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The Free Software hardliner, the corporation, and the shotgun wedding
by Praveen A 20 Jan '08

20 Jan '08

We called it Free Software at first. It wasn't until we started calling it Open Source that the punditry line counts began creeping up higher than the code line counts. We had this baby and we were proud of it, and the deep rooted insecurity born of being the ridiculed and utterly misunderstood underdogs made us require the approval of business and Grandma Bessie before we could ourselves be satisfied. Well, now we've got it, and in some ways Open Source is not better off because of it. Thanks to the cavorting evangelists in the Ubuntu community who were converted on the strength of a cheaply-gotten sense of technical superiority over their peers who still use Windows 98, "Free" is now a dirty word since it stands so often in the way of converting more people, faster. Free Software wasn't originally meant to be a cult with a membership statistics monkey on its back; the idea was, like, to be "Free." Full story http://www.linux.com/feature/124564 -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Qt released under GPLv3
by Praveen A 20 Jan '08

20 Jan '08

"I first read the GNU Manifesto from the Free Software Foundation back in 1987 and it forever shaped the way I viewed software. We at Trolltech are proud to continue serving the free software community by allowing software developers to choose which GPL version they want to use." Eirik Chambe-Eng, co-founder of Trolltech http://trolltech.com/company/newsroom/announcements/press.2008-01-18.160159… Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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[campaign] My Fair Copyright for Canada Principles
by Praveen A 19 Jan '08

19 Jan '08

My Fair Copyright for Canada Principles http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2572/125/ With the continued interest in Canadian copyright reform - the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group has grown to over 38,000 members and the local chapters across the country are gaining significant momentum - the most frequently asked question I receive is "what do you think fair copyright reform looks like?" In other words, we know that tens of thousands of Canadians oppose a Canadian DMCA, but what kind of reform would or should they support? 1) Take the Copyright Pledge. 2) Anti-circumvention provisions should be directly linked to copyright infringement. 3) No ban on devices that can be used to circumvent a TPM. 4) Expand the fair dealing provision by establishing "flexible fair dealing." 5) Establish a legal safe harbour for Internet intermediaries supported by a "notice and notice" takedown system. 6) Modernize the backup copy provision. 7) Rationalize the statutory damages provision. 8) Include actual distribution in the making available right. Can we have a campaign similar to this in India? Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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FSF-I Ratna Award
by CK Raju, Thrissur 18 Jan '08

18 Jan '08

Friends, The person/group behind the move of providing all the Judges of India with a Laptop pre-loaded with Free Software deserves a FSF-I Ratna Award. Do we have any idea as to the brainchild of this project ? CK Raju

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Linuxchix Bangalore meeting
by Vikram Vincent 16 Jan '08

16 Jan '08

Hello, LinuxChix is a community for women who like Linux<http://www.getgnulinux.org/>and Free Software <http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html>("free as in freedom"), and for women and men who want to support women in computing. The membership ranges from novices to experienced users, and includes professional and amateur programmers, system administrators and technical writers. The local chapter http://linuxchix.org.in will be having its Bangalore meeting on Date:19th(Saturday) January, 2008 Time:15:00hrs Venue: Christ College, Bangalore, Block 2, (one of the classrooms or kiosk or where ever comfortable) This meeting is being co-organised by the Computer Science department of Christ College(Autonomous), Bangalore. Please do attend. -- Vikram Vincent Christ College(Autonomous), Bangalore +919448810822

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Excellence is not an public measurement
by Omshiva prakash 13 Jan '08

13 Jan '08

This is an anecdote that was shared by a person who is my God father. A beautiful attitude in life. Read it. you will recognize why? Here it is : A gentleman was once visiting a temple under construction. In the temple premises, he saw a sculptor making an idol of God. Suddenly he saw, just a few meters away, another identical idol was lying. Surprised he asked the sculptor, do you need two statutes of the same idol. No said the sculptor. We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage. The gentleman examined the statue. No apparent damage was visible. Where the damage is? asked the gentleman. There is a scratch on the nose of the idol. Where are you going to keep the idol? The sculptor replied that it will be installed on a pillar 20 feet high. When the idol will be 20 feet away from the eyes of the beholder, who is going to know that there is scratch on the nose? The gentleman asked. The sculptor looked at the gentleman, smiled and said, "The God knows it and I know it ". The desire to excel should be exclusive of the fact whether someone appreciates it or not. Excellence is a drive from Inside not Outside. Cheers!!!!!!!!! By TrouseredApe, http://www.trouseredape.com Bala (TrouseredApe): this anecdote applies to the open source movement -- -- -- "A well-directed imagination is the source of great deeds" -- With Best Regards, Omshivaprakash.H.L WebPage : http://platonic.techfiz.info Phone: 91- 9902026518 / 9343726518

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The Origins of FSF India
by Frederick Noronha [फ़र ेदरिक नोर ोनया] 11 Jan '08

11 Jan '08

The Origins of FSF India C V Radhakrishnan started a one-man unit for typesetting documents, and grew it into a company that now employs 150 people and is today rated No.1 by Elsevier Science for typesetting their journals. Radhakrishnan also played an important role in establishing FSF India, and his firm, River Valley Technologies, uses only Free Software. V. Sasi Kumar of the Centre for Earth Science Studies talked to him about the journey with Free Software this far. LFY: We understand that your company River Valley Technologies is doing business using TeX. How did you happen to become acquainted with TeX? I started learning TeX to escape from the hardships of a motor neuron disease that afflicted me when I was 25. I was working at the Kariyavattom campus of the University of Kerala. In the evenings, students used to come to me for help in preparing documents including papers, theses and reports. It was at that time that Professor K.S.S. Nambooripad of the Department of Mathematics came back from the United States with a set of floppy disks containing TeX/LaTeX, which he encouraged his students to learn about TeX. Prof Nambooripad also encouraged me to learn the TeX language since it would fit well into my scheme of things. A detailed account of this is provided at http://www.tug.org/interviews/interview-files/river-valley.html LFY: When was this? This was in the late eighties. LFY: How did you happen to start River Valley Technologies? TeX interested me. Since I had abundant free time, I learnt this classic text-processing language, and also started exploring the possibilities of making a living out of it. Surprisingly, I had a very large quantum of text-processing work from the university, which I couldn't handle single-handed. On the other hand, I was not organised enough to run a full-fledged company on a commercial scale, nor had the entrepreneurial skills to do so. However, when the pressure of work and the demand for services escalated, I decided to open up a company along with my two younger brothers (Rajendran and Rajagopal). Thus River Valley Technologies came into existence on the premises of the Software Technology Part (STP) in Trivandrum on the New Year of 1994. LFY: Were you using Free Software at that time? No, I did not know about Free Software at that time. We had a few computers that ran on DOS, and were networked with Novell Netware. We knew about UNIX, which was a much more powerful operating system, but we didn't have the resources to buy UNIX. LFY: Then how did you come to use Free Software? That was a sheer accident. A young man who used to supply our hardware, once told me that there was something called Linux, which was very similar to UNIX, but was equally good. He also gave me a CD with Linux. We experimented with it. Those were the formative days of Linux and it was very difficult to even install the system. But we eventually did succeed, and replaced DOS and Novell Netware with Linux. From that time onwards, we have never looked back, nor have we used a proprietary operating system. LFY: Do you remember which distribution it was? Was it the one distributed by 'PC QUEST'? The first distribution I tried was provided by my 'hardware friend' -- it was Slackware. Our company's complete switch-over to Linux took place with the release of Red Hat Linux 4.0. LFT: At that time did you know about the philosophy of Free Software, or were you just using it as another kind of UNIX? I did not know about the philosophy of Free Software at that time. The only Free Software I knew was TeX. The term 'free' meant only 'gratis' to me in those days. It was much later that we learned about freedom in software. LFY: Then how did you come to learn about the philosophy of Free Software? There were two factors that familiarised us with the freedom aspect of Free Software. The first one was the inauguration of the Indian TeX User Group at Trivandrum in 1998, which brought us closer to many Free Software communities in other parts of the globe. Our acquaintance with several activists like Karl Berry of the TeX Users Group and Sebastian Rahtz of the UK TeX users Group was instrumental in getting familiarised with the Free Software philosophy. Second, during the incorporation of FreeDevelopers.Net, a commercial company based in Washington with proposed branches all over the world, there was a very serious discussion about the Free Software philosophy and its fitness for commercial activities. Rajagopal (River Valley), Anil and Rajkumar (Linuxense), Arun (Space-Kerala) and I -- who were instrumental in the formation of the Trivandrum GNU/Linux Users Group -- were also very active in the FreeDevelopers.Net, of which Richard Stallman was the chief ethical officer. Needless to say, we gathered enough and more information about all the aspects of Free Software, including its ethical stance. LFY: Your group decided to start an Indian Free Software Foundation. How did this happen? That was primarily because of the apparent success of FreeDevelopers.Net in the initial phase and the proximity of Richard Stallman to clear any theoretical doubts. The Indian branch of FreeDevelopers.Net was registered as a commercial company in India under the Companies Act, and indeed, it was successful in winning a few projects from organisations that favoured Free Software. While we enjoyed the backing of these organisations in the form of projects, we thought it would promote the cause of Free Software if we had an Indian chapter of the Free Software Foundation. The idea was deliberated at length with the board of FreeDevelopers.Net and as you can imagine, it gained immediate acceptance. LFY: How did you happen to invite RMS to inaugurate FSF India? That was the organic and natural sequel of the events described in my answer to the previous question. LFY: Are you still involved in propagating Free Software? Do you still have links with FSFI? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that we do fund and maintain http://sarovar.org, an Indian portal for hosting Free Software projects. We also fund several other projects of the TeX User Group like LuaTeX, which is the newest incarnation of Knuth's TeX that is going to replace the default TeX compiler very soon; the TeX Gyre project, which is an ambitious font project of the Polish TeX Users Group, which has contributed fourteen LaTeX packages to the Comprehensive TeX Archive Network and still maintain those packages, etc. However, I am not as active as I was a few years ago. The very reason that brought me into TeX and the Free Software world -- perennial muscular dystrophy -- has started pulling me back from active life. My mobility is extremely limited; I spent most of my time at home. Of course, the Internet comes to my rescue. LFY: As a person using Free Software for a decade, do you see any future for it in business? Yes, indeed! I think people can hardly avoid free Software, whether it is in business or personal computing. In this context, it is worth mentioning a recent development in the text-processing world. As you may be aware, most text processing companies use 3B2, a proprietary typesetting for academic journal typesetting. A company named Arbortext recently acquired Advent (which owned 3B2). People were a bit scared, but Arbortext reassured users saying that they would support and continue 3B2. But within six months, Arbortext was acquired by another CAD/CAM company. The new owners were silent about the continuance of the 3B2 system. People are really scared now, and the belief that proprietary systems are more reliable than Free/open stuff has vapourised. Some companies have already started development centres for TeX in India, which is good news for TeXies and some have repented for not using free alternatives. I have had a few requests for consulting too, but declined owning to my own tight schedules. This incident has opened the eyes of many to the hazards of depending on proprietary software in business. LFY: Can you tell us something about your company? how many people work there? Are you getting sufficient work? River Valley Technologies is one of the nine suppliers to Elsevier Science, the world's largest academic journal publishers. We have been recently adjudged the No 1 supplier by Elsevier -- for quality, technology and meeting schedules. It is a credit to free software and a fitting answer to people who claim that only proprietary software can bring success to companies engaged in commercial-grade production. The Institute of Physics Publishing, Cambridge University Press, and Nature Publishing Group are some other clients, listed in the decreasing order of the size of their accounts with us. We are reasonably popular in the text-processing industry, where TeX is used. And therefore, we do not have any dearth of work. We have a team of over 150 people now and plan to expand our operations to Vietnam with the help of Han The Thanh, who is the primary author of pdfTeX and part of our company ### -- Copyright 2007 V Sasi Kumar. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution, No-derivative 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/ V Sasi Kumar is a scientist at the Centre for Earth Science Studies, and is also a member of the Free Software Foundation, India. LINUX FOR YOU, www.linuxforu.com DECEMBER 2007 issue, pp 34-35. -- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph +91-832-2409490 Links from Goa: http://goalinks.livejournal.com/

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Aaron Seigo talking bluntly about KDE 4
by Praveen A 06 Jan '08

06 Jan '08

It is not just about KDE, it is applicable to any Free Software project and some points will help us when we here the same questions asked. http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2008/01/talking-bluntly.html Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Fwd: [ifsa] Great story on the Asus EEE PC
by Praveen A 05 Jan '08

05 Jan '08

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Christian Einfeldt <einfeldt at gmail.com> Date: २००८ जनवरी ५ ११:०४ Subject: [ifsa] Great story on the Asus EEE PC To: Digital Freedom Global Activists <independentfreesoftwareactivists at binaryfreedom.info> hi, This is a really great story about how the Asus EEE PC is commoditizing Microsoft's lunch. Unfortunately, it appears that paid Microsoft consultantsare already trying to bury it as "inaccurate", but it's of course highly accurate. This is a great opportunity to help keep a good story afloat on digg. http://digg.com/linux_unix/The_Most_Hated_Company_In_the_PC_Industry see ya -- Christian Einfeldt, Producer, The Digital Tipping Point -- IndependentFreeSoftwareActivists mailing list IndependentFreeSoftwareActivists(a)binaryfreedom.info http://www.binaryfreedom.info/mailman/listinfo/independentfreesoftwareactiv… List rules: http://www.binaryfreedom.info/?q=node/48 BinaryFreedom social cause: http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/dcm.html -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Emacs.net?
by Praveen A 04 Jan '08

04 Jan '08

"There are two kinds of emacs users: those who start up emacs in a top-level window and use M-x shell to do shell work, and those who live in tcsh/ksh/bash and crank up emacs -nw to take over their console/terminal window. "I was always in the former camp, and I believe that's the design point for Doug (Purdy)'s project. If you look up and down our hallway, all other remaining emacs users are in that former camp as well." Microsoft "Chief Modeling Officer" Don Box Full story http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1069 It is interesting to see Microsoft now realising the power of many tools which we take fro granted in Unix or GNU/Linux. Shell - > Microsoft Power Shell Glade -> Avalon (XML to describe UI) and now Emacs? Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Fwd: Nokia Internet Tablet Amazon's "Best of 2007"
by Praveen A 28 Dec '07

28 Dec '07

Good to see a gadget powered by Free Software becoming a best seller. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Peter Robinson <pbrobinson at gmail.com> To: maemo-developers at maemo.org Hi All, Thought you may be interested that Amazon has released its "Best of 2007" in different sections (most sold by quantity, most wanted etc) and Nokia's Internet Tablet's featured in list of the bestselling products on Amazon.com in 2007 by total units sold for the Computers sections: Computers: Nokia Internet tablet PC http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/index.jsp?epi_menuItemID=88756… Well done all. Pete _______________________________________________ maemo-developers mailing list maemo-developers(a)maemo.org https://lists.maemo.org/mailman/listinfo/maemo-developers -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Debian Live switched to GPL3+.
by Praveen A 22 Dec '07

22 Dec '07

Hi, http://git.debian.org/?p=users/daniel/live-helper.git;a=commitdiff;h=042354… Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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School Admin
by Sarath Lakshman | ശരത്ത് ലക് ഷ്മണ് 18 Dec '07

18 Dec '07

Hi friends, Recently I have written an application which can be used in the schools in kerala as student admission register as per Kerala Educational Rules [KER]. This would make tasks such as T.C issuance, finding details about students etc easier. Checkout http://code.google.com/p/school-admin Platforms: GNU/Linux , M$ Windows Comments please :) -- Sarath Lakshman http://sarathlakshman.info

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Taking a look... at some recent developments in Urdu computing (from BytesForAll, South Asia)
by Frederick Noronha [फ़र ेदरिक नोर ोनया] 17 Dec '07

17 Dec '07

BYTESFORALL: A LOOK AT SOME URDU DEVELOPMENTS... Some useful and interesting links from the UrduComputing mailing list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/urdu_computing URDU NVU RELEASE Huda Sarfraz huda.sarfraz(a)nu.edu.pk: The current release of the Nvu localization includes the Urdu Nvu installer for Windows, which has it's GUI in Urdu. Work to be done for future releases includes changing the layout direction of Urdu Nvu to right-to-left. For download and installation details, please go to Urdu Nvu Windows Installer. http://www.crulp.org/software/localization/OSS/NVu.html Nvu (pronounced "N-view") is a WYSIWYG HTML editor, based on the Composer component of Mozilla Application Suite and Gecko 1.7. It is a common WYSIWYG editor for Linux and is intended to be an open source equivalent to proprietary software like Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver (although to date it is missing many features they possess). As a WYSIWYG editor, it is designed to be easy for novice users and does not require any knowledge of HTML or CSS to use. The project was started by and sponsored by Linspire. Linspire hired Daniel Glazman, former Netscape Communications Corporation employee and CEO/Founder of Disruptive Innovations, to be lead developer. Nvu is available for Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows, and it can be built successfully on any platform with the Netscape Portable Runtime. (Source: Wikipedia) * * * ONLINE DICTIONARY: Aijaz Akhtar aijazakhtar(a)rediffmail.com: A very good Dictionary is now available on line. Its huge database, Unicode nature, and Nafees Web Naskh font give it an edge over other on line dictionary sites. Visit here: http://www.urduenglishdictionary.org/ [Works fine in FireFox 2.0.0.9, on Windows XP-SP2 with Urdu fonts and phonetic keyboard installed for MS Office. When doing Urdu to English search, you will need to switch your keyboard to Urdu from the language bar.] * * * GNU/LINUX WINDOW MANAGER xfce IN URDU: Aijaz Akhtar aijazakhtar(a)rediffmail.com: Very good news. A low end yet powerful window maker for Linux is now translated into Urdu by Makki. XFCE may not be as beautiful an interface as KDE or Gnome for Linux, yet it is powerful and consumes less processor power and is light on RAM requirements, making it suitable even on a pentium-1 or 2 machine with 400-500 MHZ processor (Correct me if I am wrong). So now one can download this, and configure your Linux (with XFCE preloaded, since it is not bundled with in some Linux disros) to use Urdu interface of Linux. Download presently from here: http://www.4shared.com/file/28497917/a3c84cdc/xfce_441_Urdu_Translation_by_… Soon to be uploaded in the download section of http://urduweb.org. Mohammed Ali Makki had already translated and made available Urdu Slax earlier that is available here: http://www.urduweb.org/mehfil/local_links.php?catid=19 * * * HINDI TO URDU TRANSLITERATOR: Abdur Radhid: arnandan(a)yahoo.com A beta version of Hindi to Urdu Transliterator is available on line. Please give your feedback. Visit here: http://hindi2urdu.tripod.com COMPILED IN PUBLIC INTEREST BY: * * * TYPING IN URDU, UBUNTU ETC: Ali Hussnain Shah: hussnain_shah(a)gmx.net as a starting point you can use crulp's Urdu Layout for Linux at http://www.crulp.org/software/localization/keyboards/linuxphonetickb.html There should be one text file containing the key mappings. You can us it to learn and change it as you like and use that on linux. After you have developed a standard keyboard and if this should be included in all Linux distributions, submitting it to xorg (opensource implementation X Window System, on which KDE,Gnome are based) would be better.. their mailing list is at http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xorg After submission to xorg it will be included in all linux distributtions (debian, suse, ubuntu ...) as soon the distribution uses a new version of the X system. I think Sergey Udaltsov is responsible for handling of the X input system there in the list. * * * PAKTYPE NASKH BASIC FONT: Lateef Sagar Shaikh lateef_sagar(a)yahoo.com: I have created PakType Naskh Basic 1.0 font, which is available at: https://sourceforge.net/projects/paktype http://groups.yahoo.com/group/paktype/files/NaskhBasic/1.0/ This font supports following languages: Amazigh, Arabic, Balochi, Balti, Berber, Brahui, Burushaski, Farsi, Fulani, Gojri, Hausa, Hindko, Kalami, Kanuri, Kashmiri, Khowar, Kurdish, Ladakhi, Maba, Malay, Mandinka, Ormuri, Pashto, Pathwari, Punjabi, Saraiki, Shina, Sindhi, Somali, Swahili, Torwali, Turkish, Urdu and Uyghur and others. This font is free for distribution and modification under GPL. Glyphs taken from ArabEyes.org font KacstQurn, having following copyright notice; KACST holds the copyright of the included Arabic font which is donated under GPL by KACST. URW Design and Development holds the copyright of the included Latin font which is donated under GPL by URW. * * * LIGATURE-BASD NASTALEEQ WRITING SYSTEM: Sarmad Hussain sarmad.hussain(a)nu.edu.pk: In 1980 Mr. Ahmad Mirza Jamil developed a ligature based Nastaleeq writing system. He has written about 18,000 valid ligatures of Urdu and developed a Noori Nastaliq font. Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing (CRULP) is releasing a soft copy of these ligatures in Unicode format. CRULP has extensively used these ligatures for testing the fonts developed at the center and realised that it will be a valuable resource for other font developers. These ligatures are grouped in 2 to 8 characters and are sorted in the end character order. The ligatures can be downloaded from www.crulp.org. Reference: "Noori Nastaliq computerised Urdu calligraphy (list of ligatures)," calligraphically designed and compiled by Ahmad Mirza Jamil, Elite Press, Karachi. * * * URDU AND PHOTOSHOP CS2: Imran Ahmed imran1(a)optonline.net: Why Urdu isn't supported in Photoshop CS2: http://en.allexperts.com/q/Adobe-Photoshop-1028/Urdu-Images-Photoshop.htm * * * SEVERAL KEYBOARD LAYOUTS: Imran Ahmad imran1(a)optonline.net: For the past couple of years I have been trying to find easy way to type in Urdu on computer. For these reasons I tried several Urdu keyboard layout such as pakUrdu, Bhurgri, NLA, Phonetic, phonetic-2, Ishaque, Olympia, Urdu Mahir, and MS_UR_KB. The fact that there are so many Urdu keyboard layouts while not having any standard set, made it more complex to achieve my goal. Finally I end up sticking with Microsoft Urdu keyboard, but the options for clear fonts type still lacks. -- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph +91-832-2409490 Links from Goa: http://goalinks.livejournal.com/

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Fwd: [IP] Open source software developers sue Verizon; Claim FiOS violates GPL
by Frederick Noronha [फ़र ेदरिक नोर ोनया] 13 Dec '07

13 Dec '07

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: David Farber <dave(a)farber.net> Date: 12 Dec 2007 19:15 Subject: [IP] Open source software developers sue Verizon; Claim FiOS violates GPL To: ip <ip(a)v2.listbox.com> Begin forwarded message: From: dewayne(a)warpspeed.com (Dewayne Hendricks) Date: December 11, 2007 3:52:07 PM EST To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <xyzzy(a)warpspeed.com> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Open source software developers sue Verizon; Claim FiOS violates GPL Open source software developers sue Verizon; Claim FiOS violates GPL Information Week By Paul McDougall In what could become a major test case for the most widely used open source software license, a group that represents open source developers has sued Verizon Communications -- claiming that the telecom giant's FiOS broadband service violates the terms of the GNU General Public License. In court papers filed Friday, The Software Freedom Law Center maintains Verizon's use of an open source program called BusyBox in FiOS violates version 2 the GPL because Verizon has not made the product's source code available to its customers--as the license requires. Since November 2006, "Verizon has distributed to the public copies of the firmware in the infringing product, and none of these distributions included source code to BusyBox or offers to provide such code," SFLC alleges in its complaint, which was filed in federal court in New York. <http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=2048… > ------------------------------------------- Archives: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now RSS Feed: http://v2.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/ Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com -- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph +91-832-2409490 12000+ downloadable, sharable hi-res photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/ PLEASE READ, a story on what's possible when there's a marriage between the Right to Information and media: The Indian Navy's deadly aircraft (The Mint) http://www.livemint.com/2007/11/26013747/The-Indian-Navy8217s-deadly.html

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[Fwd: <NO>OOXML: Your action is required: Contact BIS now!]
by Sunil Mohan Adapa 07 Dec '07

07 Dec '07

Dear Friends, I've recieved the following mail this morning asking to act on gathering supporters and on finding out who is representing India in the Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) for OOXML (deadline for selection is Dec 11). Hope you all signed the petition. -- Sunil Mohan -------- Original Message -------- Subject: <NO>OOXML: Your action is required: Contact BIS now! Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2007 18:59:22 +0100 From: Benjamin Henrion <bhenrion(a)ffii.org> To: sunilmohan(a)fsf.org.in Dear Sunil Mohan Adapa, You signed the <NO>OOXML petition, a movement backed now by more than 70.000 supporters worldwide. Our effort to influence the OOXML (Office Open XML) standardization process has been an astonishing success so far. We aim for at least 100.000 signatures in February when the Geneva Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) will convene with the aim to resolve comments. Microsoft is trying by all means to get its "standard" adopted without substantial changes despite of its thousands of officially reported technical flaws and the pre-existence of ISO 26300:2006 (OpenDocument, ODF) as the most appropriate international standard for the representation of office documents. By next Tuesday Dec 11 2007 delegates from your National Standards Body BIS who will participate in the BRM have to be announced to ISO. At least Portugal and Ireland will be represented by Microsoft. In many other countries, we know that Microsoft gold partners are proposing themselves as heads of national delegations. Many of them will prevail if we do not take action. Will you let Microsoft represent your country at Geneva and decide the future of OOXML? You can make a difference and call now BIS at +91-1123237991 and help us to find out: a. Who will represent BIS on DIS 29500 at the Ballot Resolution Meeting in Geneva? b. When will the decision on delegates be made and if BIS is aware of the Dec 11 deadline? c. Does your national delegates for the BRM are independent enough from Microsoft? d. Does the responsible Committee of BIS for DIS 29500 work on resolution proposals for all the 3500 comments tabled or - if at all - only for the national comments that they submitted? Please report your findings by replying to this email, we will update this page with the members of each national delegation: http://www.noooxml.org/brm More things that you can do to help our effort against this broken standard proposal: 1. Join our mailing list and get in touch with many other activists: http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/noooxml-club 2. Become a member of FFII, the worldwide association leading the <NO>OOXML campaign: http://action.ffii.org/member_application 3. Become a member of DIGISTAN, the organization for the promotion of true digital open standards worldwide; please indicate your interests to: members(a)digistan.org 4. Blog about OOXML which shapes the public debate; blogging has been instrumental to our success in Sweden for example; 5. support our campaign work with financial means: http://www.noooxml.org/donations Best regards, -- Benjamin Henrion <bhenrion(a)ffii.org> <NO>OOXML Campaign leader

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Govt in tie-up with MS launches SWARAJ to manage panchayats
by CK Raju, Thrissur 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

Swaraj - "Swa" here is Microsoft and "raj" should be Government. Even with all the pomp and gaiety that followed the new *radical* IT Policy of the Government, the following were the papers forwarded to the XIV Science Congress from IKM (Information Kerala Mission aliter Information of Kerala for Microsoft). The papers are http://220.227.128.112/downloads/ikm/CaseStudy20060622.pdf http://220.227.128.112/downloads/ikm/Sevana.pdf http://220.227.128.112/downloads/ikm/Sulekha.pdf This shows the potency of Microsoft even as it reveals the impotency and helplessness of the IT Department in our State. CK Raju Thrissur On Nov 28, 2007 10:25 AM, Santhosh Thottingal <santhosh.thottingal(a)gmail.com> wrote: > From http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Govt_in_tie-up_with_MS_launche… > > > NEW DELHI: The government on Tuesday launched an integrated software > application for managing panchayati raj system in the country. > > The application titled SWARAJ was launched by the Union Minister for > Panchayati Raj Mani Shankar Aiyar at the Microsoft - Government > Leadership Summit in the capital on Tuesday. > .... > This application would help overcome the problems of multiple > applications and absence of proper Management Information Systems > (MIS), thus making the process of technological implementation in > rural area easier and more transparent. > ... > > > What is meant by Swaraj?!!!! > > -Santhosh Thottingal > http://santhoshtr.livejournal.com > _______________________________________________ > Fsf-friends mailing list > Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in > http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends >

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Govt in tie-up with MS launches SWARAJ to manage panchayats
by Santhosh Thottingal 28 Nov '07

28 Nov '07

>From http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Govt_in_tie-up_with_MS_launche… NEW DELHI: The government on Tuesday launched an integrated software application for managing panchayati raj system in the country. The application titled SWARAJ was launched by the Union Minister for Panchayati Raj Mani Shankar Aiyar at the Microsoft - Government Leadership Summit in the capital on Tuesday. .... This application would help overcome the problems of multiple applications and absence of proper Management Information Systems (MIS), thus making the process of technological implementation in rural area easier and more transparent. ... What is meant by Swaraj?!!!! -Santhosh Thottingal http://santhoshtr.livejournal.com

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[CROSS-POSTED] Re: National Policy on ICT in Education
by Raj Mathur 21 Nov '07

21 Nov '07

On Thursday 18 October 2007 13:57, H.S.Rai wrote: > If any one want to send some suggestions. This is important enough to me, and presumably to a number of other people on these lists. I have started putting my thoughts down on the web, and invite anyone who wants to contribute to add to them (it's on a Wiki): http://wiki.linux-delhi.org/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Main/NationalICTEducation The document is still quite preliminary and I'm hoping that people more qualified than me will take some time and help fill in the copious blanks. Insh'allah some of the ideas that we come up with would be able to influence the forthcoming policy in a positive direction. I have just one request, which is to avoid jingoistic anti-MS statements that may end up making the whole document unpalatable to policy makers (this is specifically aimed at the Linux/FOSS community ;) Here the subtle knife may be preferable to the blunt hammer. Note that you will have to register on the Wiki before you can edit the page. Your account details will remain confidential. Regards, -- Raju -- Raj Mathur raju(a)kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ Freedom in Technology & Software || February 2008 || http://freed.in/ 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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test mail.
by Anurag 12 Nov '07

12 Nov '07

This is a test email from new list server. please ignore.

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List downtime notification.
by Anurag 11 Nov '07

11 Nov '07

Hello! We are shifting our mailing list to another data center on tomorrow, 12th November. Mailing list services may remain unavailable tomorrow till evening as the MX records get updated. Anurag

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wanna meet some fsf-friends
by shirish 04 Nov '07

04 Nov '07

Hi all, I'm just a noob/newbie in the world of fsf. While I have been using ubuntu for last 4-5 yrs. in an individual capacity for desktop use & part of the local LUG (Pune Linux Users Group - PLUG) as well. I came to know about fsf-india couple of years back. then as time went by & I saw FSF's work rising & doing good stuff in South my interest was piqued. So on the auspicious eve of upcoming Diwali in a few days I'll be traveling up north, Delhi, Jaipur, Ajmer, Pushkar meeting friends as well as relatives for many years. If the same occasion presents itself for meeting some fsf-friends it would be nice. I would be travelling from 2nd Dec. to 24th Dec. I know its bad timing with foss.in also happening during those days but that's the way the cookie crumbles. So if there are going to be any LUG meets or any way to meet up with people please lemme know. Regards, -- Shirish Agarwal This email is licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ 065C 6D79 A68C E7EA 52B3 8D70 950D 53FB 729A 8B17

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(no subject)
by Muralidharan Nair 31 Oct '07

31 Oct '07

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UK schools warned off M$ deal.-BBC
by Vikram Vincent 26 Oct '07

26 Oct '07

"The UK computer agency Becta is advising schools not to sign licensing agreements with Microsoft because of alleged anti-competitive practices. " http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7063716.stm -- Vikram Vincent +919448810822 http://www.swatantra.org/

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Fwd: [blug-non-tech] MS sneaks in Patent Tax in Anti-trust ruling
by Praveen A 25 Oct '07

25 Oct '07

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Vinayak Hegde <vinayakh at gmail.com> Date: २००७ अक्तूबर २४ १३:०२ Subject: [blug-non-tech] MS sneaks in Patent Tax in Anti-trust ruling To: linux-bangalore-non-tech at yahoogroups.com I am surprised no one is discussing this. http://press.ffii.org/Press_releases/EU_tells_open_source_to_start_paying_M… -- Vinayak -- Before posting to this list, read the list rules FIRST! http://blug.in/list-rules -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Fwd: [ifsa] RMS: Learn to share!
by Praveen A 24 Oct '07

24 Oct '07

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: rek2GNU/Linux <rek2 at binaryfreedom.info> Date: २००७ अक्तूबर २४ ०४:३४ Subject: [ifsa] RMS: Learn to share! To: Independent Free Software Global Activist <independentfreesoftwareactivists at binaryfreedom.info> Stallman: Students Should Be Taught to Share With The Class Sun, 2007-10-21 10:41 — dcp Richard Stallman, in receiving an honorary Doctorate from Italy's University of Pavia, brought back memories of the basic primary school principle that students bringing cookies to class should bring enough for everyone. In his speech, Richard Stallman discussed how innovation can impact individuals and society for better or for worse. He pointed out the negative innovation of bringing criminal charges against fishermen for rescuing distressed migrants at sea. Such innovations directly affect our freedom. Stallman went on to pose the question he considers most vital when considering technological innovations: "How does this affect our freedom? How does this affect our social solidarity?" He then addressed the issue of non-Free developer as dictator, exerting total control over software and its users. Stallman attacked Windows Vista, Apple, and Google Earth as examples of how companies attempt to restrict users' freedom with respect to software. Stallman emphasized the two freedoms that seem most important of the Four Fundamental Freedoms: the freedom to help your neighbor and the freedom to contribute to your community. Combined with the other two freedoms, users can exert more control over the direction of innovation in software. He reminded his audience that by exerting dictatorial control over the software, developers then have the ability to spy on users, without regard for the user's privacy, freedom or even the law of the land. And there is nothing users can do about it. He then went on to mention that Yahoo and Hotmail have been blocking e-mail from TruthOut.org from reaching subscribers who use their services. In separate news, Verizon Wireless came under attack for the same kind of behavior with respect to its phone services. Thus, the ability to exert such control can easily lead to direct attacks on Freedom of Speech. Free Software prevents such things from happening. Stallman went on to highlight the special connection between Free Software and educational institutions. For those who recall teachers admonishing students to bring enough cookies to share with the class, Stallman similarly admonished educational institutions: "So every school should bring only Free Software to class, and set an example with its software of the practice of disseminating human knowledge while building a strong, capable, independent and free society. And encouraging the spirit of good will, of helping other people." In Stallman's view, the mission of any educational institution is to teach students to be strong and independent, rather than dependent. Thus, schools should make it an objective to reject the "shiny new chains" of Windows Vista, and other non-Free software, and migrate to Free Software, as part of their overall mission. "Other Universities are doing this or have done it: you can do it too. You only have to reject social inertia as a valid reason for going deeper and deeper into the pit.", he said. -- IndependentFreeSoftwareActivists mailing list IndependentFreeSoftwareActivists(a)binaryfreedom.info http://www.binaryfreedom.info/mailman/listinfo/independentfreesoftwareactiv… List rules: http://www.binaryfreedom.info/?q=node/48 -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Save Kannada what?? (Was:Log out of Microsoft tie-up, say open software advocates)
by Vikram Vincent 19 Oct '07

19 Oct '07

Hello, I was a bit tied up for the last few days and could not give my attention to this issue and hence the late reply. <quote> FREE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION OF INDIA 18th Oct 2007 Trivandrum PRESS RELEASE *Save Kannada From Microsoft's Monopoly* ====================================== http://www.gnu.org.in/node/129 <...> </quote> I am a bit surprised that FSF-I has sent out a press release with a title that is nothing short of promoting linguistic chauvinism. When the draft was released by Omshivaprakash I raised the following points: <quote> A few thoughts about the letter: 1. The main points of the letter - gives adequate focus on the Kannada language aspects, talks about "lock-in" and benefit of free software. 2. Can a few point about the ODF vs. OOXML and India's stand on the issue be added? I think this is very relevant to the situation. 3. Can we increase the emphasis of quality of localisation with free software. 4. Maybe quote a few points from the IOSN webpage http://www.iosn.net/ on why developing countries such as India would find it more advantageous to use FOSS based solutions. While the language issue would stir our passions, on its own it would not present a compelling case since Free s/w Kannada localisation is also still backward. Hope these points are taken into consideration when finalising the letter(if this a draft). </quote> The issue at hand is more related to the 'ISO standards' and 'healthy business practises' rather than 'language' and FSF-I's press release should have reflected that. The FSF should always ensure that its stand on any issue conforms to certain scientific rationale and cannot and should not promote any petty interests but should focus on convincing people logically. The language argument that has been raised does not hold water because the free software localisation to Kannada also is still very backward. Our only hope is that free software promotes a healthy evolution of the system with quality and quantity. While the "Save Kannada campaign" is not under FSF-I, I would like to urge them too to address the intellect rather than the baser human emotions. The only was to protect any language is to ensure that a strong local economy is generated around it. This can happen only when the knowledge is localised and sufficient trained labour can be developed around it. Then, capital by the businesses along with pro-people government policies along with constant pressure by the people will ensure that the economy grows healthily and only then will that language survive else it will end up like Sanskrit, Latin, Pali and others. Thank you, Regards -- Vikram Vincent +919448810822 http://www.swatantra.org/

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[bangalore] LAMP workshop, would like to meet a few FSF friends.
by krishnakant Mane 17 Oct '07

17 Oct '07

hello friends, I am Krishnakant Mane from Mumbai. I am doing knowledge research and working on the SELF Project in TIFR with Dr. Nagarjun. I am also an independent free software consultent and an advocate of free software. I am coming to Bangalore for a LAMP workshop which has now turned more into a free software orientation workshop. I will be doing this at R.V.C.E. campus so I will be interested to meet a few fsf friends. the workshop is on 18th and 19th. so hope to see a few of my freedom fighter friends out there. if any one would like to contact me, plese note down my mobile number. 09820310472. any contribution like soft copy books of free software or on any related topics is more than welcome. regards, Krishnakant.

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Fwd: [itf2006] National Policy on ICT in Education: Call for Suggestions/ Recommendations / Position Papers - Last Date October 25
by Frederick Noronha [फ़र ेदरिक नोर ोनया] 17 Oct '07

17 Oct '07

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Vignesh <vignesh(a)csdms.in> Date: 15 Oct 2007 16:07 Subject: [itf2006] National Policy on ICT in Education: Call for Suggestions/ Recommendations / Position Papers - Last Date October 25 To: INDIAN TELECENTRE FORUM 2006 <itf2006(a)dgroups.org> Dear Group Members, We take this opportunity to invite you to participate in the national consultative process for developing a National Policy on ICT in Education on behalf of the Department of Education, Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD), Government of India. The Department of Education, MHRD invites you to submit your recommendations/suggestions/position papers, to assist the Ministry to formulate a National Policy on ICT in Education. Please find the announcement details below. Your support and encouragement is vital to the whole process and we look forward to it. For more information contact: Rachita Jha Research Associate, digital LEARNING Monthly Print Magazine www.digitallearning.in CSDMS,Noida Uttar Pradesh- 201301, India rachita(a)csdms.in Tel: +91 120 2502180 to 87 Fax: + 91 120 2500060 NATIONAL POLICY ON ICT IN EDUCATION CALL FOR SUGGESTIONS/ RECOMMENDATIONS / POSITION PAPERS The Department of Education, Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD), Government of India is currently developing a National Policy on ICT in Education. Global e-Schools and Communities Initiative (GeSCI) and Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS) will provide strategic support in this process. This process consists of drafting policy objectives, guidelines, practices and knowledge tools to support the implementation of the policy across all states and union territories of India. This critical task would be approached by ensuring an active stakeholder participation at all levels of formulation and implementation. A national consultative and collaborative process, to understand the needs, challenges, and issues of the states and union territories, is indispensable for formulating an inclusive and holistic policy. This will ensure that the policy represents the views and aspirations of various stakeholders, acts as a guiding document for the States to adapt it according to their local requirements, and meets the Education Goals of the country. The Department of Education, MHRD invites you to submit your recommendations/ suggestions/ position papers, to assist the Ministry to formulate a National Policy on ICT in Education. Through this call for recommendations/ suggestions/ position papers, we solicit inputs from leaders and visionaries in international agencies, industry, academia, NGOs and government to identify the needs, gaps, challenges, and issues of ICTs in Education sector in India and to contribute to the goal of defining a road map for building a National Policy on ICT in Education. Submission of position papers Position papers/ inputs are solicited on the following aspects of developing the policy framework for ICT in school education. 1. Articulate a progressive vision, objectives, guidelines and promising directions for building the ICT in Education Policy Framework 2. Identify challenges that must be addressed in the forthcoming Policy Document 3. Propose innovative approaches and solutions for building a forward-looking road map/master plan for ICT in Education Format and Deadlines 1. Last date of submission October 25, 2007. 2. Submissions can be made either by mail or in type written formats .Please limit your contributions to no more than 2000 words 3. Provide brief bio and contact details of the contributing members of the suggestions / position paper. 4. You may choose to respond to one, two or all of the topics of the framework of the policy outlined above. 5. Submissions may be made by email to: rachita(a)csdms.in Print submissions may be sent to: Rachita Jha, Research Associate, CSDMS, G-4 Sector 39, NOIDA 201301. Tel: +91-120-2502180-85 Dgroups is a joint initiative of Bellanet, DFID, Hivos, ICA, ICCO, IICD, OneWorld, UNAIDS and World Bank --- You are currently subscribed to itf2006 as: fred(a)bytesforall.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-itf2006-797309U(a)dgroups.org -- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph 0091-832-2409490 List of Indian e-lists http://wikiwikiweb.de/MailingListsInIndia

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Research papers solicited for ICIST 2007
by CK Raju 15 Oct '07

15 Oct '07

Friends, As part of publishing premier research conducted in the area of Free Software and allied fields, <a href="http://mesengg.ac.in/icist2007.htm">ICIST 2007</a> (International Conference on Information Systems and Technology) solicits research papers from scholars. Last date for accepting full paper is 01 Nov 2007. The list of international reviewers for the conference is at http://mesengg.ac.in/icist-b.htm Please spread the word. Regards, CK Raju

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omshiva is your Yaar! :)
by omshiva 13 Oct '07

13 Oct '07

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Log out of Microsoft tie-up, say open software advocates
by Omshiva prakash 12 Oct '07

12 Oct '07

Check the report http://www.hindu.com/2007/10/12/stories/2007101254810600.htm For full story read the Hindu news paper . -- Omshivaprakash | ಓಂಶಿವಪ್ರಕಾಶ್ | ओं शिवप्रकाश् "A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth." TechFiz :::eXcluding eRrors::: Web: <http://www.techfiz.info> http://www.techfiz.info Ircname : techfiz @ irc.freenode.net Phone: +91 9343726518 +91 9343866368 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQBHDpm27OA72yfkJqMRAsSHAJ95Uwd3D8oKoGE4yYsvCL9g5m36KwCfc29d JwxzCE1B0wizl04DgtS7JOE= =hIVl -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Eben Moglen interview in Frontline
by james mathew 10 Oct '07

10 Oct '07

http://frontline.in/stories/20071019507610000.htm -- HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE!

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OpenStreetMap project ... and India
by Frederick Noronha [फ़र ेदरिक नोर ोनया] 08 Oct '07

08 Oct '07

Dear IndiaGII, Rolf Kleef <rolf(a)drostan.org> drew attention to the OpenStreetMap project and wrote something of relevance to our part of the world. Rolf commented as below, but meanwhile could you please help to take these initiatives ahead, if you see something good coming of it? --FN PS: Apologies for cross-posting, just trying to build the links... Rolf Kleef <rolf(a)drostan.org> wrote: - The Dutch company AND has provided their data on Dutch roads, and that data is now included on www.openstreetmap.org. And there seems to be an import underway of public domain data for the US (could take months to complete). - AND said they will also donate their data for China and India (which covers major roads only). I'm copying a message I found with possible contacts, and especially want to point out possible work by FSF India on uploading map data via SMS and possibly developing free GPS devices. I don't know anything further about this. Maybe Frederick or others in APC have access to more information? It could be a valuable development to enable more participation worldwide. /-- Kind regards, /--- Rolf. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [OSM-dev] OSM, AND & India Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 09:50:20 -0700 (PDT) From: Mikel Maron <mikel_maron(a)yahoo.com> To: Ante Wessels <ante(a)ffii.org>, dev(a)openstreetmap.org, Schuyler Erle <schuyler(a)geocoder.us> CC: OpenStreetMap NL discussion list <talk-nl(a)openstreetmap.org> Newsgroups: gmane.comp.gis.openstreetmap.devel,gmane.comp.gis.openstreetmap.region.nl Hi Ante I'm also very interested in mapping India. A couple notes on those data sources... I've talked to Schuyler about this, he's one of the organizers of the Mumbai Freemap. Mumbai Freemap is an impressive data set -- it covers all of Mumbai, from digitized municipal documents. Issue is that it's currently not in a form usable for OpenStreetMap. The digitization was done in CAD, and is pretty directly a trace of those original documents. For example, both sides of the road are drawn precisely, but there's not single object representing the road itself. So a second workshop would need to be organized, to transform the current freemap into OpenStreetMap. Technically this is quite simple -- the mumbai freemap can serve WMS, which can be read into JOSM. In JOSM, that imagery is retraced in the "OSM way". It's a lot of work, but my impression is that there's a lot of people in Mumbai willing to work very hard on this, and that with some organizational effort it's entirely doable. I'd be up for helping on this. AND in India is basically VMAP0. So we're talking major roads, somewhat out of data, but no detail within cities. VMAP0 contains other layers like rail, not sure if that's included in the AND data set. When I was last in India, VMAP0 was actually pretty decent for major roads, though anything built within the last few years was missing. Still a good start, and since that import path is already worked out for the NL data, it makes a lot of sense to push that ahead too. Mikel ----- Original Message ---- From: Ante Wessels <ante(a)ffii.org> To: dev(a)openstreetmap.org Cc: OpenStreetMap NL discussion list <talk-nl(a)openstreetmap.org> Sent: Monday, September 17, 2007 12:59:47 AM Subject: [OSM-dev] OSM, AND & India I met Nagarjuna G, chairman of the FSF India. One of the projects he is working on is open map data in India. They are experimenting with things like uploading tracks via sms. They would like to buy gps chips and build their own devices. Especially in Mumbai mappers are active. I told him AND offered the main roads of India to OSM. He was very interested. I'm rather ignorant about OSM's international contacts, so I just tried google. This seems to be the project Nagarjuna talked about: http://mumbai.freemap.in/ These pages suggest there are already contacts between openstreetmap.org and mappers in India: http://www.freemap.in/ http://wiki.freemap.in/moin.cgi/HbcseWorkshop The second one mentions the openstreetmap editor JOSM. Actually, I see his name as a workshop leader there too. If JOSM is used in India too, it should be doable to exchange data. India is rather empty on our map yet: http://www.informationfreeway.org/?lat=15.686938643550643&lon=76.8613690285… Converting the AND data should be rather straithforward since we already have a conversion script. Intergrating it may be not too much work since most of our map is empty. It will be more difficult to integrate it with data collected by the India project. But that is where it starts to become interesting. vriendelijke groet, cordialmente, Ante _______________________________________________ dev mailing list dev(a)openstreetmap.org http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/dev ======================================= APC Forum is a meeting place for the APC community - people and institutions who are or have been involved in collaboration with APC, and share the APC vision - a world in which all people have easy, equal and affordable access to the creative potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to improve their lives and create more democratic and egalitarian societies. _______________________________________________ apc.forum mailing list apc.forum(a)lists.apc.org http://lists.apc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/apc.forum -- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph 0091-832-2409490 List of Indian e-lists http://wikiwikiweb.de/MailingListsInIndia

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Re: [FSUG-Bangalore] Join your hands with us
by Vikram Vincent 06 Oct '07

06 Oct '07

Hello, On 06/10/2007, Omshiva prakash <omshivaprakash(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > Microsoft has for long ignored issues relating to Kannada on their > Operating Systems. Despite several movements, campaigns to bring the issues > to Microsoft's attention, things have just been the same. What more? To push > its own standards and grab monopoly, Microsoft has signed a "Letter of > Intent" with Government of Karnataka recently. > > Implications? many! Microsoft would get an unfair edge in the state > despite its negligence towards Kannada language. > A few thoughts about the letter: 1. The main points of the letter - gives adequate focus on the Kannada language aspects, talks about "lock-in" and benefit of free software. 2. Can a few point about the ODF vs. OOXML and India's stand on the issue be added? I think this is very relevant to the situation. 3. Can we increase the emphasis of quality of localisation with free software. 4. Maybe quote a few points from the IOSN webpage http://www.iosn.net/ on why developing countries such as India would find it more advantageous to use FOSS based solutions. While the language issue would stir our passions, on its own it would not present a compelling case since Free s/w Kannada localisation is also still backward. Hope these points are taken into consideration when finalising the letter(if this a draft). With fraternal greetings, -- Vikram Vincent +919448810822 http://www.swatantra.org/

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Sign the FSF campaign: Free Software Free society
by Anivar Aravind 04 Oct '07

04 Oct '07

Story on new internationalist magazines http://www.newint.org/columns/essays/2006/11/01/software/ New FSF Campaign: Free Software Free society http://www.freesoftwarefreesociety.org/ -- Anivar Aravind http://anivar.movingrepublic.org/about

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Say Libre :-)
by Frederick Noronha [फ़र ेदरिक नोर ोनया] 03 Oct '07

03 Oct '07

>From a friend in South Africa. --FN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Kim Tucker <KTucker(a)csir.co.za> Date: 4 Oct 2007 01:16 Subject: Say Libre :-) To: fred(a)bytesforall.org Hi Fred, How is everything? This might interest you (and your friends): http://communities.libre.org/philosophy/saylibre Keep well and in touch Kim -- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph 0091-832-2409490 List of Indian e-lists http://wikiwikiweb.de/MailingListsInIndia

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FLOSS in schools: a query (and seeking your help)
by Frederick Noronha [फ़र ेदरिक नोर ोनया] 03 Oct '07

03 Oct '07

Dear all: I'm working on a paper on Free/Libre and Open Source Software in Schools and would be grateful if you could point me to useful links about such ventures, where it has been used successfully or otherwise. A draft paper (work-in-progress) of what I've put together so far can be read at http://www.divshare.com/download/2205748-36f Your suggestions, comments and critique is welcome. Thanks in advance for any help you could offer. FN PS: Thanks to all who have offered links already... -- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph 0091-832-2409490 List of Indian e-lists http://wikiwikiweb.de/MailingListsInIndia

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[Fwd: [ilugd] Revoking/Objecting to Software Patents in Indian Patent Office]
by Anivar Aravind 03 Oct '07

03 Oct '07

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [ilugd] Revoking/Objecting to Software Patents in Indian Patent Office Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 16:02:56 +0530 From: Saurabh Nanda <saurabhnanda(a)gmail.com> Reply-To: The Linux-Delhi mailing list <ilugd(a)lists.linux-delhi.org> To: The Linux-Delhi mailing list <ilugd(a)lists.linux-delhi.org>, GNU/Linux Users Group, Mumbai, India <linuxers(a)mm.glug-bom.org> http://spicyipindia.blogspot.com/2007/09/spicyip-tidbits_23.html India, prima facie, does not allow pure software patents or business method patents. But that doesn't stop companies from trying. The Indian Patent Office is already being flooded with the patents described as "A web based system to do XYZ" or "A computer system in conjunction with XY to do Z" With no one opposing them (and not enough noise about this, like in the case of pharma patents), there's a high probability that this would get granted. Does anyone know of a concerted effort to keep this kind of cruft out from our country? Any pointers? Nandz. -- Anivar Aravind moving Republic Peringavu.P.O Thrissur-18 Kerala http://anivar.movingrepublic.org/about

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blender compared with other 3D tools - pretty good
by Praveen A 03 Oct '07

03 Oct '07

"If you ever wanted starting in 3D creation today, you probably need to know with which 3D applications package with you will feel better and which is the most suitable for you and business ? Many new CG artists try many softwares before really starting their 3D business, that's of courses the best solution to try out and know if you feel coMfortable with one than other, so after you can't know all specs of all 3D softwares when starting in 3D... Here is a comparison table with cons. and pro. for the most know today top industries 3D applications. This table isn't intended to be complete with all softwares features available but try to surround the common today 3D cg artist tasks." Full review http://www.tdt3d.be/articles_viewer.php?art_id=99 Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Fwd: list of audio software
by Frederick Noronha [फ़र ेदरिक नोर ोनया] 25 Sep '07

25 Sep '07

Could someone offer help and advice on this? FN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: sajan venniyoor <venniyoor(a)gmail.com> Date: 21 Sep 2007 11:28 Subject: Re: list of audio software To: abhijit(a)mudeth.org, Ramnath Bhat <ram(a)voicesindia.org>, Frederick FN Noronha <fredericknoronha(a)gmail.com> Cc: "N. Ramakrishnan" <nram(a)ideosyncmedia.org>, Seema Nair <s.nair(a)unesco.org> Dear Abhijit, Ram, Fred, Along with the CR Technical Manual, we'd like to provide community radio groups with free audio software. In his presentation at Pondicherry, Abhijit had mentioned Audacity but of course there's lots more available as free downloads. I have drawn up a rough list (see below) of audio software, but Ram of Ideosync points out that some of them are not very user-friendly. Could we test some of these (and others like Ubuntu Studio that Ideosync Ram has mentioned) pick out the best for our CR people? It would be a very useful resource that we could club with the Technical Manual and offer to CR groups. Let me know what you think. warm regards, Sajan > > > Audacity: Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ > > ZaraRadio: ZaraRadio is a free radio automation system (a 'playout' system). It operates on Windows (but not on Vista). It's not stated whether it works on Mac OS or Linux. http://www.zararadio.com/index.php?centro=main.php&lang=en > > Campcaster: Campcaster is a free and open source radio management software. It has been designed for a Linux environment, but could possibly be used on other platforms in future. http://www.campware.org/en/camp/campcaster_news/605/ > > Ardour: Ardour is an open source digital audio workstation and can be used to record, edit and mix multi-track audio. http://ardour.org/ > > Sweep: Sweep is an audio editor and live playback tool for GNU/Linux, BSD and compatible systems. http://www.metadecks.org/software/sweep/index.html > > ReSound: ReZound is an open source and graphical audio file editor primarily for but not limited to the Linux operating system. http://rezound.sourceforge.net/ > > Rivendell: It is a complete radio broadcast automation solution, with facilities for the acquisition, management, scheduling and playout of audio content for GNU/Linux operating system. http://www.rivendellaudio.org/ > > Jokosher: Jokosher is a simple yet powerful multi-track studio which can be used to create and record music, podcasts etc. http://www.jokosher.org/ > > NGO-in-a-Box: Offers a variety of FOSS audio software. http://audiovideo.ngoinabox.org/?q=taxonomy/term/142 > > > Pro Tools: Pro Tools Free is a free version of Pro Tools for Mac. It is a digital audio workstation used for music production, post production etc. http://www.download.com/Pro-Tools-Free/3000-2182_4-3296394.html -- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph 0091-832-2409490 List of Indian e-lists http://wikiwikiweb.de/MailingListsInIndia

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[X-POSTED] First GPL violation filed in USA
by Raj Mathur 25 Sep '07

25 Sep '07

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The first lawsuit for GPL violation in the USA has been filed yesterday against Monsoon Multimedia, who were distributing busybox without making the source code available. This appears to be primarily a precedent-setting action, since MM had already acknowledged that they were using GPL source code in their product(s). If SFLC (the complainant) wins an injunction, it would be a big step for GPL compliance in the US, and hopefully could also be used to get a precedent in India and other countries. Story at: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070920153227686 Regards, - -- Raju - -- Raj Mathur raju(a)kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ Freedom in Technology & Software || September 2007 || http://freed.in/ GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5 0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F PsyTrance & Chill: http://schizoid.in/ || It is the mind that moves -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFG80u8yWjQ78xo0X8RAiJDAJ9O+06SfLhKvub6fwfX+kkS0AzLdgCfVs6o JG5GrsMhuiTlPQCkWYr/ezY= =ivLc -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Globalisation Institute calls for Unbundling Microsoft Windows
by Anivar Aravind 24 Sep '07

24 Sep '07

Globalisation Institute Brussels, calls for Unbundling Pre Installed Windows Computers in the European Union should be sold without a bundled operating system, according to this submission to the European Commission. It says that the bundling of Microsoft Windows with computers is not in the public interest, and prevents meaningful competition in the operating system market. Operating systems, it says, are not a natural monopoly, requiring just one supplier. Instead, in a competitive market, there would be a broad compatibility between different supplier’s products. “Competition would encourage open standards and interoperability as vendors would, for competitive reasons, want their products to interact with other vendors’ products,” the submission says. Full Report is here http://www.globalisation.eu/publications/unbundlingmicrosoftwindows.pdf -- Anivar Aravind moving Republic Peringavu.P.O Thrissur-18 Kerala http://anivar.movingrepublic.org/about

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Gigabyte Mainboards and Bios
by Mani A 24 Sep '07

24 Sep '07

The more recent mainboards from Gigabyte require the M$ Windows for Bios update, even the MS DOG bios update utility is not offered. Boards in the GA-Mxxx series for example have this feature, notwithstanding the few words on Linux drivers on the relevant page. The right thing for Gigabyte to do is to make a minimal FreeDOS / Linux standalone utility for the purpose. I am telling them a few things. Best A. Mani -- A. Mani Member, Cal. Math. Soc

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GNOME vs KDE
by CK Raju, Thrissur 21 Sep '07

21 Sep '07

"The GNOME community announced a new release today after six months of development. GNOME is a desktop environment primarily used on Linux and other open-source platforms. GNOME 2.20 includes numerous improvements and new features that benefit users, administrators, and developers...." News at http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070919-gnome-2-20-officially-release… "Second Beta Release of KDE 4.0 available. On 6th September 2007 the KDE Community released the second Beta release for KDE 4.0. This release marks the beginning of the feature freeze and the stabilization of the current codebase. Simultaneously the KOffice developers have released their third Alpha release, marking significant improvements in this innovative office suite. ..." Info at www.kde.org CK Raju

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Attacking Multi-core CPUs
by Mani A 17 Sep '07

17 Sep '07

There is an interesting interview of Robert Watson on his paper: http://www.watson.org/~robert/2007woot/2007usenixwoot-exploitingconcurrency…, at http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/14/system_call_sploits/page2.html Best A. Mani -- A. Mani Member, Cal. Math. Soc

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Fwd: [Ilug-cal-discuss] [Phoronix] AMD Releases 900+ Pages Of GPU Specs
by Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray 17 Sep '07

17 Sep '07

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay <sankarshan.mukhopadhyay(a)gmail.com> Date: 17 Sep 2007 16:50 Subject: [Ilug-cal-discuss] [Phoronix] AMD Releases 900+ Pages Of GPU Specs To: ILUG-Cal's principal mailing list <ilug-cal-discuss(a)list.ilug-cal.org> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NjA1Mw Ending off the X Developer Summit this year, Matthew Tippett handed off ATI's GPU specifications to David Airlie on a CD (as reported by Daniel Stone). However, the specifications are also now available on the Internet! At http://www.x.org/docs/AMD/ is the location of the documentation where you can freely download the files. Right now there is the RV630 Register Reference Guide and M56 Register Reference Guide. The RV630 Reference Guide is 434 pages long while the M56 Guide is 460 pages. Expect more documentation (and 3D specifications) to arrive shortly. The new open-source R500/600 driver will be released early next week. - -- You see things; and you say 'Why?'; But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?' - George Bernard Shaw www.linkedin.com/in/sankarshan -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.7 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Fedora - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFG7mL/XQZpNTcrCzMRAstrAJ0ey7Qr/cv7G7MvY1wOVhIMBsy/JgCdGjIC 5UCCpQrgAn+ZZpoHl4Z68qw= =Ds2S -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Ilug-cal-discuss mailing list Ilug-cal-discuss(a)list.ilug-cal.org http://list.ilug-cal.org/mailman/listinfo/ilug-cal-discuss -- GPG key ID: 63D4A5A7 Key server: pgp.mit.edu

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Software Freedom day event was a grand success
by Anivar Aravind 16 Sep '07

16 Sep '07

http://anivar.movingrepublic.org/2007/smc-sfd07-wide-news-coverage-in-malay… Swathanthra Malayalam Computing(SMC) got widespread support from malayalam mainstream print media for the 2 day (14th & 15th september) software freedom day celebration & the release of 7 software packages developed during last year. It is the time to look at our history. SMC is reactivated from a dead state, as a result of personal discussions with praveen, hiran & vimaljoseph in the sidelines of GPLv3 Conference in bangalore. The new team is setup at last year SFD celebrations in Thrissur. Suresh, Baiju(the founder of SMC), Hussain KH (rachana), Anwar, Students in GEC etc also joined in the team at that time. Now we have more than 30 developers+localizers. The astounding progress within the short span of time is described below * December 2006: Debian Installer is Fully Translated into Malayalam ( The Work of Debian malayalam, a sub team of Swathanthra malayalam computing) * January 2007: Santhosh Thottingal of SMC done a complete architectural rewrite of Dhvani, the Indian language text to speech system by Ramesh hariharan & added Malayalam support to It. * March 2007 : participated & Conducted workshops in FOSS Meet@NITC, Kozhikkode * March 2007: Swathanthra Malayalam Computing selected as a participating Organisation ( and only Indian Organisation) in Google Summer of Code Project. 5 projects were allotted. * April 2007: GNU aspell supported Malayalam (major issues are resolved) * May 2007: Swanalekha: a Phonetic Input scheme for malayalam using SCIM * June 2007: Lalitha, Bolnagiri based xkb keyboard for malayalam by Jinesh * July 2007: Added pango support to Tuxtype by Mobin M as part of GSoC work. Now Tuxtype is usable for all Indian languages * July 2007:Debian package (Debconf )Translations. Malayalam is the Most translated indian language with 27% translation of configuration strings * August 2007: Malayalam Matrix screen saver Release, & First Public Release of Aspell- malayalam spellchecker with More than 137000 words list (It is the largest Indian Language Aspell wordlist. Second is hindi with 25000 words). * September 2007: Gnome Officially supports malayalam in Gnome 2.20 with More than 80% translations * September 2007: Sarika : The first Free Indian language speech recognition engine is developed by Shyam K (as a part of GsoC). It Currently identifies more than 50 malayalam words * September 2007: Tuxtype malayalam is Released by Mobin.M & friends (Vimal, Shreyas, Sreeranj, Prince) * Meera , a Malayalam Traditional opentype font with more than 900 glyphs is released under GNU GPL by Hussain K.H and Suresh P . It is developed for Suruma renderering scheme (not compatible with Uniscribe scheme for windows) . Authors are working on a Uniscribe compatible (windows) version now Pramode Sir wrote: A society and a culture is identified by its language - once the language is dead, the society starts losing its identity. A good way to keep a language alive is to take it to the digital world - the world of the PC/Communication devices and the Internet. This is one context in which developing regional language computing environments and popularising them has great significance. The theme for the 2 day event was "Swathantra Software and Malayalam computing" . Free software is touching the lives of common man now !! Digg It: http://digg.com/linux_unix/Wide_spread_coverage_for_Software_Freedom_Day_in… FSDaily: http://www.fsdaily.com/Community/Wide_spread_coverage_for_Software_Freedom_…

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Free Software in Kerala ... a very interesting story
by Anilkumar K V 16 Sep '07

16 Sep '07

It is really a good attempt by Sasikumar. I appreciate him for this write-up. However, since the narration of this write-up is mainly based on the experience of free software movement in Thiruvananthapuram, I feel the title is better renamed as "The Story of Free Software in Thiruvanathapuram, India". My other comments on this article are pasted below. Regards, Anil Anil <http://www.blogger.com/profile/14066963594571131093> said... The name of Kochi based firm mentioned in this write is not Open Source Solutions. It is Open Software Solutions Industrial Co-operative Society ( OSSICS ). This group is formed in 1998 as a part of Peoples Plan Campaign and registered as a Co-operative society in 2000, and it is the first Industrial Co-operative Society for the promotion of Swathanthra Software especially in Keralam. 11:08 AM <http://swatantryam.blogspot.com/2007/08/story-of-free-software-in-kerala-in…> <http://www.blogger.com/delete-comment.g?blogID=34899069&postID=525490467922…> Anil <http://www.blogger.com/profile/14066963594571131093> said... This write-up did not mention the role played by many of the organaisations and initiatives, Some of them are listed below. 1. ATPS (Appropriate Technology Promotion Society) Kochi, 2. SEPSIT (Social Entrepreneurship Promotion Society on Information Technology )- Kannur. 3. Initiatives by Ernakulam District Panchayath and EIID 4. S2S2, Kannur 5. Earlier Free Software Initiatves Initiatives in Kannur University. 6. Free Software initiatives in various Engineering Colleges in Keralam, other than one mentioned in the article. 7. Activities of FSF-Kozhikkode 8. Initiatives by Swathanthra Malayalam Computing. 9. Nila and Kaveri projects of CDIT. 10. Kerala Social Forum 11. Efforts of various persons such as Dr. Achuth Sankar and Prof. Ignatius Kunjumon. 12. Vivarasangam meet 13 . Vivaravicharam magazine 14. NIC initiatives in Free Software, 11:40 AM<http://swatantryam.blogspot.com/2007/08/story-of-free-software-in-kerala-in…>

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Free Software in Kerala ... a very interesting story
by Frederick Noronha [फ़र ेदरिक नोर ोनया] 15 Sep '07

15 Sep '07

http://swatantryam.blogspot.com/2007/08/story-of-free-software-in-kerala-in… Free Software in Kerala V. Sasi Kumar A friend, who had worked in Brazil for a couple of years, once told me, "Kerala is known in Latin America for Free Software." This indicates the extent to which Kerala has dominated the Free Software scenario in India. It is not by chance that the headquarters of the Free Software Foundation of India happened to be situated at Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala. The state is now poised to become the ﬁrst in the country to introduce exclusively Free Software for IT education in high schools. We shall examine here how all this came about.... The story apparently began with the introduction of TeX, the typesetting program that was designed in the 1970s by Donald Knuth, the author of The Art of Computer Programming, a four volume classic. TeX was introduced into Kerala by Prof. K.S.S. Namburipad of the Department of Mathematics in the University of Kerala. TeX could typeset mathematical equations very neatly, which no other software could do, especially in the 1980s when Prof. Namburipad brought TeX in fourteen ﬂoppy disks from the United States. He could bring the program and use it on a number of computers without any legal problem because it had no licences-it was in the public domain. It was, in a sense, the Grandmother of Free Software, as some people call it. Prof. Namburipad encouraged his students to learn and use TeX, especially for preparing their theses. One of his students was E. Krishnan, now with the Mathematics Department of the University College, Thiruvananthapuram, a leading exponent of TeX and one of the auA thors of the very popular LaTeX primer2 published as an electronic book by the Indian TeX User Group. Dr. Krishnan also played an important role in establishing the Free Software Foundation of India. Another person inspired by Prof. Namburipad was one C.V. Radhakrishnan who used to run a small centre that prepared theses for the research students of the Kariavattom campus of the University of Kerala. -- Frederick Noronha Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org In Hyderabad. Ph 040-23132176 SMS: 9822122436

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