venkatesh (Venky) Hariharan venky1 at vsnl dot com www.indlinux.org Today, I am going to talk about why GNU/Linux is god's gift to India. To my mind, GNU/Linux represents one of the finest opportunities for taking the benefits of this wonderful technology to the masses. From the standpoint of cultural, political and economic freedom, there are enormous reasons why the GNU/Linux operating system is relevant to India's future in the digital age. That's the reason why my friend Prakash Advani and I started IndLinux.org to localize GNU/Linux to Indian languages. I am therefore happy to announce that we are launching the first release of IndLinux Hindi, called Milan at this event. Milan represents the culmination of three years of work and we plan to localize GNU/Linux in Marathi, Gujarathi and other Indian languages soon to spark off a revolution in computing in Indian languages. This talk is divided into two parts. In the first part, I aim to visualize the future of computing in India and in the second part, I talk about what free software can do for the future of India. >From a research standpoint, my interest is in the history of technology and in the impact of technology on society. Based on past history of technology, I predict that there will be a hundred million computers in India. To work backwords from this number, let me draw an analogy with a technology that is fairly recent so that you can relate to what I am saying. The domestic software industry today reminds me of the TV industry around 6-7 years ago. Around six years ago, most of the TV channels were either in English or in Hindi. How does that compare to the domestic IT scenario in India? Today, almost all applications and operating systems are in English, a language spoken by a mere five percent of India. Even if you run Indian langauge software, it is usually within an environment that is predominanatly in English. Compare this with the situation around six years ago when regional languages were broadcast in two-hour slots on channels that were mostly in English or Hindi. How things have changed! In the last six years, the explosion of regional channels has been absolutely incredible. Today, each of India's regional languages has at least two TV channels. At one point in time one could never have imagined an elitist channel like Star TV broadcasting in Hindi. Now, they are looking beyond Hindi to other Indian languages. Who had heard of channels like Zee or Asianet or Lashkara six-ten years ago? Who could have vizualised 60 million TV sets in India? This reminds me of an old saying in the technology industry. Old hands in this industry say that in the near term we always overestimate its impact and in the long term, we always underestimate it. The reason for the explosion in TV channels is simply because that's where the markets lay and a similar thing is going to happen to the computing industry in India. Many countries for example, do not have populations that add up to a single language in India. A few years ago, when I was in Hungary, I saw that most operating systems were in the Magyar script. Think about it! A mere 14 million people speak the Magyar language, yet they have an operating system of their own. Yet the third largest spoken language in the world-Hindi, which is spoken by 402 million people-has no operating system! How can we call India an IT superpower when we do not even have an operating system in our largest language? When Prakash and I looked at the situation, we thought it was absolutely crazy. If you look deep into the computer, the only language it understands is the binary language that consists of zeroes and ones. It is India that developed the concept of the zero and gave it to the world. And we cannot even develop an operating system of our own! We wanted to create an operating system for India and when we looked around, there was only one choice-GNU/Linux because we could not modify proprietary operating systems. If I wanted to translate "file" into the Hindi equivalent, I had no freedom to do that. The GNU/Linux operating system was a natural choice because it gave us the freedom to add interfaces in any language we chose. Now, take a look at the top twelve Indian languages Language Spoken by Hindi 402 Bengali 83 Telugu 78.7 Marathi 74.5 Tamil 63.2 Urdu 51.8 Gujarati 48.5 Kannada 39 Malayalam 36.2 Oriya 33.5 Punjabi 27.9 Assamese 15.6 Each of these languages are spoken by populations larger than the population of Hungary! The first freedom I mentioned was cultural freedom. From a cultural standpoint, GNU/Linux was an attractive alternative because when lingusitic groups come together to localize GNU/Linux in a transparent manner, localization can be done in a manner that is far more culturally sensitive than any centrally controlled process. For example, should "file" be called a "file" in Hindi because the word is now part of the popular lexicon among Hindi speakers or should it be called something else? Who should decide this? Should a software company decide this or should local linguistic groups decide this? Apart from this, there are even deeper cultural issues that are so deeply embedded in computers that we are not even aware of it. For example, the whole metaphor of "desktops" and "files and folders" evolved from the work of Ben Schneiderman who argued that the interface of the computer must reflect the real world around us. In rural India, where most people have never owned a desk and are used to squatting on the floor, "desktops" and "files and folders" clearly do not reflect their reality. Yet, rural India is where 70 percent of India lives. Therefore, an enormous amount of research needs to be done to invent appropriate user-interface metaphors for India and GNU/Linux is an ideal platform to do this. The second freedom I mentioned was political freedom. We all know that we are in the digital age and one of the most fundamental platforms of the digital age is the operating system. Therefore, any sovereign nation has to make vigorous efforts to control this platform. From a political standpoint, GNU/Linux is one of the most attractive platforms for a sovereign India, because of its openness. The third freedom is economic freedom. In developing countries like India, the per capita income is around $410. If the cost of operating systems and application software itself add up to this number, it is impossible for the vast majority of India to afford this technology. In countries like the US, where per-capita incomes are around $30,000, it may be affordable but not in India. What India therefore needs is software that's priced in rupees and not in dollars and GNU/Linux fits the bill since it is available free. Therefore, it is clear that there are compelling reasons for the adoption of free software. At IndLinux.org, we are committed to keeping our software free - free as in freedom of speech, free as in free beer and free as in free chai! We want to empower every Indian with this technology and believe that this effort is fundamental to India's future. I therefore invite you all to visit our web site at www.IndLinux.org and volunteer to localize Linux to Indian languages. I look forward to working with all of you to take this wonderful technology to the Indian masses. Thank you and Jai Hind! -0- This talk was delivered recently by "Venky" Hariharan at the February 2002 GNUnify festival in Pune, central India. (ENDS)

1 0

NEWS: What is MS decides to go Open Source?
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 27 Mar '03

27 Mar '03

------------------------------------------------------------------ NEWSFORGE: WHAT IF MICROSOFT DECIDES TO GO OPEN SOURCE? "Someone at Microsoft must realize that Office will eventually be cloned (OpenOffice is a start), ruining their market; if IBM can speculate that someday AIX may be dropped because Linux has grown up, wouldn't it be better for Microsoft to enter the Open Source software industry and survive...?" COMPLETE STORY: http://newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/03/17/1233239&mode=thread&tid=19 More Developer stories: http://linuxtoday.com/developer ------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

ILUG-Belgaum... an event this weekend
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 27 Mar '03

27 Mar '03

ILUG-BELGAUM, ONE OF the younger LUGs around the place, is to hold its first major GNU/Linux meet in the north Karnataka town of Belgaum on the weekend. It is being held over Saturday afternoon and the entire of Sunday. If you'd like more details, contact rohankangralkar(a)hotmail.com or check out the discussion and announcements at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-belgaum. We from the Goa LUG wish them all the best for and this and other forthcoming events. FN -- Frederick Noronha : http://www.fredericknoronha.net : When we speak of free Freelance Journalist : http://www.bytesforall.org : software we refer to Ph 0091.832.2409490 : Cell 0 9822 122436 : freedom, not price.

1 0

[Fwd: Re: [GOV-LIST] Governo do Brasil Ceritifica Navegadores Livres]
by KG Kumar 25 Mar '03

25 Mar '03

-----Forwarded Message----- > From: Rodrigo Stulzer <rodrigo(a)conectiva.com.br> > To: Phil Hughes <fyl(a)a42.com> > Cc: gov-list(a)ssc.com > Subject: Re: [GOV-LIST] Governo do Brasil Ceritifica Navegadores Livres > Date: 24 Mar 2003 14:51:49 -0300 > > On Mon, 24 Mar 2003, Phil Hughes wrote: > > > This article was recommended by Jaco <jaco(a)fsconsortium.com>. > > Assuming you are s good at Portugense and I am, he offers the > > following clues as to the content: > > *The Brazilian Government digitally certified Mozilla and Galeon* > > > > The text, the Presidential secretary explains why it is important to have > > browser who comply with open standards. > > In any case, another free software win in government. > > Hi Phil and fellows of gov-list! > > The Brazilian Government and Conectiva signed last week this deal to > include in Conectiva Linux the ICP-Brasil digital signature. The event was > a very good one and several key people from the Government was there. The > speech of the National Technology Institute President, Sergio Amadeu, was > very clear: the government wants Linux and all the open standards. They do > not want closed protocols and solutions from just One Company. > > I was there signing the deal and the whole speech from the government side > was _very impressive_. They are very commited to Open Source/Free > Software. > > I think that signature was a milestone in the Linux history here in > Brazil. > > Regards, > > Rodrigo Stulzer, > Marketing Director > Conectiva S.A. > > Links: > http://www.iti.gov.br/ > http://www.icpbrasil.gov.br/ > http://www.icpbrasil.gov.br/certificadoACRaiz.crt > http://www.conectiva.com.br > > This Linux in Government list is sponsored by Linux Journal. > -- KG Kumar Indian TeX Users Group kg at tug dot org dot in ------------------------

1 0

Free software news feeds...
by Frederick Noronha 25 Mar '03

25 Mar '03

------------------------------------------------------------------ NEW UK FREE SOFTWARE NEWS FEED AFFS has started publishing its news items as an RSS feed and invites members, computer users and other web sites to start using it. COMPLETE STORY: http://linuxpr.com/releases/5679.html ------------------------------------------------------------------ 20 STUDENTS WORLDWIDE, INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY WIN IBM'S 2ND LINUX CHALLENGE; Participation doubles globally, mission critical applications increase COMPLETE STORY: http://linuxpr.com/releases/5689.html ------------------------------------------------------------------

1 0

CollegeTodos
by zoyd 25 Mar '03

25 Mar '03

"Following are some simple things you can do to spread awareness about free software in your college: Georg Greve maintains a very good column of free software reviews called the Brave GNU World, it's ideal for printing and putting up on college or hostel notice boards. Check Issue #48." http://nodegroup.com/vinay/wiki/index.php/Main/CollegeTodos Above is the URL to the wikipage on my personal wiki. Feel free to edit the wikipage and add your ideas. Thanks, Vinay Pawar(aka zoyd) http://nodegroup.com/vinay/

1 0

| LinuxForYou... March 2003 | Connecting GNU/Linux and Windows |
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 23 Mar '03

23 Mar '03

JUST AN UPDATE of what's in issue # 2 of what claims to be Asia's first [GNU]Linux magazine, covering the technology for beginners, power users, IT implementers, developers and the industry. CONNECTING [GNU]LINUX & WINDOWS Tools explained: Explore2fs and WinaXe CYGWIN A friendly application VMWare Go the emulation way GRUB The dual boot metho WINE Windows on [GNU]Linux SAMBA Network [GNU]Linux across platforms o QUOTE: LFY: How do you like the magazine? RMS: I have to say this. I am very, very unhappy with the magazine. You really should not be doing this. The magazine should not be named LINUX For You. It should be GNU/Linux For You. You've got to change this. (Richard M Stallman, quoted in an interview) o Editor Rahul Chopra says of the last issue: "Day three of our all-India launch and we had sellouts from top three cities!" o SUBSCRIBE TO LFY for Rs 370 per year, instead of Rs 600. Valid uptil 31 March 2003. o OpenOffice.ORG is sure to give other proprietory office suites a run for their money, writes Sharminder Singh. o SuSE LINUX 8.1 is easy to install and fun to operate. It can be used on your home and office desktop, comes with fundoo games and educational software. For the server administrator, there are several useful tools available, says Vijaya Kittu. o COOL HANGOUTS FOR DEVELOPERS www.sourceforge.com www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/ www.freshmeat.net www.python.org www.kernel.org www.sun.com/developers/ www.perl.com o IF YOU HAVE had that (anti-'piracy') knock on your door, and are considering the move to GNU/ Linux or have migrated since then, write to freedomyug(a)linuxforu.com with your story. o INDIA NEWS - Red Hat India to expand - Interview: V Khanna, CEO, Ampersand, Delhi - LinuxInIndia: extracts from a report by Nasscom (some on the GNU/Linux found it ironical that one of India's pro-Microsoft, and pro-proprietorial code bodies is tom-tomming GNU/Linux) - C-DAC taking the open source route. - Open Source: a disruptive technology? - Mumbai's Breach Candy Hospital, 180 beds with advanced diagnostics, has opted for GNU/Linux. - Symantec AntiVirus, Mumbai - Rainmail Intranet from Carizen Software Chennai - GroupX2, groupware soln from Blore - Elx, much undernoticed, from Hyderabad - Legato's NetWorker from Delhi - eSpark's Realtime, Bangalore - Atlantic's sales force automation, Delhi - Arava's Arcon -- mail, Internet, intranet server o ENTERPRISE MESSAGING... Firms that use GNU/Linux for e-mails find it feature-rich, stable and easy to upgrade. News from Sahara India (1500 offices... using Qmail), Bharati-Teletech, Bry-Air (RedHat for e-mail and proxy servers since 1999), Arcus Ltd. o Q-MAIL SERVER IN THE ENTERPRISE. Use the step-by-step instructions given here to implement a Q-Mail server in your organisation. It will take only a few hours to do so. o MITHI cOnnect server: Offers a corporate email solution with the "performance of [GNU]Linux and the ease of Windows'" o WHAT's NUMA got to do with clusters? o INTRODUCING PERL.. Perl is a script language that can help you carry out a variety of tasks. Learn aboutPerl data types and variables. Perl expressions, loops in Perl and more. o LINUX databases. MySQL, POSTGRESQL. InterBase. Non-relational databases. Four page article. o THE SHELL CORNER, beginning with interactive scripts o CVS for developers: This software helps developers living across the world to pool data in a central location, access it, make changes to the content, and save it. (Pages 80-81). o [GNU]LINUX IN EDUCATION: An article that doesn't do justice to its subject. Lot more depth is required to tackle this. GLUE by Ajith in Delhi is not mentioned. LIFE of Prof Nagarajuna doesn't get noticed. RedHat is wrongly credited for "working closely" to deploy GNU/Linux in 42 schools (if this is in Goa, the company did only very little) and BytesForAll.org (something which I'm directly involved -FN) doesn't focus on these kind of projects and has never claimed to have worked on it ;-) o Design of a diskless client terminal o Report on GNUnify in Pune ('RMS was there') o Linux World Expo 2003, a report o SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 edition is available from sales(a)seascope.co.in o LISTING OF Asia's and India's LUGs and GLUGs... pretty useful. Accuracy and depth of info could improve. o ROBERT J CHASSELL on why software freedom empowers the developer, enables the user, and offers students something they love. (ENDS) LOOKING AHEAD: What's your opinion on a suitable distro to be included in a future edition of LFY? My suggestion? FreEduc. -- Frederick Noronha : http://www.bytesforall.org : When we speak of free Freelance Journalist : Goa India 403511 : software we refer to Ph 0091.832.2409490 : Cell 0 9822 122436 : freedom, not price.

1 0

NEWS: Sun Microsystems pledges $300 million donation to India
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 23 Mar '03

23 Mar '03

First Microsoft megabucks, now Sun's. Given that giving copies of software licences is only a notional transfer, one could debate the real value of such "donations". Incidentally, does anyone have an idea of what must be the worth of Free Software "donated" to India over the years? Billions of dollars? At the end of the day, it all depends on how one values it. FN - - - - - - - Sun Microsystems pledges $300 million donation to India >From Indo-Asian News Service New Delhi, Mar 20 (IANS) Sun Microsystems, a global giant in computer networking, Thursday said it would donate software worth $300 million for non-commercial usage to Indian education institutes. "The donation will be with respect to online training for universities and academic use," Scott McNealy, chairman and chief executive officer of the U.S.-based Sun Microsystems told media persons here. McNealy, on a three-day visit to India to boost Sun's market presence, said the donation would help raise the level of IT research in the country and would encourage widespread adoption and use of all its products. He said India and China had the potential to be growth engines with their remarkable growth rates as compared to Japan, the U.S. and Germany, whose growth was flat for the last few years. McNealy promised more investments in India, especially in research and development and education and training to tap the country's vast IT talent pool. Reacting to reports that the open source Linux was badly affecting Sun's business, McNealy said: "I cannot disagree with that more. The company that is going to be hammered by Linux is Microsoft." He said Sun Microsystems believes in offering value added and packaged services on open source technology. McNealy said Sun was keen to work with Indian firms to develop cheap personal computers running on Linux. --Indo-Asian News Service

2 1

[LINK] - Localisation
by Kanti Jadia 22 Mar '03

22 Mar '03

http://www.cdacindia.com/html/press/spot283.asp _______________________________________________________________________ Odomos - the only mosquito protection outside 4 walls - Click here to know more! http://r.rediff.com/r?http://clients.rediff.com/odomos/Odomos.htm&&odomos&&… ----------------------------------------- Enjoy your Freedom,use GNU/Linux. http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html -----------------------------------------

1 0

Jump to page:

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

Fsf-friends