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freecontenting
by evh7rk5n＠gongjua.com 12 Sep '24

12 Sep '24

https://www.freecontenting.com One crisp autumn afternoon, while playing near the house, Emma noticed something shiny half-buried in the dirt. She dug it up and found an old, ornate key with intricate designs. Excited, she wondered what it might open. With the key clutched tightly in her hand, she approached the old house. The door creaked open with surprising ease, and Emma stepped inside. The interior was just as dusty as the outside, but it had an air of mystery. She wandered through the rooms, discovering old furniture and forgotten toys. Each room told a story of a family that had once lived there long ago. As she explored, Emma came upon a small, locked chest in the corner of one room. Her heart raced as she inserted the key into the lock. With a satisfying click, the chest opened to reveal a collection of old photographs, letters, and a beautiful, hand-carved wooden box.

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Internet, tech skills growing quietly in Goa...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 02 Sep '24

02 Sep '24

INTERNET, TECH SKILLS GROWING QUIETLY IN GOA PANJIM, April 30: Goa's BSNL internet service provider is already providing some 3000 broadband connections in the state, and roughly another 24,000 people dial-up to get access the Net using this central government-run service. These figures emerged during an informal discussion at the monthly meeting of the India Linux Users Group (Goa), a network promoting Free Software and Open Source in the state. ILUG-Goa, which holds its meetings usually on the fourth Saturday of each month at the Goa Science Centre at Miramar, sees a range of tech issues -- usually directly related to Free Software and Open Source in Goa. During it's meet on April 29, a range of issues came up for discussion, from how to partition your hard-disk (to install GNU/Linux side-by-side with Windows), to software tools to ehance productivity, and various internet and broadband options available to users in diverse parts of Goa. For instance, there are some useful Free Software tools to monitor your bandwidth usage on BSNL's broadband. One such tool is available for free download at http://tinyurl.com/qgu9p Called the Data One Broadband Statistics, this is a screen-scraper written using Perl to download usage statistics of BSNL's Data One (www.bsnl.co.in/service/dataone.htm) broadband service and total it. Generally, BSNL (www.bsnl.co.in) allows only the Microsoft-based IE and has no monthly total. But trust Indian software talent to find a work-around. This solution comes from the Free Software/Open Source network in Chennai. Meanwhile, the Goa free software network stays connected and announces its event via http://iluggoaannounce.notlong.com There are no fees for joining, all are welcome, and encouraged to form parallel user-groups in diverse parts of the state. Meanwhile, the Fedora Core 5 Free Software distribution has just become available on DVD in Goa. Number of foreign magazines are also available. Members of ILUG-Goa such as engineer Bijon Shaha and software pro Arvind Yadav gave diverse views on techies-only distros like 'Gentoo'. Debopriyo 'DP' Sarkar pointed to a 'mindmap' of various Free Software distributions or 'distros' available, which was illustrated at linuxhelp.blogspot.com Earlier, there was a brief presentation on FreeMind. FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java. It has the potential of playing the role of a high productivity tool. Operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster because of one-click "fold/unfold" and "follow link" operations. Other members raised a range of issues -- from how to get started in GNU/Linux, to playing around with tools like StumbleUpon, and how to encourage Free Software usage in schools and educational institutions. Remy Furtado of Rosary College, Navelim expressed an interest in working on the Free Software tool Moodle, ideal for distance education, as the Goa University moves to a pattern of semisterisation. Goa Engineering College's Prof George Easaw has done work on this platform, as have others. Reacting unofficially, BSNL officials said Goa now had six STMS 155 MBps connectivity, which was resulting in a speedy expansion of broadband to many parts of the state. But for broadband facilities to become available in village areas, at least 60 subscribers were needed to make operations viable. So far, broadband from BSNL is available in a growing number of areas in Goa: Panjim, Vasco (except Cortalim, but including Sada, Mangor, Bogmalo, Sancoale and other areas), Ponda, Bambolim, Merces, Dona Paula, Porvorim, Mapusa town, Calangute-Candolim, and Saligao, among others. Equipment has already been installed in Aldona exchange, and broadband facilities are expected to go functional -- ------------------------------------------------------------- | India Linux Users' Group, Goa | | Join the friendly user group | | Mail list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/join | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | http://groups.yahoo.com/group/teach-yourself-linux | | http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa-announce | | http://www.iosn.net/country/india/organizations/ilug-goa/ | ------------------------------------------------------------- , , / \ .-. * SOFTWARE ((__-^^-,-^^-__)) (. .) * FREEDOM `-_---' `---_-' / V \ * SHARING `--|o` 'o|--' // \\ \ ` / /( )\ KNOWLEDGE IS POWER ): :( '.^^_^^.' SHARE IT EQUITABLY :o_o: \_/ \_/ "-"

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Careers in FLOSS... (Dec 2003 issue of LFY)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 06 Jun '24

06 Jun '24

=========================================== LINUXForYou * Dec 2003 (Vol 1 No 10) In India Rs 50 (with CD) http://www.linuxforu.com Pages 102 * US$7.95 0 74470584957 =========================================== THIS ISSUE has probably reached your city. Saw it in Bangalore, and also got a complimentary copy from the LFY team at LinuxBangalore2003. But when I reached back to Goa on Dec 4, it wasn't in as yet. So it might take time to reach 'small town' India... FN REVIEWED: Mandrake 9.2 * PhProjekt * StarOffice 7.0 COMPUTERS AT TIS HAZARI, the session courts for the city of New Delhi, are being shifted over to Linux, courtesy the National Informatics Centre. - Rahul Chopra in this month's editorial. LINUX LEARNING CENTRE at Bangalore is offering courses in administration, security, development (internals and programming essentials, programming with Qt, device driver programming, MySQL & PHP), RHCE and Red Hat rapid track certification. www.linuxlearningcentre.com DotGNU RELEASES CD: It can now be used to implement application programs and Web services in C# and C applications under multiple operating systems, including GNU/Linux, FreeBSC, MacOS, MS Windows. The 219 MB release 0.1 CD is available as a free download at http://download.freedom.biz/dotgnu/dotgnu-0.1-cdrom.iso.gz.torrent e-Bridge calls itself "the new state-of-art training facility from eSpark Infotech is now open in the heart of Bangalore". It's offering embedded Linux courses (Linux fundamentals, programming Linux, embedded C & Linux, realtime C & Linux, Linux internals, device drivers, networking) and DSP courses (DSP fundamentals, TI/analog dev programming, audio/video, image processing, bio-medical systems). www.ebridgesolutions.net Linux.net provides a free e-mail service to those who want an e-mail address that ends in '@linux.net' MAJOR UPDATES and releases: OpenNA Linux 1.0, Gibraltar Firewall 1.0, Xandros Desktop 2.0, Onebase Linux 2.0, CUPS 1.120rc6. CAN YOU MAKE money with open source? Registration entails a "nominal fee" of Rs 5000 for a three-day conference. http://www.linuxasia2004.com/attendees/ February 11-13, 2004, New Delhi. SEND IN YOUR favourite slogans for a tee-shirt, and win five free copies of the shirt... LFYedit at efyindia.com MONEY CAN't buy respect, says Robert Adkins. Some of us might have met this guy at LB2003 in Bangalore. He's the CTO of Technetra Corp, and an advocate and implementer of FLOSS solutions for government. He can be contacted at radkins at technetra.com CAREERS WITH FLOSS: The number of students opting for courses in Open Source is growing steadily, even as industry experts predict a growing need for trained professionals in this expanding field. EXIT RED HAT, ENTER FEDORA: It's official now; the free (of cost) version of Red Hat Linux will not be available anymore. This has created a lot of FUD in an already unstable environment, thanks to the SCO episode. But is Red Hat closed for good? WEB-BASED COLLABORATION SOFTWARE: PHProjekt is an easy-to-install collaboration suite, which runs on the open source platform and databases. As the design of the system is developer-friendly, adding new features and components is a piece of cake. STAROFFICE: The latest version of Sun's office suite, StarOffice 7, may just be the right solution for the cost-conscious user. It loads faster than the earlier version, and sports some noticeable improvements. IN THE LFY CD THIS MONTH: Slackware (the "oldest Linux distro") and a range of GNU software for Windows users. FALLING BACK on backup systems. MAKING ADOPTION OF Linux in the enterprise easy. www.linux4e.com Business partners required: http://wwww.linux4e.com/partners ooWRITER HELPS YOU create your own templates and styles so that you can work with documents easily. Open Source is key to IBM's vision of computing. User empowerment is key to Microsoft's, writes Alolita Sharma USING DATABASE functions in Calc, a tutorial. (Wish there were more how-tos for the user in this mag! --FN) HALDIA DOCKS: it has a uniquely designed Linux installation with an active-active cluster set up, which is considered the best of its kind. This has ensured efficiency and cost-effectiveness. BASIC UNIX commands and concepts: an extract from *Running Linux* (Shroff Publishers, Pp 674 only Rs 425 in India). VxWorks and LynxOS are definitely the biggest embedded operating systems in use today. But slowly they are acknowledging the power of GNU/Linux and how it can help them maximise deployments. HELP LINUX GO INDIAN: By using various translation tools, you can join Language translation groups working across India to help translate GNU/Linux into your language. EXPERT INTRODUCTION: Multi-threaded programming under Linux. KICKSTART YOUR Linux installation (Part I): Installing Red Hat Linux on multiple machines one after another can be quite tedious. To avoid answering the same question over and over again, try the KickStart method, as it does not need any user intervention. WRITE CHEQUES. NOT JUST BOOKS: Niyam Bhushan on how anybody can turn thoughts into words, and words into wealth. NFS CLIENTS for Windows. OpenSSL PACKAGE offers a vast crypto library of algorithms WAIT QUEUES in Linux device drivers UNDERSTANDING recursive sub-routines INDIA-RELATED NEWS: HP launches GNU/Linux laptop Mandrake's latest distribution Oracle announces 10g for GNU/Linux Delixus offers India Linux CxProtect anti-virus mailing solution for mail-servers Trade management system from Network Programs Netweb Technologies unveils Tyrone MRO-Tek rolls out Network Management Systems Review of FLOSS at BangaloreIT.com =========================================== DISCLOSURE: This journalist (FN) writes a monthly column for LFY and gets paid for it. Promoting awareness about the content of LFY however is not part of the job, and is carried on with the intention spreading awareness about FLOSS among different GNU/Linux user groups in India. -- 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.

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Buy Custom Essays Online
by Jodi Lee 22 Oct '21

22 Oct '21

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Online education and Free Software
by Pirate Praveen 25 Jul '20

25 Jul '20

Hi, If you see any education institutions forcing usage of proprietary software for online education, you can share these letters and also let us know so we can support you in challenging it. FSF India: Open letter to KITE: On the use of proprietary apps and services for online classes in schools https://fsf.org.in/news/proprietary-apps-in-schools/ FSCI: https://fsci.in/statements/open-letter-to-kerala-kite-ceo-on-forcing-teache… Also recently University of Calicut made Adobe Premier mandatory for setting up recording studios in all colleges, we challenged it and they promised to remove the requirement for proprietary software. Thanks Praveen

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None
by None 25 Jul '20

25 Jul '20

for invitees. If you're interested, get in touch with Shruti and check the possibility of participating. FN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Dear all, We are pleased to inform you that after the successful First Working Group Consultation on the Use of ICTs for Development in Bangalore, we are now organizing the SECOND WORKING GROUP CONSULTATION in NEW DELHI on the 27-28 MAY, 2003. The Delhi meeting will carry forward the agenda set in Bangalore, and focus on the theme of FREE & OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE; AND THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA IN WIDENING THE DEBATE ON DEVELOPMENT. Our lead project partner is the Centre for Public Policy, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. The Delhi meeting is being organised in co-operation with the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, New Delhi. We hope that you will participate in the Delhi meeting and make it as fruitful and productive as the Bangalore Consultation. This is just an advance intimation for you to block your dates for the Consultation. We will soon be sending you the detailed agenda. We look forward to seeing you all in Delhi. Warm regards, Shruti Gupta Junior co-ordinator Project on ICTs for Development

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None
by None 25 Jul '20

25 Jul '20

files, using pdfTeX, also free software. "So powerful is TeX that it was able to process nearly 1,200 pages in just four minutes", says Radhakrishnan. "Not only that, since it is also a programming language, it is able to do several things automatically, like the generation of header markers, for example", he adds. To incorporate corrections and editorial changes to the proof sheets, RVT designed a graphical spreadsheet interface for SJP. This also helped to save time in updating the almost 10,000 entries that had changed since the last directory was printed four years ago. Recent reports in India's enterprise-based Network Magazine also noted the small but growing number of other industrial ventures starting to try out GNU/Linux in their "mission critical space". Asian Paints, India's largest paint company, has implemented SAP modules on GNU/Linux. IDBI Bank, with over 91 branches, runs its core banking applications on it. Rolta India runs its database containing thousands of users, while ICICI Infotech runs its knowledge management applications, and C-DAC runs e-governance solutions on GNU/Linux. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) | http://www.fredericknoronha.net Freelance Journalist | http://www.bytesforall.org http://goalinks.pitas.com | http://joingoanet.shorturl.com http://linuxinindia.pitas.com | http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks ------------------------------------------------------------------------- T: 0091.832.2409490 or 2409783 M: 0 9822 122436 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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None
by None 25 Jul '20

25 Jul '20

the debate elsewhere. FN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Dear Isa, > Thanks Sunil, > > Systems should be up within a week or so... Thanks for that. And sorry for my rudeness in my original post. Let me offer you a deal to try and make up. Please consider changing the name 'International Open Source Network' to 'International Free Software Network'. Here 'Free' as in 'Freedom'. The term 'Open source' only pays homage to the first freedom in the GPL. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html * The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs The term 'Free software' encompasses all 4 freedoms * The freedom to run the program, for any purpose * The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor * The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public ...notice how these freedoms affect ownership and control of technologies. This paradigm shift is critical in overcoming the Digital Divide. If the name of your organization is changed. We [MAHITI] will build a high quality portal cum collaboration platform for you just like Plone.org for 'Free'. Here 'Free' as in 'Free Lunch'. Details of Zope/Plone below. Hope you will forgive my audacity :-) Thanks, Sunil Notable users of Plone include Government of Hawaii, Lufthansa, NATO, AARP, CBS New York, Austrian Government, Activestate.com and University College London We will be using Plone / Zope content management system. 1. Short Profile: http://www.zope.org/Members/limi/plone-1.0-release 2. Movie: http://www2.state.hi.us/dags/icsd/content/video/higovdemo.avi 3. Book: http://plone.org/documentation/book 4. Other Zope Clients: http://www.zope.com/ZopeClientList -- Sunil Abraham, CEO MAHITI Infotech Pvt. Ltd. 'Reducing the cost and complexity of ICTs' 314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA Ph/Fax: +91 80 4150580. Mobile: 98441 01150 sunil(a)mahiti.org http://www.mahiti.org ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Get 128 Bit SSL Encryption! http://us.click.yahoo.com/FpY02D/vN2EAA/xGHJAA/C7EolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: bytesforall_readers-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

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None
by None 25 Jul '20

25 Jul '20

<sachdeva_sameer(a)yahoo.co.in> for sending it thru. FN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Free Software rated high source: The Hindu , 9 Feb'2003 THIRUVANANTHAPURAM FEB. 9. Companies at the Technopark, near here, rate Free, Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) highly, a survey conducted by the Trivandrum Chapter of Computer Society of India in association with the Group of Technopark Companies shows. Many companies use both Windows and Linux operating systems. The most commonly used operating system was Windows NT family (90 per cent), followed by Windows 95 family (85 per cent) and the GNU/Linux family (80 per cent). read full story at : http://www.hinduonnet.com/stories/2003021003620400.htm

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None
by None 25 Jul '20

25 Jul '20

Message: 2 Date: Thu, 06 Feb 2003 08:31:02 -0000 From: "H.R. Mohan" <hrmohan123(a)yahoo.com> Subject: Chennai meet: Open Access of Information TOPIC : Open Access of information using Open Source Systems SPEAKER : Prof. John Willinsky Pacific Press Professor of Literacy and Technology University of British Columbia Vancouver, Canada. DATE : Saturday, 8th February 2003 TIME : 4.30 p.m. Hi-Tea : After the talk VENUE : HOTEL TAJ CONNEMARA, Chennai About the Speaker & Talk: ------------------------- Prof. John Willinsky is currently the Pacific Press Professor of Literacy and Technology in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He holds prestigious Mac Arthur Fellowship. He directs the Public Knowledge Project, which is dedicated to developing online conferences, journals, and indexing systems that improve the scholarly and public quality of academic research. He is also an expert in using technology in literacy efforts. Prof. John Willinsky will address on the current situation around electronic access to research and its potential for the future under different models. He will also demonstrate the potential of new open source systems, some of which have been developed by him, in assisting the existing and new Indian journals in moving into an online environment in ways that improve both the scholarly and public quality of the research. It may be noted that the open access project is making the information available to researchers using open systems which are free. It is more towards information handling and sharing and bridge the digital divide. It will also deal with knowledge creation, PR issues, copyright, self archiving and digital libraries. K.Jayaramakrishnan Dr. R. Samyuktha Hon. Secretary Secretary Computer Society of India Madras Library Association ________________________________________________________________________

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None
by None 25 Jul '20

25 Jul '20

in Pune. It is a very good idea. FSUG Chennai is the first affiliate of FSF India and working on a specific project. It may be a good idea if you can work on networking with colleges. Abhas is already doing some work, may be he can provide more input on same. If you are interested in doing some other specific task. Please let me know. Regards, Arun. Kuzima, site needs to be updated with Demo@school note and a section on help wanted.

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None
by None 25 Jul '20

25 Jul '20

'intellectual property' should have been treated with inverted-quotes or more skepticism throughout... FN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- THE DAILY LIFE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW (20 - 21st December, 2002) A workshop organised by Sarai/ CSDS, Delhi and ALF, Bangalore Venue : Seminar Room, CSDS, 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi - 110054 -------------- Day One : 20th Friday, 2002 10 AM : Session 1 Introduction - Jeebesh Bagchi, Sarai/CSDS Ravi Sundaram, Sarai/CSDS, Introduction to the Public and Practices in the History of the Present (PPHP) research work within the grey economy. Prof. NS Gopalkrishnan, CUSAT, Criminalization of intellectual property law Discussion 11.30 AM : Tea 11.45 AM : Sessions 2 Lawrence Liang, ALF Emergence of IPR in daily life and language Discussant - Shamnad Basheer, Oxford 1.30 PM Lunch 2.15 PM Discussion Session Presentations - Anup and Naditha - MHRD, Govt. of India report on copyright piracy in India Neha Mahyavanshi - The vendors manual on IPR Sudhir and Lawrence - IPR cases and materials CD Comments and discussion 4.30 PM - The Code - a film by Hannu Puttonen on free software movement 6.00 PM - A terrible beauty is born - a reading/ performance by Arjun Raina (@ Sarai Interface Zone) ====================== Day Two - 21st Saturday, 2002 10 AM : Session1 A summary of day one - Sudhir Krishnaswamy Ravi Vasudevan, Sarai/CSDS IPL and rethinking of cultural studies Sudhir Krishnaswamy, ALF, The constitutional dimensions of the public domain Tea break - 12 12.15 PM : Session 2 Arun Mehta, Moderator, India GII list Software Patents: An illustration of the absurdity of IPR in the Information Age Tripta Chandola, Sarai, Open Source Licensing - some comments Lunch - 1.30 PM 2.15 PM : Session 3 Jeebesh Bagchi, Sarai >From `free software` to OPUS (www.opuscommons.net) Nitin Sawhney, MIT-Media Lab ThinkCycle: Cooperative Innovation in the Commons Discussion Session: OpenRegistry by Sunil Abraham, Mahiti The challenges of formulating a license: ThinkCycle Closing remarks by Sarai and ALF 4.30 PM - Tea 4.45 PM - A short planning session with student stipends ------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ commons-law mailing list commons-law(a)mail.sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/commons-law

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None
by None 25 Jul '20

25 Jul '20

Now, how can you help me get this project thru asap. It will take me another 15 days to get the analysis thru, I will be using UML as a standard. I will post the analysis as soon as it is completed. Suraj, i need another help. Can anyone guide me on how to convert this project to be official GNU project ? Regards, Tarun Gaur _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

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None
by None 25 Jul '20

25 Jul '20

Message: 1 Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2002 09:03:50 -0000 From: "kwang_poon" <kwang_poon(a)yahoo.com> Subject: Linux in China NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: 11/11/02 Today's focus: China developers embrace Linux, study finds By Phil Hochmuth A recent survey by research group Evans Data shows that Linux is running away with the nascent Chinese IT market. The survey was completed this month and asked 1,000 applications developers based in China questions on trends in programming and technology being used there. It was found that 44% of the developers said they had written code for the Linux operating system, while 65% said they expected to write a Linux application in the next year. Linux is a hit in China because of its open-source licensing structure, which allows the software to be reused and installed on limitless machines without recrimination or copyright enforcement laws. This helps keep costs down for the hundreds of thousands of machines the various government agencies must deploy in order to support the government, which runs a country of 1.2 billion citizens. Another driver of Linux in China is that the country has its own homegrown brand - Red Flag Linux - which was created by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The PC Linux flavor is a staple on the desktops in many Chinese government agencies, observers say. Last year, the government of Beijing awarded IT contracts to six local IT providers, but rejected a seventh IT proposal, which came from Microsoft. Linux is also making inroads into servers in China. According to Evans Data, 11% of Chinese developers said they will use Linux servers next year, as opposed to only 4% who use Linux servers now. _______________________________________________________________ To contact Phil Hochmuth: Phil Hochmuth is a Senior Writer for Network World, and a former systems integrator. You can reach him at mailto:phochmut@nww.com. Related links http://www.evansdata.com/ http://www.redflag-linux.com/ ________________________________________________________________________

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by None 25 Jul '20

25 Jul '20

While respondents cited OSS's 'low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)' as one of the best reasons to support OSS, an 'alternative to Microsoft' did not lag far behind. A plurality (40%) of all respondents felt that a low TCO was the best reason to support OSS. One-third of all respondents cited 'an alternative to Microsoft' as one of the best reasons to support OSS.</quote> The url is http://opensource.org/halloween/halloween7.php raj

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None
by None 25 Jul '20

25 Jul '20

The term free software isn't mentioned once, not even as an exploitable weakness. This contrasts strongly with the original Halloween Memoranda. I'm not sure what this means, but one strong possibility is that the term has simply fallen out of use both at Microsoft and in their survey population. The messages and tactics the open-source community has developed over the last five years are working well. Our memes about security, TCO, and competitive impact have achieved deep penetration in Microsoft's survey population. Abstract arguments about intellectual property rights, on the other hand, have served Microsoft just as poorly as they have served us.

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by None 25 Jul '20

25 Jul '20

Beyond Market, Freedom Matters BY K G KUMAR What is it about the Free Software Movement that raises the hackles of the world's most powerful software company? And what is it that causes Microsoft executives to misconstrue the essence of the movement, and often misattribute it to the Open Source initiative--a related, but philosophically watered-down version of the same original vision, asks K.G. Kumar in an article that was earlier published in the Economic and Political Weekly of India. By basing itself on moral rectitude and ethical resoluteness, the Free Software Movement seeks to focus on the importance of "freedom" as in "free speech" or "free elections", and not gratis, as in "free beer". In the process, it has invited the wrath of the likes of Microsoft. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Q: Do you view Linux and the open-source movement as a threat to Microsoft? A: Yeah. It's good competition. It will force us to be innovative. It will force us to justify the prices and value that we deliver. And that's only healthy. The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works. --- Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO and No. 2 in the company, responding to a question by Chicago Sun-Times reporter Dave Newbart We could not establish a community of freedom in the land of proprietary software where each program had its lord. We had to build a new land in cyberspace -- the free software GNU operating system, which we started writing in 1984. In 1991, when GNU Most read story was almost finished, the kernel Linux written by Linus Torvalds filled the last in Linux: gap; soon the free GNU/Linux system was available. -- Richard Matthew Stallman, Founder and President, Free Software Foundation --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ENTHUSIASTS GIVE IT A BOOST It is easy -- and tempting -- to pitch these two opposing positions against each other, and portray the whole "free" vs proprietary software debate in antagonistic, David vs Goliath terms. It is even more tempting and dramatic to view these differences as the contours of a battle between lowly, poorly paid and equipped programmers and the world's largest software company, Microsoft, led by what the international media incessantly reminds us is the world's richest man. In reality, though, the Free Software Movement is not a movement against Microsoft or Bill Gates. Nor does it appear daunted by the gigantic proportions or reputations of its foes. That is because the well-spring of its raison d'etre is moral rectitude and ethical resoluteness. The Free Software Movement is a movement for freedom, pure and simple--freedom as defined in any combination of these dictionary meanings: "exemption or release from slavery or imprisonment"; "the quality of self-determination attributed to the will"; "the state of being able to act without hindrance or restraint"; "liberty of action"; "exemption from arbitrary, despotic or autocratic control"; "unfettered"; even, "independence" and "civil liberty". That last sense is particularly apt, since Richard Matthew Stallman began the Free Software Movement in 1984 inspired by the ideals of the American War of Independence of 1776: "freedom, community and voluntary co-operation, which leads to free enterprise, free speech and free software." Yet, critics and opponents of the Free Software Movement choose to ignore these allusions of the word "freedom", choosing to focus, instead, on the economic and business aspects of "free" software. The mighty multinational Microsoft, for instance, alleges that the very notion of free software is "unAmerican". In an address at New York University on 3 May 2001, Craig Mundie, Microsoft's senior vice president, described the movement as "flimsy", "flawed", jeopardizing property rights and threatening to undermine the software industry, a key economic growth engine. Reuters reported that Mundie's language was "more in the spirit of a trash-talking sports star than the typically ambiguous, jargon-filled phrasings of a software executive." What is it about the Free Software Movement that raises the hackles of the world's most powerful software company? And what is it that causes Microsoft executives to misconstrue the essence of the movement, and often misattribute it to the Open Source initiative--a related, but philosophically watered-down version of the same original vision? Any answers to these and related questions must inevitably point to a bearded, long-haired, pun-loving genius of a programmer named Richard Matthew ("Math You", as he once elaborated to an interviewer, referring to his abiding love for mathematics) Stallman. Born in New York in 1953, Stallman--or RMS as he is popularly known in the fraternity, after his login identity name for the computer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he started his programming career--is the only child of a printing press owning father and a liberal-minded schoolteacher of a mother. Growing up in New York's West Side, Stallman graduated from Harvard in 1974 with a BA in physics. In 1971, during the end of his freshman year, he got a job as a staff hacker at the MIT Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab. (Contrary to popular belief, reinforced by media reports of virus attacks and their creators, a "hacker" is not a malevolent, evil-minded person tapping away at the keyboard of a computer to break into distant security systems. Rather, a hacker is merely someone who is obsessed with programming and writing code, someone who would rather program than, say, eat or sleep, someone who has imbibed the spirit of "playful cleverness". The more malicious type portrayed in the media is more correctly referred to as a "cracker".) At MIT's AI Lab, Stallman learned operating system development by doing it as part of a long-standing software-sharing community. "Sharing of software was not limited to our particular community; it is as old as computers, just as sharing of recipes is as old as cooking," he notes. Stallman wrote the first extensible Emacs text editor there in 1975, for which, in 1991, he received the Grace Hooper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery. ("Calling Emacs an editor is like calling the Earth a nice hunk of dirt," is what one commentator had to say about this powerful, comprehensive Swiss Army knife-style piece of software.) However, the AI Lab's hacker community and spirit soon collapsed, when corporate interests began luring away all the talented hackers from MIT. For Stallman, the last straw was when the AI Lab decided to use Digital's non-free timesharing system, alongside the fact that the computers then used, like the VAX or the 68020, featured operating systems that required signing a non-disclosure agreement even to get an executable copy. Stallman found himself confronted with a stark moral choice. He had to choose to do something "for the good...so as to make a community possible again." That was how he homed in on the idea of developing an operating system (OS), the heart of any computer, without which no one can run one. In January 1984, Stallman resigned from MIT to start the GNU Project to develop the free operating system, GNU. GNU is a recursive acronymn (hackers revel in puns and word play) for "GNU's Not Unix". Stallman quit MIT so that the institute would not be able to interfere with the distribution of GNU as free software. GNU is Unix-compatible software, i.e, it can run Unix programs but is not identical to Unix, then the leading enterprise OS, known for its portability. In 1985, the year after he quit MIT, Stallman founded the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in Boston,dedicated to promoting computer users' rights to use, study, copy, modify and redistribute computer programs. (Those who imagine that the Free Software Movement arose in response to Microsoft should remember that the Redmont company's breakthrough OS, Windows 3.1, shipped in June 1992, a full seven years after FSF was founded, while its current flagship, Windows 2000, came almost another six years after that.) FSF is a tax-exempt charity for free software development. It raises funds by selling GNU CD-ROMs, T-shirts, manuals and deluxe distributions (all of which users are free to copy and change), as well as from donations. FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in "free speech", not necessarily gratis, as in "free beer") software and free documentation. In particular, FSF promotes the GNU operating system, used widely today in its GNU/Linux variant, based on the kernel Linux developed by Linus Torvalds. It is estimated that there are over 20 million users of GNU/Linux systems today. These systems are often mistakenly called just "Linux"; calling them "GNU/Linux" corrects this confusion. They may not know it, but most Indian Internet users are already benefiting from free software, because today, almost all Web servers run on free software or variants of GNU/Linux. Even The Economist -- a magazine that supports free enterprise and corporate energy -- admits that on the server side, GNU/Linux has become so impressive and capable that it now represents a real threat to the Microsoft Windows NT hegemony. According to The Economist, over one million websites now run on GNU/Linux. Many ISPs now base their Internet operations on GNU/Linux, in preference to Windows NT or even Unix. Users in some niche segments like advanced graphics and image processing, swear by GNU/Linux's robustness and reliability. In fact, many of the effects for the film Titanic were created on GNU/Linux machines. "Using 200 DEC Alpha-based systems running the Red Hat 4.1 distribution of GNU/Linux, after upgrading the kernel to support the PC164 mainboard, Digital Domain found a performance increase of three to four over SGI systems. The combination of the GNU/Linux OS and Alpha CPUs also delivered the most cost-effective solution to time and processing demands," according to Daryll Strauss of Digital Domain, the company that developed graphics for Titanic. GNU/Linux is now a robust operating system, complete with an entire set of tools, utilities and applications, almost all of which are distributed with source code, and free of cost. It is not just the near-zero cost of this particular OS that wins the hearts of network administrators; it is its greater stability. This matters a great deal for remote-managed network servers. Consider, also, these facts: * gcc, the GNU C compiler, the flagship of the GNU suite, has consistently outperformed the best of commercial compilers. (A compiler is a program that translates a source program into an executable program, or that translates instructions written in a high-level programming language into machine language.) * GNU/Linux has over 20 million users around the world, on eight processor families. * Apache, the free Web server from Apache Software Foundation, has 61% of the global market share for Web servers (figures for May 2000), putting it streets ahead of commercial products like Microsoft's IIS (21%) and Netscape's Enterprise Server (5%). * BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Daemon), an open source program, runs over 80% of the domain name servers around the world. * SendMail, the mailer programme used by nearly 80% of the world's installations, is free software. * Perl, TCL and Python are the public-domain languages that stitch together thousands of websites. * StarOffice, a complete office applications suite programmed in Java, which can be a total substitute for Microsoft's Office, has been released under the GNU General Public Licence (GNU GPL) by Sun Microsystems. * AbiWord (www.abisource.com), a small (3.6 MB) open source GPL'd word processor offers everything that MS Word does --- for free! In media-related areas, free software has made impressive strides, especially in the post-PC, post-Microsoft, post-Intel, post-Internet Explorer architecture, as these examples prove: 1. TiVo uses GNU/Linux for its digital TV recorder. 2. GNU/Linux forms the basis for Kerbango Radio and PenguinRadio, two Internet appliances that allow users to tune in to audio streams from around the world. 3. ScreenPhone, a new cordless communications device from Sweden's Ericsson, uses Red Hat Linux, with a graphical interface from Trolltech displayed on a colour touch screen, to offer telephony, email and Web browsing. Ericsson says this is the first of a new range of consumer products and services for home communications that it aims to develop jointly with Red Hat, one of the leading companies that distribute GNU/Linux. 4. LiViD, the Linux Video and DVD project, circumvents the Content Scramble System (CSS) used to block unauthorized viewing of DVDs. While the US film industry sees this as a ploy by hackers to subvert the encryption system, hackers say they just want the freedom to see their favourite DVDs under GNU/Linux (which was not an industry-supported platform). 5. Since 1994, the New York-based Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has used a GNU/Linux-based approach to provide approximately 45 nations with some of their earliest connections to the Internet. 6. In Ethiopia, which was too small a market for the likes of Microsoft, the free software typesetting programme TeX has been used to develop good fonts in Amharic, the main national language. 7. The "Scholar Net" programme of Mexico hopes to use GNU/Linux to bring computers and the Net to every elementary and mid-level school in the country. 8. Back home, the Simputer project, born in the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, uses free software (mainly, GNU/Linux, Perl and Tk) to bring a simple, mobile computer into the hands of the average villager. 9. And finally, interestingly enough, the principles of free software have created what has come to be called "open journalism". The best example is Slashdot.org (slogan: "News for nerds. Stuff that matters."), run on free software, and whose content is generated by readers submitting news and stories, whetted and selected by a panel (named with each submission)--an example of a sturdy distributed news gathering and filtering machine independent of the large mainstream media companies. As these examples and instances reveal, free software can -- and has -- worked well in the real, rough-and-tumble world of business and commerce. This is simply because the term "free software" has nothing to do with price; it is about freedom. In Stallman's words, a program is free software if: * You have the freedom to run the program, for any purpose. * You have the freedom to modify the program to suit your needs. (To make this freedom effective in practice, you must have access to the source code, since making changes in a program without having the source code is exceedingly difficult.) * You have the freedom to redistribute copies, either gratis or for a fee. * You have the freedom to distribute modified versions of the program, so that the community can benefit from your improvements. Free software is distributed under the GNU General Public Licence (GNU GPL) or other licences approved by FSF in all domains. The GNU GPL gives each user the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software, based on unfettered access to the source code. Being free to do this means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission. While granting the user these freedoms, the GNU GPL defends them by saying that no one is allowed to take them away from anyone else. Any published program, which incorporates all or a substantial part of a GNU GPL-covered program, must itself be released under the GNU GPL. The GNU GPL ensures that no person or community can privatize the community's free software. In Stallman's words, "Whoever wishes to copy parts of our software into his program must let us use parts of that program in our programs. Nobody is forced to join our club, but those who wish to participate must offer us the same co-operation they receive from us. This makes the system fair." "Copyleft" is the method used by FSF to prevent GNU software from being turned into proprietary software. Copyleft uses copyright law, but flips it over to serve the opposite of its usual purpose: instead of a means of privatizing software, it becomes a means of keeping software free. The central idea of copyleft is that FSF gives everyone permission to run the program, copy it, modify it, and distribute modified versions--but not permission to add restrictions of their own. Thus, the crucial freedoms that define "free software" are guaranteed to everyone who has a copy; they become inalienable rights. Later, Stallman would say that the decision to start the GNU project was based on a spirit similar to these words, attributed to Hillel, the rabbi scholar who flourished in the time of Herod : "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?". "As an atheist," Stallman hastens to add, "I don't follow any religious leaders, but I sometimes find I admire something one of them has said." Stallman went on to become the principal author of the GNU C compiler (gcc), a portable optimizing compiler that was designed to support diverse architectures and multiple languages. The compiler now supports over 30 different architectures and seven programming languages. Stallman also wrote the GNU symbolic debugger (GSD), GNU Emacs, and various other GNU programs. In 1990, he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" fellowship, and, in 1996, an honorary doctorate from the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. In 1998, along with Linus Torvalds, he received the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer award. In 1999, he received the Yuri Rubinski memorial award. On a personal note, RMS likes music, butterflies, caves, good food and, needless to add, computers. He sometimes writes jokes, funny poetry and song parodies. When in the mood, especially in an evangelical, proselytizing setting before an enraptured audience, he playfully refers to himself as "St. IGNUcius in the Church of Emacs" -- even going so far as to don ethereal robes and a halo of a hat!. In the first edition of "The Hacker's Dictionary", this is how he described himself: I was built at a laboratory in Manhattan around 1953, and moved to the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab in 1971. My hobbies include affection, international folk dance, flying, cooking, physics, recorder, puns, science fiction fandom, and programming; I magically get paid for doing the last one. About a year ago, I split up with the PDP-10 computer to which I was married for ten years. We still love each other, but the world is taking us in different directions. For the moment, I still live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, among our old memories. "Richard Stallman" is just my mundane name; you can call me "RMS". Not everyone, though, could get along famously with Stallman's purist and uncompromising approach. In 1988, some of them rallied around another celebrated hacker, Eric Raymond, to start the Open Source movement, supposedly a more pragmatic, less dogmatic, apolitical initiative to focus on the business and commercial aspects of free software. Erroneous media coverage has given the impression that Richard Stallman's work was done by the Open Source movement. The fact is, that latter movement was started only in 1998, while Stallman began the project to develop the alternative free operating system GNU in January 1984, almost two years before the Free Software Foundation was founded. In Stallman's own words, "These two movements are like two political parties in our community. Labeling me or the GNU Project with the term 'open source' is like labeling Jawaharlal Nehru as a member of the BJP." Stallman elaborates the fundamental difference between the two initiatives: "Some who favoured this term ('open source') aimed to avoid the confusion of 'free' with 'gratis' -- a valid goal. Others, however, aimed to set aside the spirit of principle that had motivated the free software movement and the GNU project, and to appeal instead to executives and business users, many of whom hold an ideology that places profit above freedom, above community, above principle. Thus, the rhetoric of 'Open Source' focuses on the potential to make high quality, powerful software, but shuns the ideas of freedom, community, and principle." 'Free software' and 'Open Source' describe the same category of software, more or less, but say different things about the software, and about values. The GNU Project continues to use the term 'free software', to express the idea that freedom, not just technology, is important." The main argument for the term 'open source software' is that 'free software' makes some people uneasy, says Stallman. "That's true: talking about freedom, about ethical issues, about responsibilities as well as convenience, is asking people to think about things they might rather ignore. This can trigger discomfort, and some people may reject the idea for that. It does not follow that society would be better off if we stop talking about these things." Which is all that he did during his recent trip to India to launch the Free Software Foundation of India (FSF India) in Thiruvananthapuram (formerly, Trivandrum) on 20 August at the Freedom First! conference. FSF India has been functioning informally as a close-knit group of programmers and free software users for some time. Though many of the core members of the group are based in Thiruvananthapuram, the network is fairly widespread, and encompasses programmers, students, IT professionals and lay persons from all over the subcontinent. Some of them have been running commercially successful businesses on free software. For instance, an Indo-UK publishing venture, Focal Image, has, for the last two years, been doing very good business out of Thiruvananthapuram, publishing scientific works using entirely free software solutions, including the LaTeX document preparation system. Stallman was made a State government guest for the duration of his five-day tour of Kerala. The day he arrived in Thiruvananthapuram, he met the Minister for Industries and Information Technology, P. K. Kunhalikutty. (Stallman was earlier scheduled to meet the Chief Minister, A. K. Antony, who, being indisposed, had to cancel his appointment.) An official press release from the minister's office said that "Mr. Kunhalikutty informed Mr. Stallman that the government was happy that a movement that represented the most discerning, yet increasingly mainstream ethos amongst the software development community is taking roots in Kerala. The free software movement, in his view, represented the distinctly open approach that the State wishes to adopt for IT-driven industrial growth and societal transformation..." The release added that "the government is also keen to understand how well free software can be leveraged in the context of e-governance, particularly at the local self-government level. More specifically, Mr Kunhalikutty requested the involvement of Mr Stallman and the Free Software Foundation in developing free courseware (along the lines of free software) for the education of young students in the colleges and those in need in the IT industry in the State." Stallman himself pointed out that free software has a special relevance for the Indian educational sector. "Schools in India can benefit by redistributing free software to save on licence fees. But free software offers a deeper benefit for education: the knowledge in free software is public knowledge, not secret. The sealed black box of a proprietary software system is designed to keep people in the dark. With free software, students can study the software they use, to learn how it works. They can write improvements to the software, and thus learn the craft of software development--which usually consists of improving existing programs." "Computer users in India, as elsewhere, deserve the freedom to share and change software, the way cooks share and change recipes," Stallman said. "So I am delighted to inaugurate the Free Software Foundation of India, which will promote the use and the development of free software in this country. At first, FSF India will help individuals, communities, schools, governments and enterprises in India to make use of the free software that the rest of the world has already developed. Over time, FSF India will lead Indian programmers to contribute to the human knowledge that free software represents." "It is natural for human beings to share ideas," Stallman added, "and by doing so, we make the whole world richer. When our contributions can be seen, used, enjoyed, and built on by others around the world, as they can in the free software community, it gives us a sense of community that is motivating and liberating." According to its official spokespersons, FSF India, which is the first sister organization of FSF in Asia, will strive to ensure that free software is strengthened in all respects so as to form a genuine, credible and viable alternative to proprietary software for every kind of application. To do so, FSF India aims to : 1. promote awareness about free software among the general public and, specifically, among programmers and students; 2. increase access to free software by users in India; 3. promote the development of local solutions to local problems by empowering local programmers in the use of free platforms, tools and technologies; 4. provide or support free software by way of documentation, expert help or any other means; 5. help organize training for programmers and users of free software platforms and software; 6. carry out R&D work for free software solutions to suit local requirements; 7. provide services for the free software programmer community by, for example, locating and distributing jobs; 8. assist the national and State governments in all aspects relating to free software, such as evolving and maintaining standards; providing a quality assurance mechanism for free software; and ensuring the use of free software in government and quasi-government milieux; and 9. provide services such as adjudication and conflict redressal within the free software domain. To be sure, however, FSF India will not find the road ahead free of daunting obstacles. Already, certain corporate interests have taken objection to Stallman being feted as an official State guest of the government of Kerala. And the West Bengal government's recent announcement of a tie-up with Microsoft for its e-governance infrastructure is just an indication of the shape of things (read battles) to come. Stallman, however, remains unfazed. "More important than convenience and reliability is freedom -- the freedom to co-operate. What I'm concerned about is not individual people or companies so much as the kind of way of life that we have. That's why I think it's a distraction to think about fighting Microsoft," Stallman told a Salon writer. Stallman believes that Microsoft has another, more specific purpose in attacking the GNU General Public Licence. "Microsoft is known generally for imitation rather than innovation," he explains. "When Microsoft does something new, its purpose is strategic--not to improve computing for its users, but to close off alternatives for them." "Microsoft uses an anticompetitive strategy called 'embrace and extend'. This means they start with the technology others are using, add a minor wrinkle which is secret so that nobody else can imitate it, then use that secret wrinkle so that only Microsoft software can communicate with other Microsoft software. In some cases, this makes it hard for you to use a non-Microsoft program when others you work with use a Microsoft program. In other cases, this makes it hard for you to use a non-Microsoft program for job A if you use a Microsoft program for job B. Either way, 'embrace and extend' magnifies the effect of Microsoft's market power." What does society need? Stallman's answer: "It needs information that is truly available to its citizens---for example, programs that people can read, fix, adapt, and improve, not just operate. But what software owners typically deliver is a black box that we can't study or change." "Society also needs freedom," he adds. "When a program has an owner, the users lose freedom to control part of their own lives. And above all society needs to encourage the spirit of voluntary co-operation in its citizens. When software owners tell us that helping our neighbours in a natural way is "piracy", they pollute our society's civic spirit. This is why we say that free software is a matter of freedom, not price". Anyone who talks so fervently about freedom, community and civic spirit must surely be a rabble-rousing, fist-shaking, table-thumping commie -- that's the general drift of corporate America's assessment of Stallman. "For the record", he clarifies, "I am not a communist or anything similar. The idea that people ought to co-operate and help their neighbours is much older than Marx--in fact, one notable exponent of this view lived 2000 years ago. And the idea of inalienable rights embodied in the GNU GPL comes from the founders of the United States. People who disagree with me often find it convenient to call me a communist, but they do so in order to misrepresent my views." Which are precise and unambiguous: "You deserve to be able to co-operate openly and freely with other people who use software. You deserve to be able to learn how the software works, and to teach your students with it. You deserve to be able to hire your favorite programmer to fix it when it breaks. You deserve free software. " Even Stallman's most bitter critics readily acknowledge the debt that all of them owe him one way or another. Most of them say, "If Richard did not exist, it would have been necessary to invent him." The same sentiment must have been in the mind of journalist and noted GNU/Linux watcher Glyn Moody when he wrote about "...dedicated hackers as Richard Stallman and the FSF who do not code to live, but live to code. This, ultimately, is the reason free software does not depend on open source companies for its own survival: It exists beyond the market." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ References: * Moody, Glyn. Rebel Code: Linux and the Open Source Revolution. Allen Lane/The Penguin Press. London. 2001. * Levy, Steven. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Penguin Books. Harmondsworth. 2001. * DiBona, Chris, Sam Ockman and Mark Stone (ed.). OpenSources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution. O'Reilly & Associates. California. 1999. * http://www.gnu.org * http: //www.stallman.org * http: //www.fsf.org.in

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FN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- dear all, BusinessWorld magazine India, just gave me my life's greatest Diwali gift: a cover story, with an expressive, black-suit and bowtie clad billgates, eyeing an aggressive-looking Tux, with the headline: "BILL to bill: Why India is a Critical Battleground in the War between Microsoft and Linux." good amount of research done by Charles Assisi and Shelley Singh. though i wish the article could have been far more comprehensive, with more box stories, larger editorial coverage, etc. the story does mention indian localizing efforts, and several india-centric initiatives. i dunno about you guyz, but am going out to buy about a dozen copies of the Rs 5 per copy mag, and am gonna hand-deliver to key personnel in my key contact lists. happy diwali to all. May the Linux Lamp of Freedom Burn Brightly in Your Lives This Year, Bringing you Prosperity, Wealth, and Lots of Happiness. LL

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25 Jul '20

Mahiti looking for office administrator, graphic designer! Mahiti, a technology company committed to helping the voluntary sector harness the benefits of technology announces an opening for an office accountant/administrator. Women with a background in accounting practice and at least six months in work experience will be considered. Mahiti is also looking for a graphic designer with or without experience

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25 Jul '20

fred at bytesforall dot org It must be quite flattering when a government sits up, takes note of the potential of a Linux-users group, and prominently features it in advertisements noticed nationwide. This happened recently in Pakistan, where a small but growing band of GNU/Linux enthusiasts -- and some senior policy planners working at another level -- have understood impact that this alternative computing operating system could have for their plans. Sometime in June, the English-language newspaper 'The Dawn' published from the port city of Karachi, announced: "... The Government of Pakistan is committing itself to the reduction of piracy and the protection of intellectual property. Linux and open source technologies are the corner stone of this initiative." Deploying GNU/Linux to avoid piracy might be unexpected logic. But in the sub-continent of South Asia -- covering the populous regions of India, Pakistan and smaller neighbours -- per capita income hovers around US$300 a year. Affordability of software prices is a key issue, and faced by repeated charges of 'piracy' of costly proprietorial software, some are beginning to see GNU/Linux as an option. (This is perhaps one reason why the many forms of 'freedom' offered by GNU/Linux is also sometimes interpreted in terms of the 'price freedom' and affordability it offers users here, though this may not be seen as too important an issue in the more-affluent world.) Pakistan's Technology Resource Mobilization Unit (www.tremu.gov.pk) has been established by the Government of Pakistan to enable groups of professionals to exchange views and coordinate activities in their sectors. One is to focus on GNU/Linux. "These physical and virtual groups involve volunteers in Pakistan and abroad, who contribute to policy making by the Government of Pakistan. Each group has national and regional coordinators. Meetings, seminars and conferences are held to debate, crystallize and propagate relevant ideas, concepts and policy directions," the Pakistani government announced recently. On the GNU/Linux front, "the task force is expected to include committed professionals (e.g.PLUC), academics, and practicing software developers to set the future direction for Pakistan", it was officially announced via the Pakistani press. PLUC is the Pakistan Linux Users' Community. PLUC was formed in December 1999 by Abdul Basit <basit(a)basit.cc>, PLUC's current moderator. Initially, there were just eight members in the group. In a couple of months, the PLUC list increased to 30. By 2001, there were 100+. Now there are over 170 members subscribed to the PLUC mailing list, and some three hundred registered at http://www.linuxpakistan.net Basit and his friends launched this network from the Sir Syed University (SSUET) in Karachi. It is codenamed Linuxpakistan. Plans are to have a "Linux force" -- as it has been described -- to hold meetings, seminars and conferences to educate the user community. "They will also come with proposals to the government (for) funding such as the creation of user-friendly client/server software, training strategies, local language software development, the induction of LINUX into (the) basic syllabi, etc," says the government in an advert published in The Dawn newspaper of Karachi. TReMU, Pakistan's Technology Resource Mobilization Unit, has plans to set up secure network and e-commerce task forces too, in addition to the GNU/Linux task force. "The main qualifications to participate are a commitment to volunteer your time and intellectual inputs, to work in a team, and to have a desire for the betterment of the country," says TReMU, making an appeal to the patriotism of the GNU/Linux techies. It anticipates that these groups will "enable a sharing of resources and ideas". Besides, TReMU hopes that several of the ideas could germinate into development projects and thus "translate the brainstorming, discussion and planning sessions into practical realities". Those interested in participating have been asked to fill out the relevant forms on the TReMU website, at www.gov.tremu.pk. It's clear that some influential decision-makers and policy advisors are keen to push towards a GNU/Linux direction. At worst, this would help Third World countries like Pakistan to battle frequent charges of having "pirated" proprietorial software -- most of which is atrociously priced from a developing country perspective. At best, this could help Pakistan, which like neighbouring India has a long reputation for its software skills, with building up skills which encourages its young programmers to understand better and go further in, given the transparent and collaborative nature of the GNU/Linux software. Ovais Khan <ovaiskhan80(a)yahoo.com> wrote in to PLUC recently: "There was an ad on Page 21 of The Dawn about the creation of a task force for Linux, secure networks and e-commerce. The interesting thing is that the name of PLUC is in the ad. Congrats (PLUC's key driving force Abdul) Basit <basic(a)basit.cc> and all the others." But some felt differently. Fawad Halim <fawad(a)fawad.net> commented: "I'm very skeptical about anything (good) coming from the Government, but let's see what comes out of this." Bilal Muddassir shot back: "I think the only organization that can mobilize immense amounts of resources (of course if it wants to) for a particular purpose currently in Pakistan is a government organization. Being skeptical is okay..." Pakistan Ministry of Science and Technology advisor Salman Ansari <salman(a)super.net.pk> recently told this correspondent that he sees other uses for GNU/Linux deployment. For instance, some 50,000 low cost computers are to be installed in schools and colleges all over Pakistan. These will be PII computers, each being sourced for less than $100 a piece, he says. Proprietary software for these PCs would cost a small fortune. Surely more than what the computers cost! But, using GNU/Linux as the OS would ensure that the overall prices are kept low. Pakistan is seriously considering the use of Star Office, an Open Source productivity tool that does the same work as proprietary software costing thousands of rupees. "Don't be surprised if we become the first country in the world to say that all (government-run) services are going to be GNU/Linux based," says an enthusiastic Ansari. It's to be seen if these dreams can be accomplished. "I've set up several networks. When I started setting them up six years ago, the only thing I could run them with, without breaking the law, was Linux. At that time, Windows NT was very flaky. So I've developed a very healthy respect for Linux and Open Source," says Ansari. Half-sarcastically, he adds with a smile: "Though I'm a typical Pakistani, I still feel a bit uncomfortable in buying pirated software, and paying 90 cents for a software priced US$500." Ansari says Pakistan has been speaking to some big vendors of proprietorial prices. "We told them we would like to do business with them, but for that the pricing would have to be realistic first," says he. If current software prices are taken into account, to go 'legal' Pakistan would have to pay something like US$400 for converting each of its PCs to proprietorial software. "The Business Software Alliance (the network promoting and protecting the interests of proprietorial software) has been going all out for it. But they have to come in at a price which equates to the economics of the country," argues Ansari. Ansari points to the belief which says that if professionals want to enter the software development field need to get into Open Source. "You will be then able to create products, and not just projects," says he. It makes sense in terms of regional language solutions front too. "Urdu (the national language of Pakistan) language software is easier (to use) if it resides at the OS level," he adds. Ansari says that as chairman of the peer review committee of all IT projects, he has been keen to turn down any project that uses pirated software. "But what this (asking for non-pirated software) ends up doing is that it bloats the cost of the software," he complains, suggesting the Open Source could be a way out. Says he: "There are two interesting initiatives now. We're launching a major e-governance programme, and the government must have legal software. We're also planning to put in computers in rural schools. Both are going to be high profile projects. We want to make sure they don't use pirated software, even while we work on cleaning out other PCs..." Ansari says this has 'thrown open the debate' in Pakistan. One instance is that the Technology Resource Mobilization Unit has a task force on Linux. The government has also agreed to put in Rs 200 million to fund R&D and software product development, which the government would then own and distribute for free -- cutting into the very logic of proprietorial software. On the client-side, efforts are on to build a GUI interface for Linux, by working at the OS level for projects which relate to text-to-speech, language translation and language-related software. "But at the same time, we're not stopping anyone (in government) from buying branded products. So long as they can justify it and negotiate a good price (the justification for which has to be very valid)," says the US-returned engineer. "In a government contract, if you're going to bid for computers which has a legal OS and office suite, guess who's going to win," he says. Three aspects take priority on this front, says Ansari. Firstly, encouraging legal software. Secondly, enabling a 'complete industry growth' for product development based on Linux. And, thirdly, making people "very, very aware" of this powerful tool. GNU/Linux is something which "almost everybody has adopted, whether it's Sun, Oracle or IBM". This would reduce the cost of computing for the people, even while we would like to use non-pirated software, says Ansari. He finds it ludicrous to believe the BSA's estimation that India uses 63% pirated software, while Pakistan's figure is something like 83%. "Their current paradigm is simply to count the number of computers shipped, and multiply this by five, on the assumption that each computer needs five pieces of software. This is a ludicrous way of estimating things," says he. Says he: "Sure, piracy is far high. If everybody somehow started using Linux, we'd fall below the US piracy levels, and maybe have 2% piracy. We want to be ahead of these guys before they start their next 'war on terrorism' (using the issue of 'intellectual property')." Ansari also argues that Pakistan wants the likes of Microsoft to come out with prices that are reasonable. "We want companies like those to also come and invest in the country, where software or drivers could be written here," he argues. Youngsters -- smitten by the power of GNU/Linux -- sing its praises too. Says Zuhair Ali <zuhair_ali(a)yahoo.com> who works in networking and has done his Masters in Physics and Systems Engineering: "I'm interested in Linux because of the fact that in Linux you know what's going on. Nothing is hidden from you behind nice dialog boxes as in Windows. It's a very good toy for me as I can play and tweak as much as I want and I have all the necessary help and information from the Net." Ali informs that earlier this year, he and his friends started a chapter of the PLUC in the national capital of Islamabad. It started small, with just four members. Twenty-two year old Zeeshan Ashraf of Karachi, CTO at the Pakistan-based Specific Research Laboratories <zee_shan56(a)yahoo.com>, says that PLUC colleague Basit has developed a distro called 'PK-Linux'. Ashraf himself is working on developing a distro for the embedded and industrial market "much of the likes of what IBM and Cisco did for their forthcoming hardware". Ashraf is also designing an 'industrial PC' and is "in the process of making a distro for real-time Linux that would go with this PC and and would have all the drivers to support the custom hardware that we ship with this PC". Other Linux enthusiasts however drop hints that it won't be easy convincing all the many decision-makers and government officials to go along with a pro-Linux policy. "The LINUX community is very large, but it needs to be assembled together. PLUC is doing this effort towards bringing all the LINUX user base on a group, so all and everybody can benefit from the experiences of the others, and get their queries answered," says Ashraf. Meetings are held regularly every month, and now PLUC has now undertaken an initiative of spreading the community further by approaching Universities and delivering seminars or conducting workshops, ad educating the students of the endless possibilities of GNU/Linux. But much needs to be done. For one, the potential of GNU/Linux in countries like Pakistan is not fully appreciated globally. Partly, it's a problem with poor communication. Argues Ashraf: "There's mostly no development being done in Pakistan on the OS level. And, even if there are a few people who are doing this, they (don't publicize it). So, since the national community does not know of this endeavour, how can we expect the international market to appreciate this?" He himself has been working to develop a hardware card which will provide the most common network busses for the Industrial developer. Ashraf plans to incorporate all the drivers and APIs for this in the Linux kernel, most probably in the PK-Linux distro too. Zeeshan 'Shan' Ashraf is the IT manager of a pharma company. Says he: "Linux has a lot of potential, and features that can be excellent for Third World (developing) countries like Pakistan. It's free (affordable) and has almost all the same software and hardware-base as does Windows or any other OS for that matter. Pakistan, specially the government-maintained organisations, schools, colleges, hospitals and other institutions can benefit from deploying Linux (as it would provide affordable solutions) and also make it possible to utilise old legacy systems. This would cut costs." ENDS

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None
by None 25 Jul '20

25 Jul '20

On 23 Jun 2002, Gaurav Priyolkar wrote: > Hi Fred, > > Thanks for the continuing encouragement and support. > > The url where our project is available is: > > http://sourceforge.net/projects/glibs > > Could you please post it to the fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in list for > anyone who might be interested, both in using it and helping build it > further. > > Thanks. > > Regards, > Gaurav > > On Sun, 2002-06-23 at 10:56, Frederick Noronha wrote: > > Below is something I had written some time back. Unfortunately, like many > > good projects, the young men involved seem to have got busy with their > > working lives, after finishing college. > > > > Perhaps it would help if, after putting in so much work, such initiatives > > could be taken up in the spirit of free-software/open-source. Unless > > efforts are made to involve bigger teams of people... it won't happen. FN > > > > On Sat, 22 Jun 2002 fsf-friends-request(a)mm.gnu.org.in wrote: > > > > > From: "r_sreekumar " <r_sreekumar(a)rediffmail.com> > > > hello > > > we are looking for a library software (GPL) for my college > > > library. plese inform if anybody have any information. > > > sreekumar

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FOSS in education
by ck raju 27 Jun '11

27 Jun '11

Some of us could add comments here in order to strengthen the efforts of our activists in TN. http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/internet/article2137184.ece -- CK Raju

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Fwd: [FSF India Board] gnu.org translation team needed for Hindi
by Nagarjuna G 24 Jun '11

24 Jun '11

Here is a request from RMS for transalting gnu.org into Hindi. As far as I know a lot of translations happened for Tamil. Similarly while looking for Hindi trnaslators, we may also look for other Indian languages as well. -- GN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Richard Stallman <rms(a)gnu.org> Date: Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 9:19 PM Subject: [FSF India Board] gnu.org translation team needed for Hindi To: fsf-board(a)gnu.org.in Can you find people who would like to make a gnu.org translation team for Hindi? -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation 51 Franklin St Boston MA 02110 USA www.fsf.org, www.gnu.org Skype: No way! That's nonfree (freedom-denying) software. Use free telephony http://directory.fsf.org/category/tel/

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Fwd: [fosscomm] Petition: Request to drop proprietary software from the free laptops to be distributed by the government to students of Tamil Nadu
by Nagarjuna G 22 Jun '11

22 Jun '11

Please sign this petition. some observations: the '/' in GNU/Linux is printed as '\' in the text. which may be corrected. another unfortunate part of the draft is the cost aspect of the initiative is given greater importance in the arguments, and the functional importance of the operating system while comparing GNU/linux with windows. We should take opportunities like this to tell the policy makers that freedom of the user is more important than the cost, while also telling that using free software is incidentally economical as well. I have signed the petition. -- GN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Narendra Sisodiya <narendra(a)narendrasisodiya.com> Date: Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 10:37 AM Subject: [fosscomm] Petition: Request to drop proprietary software from the free laptops to be distributed by the government to students of Tamil Nadu To: Indian FOSS Community Network list <network(a)lists.fosscom.in> FYI ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Alagunambi Welkin <alagunambiwelkin(a)fsftn.org> Date: Tue, Jun 21, 2011 at 9:50 AM Subject: [FSFTN] Petition: Request to drop proprietary software from the free laptops to be distributed by the government to students of Tamil Nadu To: mailinglist(a)fsftn.org Dear Friends, The Government of Tamil Nadu have decided to implement the scheme of free distribution of laptops to students studying Government and Government aided Schools and Colleges, and released a tender to procure 9,12,000 of laptops for the same. By the tender reference: ELCOT/PID/ICB/LTC/PI/2011-12, government wants Proprietary Software to be installed. The decision to include Proprietary OS in the laptops will have a huge impact both on cost and effectiveness of its use in education. There are 9,12,000 laptops being ordered for distribution. Assuming a basic cost of Rs1,000/- per system for the OS license, we find that it will cost the exchequer a whopping 91.2 crore. Incidentally the anti-virus software (the 'twin brother' of MS Windows) is offered as part of the package for just 1 year. This implies that the student will have to either pay to renew the license every year or use a pirated version. Given the weak financial situation of a vast majority of students, especially in rural parts of the State, it is most likely that they would would opt for latter, a highly unethical and unsafe practice. There is also a question mark as to how and where students are expected to renew licenses or anti-virus software. Besides, Microsoft provides support for its products only for a stipulated period; there is no comment on how students would get the assistance once the product is officially withdrawn from market. It is well known now that GNU\Linux can perform all the functions any proprietary OS can do and much more. Most of these laptops will be used mainly to read/edit word documents, browse the internet, multimedia purposes, etc.. All these functions can be accomplished with ease by the available GNU\Linux distributions. Many more educational software are produced by the FOSS community in GNU\Linux platform than any proprietary companies. It is worth mentioning that there are even GNU\Linux distributions available for educational purposes which are packed with lot of software packages required for eduction. So, please sign the petition to give free open source software for the younger generation of Tamil Nadu. http://www.fsftn.org/tn-students-laptop-petition -- Alagunambi Welkin Executive Committee Member Free Software Foundation, Tamil Nadu. Part of - Free Software Movement of India. _______________________________________________ Mailinglist mailing list Mailinglist(a)fsftn.org http://fsftn.org/mailman/listinfo/mailinglist_fsftn.org -- ┌─────────────────────────┐ │ Narendra Sisodiya │ http://narendrasisodiya.com └─────────────────────────┘ _______________________________________________ network mailing list network(a)lists.fosscom.in http://lists.fosscom.in/listinfo.cgi/network-fosscom.in

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Free laptops from TN Govt - Choice of OS
by Anivar Aravind 20 Jun '11

20 Jun '11

Copy pasting a mail from Ilug Chennai List http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/pipermail/ilugc/2011-June/066307.html Friends. On Jun 18, 2011 TamilNadu Govt announced a Tender for "9 lakh" free laptops for the students. Here is the Tender Notice : http://www.tenders.tn.gov.in/pubnowtend/uploaded/TD_elc58921_tn_laptop_sche… http://epaper.dinamalar.com/PUBLICATIONS/DM/MADHURAI/2011/06/18/Article/009… Page 57 in the pdf says that Operating System : Preloaded Dual booting - Windows starter edition with Anti Virus for 1 year license and Linux. These laptop should be loaded with only free open source software and proprietary software should not be used. How can we suggest the TN Govt to avoid the proprietary software ? Please share your thoughts. -- Regards, T.Shrinivasan -- Anivar Aravind

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Welcome to the FOSS India IRC Network
by Vivek Varghese Cherian 17 Jun '11

17 Jun '11

Hi, The FOSS India Internet Relay Chat Network (irc.foss-india.org) is a communications network for friends,well wishers and community members of the Free Culture and Free/Open Source Movement in India. Come join us and have a wonderful and intellectually rewarding chat experience. Regards, -- Vivek Varghese Cherian (विवेक वर्गीस चेरियान) Senior System Administrator RHCSA #100-173-327 Member of USENIX,SAGE,LOPSA,EFF, FSF Associate. Website : http://www.vivekcherian.com Blog: http://www.vivekcherian.net Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/vivekvc Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/vivek.v.cherian IRC: Vivek and ViveKVC on both Freenode and OFTC GPG Key fingerprint = 1EB1 0647 9574 18A3 40B5 8D74 F842 576B 3C2B 8538

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Mini DebConf Kerala 2011 on 22nd, 23rd and 24th April in MES Kuttippuram
by Praveen A 19 Apr '11

19 Apr '11

Hi, A Debian Mini Conference is a gathering of debian folks in an area. We have been having debian meetups for a few years and this time we are planning conferences in 4 cities across India. More about it at http://wiki.debian.org/DebianIndia/MiniDebConf2011 We are starting with Min DebConf Kerala in MES Kuttippuram. This year focus has been to get more people contributing in debian with a special focus on hands on training in creating and maintaining debian packages. We will start with introduction of debian - why it is unique, why debian etc and introduce various tools used in debian. We will have a gpg key signing party - a key component of trust in a distributed community like debian. Then move to packaging a sample application explaining various steps in detail - giving a chance to try it hands on while we explain it. Once packaging session is over, we encourage every one to take up one package and start working on it. We will have people who know packaging to provide help as required. If you are interested register at http://wiki.debian.org/DebianIndia/MiniDebConf2011/Participants Regards Praveen -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ You have to keep reminding your government that you don't get your rights from them; you give them permission to rule, only so long as they follow the rules: laws and constitution.

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freedombox needs your support
by Praveen A 19 Feb '11

19 Feb '11

FreedomBox foundation is raising funds using kickstarter and they are targetting 60000 USD in 30 days. Withing 3 days they got more than 26000 USD and I pledged 100 USD. Minimum is 1 USD (about 45 rupees). So show you care about Freedom and pledge your support. You just need a credit card. If you don't have one yet, find any of your friends who have a credit card and use it. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/721744279/push-the-freedombox-foundati… -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ You have to keep reminding your government that you don't get your rights from them; you give them permission to rule, only so long as they follow the rules: laws and constitution.

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NCAR2010 Valedictory live
by praveen chandrahas 18 Dec '10

18 Dec '10

Hi All, Valedictory session of NCAR2010 live at http://ncar2010.fsmi.in/live -- Regards Praveen Chandrahas Free Software is a matter of freedom, not cost. It is a matter of liberty, not price.

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Live Plenary NCAR2010
by Nidhin Sasi 17 Dec '10

17 Dec '10

Plenary session of NCAR2010 live at : http://ncar2010.fsmi.in/live from 5:30PM onwards

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Новое сообщение
by Vovan 13 Dec '10

13 Dec '10

http://samec.org.ua/

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Language Technology Meetup with Wikimedia team
by Praveen A 10 Dec '10

10 Dec '10

Hi, Danese Cooper who is currently the CTO for Wikimedia, Erik Möller, Deputy Director of Wikimedia Foundation and Alolita Sharma, Engineering Programs Manager, Wikimedia Foundation is visiting Pune from Dec 12-14. They are keenly interested in exploring tools, techniques and approaches they might collaborate on in localizing large-scale content repositories. They can do some brief presentations about what Wikimedia is up to. Wikimedia is looking for contributors in Indian content, open source technologies and growing its community in India. They would like to meet local Indic localization community to talk about the amazing work that they’ve accomplished in Linux and open source localization. Wikipedia needs that kind of help since its community in India has some localization contributors but not enough. Date: : Tuesday, 14-December-2010 10:00 AM IST Venue:: Red Hat Office, Tower 10, Cyber City, Magarpatta City, Hadapsar For registration see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Pune/Pune4 Share this with others who might be interested. Thanks Praveen -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ You have to keep reminding your government that you don't get your rights from them; you give them permission to rule, only so long as they follow the rules: laws and constitution.

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Workshop for women researchers - run up to NCAR 2010
by sarath ms 27 Nov '10

27 Nov '10

Hi friends, Swecha organized a workshop for women researchers and academicians on the theme 'Women in Research - the FOSS paradigm' on Friday 26th November. The workshop was attended by around 165 women working as lecturers, professors and researchers in various engineering and MCA colleges. It was inaugurated by the Vice-Chancellor of JNTU Hyderabad Dr. D. N. Reddy who encouraged women to participate in research and also appreciated the efforts by Swecha in propagating the use of FOSS and wished it success in further endeavors like NCAR 2010. The keynote address was given by Prof. Jayanthi Sivaswamy from IIIT Hyderabad, who is the All India coordinator of the Virtual Labs project of MHRD and heads the Center for IT in Education. She put forward two reasons to consider use of FOSS. One, from the social justice point of view as proprietary software cuts access to lakhs of people who cannot afford the high cost of that software. Two, use of FOSS also makes economic sense as it encourages and involves many more people in the process and thus would be good for the economy of the country. As for concrete application of FOSS in research, she gave the example of how FOSS was much superior in usage for her while developing virtual labs for science. The idea of virtual labs for science was prompted by the lack of proper labs and infrastructure in most of the schools and colleges in Hyderabad. The IIIT is involved in developing these labs and now the union ministry of HRD is asking for similar virtual labs to be developed for engineering colleges also. She pointed out that the use of FOSS in such research projects is growing not only in India but across the world. Prof. K S Rajan of IIIT said that knowledge can grow only when it is shared with others and free software provides the platform for such sharing and enriching of knowledge. In this context he emphasised the importance of peer learning and how it is important to do so at every level of education. He felt that FOSS platform enables the academics and researchers to be updated in their knowledge about their spheres. The workshop had presentations on 'Computing freedom with free software – the Experience of Swecha' by Dr L Pratap Reddy of JNTU Hyd who is also the working chairman of Swecha; a presentation on 'How to use FOSS for research and development' by Ms. Sirisha of Wipro Technologies. There were also testimonials by women from various institutes who used FOSS in their research work and how it helped them to accomplish their goals. The participants set forward an action plan which included setting up FOSS labs in their colleges, creation of Lab Manuals for FOSS tools, conducting workshops for other faculty and students, participating in localization of free software etc. More info & photos at http://ncar2010.fsmi.in/women-researchers-workshop Regards, Sarath M S www.swecha.org

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Announcement: National Convention for Academics and Research
by sarath ms 18 Nov '10

18 Nov '10

Dear Friends, National Convention for Academics and Research (NCAR) 2010 will be held from 16th to 18th December 2010 at Hyderabad. The event is being organized by Free Software Movement of India and hosted by Swecha. FSMI is organizing the first convention to spread awareness of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FOSS/FLOSS) and its usage in Academia/Research communities. The theme for this convention will be "*Computing Freedom in Education, Research and Technology*" The convention provides a platform for sharing of experiences and views, to foster a collaborative approach to education and for improving educational aids including software tools. The convention will see participation of researchers and academicians from colleges and universities across the country including IITs, IISc, IIIT. The FOSS paradigm provides an opportunity to evolve a serious research community with global cooperation. This would also enable in bridging the gap between research-industry and societal demands. An integration for research between academia and industry is not up to the mark as it is in the case of developed nations. This convention shall provide space for faculty and students of Engineering Colleges to learn, interact, and network with their peer groups, leading to a development of a FOSS ecosystem. The convention will focus on a wide range of topics through dedicated track sessions on academic and research areas like scientific computing and visualization, to Indian Language technologies and application specific domains of Mobile, GIS and the like. In addition, it will also host demonstrations, exhibitions, and tutorial sessions for providing hands-on training on Free Software tools in research and education. Swecha and other member organizations of FSMI will be organizing a wide variety of run up events across India in promotion of Free Software and NCAR 2010. There will be workshops, seminars, 'train-the-trainer' sessions. Apart from academicians and researchers, some of these events will be extended to other sections like students, Lab admins, developers, physically challenged users, print and electronic media etc. Swecha has also planned to hold a one-day workshop for women researchers and academicians on "Women in Research - The FOSS paradigm" to bring together like-minded women researchers and academicians to build an ecosystem where one can learn from each others' experiences and works done. Visit http://ncar2010.fsmi.in for Online registration and more details. Regards, Sarath M S. *www.swecha.org ncar2010.fsmi.in*

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Fwd: [gnu-prog-discuss] [en] Linux-2.6.36-libre: turning Linux's Free Bait into Free Software
by Nagarjuna G 13 Nov '10

13 Nov '10

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: info(a)fsfla.org To: anuncios(a)fsfla.org Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2010 08:39:19 -0200 Subject: [en] Linux-2.6.36-libre: turning Linux's Free Bait into Free Software Cyberspace, November 8, 2010---Linux hasn't got any Freer between the Linux-2.6.33-libre announcement, back in March, and the present announcement, that marks the release of Linux-2.6.36-libre. Linux now contains more non-Free Software, and more drivers in its Free core that require separately distributed non-Free Software to function. The welcome news is that Open Source advocates have joined the Free Software Movement in denouncing the practice of Free Bait or Open Core. http://www.fsfla.org/anuncio/2010-03-Linux-2.6.33-libre http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/releases/LATEST-2.6.36.0/ OSI director Simon Phipps writes “Open Core Is Bad For You”, “it's a game on software freedom”, “it's a bait-and-switch, wrapping the same old lock-in in the flag of open source and hoping you won't notice.” Bait-and-switch is a deceptive commercial practice in which one product is announced to attract customers, to sell another instead. http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2010/06/open-core-is-bad-for-yo… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_and_switch OSI director Andrew C. Oliver adds that “Open Core puts the software user at a disadvantage in the same way that all proprietary software puts the user at a disadvantage”, it “is merely a nick-name for a proprietary software company”, and those who imply their “proprietary software is open source or has the advantages of open source are engaging in deception.” http://www.opensource.org/blog/OpenCore http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100704191126134 This agreement between the Free Software movement Freedom campaign and Open Source spokespeople on a matter of principle signals the importance of denouncing this practice. However, most of our community is not aware that Linux has this problem. The most popular GNU+Linux distributions, and most of their user groups, downplay the problem of non-Free parts of Linux. Free Bait, or Open Core as first coined by Andrew Lampitt, is a licensing strategy that combines Free and non-Free Software: the distributor offers, under non-Free terms, premium features that are not available in the Free, typically copyleft, core. The original definition, presented in the context of deriving benefits such as profit or code contributions, may appear confusing because it conflates non-Free with commercial, but Free Bait does not mean selling additional permissions to the same code, letting others offer non-Free extensions, or offering Free extensions to paying customers. Rather, it means that a community member or distributor of the Free core also offers non-Free extensions to go with it. http://alampitt.typepad.com/lampitt_or_leave_it/2008/08/open-core-licen.html http://blogs.the451group.com/opensource/2010/10/20/what-is-open-core-licens… http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/selling-exceptions Sad to say, Linux fits the definition of Free Bait or Open Core. Many believe that Linux is Free Software or Open Source, but it isn't. Indeed, the Linux-2.6.36 distribution published by Mr. Torvalds contains sourceless code under such restrictive licensing terms as “This material is licensed to you strictly for use in conjunction with the use of COPS LocalTalk adapters”, presented as a list of numbers in the corresponding driver, and “This firmware may not be modified and may only be used with Keyspan hardware” and “Derived from proprietary unpublished source code, Copyright Broadcom” in the firmware subdirectory, just to name a few examples. Although the corresponding drivers are part of the Free and GPLed core, the features they are meant to provide will only be available to users that accept the non-Free code that Mr. Torvalds redistributes. The drivers work as bait, luring users into accepting the deprivation of essential freedoms over the corresponding non-Free Software. Most GNU+Linux distributions follow the same practice: they include other freedom-denying programs beyond the kernel Linux, while continuing to associate themselves with the terms Free Software or Open Source. Even if they, Linux included, remove all these non-Free programs, as long as they keep software or documentation that induces users to seek and use non-Free programs, they're still bait. Please join us in bringing these problems to users' attention, and also in informing users about the various Free GNU+Linux distros and Linux-libre, our Free version of the kernel Linux. Available since October 21, Linux-2.6.36-libre is Bait-free Free Software; Linux and GNU+Linux can be de-baited and Free again, if we work together at it. http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/ http://www.gnu.org/distros/ http://www.fsf.org/working-together/ ---- == About Linux-libre Linux-libre is a project maintained by FSFLA, that releases cleaned-up versions of Linux, suitable for use in distributions that comply with the Free Software Distribution Guidelines published by the GNU project, and by users who wish to run Free versions of Linux on their GNU systems. The project offers cleaning-up scripts and Free sources, binaries for some Free GNU/Linux-libre distributions, binaries to replace with minimal changes the kernels in non-Free GNU/Linux distributions: Freed-ebian and Freed-ora, and artwork with GNU and the Linux-libre mascot: Freedo, the clean, Free and user-friendly light-blue penguin. Visit our web site and Be Free! http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/ http://www.gnu.org/distros/ == About FSFLA Free Software Foundation Latin America joined in 2005 the international FSF network, previously formed by Free Software Foundations in the United States, in Europe and in India. These sister organizations work in their corresponding geographies towards promoting the same Free Software ideals and defending the same freedoms for software users and developers, working locally but cooperating globally. http://www.fsfla.org/ ---- Copyright 2010 FSFLA Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this entire document without royalty, provided the copyright notice, the document's official URL, and this permission notice are preserved. Permission is also granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of individual sections of this document worldwide without royalty provided the copyright notice and the permission notice above are preserved, and the document's official URL is preserved or replaced by the individual section's official URL. http://www.fsfla.org/anuncio/2010-11-Linux-2.6.36-libre-debait

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Contribute to Chamba Swathanthra Cinema project
by Praveen A 10 Nov '10

10 Nov '10

"I will contribute 500 Indian Rupees (or 10 USD) to Chamba Swathanthra Cinema Project but only if 100 other people will do the same." — Praveen Arimbrathodiyil, Coordinator for Chamba Project Deadline to sign up by: 1st January 2011 18 people have signed up, 82 more needed More details Chamba project (http://www.chambaproject.in) is an ambitious effort to create a Swathanthra (Free/Libre) Animation Movie by pooling in contributions from people around the world and funding artists directly. A donation system will be setup at http://www.chambaproject.in/contribute/ when we are ready to accept money. -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ You have to keep reminding your government that you don't get your rights from them; you give them permission to rule, only so long as they follow the rules: laws and constitution.

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[ANN][X-Post] SciPy India 2010 Call for Papers & Participation
by Kadambari Devarajan 03 Nov '10

03 Nov '10

========================================== SciPy 2010 Call for Papers & Participation ========================================== The second SciPy India Conference (scipy.in) will be held from December 13th to 18th, 2010 at IIIT-Hyderabad (http://www.iiit.ac.in/). Scipy.in is a conference providing opportunities to spread the use of the Python programming language in the Scientific Computing community in India. It provides a unique opportunity to interact with the "Who's who" of the Python for Scientific Computing fraternity and learn, understand, participate and contribute what is happening in the realms of Scientific Computing using Python. Attendees of the conference and participants of the sprints planned will be able to access and review the tools available, apart from learning domain-specific applications and how the tools apply to a plethora of application problems. One of the goals of the conference is to combine education, engineering and science with computing through the medium of Python and thereby extrapolate on how powerful Scientific Computing is in various fields and among different communities. At this conference, novel applications and breakthroughs made in the pursuit of science using Python are presented. Attended by leading figures from both academia and industry, it is an excellent opportunity to experience the cutting edge of scientific software development. The conference is followed by three days of tutorials and code sprints, during which community experts provide training on several scientific Python packages. We invite you to take part by submitting a talk abstract or register as a participant on the conference website at: http://scipy.in Talk/Paper Submission ===================== We solicit talks and accompanying papers (either formal academic or magazine-style articles) that discuss topics regarding scientific computing using Python, including applications, teaching, development and research. Papers are included in the peer-reviewed conference proceedings, published online. Please note that submissions primarily aimed at the promotion of a commercial product or service will not be considered. Important Dates =============== Wednesday, Nov. 10: Abstracts Due Monday, Nov. 15: Schedule announced Sunday, Dec. 05: Proceedings paper submission due Monday-Tuesday, Dec. 13-14: Conference Wednesday-Friday, Dec. 15-17: Tutorials/Sprints Saturday, Dec. 18: Sprints The invited speakers ================== * Fernando Perez -- PhD from University of Colorado. Currently at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. Original author and leader of the IPython project for interactive computing (http://ipython.scipy.org), and member of the Python Software Foundation. * John Hunter -- Ph.D. from University of Chicago. Currently at Tradelink, Inc. Chicago. Original author and lead developer of the scientific visualization package *matplotlib*. * Perry Greenfield -- PhD, MIT. Currently at Space Telescope Science Institute, Maryland, USA. Has pioneered the use of Python in astronomy. He and his group have developed PyRAF, numarray (the precursor to current numpy capabilities), PyFITS and involved with the development of matplotlib. * Prabhu Ramachandran -- PhD, IIT Madras. Currently a faculty member at IIT Bombay. He is the co-founder of the Indian Linux User Group - Chennai (ILUGC) and is the creator and lead developer of the (FOSS-India-award-winning) Mayavi and TVTK Python packages ( http://code.enthought.com/projects/mayavi). Currently heads the FOSSEE ( http://fossee.in) project. * Stéfan van der Walt -- PhD, Stellenbosch University, SA. Currently a researcher and lecturer in Applied Mathematics at Stellenbosch University. One of the developers of the NumPy and SciPy packages. * Jarrod Millman -- Member of the SciPy steering committee and an active contributor to both the NumPy and SciPy projects. He is the acting managing director and the director of computing for UC Berkeley's Neuroscience Institute, where he helped found the Neuroimaging in Python (NiPy) project. * Satrajit Ghosh -- PhD Boston University. Currently a faculty member of the Speech and Hearing Biosciences and Technology program, Harvard-MIT. He is managing the development of the NiPy project (http://nipy.org/nipype/). * Asokan Pichai -- Head - Software Engineering at TalentSprint. Consultant/Project manager for the Python group of the FOSSEE project. He has immense experience in the field of training and instructional design. Organizers ========== * Jarrod Millman, Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, USA (Conference Co-Chair) * Prabhu Ramachandran, Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Bombay, India (Conference Co-Chair) * FOSSEE Team * EnhanceEdu Team About Python ============ Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented, open source, extensible programming language. It combines clarity and readability, making it an extremely powerful language that can be used for various applications and problems. Python is simple and easy to learn and apply. It offers an interactive environment in which to explore procedural, functional and object oriented approaches to problem solving. Its high level data structures, extensive documentation and clear syntax make it an ideal first language, while the large number of existing libraries make it suitable to tackle almost any programming tasks. Its simplicity makes it easy to adapt to multiple educational domains. Python has several libraries that enable numeric and symbolic computing. It also interfaces well with native codes in C,C++ and FORTRAN and has excellent libraries for plotting/visualization. Python also provides libraries for general purpose computing including generating user interfaces and web development. These, coupled with it's interactive interpreter, make Python an excellent language for Scientific Computing. All these features when combined with their wide-ranging applications make Python a perfect fit for use in Education, Industry and Scientific Computing. Registration Fees =============== Registration, accommodation and food are offered at highly subsidized rates for teachers and students, while registration and food will be offered to all conference participants at subsidized rates. Details about the fees can be found at: http://scipy.in/scipyin/2010/about/fees/ Publicity ======== The posters can be downloaded from the website : http://scipy.in/scipyin/2010/publicity/ Contact ======= Feel free to email the organizers at info(a)fossee.in

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WikiPedia like project
by Abhijith V R 01 Nov '10

01 Nov '10

hi fsf buddies, I've got a project requirement from one of my clients, that they require a wikipedia like repository + blogging + forum + other popular site integrations. Considering their requirements I've decided to take up, TIKIWIKI one of the popular applications available (as "mediawiki" doesn't have a pleasing interface and not much expandable). I need suggestions from ma community guys, regarding other such applications Or please let me know if anyone here, who could help me out with this project and its future upgrades using tikiwiki. Myself is new to tikiwiki, but i preferred it as it had a huge list of features. Expecting a quick response. -- *regards,* *Haxter *

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Check out my photos on Facebook
by Sunil Thomas 26 Oct '10

26 Oct '10

Hi Fsf-friends, I set up a Facebook profile where I can post my pictures, videos and events and I want to add you as a friend so you can see it. First, you need to join Facebook! Once you join, you can also create your own profile. Thanks, Sunil To sign up for Facebook, follow the link below: http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=1413340340&k=Z2D6ZZWXQ5TF6BD1PJ6TRPWQVWIB4U… Already have an account? Add this email address to your account: http://www.facebook.com/n/?merge_accounts.php&e=fsf-friends%40gnu.org.in&c=… ======================================= fsf-friends(a)gnu.org.in was invited to join Facebook by Sunil Thomas. If you do not wish to receive this type of email from Facebook in the future, please follow the link below to unsubscribe. http://www.facebook.com/o.php?k=8c034c&u=100001808346252&mid=330e53bG5af37c… Facebook, Inc. P.O. Box 10005, Palo Alto, CA 94303

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Electronic Voting Machines and Free Software (Was Re: Sign an Open Letter to the CJI in Support of Prashant Bhushan)
by Praveen A 29 Sep '10

29 Sep '10

2010/9/28 Satish Babu <sb(a)inapp.com>: > This is not about the petition, but I'm wondering if there is a link > between Free Software and EVMs. > > If I remember right, the original debate was if EVMs could be > demonstrated to be tamper-proof. > > EVMs are some kind of computers, and consist of hardware and software > (in this case, firmware). The question of establishing if an EVM is > tamper-proof *can* be resolved if the community has access to the > source code of the firmware. After all, if the community has > sufficient skills to contribute to the Linux kernel, we surely have > the competencies to audit/inspect the source code of the EVM. > > As a community, shouldn't we be therefore calling for public scrutiny > of the source code of the EVM? How do you make sure every EVM actually has the binary compiled from the source code you inspected? How do you know if the storage card is not replaced? There are much more issues than just source code. The biggest concern, is there is no back up, and you cannot verify it independently unlike a paper ballet. -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ You have to keep reminding your government that you don't get your rights from them; you give them permission to rule, only so long as they follow the rules: laws and constitution.

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Fwd: [hipatia] video of Lalitha Prasad uploaded
by Juan Carlos Gentile Fagundez 29 Sep '10

29 Sep '10

-- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gutta cavat lapidem --------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.hipatia.net - http://aty.hipatia.net - http://guri.c-o-d-e-x.net marroncito.hipatia.info Italia - tel: +39 3929657778 - India - +91 8129860036 - Uruguay +598 099 945009 jabber: jucar(a)hipatia.net email: jucar at hipatia.net , jucar at roar.music.columbia.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fingerprint: 7464 DDDE 9D5D 3B6C CBF9 7699 A021 CE74 EA7A D95A Public key 0xEA7AD95A at http://pgp.mit.edu

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LibreOffice
by ck raju 29 Sep '10

29 Sep '10

If true, LibreOffice would be a nice name, a pretty good hack, a soft answer to corporates who think they can control Free Software and a fine piece of art at work. -- CK Raju

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Sign an Open Letter to the CJI in Support of Prashant Bhushan
by V. Sasi Kumar 28 Sep '10

28 Sep '10

I have just read and signed the online petition: "Sign an Open Letter to the CJI in Support of Prashant Bhushan" hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition service, at: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/CJI/ I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might agree, too. Please take a look, and consider signing yourself. Best Sasi -- V. Sasi Kumar Free Software Foundation of India http://swatantryam.blogspot.com

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rms video of Kozhikode
by Juan Carlos Gentile Fagundez 28 Sep '10

28 Sep '10

Finished uploading the v0 of the RMS video in Kozhikode conference. you can find it at: http://streaming.hipatia.net:8000/video/confedu/rms_v0.ogv you will find also coming the following days all the conferences there as well as other material in http://streaming.hipatia.net best juan -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gutta cavat lapidem --------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.hipatia.net - http://aty.hipatia.net - http://guri.c-o-d-e-x.net marroncito.hipatia.info Italia - tel: +39 3929657778 - India - +91 8129860036 - Uruguay +598 099 945009 jabber: jucar(a)hipatia.net email: jucar at hipatia.net , jucar at roar.music.columbia.edu -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fingerprint: 7464 DDDE 9D5D 3B6C CBF9 7699 A021 CE74 EA7A D95A Public key 0xEA7AD95A at http://pgp.mit.edu

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Sign an Open Letter to the CJI in Support of Prashant Bhushan
by Raj Mathur (राज माथुर) 28 Sep '10

28 Sep '10

On Tuesday 28 Sep 2010, Juan Carlos Gentile Fagundez wrote: > [ot] linux-dheli ? do you have a group for the kernel stuff or is a > gnu-linux group? No, it's not kernel only, it deals with the Linux Operating System. And no, it's not a GNU/Linux user group either. We choose to call the OS Linux, and we don't stop people from calling it GNU/Linux on the list or at meetings and events, if they so choose. To clarify in advance, I'm not interested in participating in a discussion on the relative merits/demerits of OS names -- I've already said what I wanted to say on that topic many years ago on this list. Anyway, I have to get back to composing my next e-mail to this list on some issue that I feel strongly about. How does "Indian Free Software Activist Needs Cash to Buy Car to Popularise Software Freedom" sound? I feel really strongly about that one, and I'm sure I can find some friends on this list who would support me (specially the ones who live nearby and hope to hitch rides). Regards, -- Raj -- Raj Mathur raju(a)kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5 0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F PsyTrance & Chill: http://schizoid.in/ || It is the mind that moves

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Give money to Free Software Supporter
by Raj Mathur (राज माथुर) 28 Sep '10

28 Sep '10

Raj Mathur is a well-known supporter of software freedom in India. His old Cross pen has reached EOL, and since he's too lazy to go to the authorised Cross repair shop ad get it fixed/replaced, he needs to buy a new one. Cost of a new Cross pen is in the vicinity of Rs 3000. Please donate generously to the cause of Raj Mathur's Cross, with which he will be able to sign more commercial contracts for producing GPL software, thereby increasing the amount of free software in the world and, more specifically, in India. Donations may be made by MO to Raj Mathur. LIMITED TIME OFFER! All donators will receive, ABSOLUTELY FREE OF COST, a GPG-signed thank- you e-mail from RAJ MATHUR HIMSELF! HURRY AND DONATE NOW! OFFER OPEN FOR ONLY A FEW DAYS! -- Raj Mathur raju(a)kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5 0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F PsyTrance & Chill: http://schizoid.in/ || It is the mind that moves

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DocumentFoundation , LibreOffice
by Narendra Sisodiya 28 Sep '10

28 Sep '10

penOffice.org Community announces The Document Foundation The community of volunteers developing and promoting OpenOffice.org sets up an independent Foundation to drive the further growth of the project The Internet, September 28, 2010 - The community of volunteers who develop and promote OpenOffice.org, the leading free office software, announce a major change in the projectâs structure. After ten yearsâ successful growth with Sun Microsystems as founding and principle sponsor, the project launches an independent foundation called "The Document Foundation", to fulfil the promise of independence written in the original charter. read more... http://www.documentfoundation.org/lists/announce/msg00000.html -- ┌─────────────────────────┐ │ Narendra Sisodiya │ http://narendrasisodiya.com └─────────────────────────┘

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Patents and Innovation Density !!
by ck raju 28 Sep '10

28 Sep '10

"...Patents are the conventional measure of innovation. Despite their various weaknesses, patents represent a systematic, quantitative measure of innovation and are used by economists as the single dominant measure of innovation. But, as with other measures, economists tend to measure them on a per capita basis. *Innovation Density: *Our measure of innovation density is patents per square kilometer. The map below shows the density of innovation based on this measure. The median density of innovation is .008 patents per square kilometer. The densest metros have more than .4 patents per square kilometer, while the least dense have fewer than .001...." http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/09/the-density-of-innovati… ----------------------- Wonder whether the results would have been any different if the investigator had looked at Patents and European-closet density !! -- CK Raju

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[ANN][X-Post] SciPy 2010 Call for Papers & Participation
by Kadambari Devarajan 23 Sep '10

23 Sep '10

========================================== SciPy 2010 Call for Papers & Participation ========================================== The second SciPy India Conference <http://scipy.in> will be held from December 13th to 18th, 2010 at IIIT-Hyderabad <http://www.iiit.ac.in/>. At this conference, novel applications and breakthroughs made in the pursuit of science using Python are presented. Attended by leading figures from both academia and industry, it is an excellent opportunity to experience the cutting edge of scientific software development. The conference is followed by two days of tutorials and a code sprint, during which community experts provide training on several scientific Python packages. We invite you to take part by submitting a talk abstract or register as a participant on the conference website at: http://scipy.in Talk/Paper Submission ===================== We solicit talks and accompanying papers (either formal academic or magazine-style articles) that discuss topics regarding scientific computing using Python, including applications, teaching, development and research. Papers are included in the peer-reviewed conference proceedings, published online. Please note that submissions primarily aimed at the promotion of a commercial product or service will not be considered. Important Dates =============== Monday, Oct. 11: Abstracts Due Saturday, Oct. 30: Schedule announced Tuesday, Nov. 30: Proceedings paper submission due Monday-Tuesday, Dec. 13-14: Conference Wednesday-Friday, Dec. 15-17: Tutorials/Sprints Saturday, Dec. 18: Sprints Organizers ========== * Jarrod Millman, Neuroscience Institute, UC Berkeley, USA (Conference Co-Chair) * Prabhu Ramachandran, Department of Aerospace Engineering, IIT Bombay, India (Conference Co-Chair) * FOSSEE Team

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

22 Sep '10

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

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