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IT practical tests on ‘open’ platform
by Frederick Noronha [फ़र ेदरिक नोर ोनया] 14 Sep '07

14 Sep '07

Could anyone kindly pass on links of Free Software usage in Indian schools? Tks, FN IT practical tests on 'open' platform Anand Parthasarathy IT@School project of Kerala has developed an operating system based on the Linux Akshaya had raised popular expectations Kerala, first State to use Edusat satellite channel — Photo: Special Arrangement IT WORKS: Students of the Government Girls High School, Ernakulam, doing self-paced computer 'practicals.' BANGALORE: In the largest such simultaneous deployment of 'free-and-open' software in India, over 15 lakh Kerala schoolchildren on Friday start taking their quarterly practical tests in Information Technology on personal computers using a special Linux version. The IT@School project of the State Education Department has developed an operating system based on the Linux version Ubuntu. Called IT@School GNU Linux Version 3.0, it was distributed to 2,832 high schools — over a thousand of them government schools, the rest aided and unaided ones. Between September 7 and 22, children of Classes 8, 9 and 10 will use some 30,000 PCs to do their quarterly practical examinations in IT. Test skills In Class VIII, for example, the examination will test skills in the use of the mouse; the 'Tux' paint software for drawing; word processing and spreadsheets. A trained cadre of over 70,000 teachers will help them. The project has created a whole ecosystem of computer-aided tools for self-paced learning, online testing, instant evaluation, marks generation and so on. All this is done using royalty-free Open Source software. For example, the Open Source picture editing tool Gimp, rather than a pricey proprietary option like Photoshop, is in use. The State's path-breaking e-learning initiative Akshaya had raised popular expectations, but the cost of proprietary software licences in bulk was unaffordable. This led to the State emerging as a pioneer in the use of Open Source resources in a host of education and e-governance projects. In July 2005, Kerala was the first State to use the Edusat satellite channel to connect schools in all its 14 districts under the Virtual Class Technology on Edusat for Rural Schools, or VICTERS, programme. IT@School executive director K. Anvar Sadath, a veteran of the Akshaya programme, said on Thursday that the Central Government had underwritten almost the entire cost of the school computerisation programme to the tune of Rs. 6.2 crores, while the State had spent Rs. 75 lakh this fiscal year. Printer friendly page http://www.hindu.com/2007/09/07/stories/2007090755131600.htm -- Frederick Noronha Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org In Hyderabad. Ph 040-23132176 SMS: 9822122436

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Hey Principal ;)
by Omshiva Prakash 13 Sep '07

13 Sep '07

http://www.hi5.com/register/wwlLO?inviteId=A_794a0c_GeK1b7jI9.f7948812 Omshiva

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If you want freedom don't follow Linus Torvalds
by Praveen A 12 Sep '07

12 Sep '07

"Please don't call GNU 'Linux'," says Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation. In this interview, he also asks readers whether they will fight for freedom or be too lazy to resist. The full interview at http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/index.php/id;211669437;pp;1 Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Re: [ilugd] [off-topic not] vision of an enlightened indian mystic oncopyleft
by Linux Lingam 11 Sep '07

11 Sep '07

snippety snip excellent points by nagarjuna, janani and gora. nagarjuna: you're right about classical brahminism being an earlier incarnation of a proprietary knowledge model. janani you mention what appears to be a BSD-style attribution-style in some indic literature, and then go on to mention pure folk knowledge without attribution, that lives in the public domain. well, as i said earlier, i have been privately researching all this since about two years. have come across the approaches you mention, and a few more not mentioned. knowledge as a secret never to be revealed was one. authoring works on commission for kings and emperors is well-known, too. would like to share two asepcts i came across: 01. emperor akbar asks tansen how great would tansen's master be as a singer, given that tansen himself is truly great? akbar expresses a wish to listen to tansen's master. tansen cuttingly replies that his master is a great musician, because he never sings for an emperor's court or for crowds, but only for his own bliss, as well as not for commerce. so if akbar wishes to listen to him, he must hide and wait for whenever the master sings. thus it happened. the point here is the age-old debate on traded goods and services, versus 'work as worship'. in our popular context: tansen will sing his music so it can be sold for iPods, whether with drm or not is a minor issue. tansen's master won't. in face he won't sing for anyone, except the divine. similar anecdotes can be found across all cultures. 02. obfuscation: indian mystics discovered very early that knowledge in the hands of the unrefined mind can be deadly. the same dilemma that troubled einstien. those that believed the birth of the atomic age would solve all of mankind's problems [energy, medicine, other specific application at least], and would lead to a better world, must be facing disillusionment at the chaos of the world. thus, a lot of indian knowledge got obfuscated. hidden in plain view. patanjali's yoga sutra is a prime example. here is a scripture so misunderstood since the entire knowledge is expressed in allegories that are obfuscating. the sufi tradition of the world also expresses its knowledge in obfuscated terms, with a book that has atleast 7 interpretations, depending on the growing awareness of the disciple. in today's example: we do impose self-censorship or state-sponsored censorship on certain aspects of knowledge, such as on how to build deadly dirty nuclear weapons. i would not be suprised if in a few decades we discover between proprietory knowledge, and freely-available-knowledge, emerges the third: hidden in plain view knowledge. the how and why would also be clear as time goes by.... gora, yes, i read the divine declaration of you as god. how come no one else has discovered you ;-) :-) niyam

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Swathanthra Malayalam Computing SFD celebration
by Santhosh Thottingal 11 Sep '07

11 Sep '07

Hi, Swathanthra Malayalam Computing is celebrating Software Freedom day on 14 and 15th of this month at Chamber of commerce Hall,Thrissur, Kerala. SMC will be showcasing the softwares it developed during the last one year to public. Discussions on topics related to Free softwares, Language computing, e-journalism etc are also planned. All are invited........ http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/SFD/SMC Thanks Santhosh Thottingal

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Re: Welcome to the "Fsf-friends" mailing list
by CK Raju, Thrissur 10 Sep '07

10 Sep '07

Friends, A two day international conference (ICIST2007) is planned at Thrissur during 14,15 December 2007 with Free Software as the principal theme. RMS has agreed to engage the participants in a virtual session and clarify online to any subsequent queries. Papers are solicited for ICIST2007. Details are at http://mesengg.ac.in/icist2007.htm Rgds, CK Raju, Thrissur ------------------- I am back.

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Free *nix on Lenovo
by Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray 09 Sep '07

09 Sep '07

http://lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=98 Vote for your favourite distribution that you want supported on Lenovo. Regards, Debarshi -- GPG key ID: 63D4A5A7 Key server: pgp.mit.edu

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Re: [Fsf-friends] a new road for AMD and ATI
by Bhaskar Chowdhury 06 Sep '07

06 Sep '07

good news man! thanx for the info. Au Revoir Bhaskar > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray" <debarshi.ray(a)gmail.com> > To: fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in > Subject: [Fsf-friends] a new road for AMD and ATI > Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2007 00:26:14 +0530 > > > http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=302 > > AMD is making the commitment to do two major things: > > * To develop of a fully functional 2D and 3D driver that supports > all of their newer radeon chipsets. This will be done in full > collaboration with the open source community and will have the direct > participation of hackers from companies like Red Hat and Novell. > * To release documentation that anyone can use to build and > support drivers for their chips. > > Regards, > Debarshi > -- > GPG key ID: 63D4A5A7 > Key server: pgp.mit.edu > > _______________________________________________ > Fsf-friends mailing list > Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in > http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends > = -- Powered by Outblaze

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[off-topic not] vision of an enlightened indian mystic on copyleft
by Linux Lingam 06 Sep '07

06 Sep '07

dear all, just discovered this, thought it worthy to share with you: "Things can be copyrighted, thoughts cannot be copyrighted, and certainly meditations cannot be copyrighted. They are not things of the marketplace. Nobody can monopolize anything. But perhaps the West cannot understand the difference between an objective commodity and an inner experience. For ten thousand years the East has been meditating and nobody has put trademarks upon meditations." - Osho http://oshoworld.com/copyleft/copyleft.asp as a private study, have been researching past two years on the indian philosophical view and 'darshan' on copyrights. haven't found much. anyone else stumbled across something? :-) niyam

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a new road for AMD and ATI
by Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray 06 Sep '07

06 Sep '07

http://www.0xdeadbeef.com/weblog/?p=302 AMD is making the commitment to do two major things: * To develop of a fully functional 2D and 3D driver that supports all of their newer radeon chipsets. This will be done in full collaboration with the open source community and will have the direct participation of hackers from companies like Red Hat and Novell. * To release documentation that anyone can use to build and support drivers for their chips. Regards, Debarshi -- GPG key ID: 63D4A5A7 Key server: pgp.mit.edu

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OOXML failed to get approval of ISO/IEC
by Praveen A 04 Sep '07

04 Sep '07

Great News! Hats off to all who worked hard for this. "The five-month ballot process ended on 2 September and was open to the IEC and ISO national member bodies from 104 countries, including 41 that are participating members of the joint ISO/IEC technical committee, JTC 1, Information technology. Approval requires at least 2/3 (i.e. 66.66 %) of the votes cast by national bodies participating in ISO/IEC JTC 1 to be positive; and no more than 1/4 (i.e. 25 %) of the total number of national body votes cast negative. Neither of these criteria were achieved, with 53 % of votes cast by national bodies participating in ISO/IEC JTC 1 being positive and 26 % of national votes cast being negative." http://www.iso.org/iso/pressrelease.htm?refid=Ref1070 Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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SELF Platform Launch - Sept. 7
by Nagarjuna G. 01 Sep '07

01 Sep '07

Hi all, Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (TIFR) is participating in an international project "SELF: Science, Education and Learning in Freedom", wherein we are developing an E-learning Platform. It has been planned by all the partners that the SELF Platform will be launched simultaneously all over the world for the community. In India we have scheduled the official launch of the SELF Platform on September 7, 2007 (3-6 pm), in some countries it is happening on 5th and 6th. On this occassion, we cordially invite you to participate in the official launch of an E-learning Platform developed by Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (TIFR). Program Schedule : 3:00 - 3:30 Welcome Address Prof. Arvind Kumar Centre Director Homi Bhabha Centre For Science Education 3:30 - 4:00 SELF Platform Launch Prof. Shobo Bhattacharya Director Tata Institute Of Fundamental Research 4:00 - 4:30 Keynote Address on FOSS & Collaborative Culture Prof. D. B. Phatak Subharao M. Nilekani Chiar Professor Kanwal Rekhi Institute of Information Technology Indian Institute of Technology Bombay 4:30 - 5:00 Special lecture on Semantic Web and Collaborative E-learning Prof. G. Sivakumar Professor and Head, Computer Science and Engineering Department Indian Institute of Technology Bombay 5:00 -5:30 Live Demonstration of the SELF Platform SELF Platform Development Team Homi Bhabha Centre For Science Education 5:30 - 6:00 Vote of Thanks & High Tea Venue: Shri V. G. Kulkarni Auditorium Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education V. N. Purav Marg, Mankhurd, Mumbai 88 RSVP: self(a)hbcse.tifr.res.in hbcse(a)selfproject.eu 25555242/25554712 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ About the SELF Project: http://www.selfproject.eu SELF: Science, Education and Learning in Freedom Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBCSE), TIFR is participating in an European Commission funded project on Science, Education and Learning in Freedom (SELF) from July 1, 2006 to July 2008. The SELF platform is initiated by an international consortium of seven partners --- three universities: Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Spain), University of Gothenburg (Sweden) and Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (India); and four non-profit organisations active as Free Software advocates: Internet Society (Netherlands), Free Software Foundation Europe (in all European countries), Internet Society (Bulgaria) and Fundación Via Libre (Argentina). The SELF project aims to provide a platform for the collaborative sharing and creation of open educational and training materials about Free Software and Open Standards. About the SELF Platform: http://www.slefplatform.eu Homi Bhabha Centre's gnowledge lab developed the SELF Platform, a graphical web based multi-lingual platform for collaborative authoring of courses and lessons, to organize them and distribute them widely to various educational institutes all over the world. The SELF Platform comprises mainly of a knowledge management application for authors, and instructors. During the course of time, it will also have course delivery system for learners. The SELF Platform conforms with the e-learning standards such as LOM, SCORM. The SELF Platform comprises of modules for authors, instructors, students. The SELF Platform will provide information, educational and training materials in the form of course material, e-books, instructional and educational videos, manuals, etc. The platform caters to the target groups such as---universities and schools, training organisations, publishers, industrial manufacturers, free software communities, government bodies, public and non-profit organisations, private organisations. The SELF Platform would serve as providing a central access for educational materials alongwith a community participation in a multilingual environment. ----------------- You all are welcome. Thank you. Nagarjuna G. http://www.gnowledge.org/

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Memo to Microsoft: Stop wasting our time! (Venky Hariharan's blog...)
by Frederick Noronha [फ़र ेदरिक नोर ोनया] 31 Aug '07

31 Aug '07

http://osindia.blogspot.com/2007/08/memo-to-microsoft-stop-wasting-our-time… Feedback to: venkyh(a)gmail.com Thursday, August 30, 2007 Memo to Microsoft: Stop wasting our time! Finally word is out and the Bureau of Indian Standards has confirmed that it will be submitting a "No with comments" vote to International Standards Organization on Microsoft's OOXML proposal. This brings to a temporary close five to six months of hectic legwork to prevent a sub-standard proposal from getting the coveted tag of an ISO standard. I doubt if Microsoft realises it, but its actions are only making it the Union Carbide of the global IT industry. Microsoft is the world's largest software company but if you flip through their 6000+ pages of OOXML documentation, you'll be justified in wondering how they grew so big if the rest of their work is as shoddy as OOXML. The extremely flawed proposal certainly does not befit its stature in the IT industry. But, does Microsoft learn from all the feedback given to it or does it learn anything from it. No. Humility and Microsoft are like oil and water -- never shall they mix. According to reports coming in from countries that are involved in the ISO vote on OOXML, Microsoft is busy stuffing the ballot boxes. Read Andy Updegrove's blog post The OOXML Vote: How Bad Can it Get? (Keep Counting). Originally, only 30 ISO members were supposed to vote on OOXML. However, as the September 2nd date for the final voting comes close, another ten more countries have joined the committee. Updegrove says: As someone who has spent a great part of my life working to support open standards over the past 20 years, I have to say that this is the most egregious, and far-reaching, example of playing the system to the advantage of a single company that I have ever seen. Breathtaking, in fact. That's assuming, of course, that I am right in supposing that all of these newbie countries vote "yes." I guess we'll just have to wait and see a few more days to learn whether that assumption is true. Want to place your bets? Sitting here in India, it is difficult to influence countries like Malta, Cyprus, Ecuador, Jamaica, Lebanon, Pakistan, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uruguay and Venezuela in the two days left before the final votes are submitted, but we shall try. I checked with the IT ministry in Pakistan and brought to their attention that Pakistan is now a "P" member of ISO which entitles it to vote on OOXML. This was news to them as they were not consulted on the OOXML issue. I hope that Pakistan's vote will be cast only after thoroughly reviewing the arguements for and against OOXML. Coming back to India, I am extremely proud of the fact that my country has voted against this proposal. To accept such a poor document would have been to denigrate the very meaning of "standards." The academia, the government bodies, industry organizations and non-profits like the Free Software Foundation spent countless hours debating and discussing this issue. Some of the best brains in India burnt the midnight oli to review this 6000 page proposal and the final consensus was that none of Microsoft's answers to the 201 technical issues raised was found satisfactory. I hope the Microsoft bosses in Redmond take note of this and make a genuine attempt to rectify the issues instead of trying to stuff the ballot boxes. For wasting the collective intellect of India's best IT brains, Microsoft and ECMA must be blacklisted. Just as a person with a bad credit history has to redeem himself or herself before applying for subsequent credit, any standards proposal submitted by these two organizations should be thoughly vetted before it is even accepted for review or voting in India. India has more pressing problems to tackle than OOXML. Therefore, Microsoft, please do us a big favor and stop wasting our time. Next time, do your homework before you submit something to India. PS: This is an old joke in the IT industry and shows how little Microsoft has changed in decades. Q. How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light bulb? A. None. Microsoft declares Darkness(TM) an industry standard. End of forward... -- Frederick Noronha Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org E: fred(a)bytesforall.org or fredericknoronha(a)gmail.com P: +91-832-2409490 M: +91-9970157402 Yahoo: fredericknoronha Skype: fredericknoronha GTalk: fredericknoronha Saligao 403511 Goa India http://www.linkedin.com/in/fredericknoronha

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The new look IRCTC now working with Firefox
by kanti jadia 30 Aug '07

30 Aug '07

Today i got a pleasant surprise. I had sent the following mail to care at irctc.co.in on 20th Aug. " Dear Sir/Madam, Let me take this opportunity to congratulate you on the excellent appeal of the website for www.irctc.co.in. The new colour scheme looks great and the site really appears pleasing. There are some problems as well. The site design has not taken into account a lot of desirable features which are considered mandatory on the internet. 1. The main page does not work with Firefox. Firefox is one of the most widely used browsers on the internet.It is very disappointing that a website of such high regard does not support Firefox. 2. If we see the validation of the site for W3C norms , it fails miserably.The validation service can be accessed from http://validator.w3.org/. The following are critical issues shown by the validator a . No Character Encoding Found! Falling back to UTF-8. I was not able to extract a character encoding labeling from any of the valid sources for such information. Without encoding information it is impossible to reliably validate the document. I'm falling back to the "UTF-8" encoding and will attempt to perform the validation, but this is likely to fail for all non-trivial documents. Read the FAQ entry on character encoding for more details and pointers on how to fix this problem with your document. This shows the blank disregard for standards. Without solving this critical problem we cannot validate the site on other parameters. If as another example we run the validator on http://www.irctc.co.in/helpandinfo.html We get 106 unique errors. I recommend use of anybrowser ( http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/ ) design recommendations accessible via the URL :http://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/abdesign.html 3. Do not introduce blinking ads on any page of the website as they are really a pain on the eyes and do not serve any purpose. This will help the web designers and administrators to make IRCTC.CO.IN <http://irctc.co.in/> a very usable website for the entire country. With the number of visitors going up by the hour its imperative that the largest employer in the world also listen to its humble customers. " And am happy to see that they care. This definitely is something which was done after feedback from various people. The W3C validator still does not work , but they have done some checks on Firefox it seems, Regards Kanti

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On copyright violations...
by Sajith T S 29 Aug '07

29 Aug '07

Hi! Surely this topic must be of interest to this list? Background is this: my friend Arun had posted a photograph of his family's Onam celebrations last year, in flickr.com, under a modest Creative Commons attribution license. http://www.flickr.com/photos/maxaud/234884178/ Recently we came across the same image posted in another website, with no attribution and no copyright information, with a "BizHat.com" layer over it. In fine MS Comic Sans font, no less. It is posted by a user called "gallery", with no user information on their profile page. http://gallery.bizhat.com/showphoto.php/photo/54916 In fact they have quite a large collection of images there. I would be surprised if they are the actual copyright holders of a fraction of those. The website has listed no contact info, other than a feedback form. (But there's whois, as always...) Arun has written to the website, and we're waiting to see what's coming out of it. I would like to seek your advice on what can be done under such circumstances, under prevailing copyright laws/norms. And perhaps more imporantly, what can be done to raise awareness: come to think of it, perhaps the website owners are too naive to know that it is actually wrong to use someone else's work this way? Cheers, Sajith. -- Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years. -- Richard Bach, "Illusions"

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Re: [Ilugc] irctc.co.in - best viewed in ie 5.5?
by ம. ஸ்ரீ ராமதாஸ் 29 Aug '07

29 Aug '07

Yahoo.. ;-) appears that they have rectified it.. except for the notification in the footer.. :-) and one from irctc customer care commented in my blog entry.. here is it.. http://amachu.wordpress.com/2007/08/21/irctccoin-not-compatible-with-firefo… :-) -- அன்புடன், ஆமாச்சு. http://amachu.net வாழிய செந்தமிழ்! வாழ்கநற் றமிழர்! வாழிய பாரத மணித்திரு நாடு!

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gnu articles in Thamizh..
by ம. ஸ்ரீ ராமதாஸ் 29 Aug '07

29 Aug '07

Hi, the following articles at GNU's website are now available in Thamizh.. 1. http://www.gnu.org/home.ta.shtml 2. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.ta.html 3. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-free.ta.html 4. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-doc.ta.html 5. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/schools.ta.html 6. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.ta.html 7. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.ta.html I request someone to find a place for these at fsf.org.in also. Thank you. -- அன்புடன், ஆமாச்சு. http://amachu.net வாழிய செந்தமிழ்! வாழ்கநற் றமிழர்! வாழிய பாரத மணித்திரு நாடு!

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Fwd: Website in Firefox
by Vijay Kumar 29 Aug '07

29 Aug '07

Here is the reply from IRCTC. ---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- Subject: Fwd: Website in Firefox From: "rajni hasija" <rajni_hasija1969(a)yahoo.co.in> Date: Thu, August 23, 2007 10:21 am To: vijaykumar(a)bravegnu.org Cc: "Amit Hardi" <amithardi(a)gmail.com> "Ramakant Tiwari" <rktiwari(a)irctc.co.in> -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Mr Vijay We are working on Firefox too. WE'll provide this facility soon. Regards Rajni Hasija GGM /ITS Vijay Kumar <vijaykumar(a)bravegnu.org> wrote: Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2007 21:47:48 +0530 (IST) Subject: Website in Firefox From: "Vijay Kumar" <vijaykumar(a)bravegnu.org> To: amitpandey(a)irctc.co.in, amitkumar(a)irctc.co.in, sanjay(a)irctc.co.in *********************** No virus was detected in the attachment no filename Your mail has been scanned by InterScan. ***********-*********** Dear Sir, the train reservation page http://www.irctc.co.in/helpandinfo.html does not display correctly (and is almost unusable) in Firefox. Firefox is a free and widely used web browser, providing support for it will make your website accessible to many people. BTW, there are a lot of people who do not use Internet Explorer for various reasons - security, affordability (of Windows license) and license restrictions. Such people use alternative operating systems like GNU/Linux. So please do not design the website for viewing in Internet Explorer alone, and please make necessary modifications so that the website is viewable in Firefox as well. Regards, Vijay --------------------------------- DELETE button is history. Unlimited mail storage is just a click away.

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Hurd Hacking Camp 07
by Praveen A 24 Aug '07

24 Aug '07

Hi, The GNU System (aka GNU/Hurd) hackers are meeting up at MES college Kuttippuram to discuss future plans with L1X installer and other GNU Hurd related works. For registration and more information see http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Malappuram/MESCE/Hurd_Hacking_Camp_07 There is no charge for the meet. Pre requisite: read The GNU Hurd FAQ http://www.gnu.org/software/hurd/faq.en.html Regards Praveen -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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War of formats: India shows thumbs-down to Microsoft
by Frederick Noronha [फ़र ेदरिक नोर ोनया] 24 Aug '07

24 Aug '07

Posted by Vinayak Hegde <vinayakh(a)gmail.com> at GII-India http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Software/ India_throws_Microsoft_open_format_out_of_the_window/articleshow/2305780.cms (url has wrapped) NEW DELHI: India on Thursday gave Microsoft a thumbs-down in the war of standards for office documents. In a tense meeting at Delhi's Manak Bhawan, the 21-member technical committee decided that India will vote a 'no' against Microsoft's Open Office Extensible Mark Up Language (OOXML) standard at the International Standards Organisation (ISO) in Geneva on September 2. "We unanimously agree on the disapproval of OOXML with comments. The same will be submitted to ISO," National Informatics Centre head and BIS technical committee chairperson Nita Verma said after a marathon meeting that lasted over six hours. There was no need for a voting as only Infosys Technologies and CSI supported Microsoft. The Open Document Format (ODF) alliance, enjoying widespread support from academia and corporates like Oracle, IBM, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, Google, were in a jubilant mood having succeeded in stalling OOXML from being accepted as a standard in India. Microsoft said it respect's the government's decision. "There were only three options `Yes', `No' and `Abstain' to be taken and we respect the government's decision," Microsoft's legal affairs head Rakesh Bakshi said. He, however, added that India's 'No' vote will become a 'Yes' if Microsoft is able to resolve all technical issues with OOXML before the ballot resolution committee of ISO. Prof DB Phatak of IIT Mumbai, who was instrumental in conducting the meetings, looked relieved after being flooded with calls from both camps over the week. Speaking to ET outside the BIS premises, the Microsoft camp complained that when ODF was being standardised by ISO, they did not oppose it and now the ODF camp refused to return the favour. ODF supporters said they would have no problems with OOXML if all the 200 technical issues were taken care of. Amongst hectic lobbying from both camps, the US government on Thursday said that it will abstain from voting. China has already voted a 'No' against Microsoft, while Malaysia, Denmark and Switzerland are supporting the software major. A global alliance of Sun-IBM, Oracle, Google, Red Hat have ganged up against Microsoft which is being supported by Apple, Quark, Accenture and Novell. On Indian soil, Infosys, HCL, Skelta, Sonata Software and Sify have come out in support of Microsoft. September 2 is the last date to submit the vote with comments to ISO. About 123 counties are participating in the vote. Votes from most are still to come. Canada, Czech Republic, Iran, Japan, Libya, Cuba, New Zealand, UK are likely to back the IBM-Sun's ODF Alliance. On the other hand, Belgium, Finland, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Singapore, Korea, France and Australia are likely to abstain from voting. -- Frederick Noronha Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org E: fred(a)bytesforall.org or fredericknoronha(a)gmail.com P: +91-832-2409490 M: +91-9970157402 Yahoo: fredericknoronha Skype: fredericknoronha GTalk: fredericknoronha 784, Sonarbhat, Near Lourdes Convent, Saligao 403511 Goa India

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india votes against ooxml
by Nagarjuna G. 24 Aug '07

24 Aug '07

India votes against ooxml unanimously. the decision of the committee was to disapprove ooxml with comments. The final meeting took place today after 3pm for about an hour and half, and no voting took place. -- Nagarjuna G. nagarjun(a)gnu.org.in

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irctc.co.in - best viewed in ie 5.5?
by ம. ஸ்ரீ ராமதாஸ் 22 Aug '07

22 Aug '07

hi all, it was all working fine till i found them changed their interface today.. and the link below troubles.. in firefox.. http://www.irctc.co.in/helpandinfo.html regards -- அன்புடன், ஆமாச்சு. http://amachu.net வாழிய செந்தமிழ்! வாழ்கநற் றமிழர்! வாழிய பாரத மணித்திரு நாடு!

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Interview on Software Piracy - Microsoft India Chairman Ravi Venkatesan
by Viswanath Durbha 22 Aug '07

22 Aug '07

Hi, There was an interesting interview with Microsoft India Chairman Ravi Venkatesan on software piracy. The following are some highlights which most of us would not agree, but nevertheless, we can get some insight as to how they perceive this issue. Here's what he says about the issue. 1. Almost all developing countries tend to be high-piracy markets. 2. Bulk of the economic success in the near future will depend on "Intellectual Property", hence it makes sense for India to have a good regime around "Intellectual Property Rights". 3. Microsoft is trying to "educate" policy makers and governments and helping in setting up IPR courts. 4. If you are using a pirated version, your experience should be perceptibly different and worse. 5. NASSCOM has taken a very strong view on the importance of IPR, genuine software and so forth. 6. Indian businesses today are making record profits, and their refusal to pay for the software they use is a bit unconscionable. 7. If you have got a non-genuine copy of software, it will not be able to access those services. This is a very promising trend for software companies to crack down on piracies. 8. The best Microsoft or any technology company can do is to make it harder and harder, so that the casual pirate is deterred. It will be hard to stop the determined pirate. It doesn't matter whether we agree with any single point mentioned above, but the lens through which they see the issue of giving freedom to the users is very different from the lens through which our free software world looks at it. A worrying point in the interview may be how Microsoft is trying to "educate" policy-makers and governments and convince them that sharing is bad. Thanks and Regards, Viswanath

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[Fsf-friends] E-TV Kannada story on infiltration of Wikipedia by M$, CIA, others
by Vikram Vincent 22 Aug '07

22 Aug '07

Greetings! Yesterday, E-TV Kannada telecast a news story on how the content of the Wikipedia is being changed by organisations such as CIA, M$, others See links: http://wired.reddit.com/wikidgame http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/ http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2007/08/14/the-cia-really-is-editing-w… http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=12673258&oldid=12672433 I wanted to jot down the points that I had made. 1. Wikipedia is one of the top 10 accessed sites in the world and is a tool/platform to build a free knowledge society. 2. It is community maintained and peer moderated. All users have the right to be contributors. 3. People and organisations with vested interest will try to use the Wikipedia to propagate false/misleading information. 4. Despite this, when the Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica was compared, Encyclopedia Britannica had 3 errors while the Wikipedia had 4. Thus the relevance and factual and historical content of the data is maintained as authentic and close to the truth as possible. While I was not able to catch the telecast I have to rely upon those who have to update on the exact contents of the news story. -- Regards Vikram Vincent +919448810822

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Fastest KDE Distro
by Mani A 21 Aug '07

21 Aug '07

Nimblex sub100 was released yesterday. From the release notes : "It was just released - the smallest live CD in the world with KDE. It's just under 100 MB and gathers together Linux kernel 2.6.21, KDE 3.5.7, xine media player, XMMS, GIMP and other software. NimbleX sub100 is most likely the fastest distro to boot in KDE and from the tests that where performed so far the fastest boot time was 35 seconds. You can get it from nimblex.net and use it as your portable OS. ... This is not a new version of NimbleX; it's just a different edition that has the technology that will be at the base of the next version." Their server did appear less capable though. Best A. Mani -- A. Mani Member, Cal. Math. Soc

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Blue GNU interview with Sasi Kumar
by Praveen A 21 Aug '07

21 Aug '07

When was FSF India started, and what led up to its inception? FSF India was inaugurated by Richard Stallman at Thiruvananthapuram, in a Conference called Freedom First on July 20, 2001. This came about because several people took keen interest in the new operating system called 'Linux' and in the type-setting programme called LaTeX. As they got to know more about the ideological and ethical aspects of the software, many of them were attracted to it and thought about starting a Free Software Foundation of India. A movement called Freedevelopers, which eventually died out, also helped in drawing many people to the ideology of Free Software. The full interview here. http://blue-gnu.biz/content/fsf_india_039_s_impact_far_reaching Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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DMCA Means You Can't Delete Files On Your PC?
by Praveen A 21 Aug '07

21 Aug '07

DMCA Means You Can't Delete Files On Your PC? "According to Wired, John Stottlemire found a way to print duplicate coupons from Coupons.com by deleting some files and registry entires on his PC. Now he's being sued for a DMCA violation. He says, 'All I did was erase files or registry keys.' Says a lawyer: '[The DMCA] may cover this. I think it does give companies a lot of leverage and a lot of power.' So now the copyright cartels are saying that not only can we not copy things on our computers, but we can't delete things on our computers? Time to buy stock in Seagate." http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/08/21/023235.shtml Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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My Tongue-Lashing from Eben Moglen - Tim O'Reilly
by Sayamindu Dasgupta 20 Aug '07

20 Aug '07

Read the entire article at http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/08/my_tonguelashin.html Enjoy :-) Sayamindu -- Sayamindu Dasgupta [http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings]

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Gnash coming along nicely -- now have daily snapshots
by Praveen A 17 Aug '07

17 Aug '07

Hi, "The popularity of Flash has been a big problem for our community, and we've been urging people not to use Flash for anything. However, we've just about solved that problem and we're soon going to release a version of Gnash which can even handle YouTube." RMS http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070403114157109 GNU Flash player daily snapshots (source) are available from http://gnashdev.org/dev_snapshots/ Its good to see gnash coming along nicely. It plays most of the flash movies on the net including youtube (BEWARE: it is very slow) movies. Well you will definitely find movies which does not work as well as support for newer versions are getting added. You will need to have quite a lot of dependencies to build it from source, but the configure script is so helpful it will tell you which package to install !! like apt-get install or yum package names. Also gives a nice summary at the end of configure. I think we should fix all the configure scripts to behave like this. The developers are pretty helpful and the list is pretty active. Happy Hacking Praveen -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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ELCOT (Tamil Nadu) in Linux now
by Bimal Mankara 16 Aug '07

16 Aug '07

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0708/S00318.htm Regards, Bimal

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"Malaysia formally embraces open doc format"
by Mani A 15 Aug '07

15 Aug '07

"Malaysia formally embraces open doc format" http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,62030781,00.htm Malaysia formally embraces open doc format By Lynn Tan, ZDNet Asia Monday, August 13 2007 09:15 PM The Malaysian government today announced plans to adopt open standards and the Open Document Format (ODF) within the country's public sector. The Malaysian Administration Modernization and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) last week issued a tender for a nine-month study to evaluate the usage of open standards in its information communications technology (ICT) deployment. The study will also look into how the Malaysian public sector should migrate to open standards and the ODF, according to the Malaysia Open Source Software Alliance (MOSSA). "The decision taken has been deliberated carefully for a considerable amount of time, and much thought process has been put into it," Nor Aliah Mohd. Zahri, ICT deputy director general at MAMPU, said in a statement. "These discussions centered on open formats, particularly as they relate to office documents, their importance for the current and future accessibility of government records, and the relative 'openness' of the format options available to us," Nor Aliah explained. The study will document the benefits of open standards, suggest policies and guidelines for achieving openness and provide a roadmap for implementing the ODF in Malaysia' public sector, added MOSSA. The country unveiled its intentions to consider the ODF as a national standard for office documents in July last year. A month later, Hasannudin Saidin, a member of Sirim, the country's standards development agency, said on his blog that the proposal would have to gain approval from a higher-level committee within Sirim before it could proceed. In July this year, Japan became the first country in the Asia-Pacific region to embrace open software standards. Last August, the United Nations urged countries in the region to adopt the ODF. Published by OASIS (the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), the ODF--or Open Document Format for Office Applications--is an XML-based open standard, enabling any office software to format, save and exchange file documents such as spreadsheets, databases and text. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best A. Mani -- A. Mani Member, Cal. Math. Soc

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Fwd: [Info-gplv3] Second discussion draft of GNU AGPL version 3 released
by Vikram Vincent 14 Aug '07

14 Aug '07

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: GPLv3 Information <info-gplv3(a)gplv3.fsf.org> Date: 14-Aug-2007 21:29 Subject: [Info-gplv3] Second discussion draft of GNU AGPL version 3 released To: info-gplv3(a)gplv3.fsf.org, info-fsf(a)gnu.org, info-gnu(a)gnu.org The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today released the second discussion draft of the GNU Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL). This new license is based on version 3 of the GNU GPL. It has a new requirement to ensure that users who interact with the software over a network can receive the source for that program. The original Affero GPL was intended to guarantee that everyone could receive the source for web applications that they used, so the software could always be shared and improved. The corresponding provision in the GNU AGPL applies this same principle to all software that interacts with users through a network, but doesn't impose additional requirements when the same code is used for other purposes. Since the GNU AGPL is based on version 3 of the GNU GPL, it will also provide improved internationalization, compatibility with the Apache License, and other benefits. This is the "Last Call" draft; the FSF will hear feedback on this new text from the public before publishing the final license. The additional provision is in the first paragraph of section 13, and we ask that comments be focused there. You can review the draft and provide your feedback at <http://gplv3.fsf.org/agplv3-dd2-guide.html>. -- Brett Smith Licensing Compliance Engineer, Free Software Foundation _______________________________________________ Info-gplv3 mailing list Info-gplv3(a)gplv3.fsf.org http://gplv3.fsf.org -- Regards Vikram Vincent +919448810822 Project Engineer, NRCFOSS, AU-KBC Research Centre, http://groups.google.com/group/bangalore_alive/ http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Campaign_to_promote_free_software_in_karnataka

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FOSS in Schools
by Vikram Vincent 14 Aug '07

14 Aug '07

Hello all, Those of you on the FOSS.IN mailing list will know about the discussions that took place recently with regard to promoting FOSS in schools. We know that moving schools to free software is that fundamental task which will strengthen the free software movement and the movement in Kerala is a good example. In order for us to learn from such examples a documentation page has been created at http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/FOSS_in_Schools Please feel free to fill up the pages and hope that we can all coordinate in our own way in building the free software movement at schools. -- Regards Vikram Vincent +919448810822 Project Engineer, NRCFOSS, AU-KBC Research Centre

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ODF: Oracle, Google join IBM-Sun camp
by Santhosh Thottingal 14 Aug '07

14 Aug '07

"The war over control of your office documents is getting murkier. The IBM-Sun Microsystems backed Open Document Format (ODF) alliance is now raising questions on the choice of the members of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) technical committee that will decide on the issue." http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/Oracle_Google_join_IBM-Sun_cam… -Santhosh Thottingal http://santhoshtr.livejournal.com

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DMA Drivers for free
by Mani A 13 Aug '07

13 Aug '07

These drivers were not free till very recently. But even though the source is available now, nothing about reuse and modification have been explicitly stated in the license. Otherwise it does ease the situation for FreeDOS... but not sufficiently enough. ---------------------------------------------------------- XMGR, UDMA and UDVD are DOS drivers for an 80386+ system running MS-DOS V5.0+, EDR-DOS, and all similar DOS variants. XMGR is a DOS XMS memory manager. It can support V3.70+ UMBPCI by Uwe Sieber and is able to load directly in UMBPCI upper-memory. XMGR also runs with MS-DOS V4.49/V4.95 EMM386 or other equivalent "EMS managers". It is written to V3.0 XMS Specifications and can handle 4-GB of memory. UDMA is a disk caching driver with internal support for UltraDMA disks. It intercepts and caches all DOS Int 13h I-O requests for BIOS devices. UDMA does caching for the UDVD driver and also supports other "external driver" cache requests. It uses HMA "free space" and can be loaded in only 1456 bytes of upper memory for up to a 250-Megabyte cache! UDMA sets its cache in XMS memory and caches from 5 to 750 Megabytes of data for diskettes, hard-disks and CD/DVD drives! UDVD is a driver for up to 3 IDE CD/DVD drives which may be UltraDMA or old "PIO mode" models. It accepts file-input requests by SHCDX33C and other CD "Redirectors", and it also handles DOS "audio" functions. If "raw" CD/DVD input (audio, track-writers) is unneeded, UDVD caches data files by calling the UDMA driver, which greatly improves CD/DVD speed! "Free use" source files are offered with the XMGR, UDMA and UDVD binary files. See their README file for full details about these drivers. http://johnson.tmfc.net/dos/drivers.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Read-me says : "XMGR, UDMA, and UDVD are offered as "free software", as-is, and "use at your own risk", and with NO warranties, not even the implied warranties of MERCHANTABILITY nor of FITNESS for ANY particular purpose! Driver questions or comments may be addressed to the website of Johnson Lam, <johnson(a)tmfc.net>." ---------------------------------------------------------- Best A. Mani -- A. Mani Member, Cal. Math. Soc

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Some links you might find useful (FLOSS in education)
by Frederick Noronha [फ़र ेदरिक नोर ोनया] 12 Aug '07

12 Aug '07

Some links you might find useful (FLOSS in education): * FOSS Education (Wikibooks) http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FOSS_Education * Comics... to teach FLOSS? http://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/82/Hai_Ti_Comics_SchoolNet_Namibia.pdf * Skolelinux 3.0 Terra available for free http://www.skolelinux.no * Roadmap for next merging of LinEx and Debian-Edu: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEdu/LinEx2DebianEdu-Roadmap * Tech to the aid of autistic children: Recent research has shown that computer/digital technologies can help children with autism (and other disabilities) learn and communicate better. A computer training workshop for parents and children was held recently at Bangalore. Shuchi Grover reports. Mehta and colleagues shared various software and hardware by which children could communicate with the computer through non-traditional means. Also shared were several other software tools such as a 3-D and role-play software developed by C-DAC, simple visual programming environments such as Scratch (recently released by MIT Media Lab), simple image and audio manipulation using everyday Windows software, and Edubuntu â?? a free and open source Linux-based operating system designed specially for children that comes packaged with several child-friendly games and educational software. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/16049 * TELECENTRES IN THE MADRASA: The school based telecenter project of RI SOL has launched internet-enabled telecenters in two Bangladeshi madrasas (Islamic religious schools), in Khulna and Dhaka. See Khulna Alia Madrasa Advocates for an Inclusive Information Society on World Information Society Day Link to the news story and photos of the celebration: http://www.connect-bangladesh.org/content/view/418/101/ Source: Nazrul Islam <nazrul07(a)gmail.com> * Richard D'Souza is based at St Paul's in Belgaum, with the mandate to extend the school's computer centre there. This educator is very pro-GNU/Linux.... http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/15830 * Create a comprehesive set of education tools customised for Indian environment. This include localization, improving features, adding new features, developing new tools... The project is co ordinated by FOSS Community India (http://fci.wikia.com) http://sarovar.org/projects/foss-edu-in/ * Reclaiming ICT education: why free software is a necessity in schools? Tim Cowlishaw talks about education and free software?and why IT education shouldn't be a how-to for using the Microsoft suite. Read more... http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/blogs/reclaiming_ICT_education_why_free… * "K12OS.org is all about open source news in education. You'll find news, links, resources and discussion here to help promote the use of open source software in schools." http://k12os.org/ * Speaker Name, K. K. Subramaniam. Company. Type, Talk. Scope, General. Slides, Click to download. FOSS tools in primary schools. This talk is aimed at FOSS enthusiasts promoting its adoption in their local community, particularly in primary education. It presents the experience of deploying a FOSS desktop in a small public primary school in Bangalore. It presents the initial approach for FOSS deployment, the steps which worked and those that didnt in getting the teachers in the school to use FOSS desktop and tools like KDE, Kile and LaTeX to enhance the quality of teaching and integrate a PC into daily sessions in the school. In India, most deployments of computers in primary schools use canned 'games' software on PCs to teach students or expect teachers to use office automation software. For already overburdened primary class teachers, PCs became just another distraction. In a grassroots experiment, a FOSS desktop was offered to a small public school in Bangalore to use it for any task of their choice. The teachers had no prior experience with computers or software and their medium of instruction was Kannada. Two teachers in the school chose to automate preparation of term question papers in Kannada and English as this was a recurring and time-consuming manual process. The desktop was provisioned with KDE, Kile and LaTeX (with Kannada types and styles) but not localized in Kannada. Starting from scratch, the teachers took over 100 hours to learn to use the tools and complete the first set of publication-ready term papers for classes I through IV. The second cycle took them less than 20 hours and they continue to improve on their time. The FOSS desktop has empowered the teachers to generate their own content quickly and easily without compromising quality. The system has worked without a single crash/breakdown over eighteen months of use by curious young children. https://foss.in/2006/cfp/speakers/talkdetailspub.php?talkid=183 * The Family Guide to Digital Freedom will explain, in one place and in normal language, what everybody should know about software and other digital technologies, and above all the real reasons why they should care: in this modern world, our rights and quality of life heavily depend from how software is being used around us. The website associated to the book, http://digifreedom.net, is now open to visitors: besides sample chapters of the book it will also host related news, links to existing resources for new users of Free Software and a database of Digitally Free Schools. For further information, please read http://digifreedom.net/node/73 * ClassroomCoders: Building Analytical Capacity through Peer-Taught: The goal of this project is to create a comprehensive curriculum for learners aged 8 to 18, which develops their analytical skills through the use of software and software engineering tools. http://wiki.tsf.org.za/shuttleworthfoundationwiki/ClassroomCoders * Linux Spreads its Wings in India: Windows is still No. 1, but open-source software is moving into schools and government offices. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/14196 http://www.businessweek.com/print/globalbiz/content/sep2006/gb20060921_4634… * GOA: BASIL FERNANDES had a long and interesting discussion on teaching young kids programming, the possibility of encouraging schools to do the same, and whether schools could have Computer Clubs that work on a build-them-young approach. He is keen to get involved with such a programme. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/14172 * Kerala logs Microsoft out of schools http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/sep/02microsoft.htm * India State to Dump Windows for Linux http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/14060 * Riza's desktop... it's not just about eye-candy http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/14067 * OpenKiosk is an open-source multi-platform kiosk system. OpenKiosk is ideally suited for use in locations where a controlled computing environment is paramount such as public access systems, libraries, school computer laboratories. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/13846 * Content Creation competition for school and college teachers: OSSRC is organising a competition for school/college teachers in creating content. Details of the event can be found at http://www.ossrc.org.in/c3t.html * When Free Software ideas spreads to education... see the first link http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/13234 * Site@School is a Content Management System (CMS) to manage and maintain the website of a primary school. It is Open Source Software, licensed under the General Public license. Site@school main features are: * Manage a website without technical knowledge. * Editors with a high "Word processor look and feel" rate. * Pupils/teachers can have personal pages on the website. Teachers can check pupil pages before publication. * An intranet for teachers (not accessible by the public). * E-mail alerts can be sent to admins when pages are updated/created. * Comprehensive manual with over 300 screenshots. * Extensive number of available modules, see Available Modules * Possible to create your own template see downloadable example(s). http://siteatschool.sourceforge.net/ * Linux in Education: Two Years Later by Peter D. St. Onge http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/12949 * Education... lessons from South Africa http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/message/12821 * Gnu and tux go to primary school.... http://www.ofset.org/freeduc-ecole -- Frederick Noronha Journalist http://fn.goa-india.org E: fred(a)bytesforall.org or fredericknoronha(a)gmail.com P: +91-832-2409490 M: +91-9970157402 Yahoo: fredericknoronha Skype: fredericknoronha GTalk: fredericknoronha 784, Sonarbhat, Near Lourdes Convent, Saligao 403511 Goa India

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Tmes of India article on Free Software Movement
by alpesh gajbe 12 Aug '07

12 Aug '07

Hello all, I am forwarding a link of an article in today's i.e. 11st August 2007 Times of India on Free Software Movement. http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VE9JTS8yMDA3LzA4LzExI0… Regards. Alpesh.

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Universal sells songs without DRM
by Vikram Vincent 11 Aug '07

11 Aug '07

Wondering about the outcome of this experiment. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6939807.stm -- Regards Vikram Vincent +919448810822 Project Engineer, NRCFOSS, AU-KBC Research Centre

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Microsoft submitted license fro OSI approval
by Praveen A 11 Aug '07

11 Aug '07

Director of Source Program at Microsoft Corporation Jon Rosenberg submitted its Shared Source License called "Microsoft Community License" to Open Source Initiative for considering it as an OSI approved Open Source License. He wrote in his mail to the license-discuss mailing list of OSI: "Microsoft is pleased to submit the Microsoft Community License to the OSI for consideration as an OSI approved license. Microsoft believes that this license provides unique value to the open source community by delivering simplicity, brevity, and clearly delineated reciprocal terms." It will be interesting to see how it turns out. A good move from Microsoft after it recently locked horns with the Free and Open Source Community about patents after its deal with Novell. http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:13324:200708:cokmgmoknbgepfbo… Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Propaganda by Tele2
by Mani A 10 Aug '07

10 Aug '07

You might have seen this story : ...600000 Norwegians.. http://www.physorg.com/news105962152.html Tele2 operates in 22 European countries. It provides broadband services and lot more. And maintains utterly insecure websites (or uses the dreaded OS for safety critical applications). These M$windows users cannot distinguish between hackers and crackers... ..."It said they had used a weakness on the website of the telephone operators Tele2 to procure the national personal identity numbers and addresses of subscribers, amounting to 1.3 percent of the country's population. The information would enable the hackers to change the addresses of the people concerned so as to intercept their mail, or order goods on their account. "... Best A. Mani -- A. Mani Member, Cal. Math. Soc

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[On topic]On Attack on Taslima Nasreen
by Vikram Vincent 10 Aug '07

10 Aug '07

On Attack on Taslima Nasreen August 10, 2007 We strongly condemn the physical attack on Taslima Nasreen, a Bangladeshi writer. This attack goes against the democratic and secular character of the Indian polity. One may have differences over the writings of Taslima Nasreen or anybody else, but this definitely is not the appropriate manner to express dissent. This very act militates against the freedom of expression. We demand that the Andhra Pradesh government take firm action against the culprits responsible for this attack.

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Online Petition Asking Apple to Support ODF
by Anivar Aravind 10 Aug '07

10 Aug '07

The ISO 26300 is the international standard XML format for office documents, also known as the Open Document Format or ODF. The newly released iWork '08 supports the Open Office XML (OOXML) document format, which is still not an ISO-approved standard. It would be beneficial to all if the iWork suite of applications, namely Pages, Keynote and Numbers, support Open Document Format. We appeal that you release an update to the latest version of iWork suite to support ISO 26300. In addition, we hope that you support the ISO 26300 standard in future Apple products that involves office documents. http://www.petitiononline.com/appleodf/petition.html BTW, what is the status of Campaign against OOXML at BIS? any updates? -- Anivar Aravind moving Republic Peringavu.P.O Thrissur-18 Kerala http://anivar.movingrepublic.org/about

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Article: Middle America, Meet The Hackers
by Praveen A 08 Aug '07

08 Aug '07

Hi, Good to see a mainstream magazine talking about hackers in its real meaning. Hope this will spread around. http://www.forbes.com/2007/08/06/security-hacking-challenge-tech-cx_ag_0806… Happy Hacking Praveen -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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OIN Licensees
by Mani A 07 Aug '07

07 Aug '07

>From Groklaw ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Google Becomes OIN's First End User Licensee "To Help Linux Thrive" Tuesday, August 07 2007 @ 03:12 AM EDT Google has become an Open Invention Network licensee. Here's the press release about it. "Linux plays a vital role at Google, and we're strongly committed to supporting the Linux developer community," said Chris DiBona, Google open source programs manager. "We believe that by becoming an Open Invention Network licensee, we can encourage Linux development and foster innovation in a way that benefits everyone. We're proud to participate in OIN's mission to help Linux thrive." This is huge. All previous licensees have been developers, sellers or resellers of Linux. Plus... let's be real. It's Google. OIN becomes increasingly important as a shield against patent attacks http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070807015043108 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Best A. Mani -- A. Mani Member, Cal. Math. Soc

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Little Wizard
by Mani A 07 Aug '07

07 Aug '07

This is a program that can help young learners with some programming constructs. As of now it is not very comprehensive, but it can be really developed. You can find a tutorial at http://people.debian.org/~kaol/lw/tutorial.html It can be downloaded from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=141417&package_id=155… Best A. Mani -- A. Mani Member, Cal. Math. Soc

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Interview: Monitor Your Systems With FreeIPMI
by Praveen A 07 Aug '07

07 Aug '07

Hi, Our own Anand Babu is also mentioned in this interview. "Developers at CDC, led by Anand Babu, had begun several IPMI related projects internally for their customer base. At LLNL, I had begun working on several IPMI related projects that would be needed for Thunder. While Thunder was being assembled, we worked on alot of these projects together, and eventually merged it together into FreeIPMI. Since that initial merger, developers from LLNL, CDC, and Zresearch (where some former CDC developers went to) have continued the primary maintenance and development of FreeIPMI." http://blue-gnu.biz/node/70 Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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M$ Vista Back Doors
by Mani A 03 Aug '07

03 Aug '07

This is from an article at http://english.people.com.cn/200706/25/text20070625_387364.html ------------------------------------------ "First, the program is "back door": in nature. The two programs, in particular the "lsasrv.dll,": are files for local security password verification. Norton reported the two as malicious software with the features of "backdoor.haxdoor.": The back door plays the same role as a "Trojan horse.": Both are secretly hidden within an opponent's home base." ------------------------------------------ The article is not well written and the author does not seem to understand the issues involved. Best A. Mani -- A. Mani Member, Cal. Math. Soc

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Software Freedom Day - 15 september 2007
by Mohan R 03 Aug '07

03 Aug '07

Hi, We all know that Software Freedom Day will be on September 2007. To make awarness of this day we have a site softwarefreedomday.org<http://www.softwarefreedomday.org>. please register your group in that site and take FOSS to each and every corner of our country.

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Fwd: [PRC] ICT a cottage industry - Can we do it by 15th August?
by Praveen A 03 Aug '07

03 Aug '07

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [PRC] ICT a cottage industry - Can we do it by 15th August? Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:02:42 +0530 (IST) From: Choudhary <choudhary(a)indicybers.net> Reply-To: Free/Libre and Open Source Software Project List <prc(a)sarai.net> To: prc(a)sarai.net Hi All, Many of us work by deadlines, many work for deadlines, while for many others deadlines work! I belong to this privileged third category - lazy down to my maleus, incus and stapes. Oh yes, the so called smallest bones in the human body, but then again I thought the smallest bones were calcified neurons! Again count me in! So for all those of us who have been experiencing increasing head-weight recently, I have a suggestion - let's set a real deadline: Let us achieve ICT Freedom this 15th August! India Inc. reaches super-annuation this autumn - she's turning 60! Well is this possible? Now for once I'm not announcing another impending release of Hindawi, although one is on the cards. I am talking about making it happen finally. Oh yes "finally" just as used in Java, literally, no puns! I am talking about a complete free system - end to end - hair to toe. We have been doing alpha and beta for long, and with a varying degree of success have produced almost all the components needed to make this revolution happen. Let the 2-week revolution happen now. The question is how? Well systematically - make a wish and have it granted! It probably needs to be a wish-list rather than a single wish. To begin with here's my wish list for 15th August 2007: 1. A computer so affordable that I could let my daughter bang it around - let's say Rs5000/-. Now wait, don't raise your eye-brows - I know others have been talking too - but _where_ are the results. 2. An OS so Indian that it could leave Munnabhai ashamed of his knowledge of Gandhigiri! Bollywood fans watchout -this one's should have no "locha" - chemical, licensing, usage or whatsoever. Holla Indlinux... Hello... Hi... oh ok so your're listening all right! 3. Tool-chains so open that you can use them to build Tajware. Well hardware, firmware, software, Tajware - we all know what that is, right? Ah! Come on, had Skinner quoted today he'd have said "the hands that built the Tajmahal, are the the hands that build the best software... err Tajware". Now, Hindawi's doing a good enough job ain't it? Besides, there are Kannada Logo, Marathi BASIC and many more. I will also mark a copy of this mail to myself! 4. Courseware for ICT in Indic - just having the tools will not suffice. We need to teach people how to use them. Video lectures, PDF's, ebooks of all sorts let's make it happen. 5. Silicon India - a open silicon platform (read IP), for lost cost systems design. Difficult but possible. let's say we at least do a small FPGA based simulation over the next two weeks. Let's call it Project Bharat - on the lines of Project America aka PPC. 6. HMI tools for Indic - speech recognition, text-to-speech, OCR and the whole battalion that's available for English. Other high-end tools like PVM, MPI, OpenMP, robotics etc. interfaced for Indic. 7. An IT company in every hut - Let's make ICT a cottage industry in India. Can we not, and, shall we not? Please spread this message around, yell, shout, post, re-post, modify it as you like (under the constraints of decency though) - This 15th August, of the year 2007 of the Christian era, as India turns 60 let us strive to make Information and Communication technologies a cottage industry. Regards and Jai Hind, Abhishek Mobile: 09860700184 Knowlege is power... share it equitably! _______________________________________________ prc mailing list prc(a)sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/prc --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ സ്വതന്ത്ര മലയാളം കമ്പ്യൂട്ടിങ്ങ് - എന്റെ കമ്പ്യൂട്ടറിന് എന്റെ ഭാഷ പിരിഞ്ഞു പോകാന്: smc-discuss-unsubscribe(a)googlegroups.com സംരംഭം: https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/smc -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Second Call for Paper - Bharatiya Vigyan Sammelan, BVS 2007, Bhopal MP
by Sanjeev Sharma 03 Aug '07

03 Aug '07

Bharatiya Vigyan Sammelan, 23-25 November, 2007 [image: Bharatiya Vigyan Samellan] <http://www.bvsindia.org> The focal theme of the conference is - Integral Scientific Management of Natural Resources For Sustainable Development with special focus on Best Traditional and Current Practices in Agri-Forestry and Rural Technology in India and Abroad. In addition to individual delegates and representatives from institutions, the conference will also have associate delegates comprising of Post-graduates and Research Scholars as observers, selected from R&D institutions, Colleges and Universities. We invite all Scientists, Technocrats, Academicians, Policy Makers, Research Scholars, Students and common people who have an affinity towards Science and Technology to participate and contribute to this conference. Last date for : Abstract Submission :30th August, 2007 Notification for Acceptance : 30th September, 2007 Submission of Full Text of paper :15th October, 2007 Registration:15th October, 2007 The Registration fee, for the conference, which shall include the conference material and working lunch during the conference period, is as follows : Institutional Delegates : Rs. 5,000/- (upto 3 delegates) Individual Delegates : Rs. 1,000/- Research Scholars and Members of Organizing Institutions: Rs. 500/- Student Observers and Persons accompanying delegates : Rs. 500/- Organizing Committee Chairman Dr. G. Madhavan Nair, Chairman ISRO & Secretary, Departmet of Space, Govt of India Executive Chairman Dr. Mahesh Sharma, D.G., M.P.C.S.T. and Advisor to Govt. M.P. Technical Committee Chairman, Professor. P.B. Sharma,Vice Chancellor,Rajiv Gandhi Technological University, Bhopal Exhibition Committee Chairman Dr. S.P. Gautam, Chairman, MP Pollution Control Board Programme Committee Chairman Prof. D.P. Singh, VC, Sagar University Science and Technology, forms the thrust engine of development for any society. An overwhelmingly large number of over 6 lac villages still await infrastructure facilities and basic amenities. There is a growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots. It is becoming increasingly imperative that inclusive growth becomes a reality and not just a slogan. We have a gigantic task at hand. Effective intervention through appropriate technologies can play an important role in providing urban amenities in rural areas. These interventions will be able to control the ever-growing problems of urbanization, rural poverty, environmental degradation and unequal growth. Language plays a very significant role in the 'lab to land' concept. In our country, with 23 recognized official national languages including Hindi and English, language plays a key role in science and technology dissemination among the masses.India, a nation of a billion people, cradle of the oldest civilization of mankind, is marching ahead with indomitable power and incorrigible confidence. Home to the 2nd largest population of the world, we have to fulfill a billion dreams as well as our global responsibilities The conference shall comprise of invited talks from eminent personalities in the area of interest and contributed papers for oral/poster presentations. Scientists, Technologists, Research Scholars, Policy makers and Stake Holders in S & T are invited to send two page Extended Abstracts (in Hindi or English or both) of their papers before 15th August, 2007. The Abstracts should be accompanied with Registration form for attending the conference. The Abstracts and full paper may be sent as MS-Word files to : bvs(a)rgtu.net The Abstracts can also be sent as hard copies to * Executive Chairman, Bhartiya Vigyan Sammelan, Samanvay Karyalaya, B-44, 45 Banglow, Professors Colony, Opp Mulla Ramuzi Bhawan, Bhopal, MP* * Conference Theme:* 1. Agriculture, Horticulture, Animal Husbandry Marine, Aquacultureand Veterinary Sciences 2. Forestry and Environmental Sciences 3. Water Management 4. Energy Management 5. Mineral Resources and Materials Science/Technology 6. Meteorology and Climate 7. Health and Medical Sciences including AYUSH and Nutraceuticals 8. Housing, Habitat and Architecture 9. Basic Sciences : Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Astronomy, Life Sciences. 10. Cutting Edge Technologies (BIO, IT, NANO - Status and Possibilities) 11. Science Communication through Regional Languages 12. Engineering and Technological Sciences email : bvs(a)rgtu.net, <bvs(a)rgtu.net>url: http://www.bvsindia.org Conference Dates : November 23-25, 2007, Venue: Ravindra Bhawan, Bhopal<http://www.bvsindia.org/> Our mailing address is: Samanvay Karyalaya, B-44, 45 Banglow Opposite Mulla Ramuzi Bhawan, Professors Colony, Bhopal, MP Our Contect: bvs(a)rgtu.net Copyright (C) 2007 VIGYAN BHARATI Madhya Pradesh All rights reserved.

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