- Fsf-friends - lists.fsci.in

most popular linux applications
by Kush 01 Apr '06

01 Apr '06

I hope we can find the latest news on the best packages in linux. I > have found this link for some most popular applications in linux in 2005. > > http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/forumdisplay.php?f=69 > Kush

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Linux for the Blind
by malovika roy 31 Mar '06

31 Mar '06

Hi, I am keen to know how Linux can enable the disabled (Visually impaired). I am aware of Emacspeak, ESF project and speakup. But is there anything else - tools, software applns or weblinks that are handy for the blind? Do chip in, I need leads for an article I propose to do. Thanks for your time. Malovika. -- ----------------------------------------------------------- "Things work out best for the people who make the best out of the way things work out."

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[Fwd: [eGovINDIA] Keeping Free Software Free]
by Ramanraj K 31 Mar '06

31 Mar '06

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [eGovINDIA] Keeping Free Software Free Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 15:31:08 -0800 (PST) From: OSS FOSS <ossrti(a)yahoo.com> Reply-To: eGovINDIA(a)yahoogroups.com To: egov India <egovindia(a)yahoogroups.com>, egov gok <egovgok(a)yahoogroups.com>, ella kavi <ellakavi(a)yahoogroups.com>, egov Orissa <egovorissa(a)yahoogroups.com> *Keeping Free Software Free* MARCH 28, 2006 Viewpoint By Richard Stallman Next-generation computers are designed to restrict how you use them even before you buy them. What can the free software community do? http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/mar2006/tc20060328_903602.htm In 1989, in a very different world from today's, I wrote the first version of the GNU General Public License, a license that gives computer users freedom. The GNU GPL, of all the free software licenses, is the one that most fully embodies the values and aims of the free software movement by ensuring four fundamental freedoms for every user. These are freedoms: 1) to run the program as you wish, 2) to study the source code and change it to do what you wish, 3) to make and distribute copies when you wish, and 4) to distribute modified versions when you wish. Any license that grants these freedoms is a free software license. The GNU GPL goes further -- it protects these freedoms for all users of all versions of the program by forbidding middlemen from stripping them away. Most components of the GNU/Linux operating system, including the Linux component that was made free software in 1992, are licensed under GPL Version 2, released in 1991. Now, with legal advice from Professor Eben Moglen at Columbia Law School, I am designing Version 3 of the GNU GPL. GPL v3 must cope with threats to freedom that we couldn't have imagined in 1989. The coming generation of computers, and many products with increasingly powerful embedded computers, are being turned against us by their manufacturers -- before we buy them. They're designed to restrict the uses to which we can put them. TRUSTED OR TREACHEROUS?. First, there was the TiVo. People may think of TiVo as a device to record TV programs, but it contains a real computer running a GNU/Linux system. As required by the GPL, you can get the source code for the system. You can change the code, recompile and install it. But once you install a changed version, the TiVo won't run at all, because of a special mechanism designed to sabotage you. Freedom No. 1, the freedom to change the software to do what you wish, has become a sham. Then came "trusted computing," what I call treacherous computing, meaning that companies can "trust" your computer to obey them instead of you. It enables network sites to tell which program you're running. If you change the program, or write your own, they will refuse to talk to you. Once again, freedom No. 1 becomes lip service. Microsoft (MSFT <javascript: void showTicker('MSFT')>) has a scheme, originally called Palladium, that enables an application program to "seal" data so that no other program can gain access to it. If Disney (DIS <javascript: void showTicker('DIS')>) distributes movies this way, you'll be unable to exercise your legal rights of fair use and /de minimis/ use. If an application records your data this way, it will be the ultimate in vendor lock-in. This too destroys freedom No. 1 -- if modified versions of a program cannot access the same data, you can't really change the program to do what you wish. Something like Palladium is planned for a coming version of Windows. ROOT OF EVIL. AACS, the "Advanced Access Content System," promoted by Disney, IBM (IBM <javascript: void showTicker('IBM')>), Microsoft (MSFT <javascript: void showTicker('MSFT')>), Intel (INTC <javascript: void showTicker('INTC')>), Sony (SNE <javascript: void showTicker('SNE')>), and others, aims to restrict use of HDTV recordings -- and software -- so they can't be used except as these companies permit. Sony was caught last year installing a "rootkit" into millions of people's computers through CDs and not telling them how to remove it. Sony learned from its mistake: It will now install the "rootkit" in your computer before you get it, and you won't be able to remove it. This plan explicitly requires devices to be "robust" -- meaning you cannot change them. Its implementers will surely want to include GPL-covered software, again trampling freedom No. 1. This scheme should get "AACSed," and a boycott of HD DVD and Blu-ray <http://bluraysucks.com/boycott> has already been announced. Allowing a few businesses to organize a scheme to deny our freedoms for their profit is a failure of government, but so far, most of the world's governments, led by the U.S., have acted as paid accomplices rather than policemen for these schemes. The copyright industry has promulgated its peculiar ideas of right and wrong so vigorously that some readers may find it hard to entertain the idea that individual freedom can trump profits. SOFTWARE FREEDOM. Facing these threats to our freedom, what should the free software community do? Some say we should give in and accept the distribution of our software in ways that don't allow modified versions to function, because this will make our software more popular. Some refer to free software as "open source," that being the catchphrase of an amoral approach to the matter which cites powerful and reliable software as the highest goal. If we allow companies to use our software to restrict us, this "open-source Digital Rights Management (DRM)" could help them restrict us more powerfully and consistently. Those who wield the power could benefit by sharing and improving the software they use to do so. We too could read it -- read it and weep if we can't make a changed version run. For the goals of freedom and community, the goals of the free software movement, this concession would amount to failure. We developed the GNU operating system so that we could control our own computers, and use them in freedom. To seek popularity for our software by ceding this freedom would defeat that purpose. Therefore we have designed Version 3 of the GNU GPL to uphold the user's freedom to modify the source code and put modified versions to real use. The debate about the GPL v3 is part of a broader debate about DRM vs.your rights. The motive for DRM schemes is to increase profits for those who impose them, but their profit is a side issue when millions of people's freedom is at stake. Desire for profit, though not wrong in itself, cannot be justification for denying the public control over its technology. Defending freedom means thwarting DRM. First published by BusinessWeek Online. Stallman is the founder of the GNU Project, launched in 1984 to develop the free software operating system GNU. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted worldwide without royalty in any medium, provided this notice is preserved ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Blab-away for as little as 1¢/min. Make PC-to-Phone Calls <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/mail_us/taglines/postman2/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/ev…> using Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. SPONSORED LINKS Open source software <http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Open+source+software&w1=Open+source+sof…> India <http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=India&w1=Open+source+software&w2=India&…> Communication technology <http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Communication+technology&w1=Open+source…> Women empowerment <http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=Women+empowerment&w1=Open+source+softwa…> India gift <http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=India+gift&w1=Open+source+software&w2=I…> India tour <http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=ms&k=India+tour&w1=Open+source+software&w2=I…> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS * Visit your group "eGovINDIA <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eGovINDIA>" on the web. * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: eGovINDIA-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com <mailto:eGovINDIA-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com?subject=Unsubscribe> * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Re: Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 35, Issue 10
by Mishi Choudhary 30 Mar '06

30 Mar '06

Hi everyone Can you all learned pEople suggest the name of industry big wigs who should be approached,so as to make free software reach the right venues and end users? Warm Regards Mishi Choudhary

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Re: Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 35, Issue 9
by Mishi Choudhary 30 Mar '06

30 Mar '06

hey ppl i am not getting any mails from anyone am i still on the mailing list? Warm Regards Mishi Choudhary

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ILUG-Goa: Tech writing, software for libraries...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 29 Mar '06

29 Mar '06

March 25 saw an interesting user-group meet, with a full-house in the small Goa Science Centre board-room. Suhag Shirodkar, recently re-settled back from the US, explained all about technical writing and what it offered to youth wanting a career in it. She mentioned they had opened a 'brand new' India office at Caranzalem (Goa) and were looking for writers with the required skills. Though this is not a GNU/Linux subject, it obviously would be of interest to many of our younger members. GNU/Linux also needs to build its own technical writing skills. Suhag said they had three lines of work -- writing for the hardware and software industry, science writing (grant proposals, white papers, abstracts), and business writing (web content, white-papers, etc). Edgar D'Souza, ILUG-Goa's long time member, shared his own experiences in technical writing.Suhag stressed that what was needed was good grammer, a knowledge of sentence structures, the use of thought and logic inone's work. "Technical writing is not about giving an opinion, or having a slant and angle. It's about figuring out who is the user (of your writing) and what they need to know. It's not about us and what we want, but it's about what other people want," she added. She stressed that the fundamental "building blocks" of good technical included good knowledge of the subject, some domain knowledge (either in coding, or having worked as a physicist, biotechnologist, chemist). "There are many things thrown on our plate that we know nothing about. Our job is to grasp the fundamentals quickly, talk to the experts and get the knowledge," she added. "It's not rocket science." * * * * * * * * * * After a brief Q&A, Bijon Shaha took up the challenge of presenting ideas he had encountered minutes earlier. He shared with all a presentation titled Introduction to Open Source Library Management Systems. This talk is by Edward M. Corrado of Rider University Libraries and ecorrado(a)library.rider.edu You could probably find a copy on the internet, or ask me for one which ia 1.8MB file. A very interesting subject. It covers software such as Koha, the made-in-Finland Emilda (www.emilda.org), PhPMyLibrary from the Philippines, phpmybibli (from FRance), OpenBiblio (which works on GNU/Linux as well as Windows), AvantiMicroLCS (an easy-to-install tool with a small footprint) and more. The screenshots are very interesting and instructive. After sharing time with the 15 people present, we broke and look forward to the meet on April 22, 2006. Do send in your suggestions on what you can talk about then... FN -- ------------------------------------------------------------- | India Linux Users' Group, Goa | | Join the friendly user group | | Mail list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/join | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | http://groups.yahoo.com/group/teach-yourself-linux | | http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa-announce | | http://www.iosn.net/country/india/organizations/ilug-goa/ | ------------------------------------------------------------- , , / \ .-. * SOFTWARE ((__-^^-,-^^-__)) (. .) * FREEDOM `-_---' `---_-' / V \ * SHARING `--|o` 'o|--' // \\ \ ` / /( )\ KNOWLEDGE IS POWER ): :( '.^^_^^.' SHARE IT EQUITABLY :o_o: \_/ \_/ "-"

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Re [Fsf-friends] swatantra software in kerala election
by doxa＠sancharnet.in 29 Mar '06

29 Mar '06

James, Newspapers seem to send a different story; they say the manifesto is keen on introducing "Malalayam" in e-governance. Things are reaching a stage where the decisive move is heavily dependant on whether VS gets the mantle. CK Raju (another infidel) --------Original Message ------- Friends, Kerala is heading for an election in about a months time. The Left Democratic Front has promised support for Free Software in its manifesto. It says: "The development and use of Swatantra Software will be encouraged for resisting the monopolistic trends in Software field" James. -- HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE! _______________________________________________ Fsf-friends mailing list Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends

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swatantra software in kerala election
by james mathew 29 Mar '06

29 Mar '06

Friends, Kerala is heading for an election in about a months time. The Left Democratic Front has promised support for Free Software in its manifesto. It says: "The development and use of Swatantra Software will be encouraged for resisting the monopolistic trends in Software field" James. -- HASTA LA VICTORIA SIEMPRE!

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Fwd: [+PLUS][I+MM] Hello
by प्रव ीण् ए (Praveen A) 27 Mar '06

27 Mar '06

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Richard Stallman <rms(a)gnu.org> Date: Mar 27, 2006 2:05 PM Subject: [+PLUS][I+MM] Hello To: plus-discuss(a)lists.sarovar.org March - Iginite the PLUS month --------------------------------------------- Hello, Libre users of Palakkad! It is exciting to address a group of people who understand what GNU is really all about. Most operating systems were developed for commercial motives or technical motives, but GNU was developed for ethical ideals: freedom and community. All user groups invite, teach and help people to use the GNU/Linux system, and I'm sure you are going to do that. But your commitment to freedom means you can also do jobs that get to the root of the matter, campaigning for software freedom in your schools, in your civic institutions, and in all areas of life. Thank you for helping our community, and best wishes to your work. _______________________________________________ Palakkad Libre software Users Society Main Mailing List "Adding freedom to common minds" PLUS-discuss(a)lists.sarovar.org http://lists.sarovar.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/plus-discuss -- "Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history. `Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn." -- Richard Stallman Me scribbles at http://www.pravi.co.nr

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Wikipedia on a computer
by Krishna Pagadala 26 Mar '06

26 Mar '06

Hi All, I want a package/CD/DVD/computer which has wikipedia installed on it. I know that some of the members are working on it. Can you please help me. Thanks Krishna ===================================== To Reflect, to Inspire and to Empower http://www.employees.org/~krishnap/ The great moral question of the twenty-first century is: If all knowledge, all culture, all art, all useful information, can be costlessly given to everyone at the same price that it is given to anyone -- if everyone can have everything, everywhere, all the time, why is it ever moral to exclude anyone from anything? -Eben Moglen --------------------------------- New Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Call regular phones from your PC for low, low rates.

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Taking Free Software to the Farmers and Fields of India
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 26 Mar '06

26 Mar '06

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8938 Taking Free Software to the Farmers and Fields of India By Frederick Noronha on Fri, 2006-03-24 02:00. International FLOSS is behind an Indian Web site that brings together farmers and agricultural experts to exchange ideas and information. Thanks to work done by the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Bombay) and its partners, IT-savvy and knowledge-hungry people across rural India now can find relevant, demand-driven farming knowledge on the aAqua.org Web site. So far, the site has been a great way to bring together people such as Prasad Kaledhonkar, who has a clue about what the white patterns emerging on tomato plant leaves are; farmer's daughter Niyatee Nilesh, who wants advice on buying agricultural land; and Shirish, from rural Maharashtra, who wants to learn about using waste water from the school kitchen to irrigate gardens and crops. aAqua stands for "Almost All Questions Answered". Dr. Krithi Ramamritham, IIT-Bombay's head at the Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology, said, "It used to be called Aqua. We added a small 'a' in front of it that stands for 'almost'. We want to be as realistic as possible." Dr. Krithi Ramamritham In addition to connecting users, aAqua.org also provides crop recommendations archived by keywords, a search tool to see if a particular question already has been answered and a "crop doctor" with photographs of diseased crops, archived by keywords. The bhav puchiye (ask the price) feature has practical use. Market rates from across India are displayed for farmers and agro-traders. The aAqua Web site contains several forums in Indian languages (Marathi and Hindi, currently) and in English. These forums deal with crops, animals, officials' recommendations, market information and schemes for farmers. The site now has 940 members, 1,364 topics and 3,321 posts. "What we've done is sign up experts from various Krishi Vigyan Kendras [the network of farm-extension services in India]", Ramamritham explained. Anyone wanting information can sign up through a simple process and start asking questions. The aAqua project has brought together some diverse groups. To build a solution that works in the field, IIT-Bombay merged Indic text input, iconic interfaces, meaning-based searches, digital libraries, community forums and water-quality sensors. This work brought together skills from a variety of disciplines, including e-pedagogy, multimedia content, computer-based training, education and light databases. The project members have been working in an area in the central Indian state of Maharashtra, around the Baramati, Pabal, Pune and Khed areas. Work on the first aAqua prototype began in November 2003. Interestingly, the project got its start in a school course. "We started working on it in real earnest when we saw its full potential", Ramamritham said. "We now are trying to scale up. Our challenge is aAqua's reach should be larger", he added. Tomcat, MySQL and mnvforum When asked if Free/Libre and open-source software made the aAqua project possible, Dr. Ramamritham said, "Very much so." The software behind the aAqua Web site is based on lab-developed algorithms for translation, caching and the like that use Java, JSP and Java Servlets technology. The application currently is deployed on a Tomcat Web server, version 5. The software also can run from any Servlet container that is compatible with JSP 1.2 and Servlet 2.3. The Oracle 9i database, with Unicode UTF-8 support, is used as the site's backend software. aAqua at Work aAqua also has been configured to work with MySQL, with Unicode support (version 4.1 onwards). aAqua can be viewed using any popular Web browser, including Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Opera and so on. The digital library software uses C++, Perl and Java and is deployed on a Jakarta Apache server, version 2.0.52. In addition, aAqua is built with mvnForum, a FLOSS-based discussion forum application. mvnForum, in turn, uses other FLOSS components, such as Lucene, an indexer and search engine; Tomcat; and many other components. Ramamritham said the team opted to use mvnForum because it is "easy to use, easy to set up" and offered the option of attaching files to a post, a fully customizable GUI. Among its attractive technical features are support for Unicode characters, which is "a must given India's multilingual orientation". In addition, the MVC architecture behind mvnForum also supports most popular databases, such as MySQL, Oracle 8i/9i, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, hsqldb, Interbase/Firebird, SAPDB, db2 and Sybase. "We wanted industrial strength support for databases as well as easy replicability, hence multiplatform support was essential" Ramamritham said. To deal with the many languages written and spoken in India, IIT-Bombay used its active natural language processing lab when working on the aAqua project. "We try to get most of the language translated automatically, through an intermediate language known as UNL, or universal networking language", Dr. Ramamritham explained. Overall, Ramamritham said the aAqua project has been a "great learning experience". The team's work has been presented with the Manthan Award, an Indian prize for Web sites having useful content. As for the future, Ramamritham said, "We're looking for deeper ways [of using] this technology, for instance, forecasting diseases by using by census data and other information. We want to enlarge its scope of applicability." To this end, the project has received a request for information from the Development Gateway Foundation, which is interested in the possibility of building such portals for other countries. In addition, the government of Western India's Maharashtra region has linked the aAqua site to its own main page. As for other uses of the aAqua model, the metrology department of Pune, in central India, is interested in seeing what the model can do for the department. MarathiWorld.com is interested in using the aAqua model to answer career-counseling queries. And, Drishtee, a project in North India project, sees potential in this model being used for a citizens' complaints system. In short, the aAqua model can be used in a variety of disciplines. According to Dr. Ramamritham, "aAqua can be deployed in any domain--education and health too. It's actually a very simple idea." -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Frederick 'FN' Noronha | Yahoomessenger: fredericknoronha http://fn.goa-india.org | fred(a)bytesforall.org Independent Journalist | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9822122436 ---------------------------------------------------------- Pics from Goa: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/popular-views/

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Test <please ignore>
by Joe Steeve 25 Mar '06

25 Mar '06

-- .O. A proud GNU user ..O OOO http://www.joesteeve.org/

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GPL'd Recruiting Management Application
by Manilal K M 24 Mar '06

24 Mar '06

Hello all, Has anyone came across any GPL'd recruiting/staffing management application developed in PHP/Perl/MySQL . It should have minimum functionality to track the recruitment procedures in mainly in HR departments. Thanks in advance Manilal

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[Fwd: [GNU/FSF Press] Press Release: GPL tested in US courts in Wallace]
by Ramanraj K 23 Mar '06

23 Mar '06

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [GNU/FSF Press] Press Release: GPL tested in US courts in Wallace Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 19:52:39 -0500 From: Peter Brown <peterb(a)fsf.org> To: info-press(a)gnu.org The GPL tested in US courts - Wallace Vs FSF. The GNU General Public License stands firm. On Monday March 20, 2006 US Federal Judge John Daniel Tinder, dismissed the Sherman Act antitrust claims brought against the Free Software Foundation. The claims made by Plaintiff Daniel Wallace included: that the General Public License (GPL) constituted a contract, combination or conspiracy; that it created an unreasonable restraint of trade; and that the FSF conspired with IBM, Red Hat Inc., Novell and other individuals to pool and cross-license their copyrighted intellectual property in a predatory price fixing scheme. Peter Brown, FSF Executive Director, responded to the news, "As the author of the GPL and copyright holder on the largest body of GPL'd covered free software, the FSF hears many theories of potential legal claims and challenges to the GPL. We hear the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) expressed, that the GPL has never been tested in court, and that somehow that is a sign of its weakness. Nothing could be further from the truth of course. Put quite simply, if you don't accept the terms of the GPL, then you have no rights to the copyrighted works it covers. What is there left to test? The GPL is a software license, it is not a contract. It gives permissions from the copyright holder. You don't want to accept those permissions? End of discussion." On Monday, a US Federal Court Judge dismissed Daniel Wallace's case saying "[The GPL] acts as a means by which certain software may be copied, modified and redistributed without violating the software's copyright protection. As such, the GPL encourages, rather than discourages, free competition and the distribution of computer operating systems, the benefits of which directly pass to consumers. These benefits include lower prices, better access and more innovation." Brown continued, "Let us all stop and consider the consequences of what this US Federal Judge has said. On being presented with the facts surrounding the GPL, he was able to define a range of benefits available to those that value the freedoms delivered by the GPL. The question we are all left with is, why would anyone put up with the inferred consequences of proprietary software?", and, "If you care about lower prices, better access to software, or more innovation, then GPL'd software is for you. Or as the Free Software would describe that, you value freedom". Having dismissed the case, and finding in favor of the FSF and against Wallace. The Judge also allowed FSF costs against Wallace. Wallace, now has thirty days to appeal the decision, but the FSF expects no relevant news on this matter. -- About the Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software - particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants - and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software. Their Web site, located at www.fsf.org , is an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support their work can be made at http://donate.fsf.org. Their headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA. _______________________________________________ FSF And GNU Press mailing list <info-press(a)gnu.org> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-press

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to Rabindranath's Lovers
by Sami Farid 20 Mar '06

20 Mar '06

Dear friends, Rabindra Sangeet Live is our endeavor from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.Here we have started a research community on Rabindranath Tagore. The purpose of the organization is doing research on Rabindra sangeet as well as Rabindranath Tagore. From Bangladesh we have a good response. The enlisted researcher of this organization are- Dr. Karunamaya Goshwamy Dr. Syeed Akram Hussain Dr. Anisujjaman Dr. Mridulkanti Chakraborty Dr. Sirajul Islam Dr. Manjurul Haque Rezwana Chowdhury Bannya Sadi Mohammad & a number of students of University of Dhaka & Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology We will have soon a oline forum of this organization. We will let you inform about the forum & interested people are most welcome to join to build this forum. The first project of this organization is to collect the background stories(i.e, the story behind, why written, in which particuar event the song is written) of the Rabindrasangeets. The sotries of each song will help the audience a lot for better understanding of the songs. WE NEED TO GATHER ALL THE RABINDRANATH'S LOVERS UNDER THIS COMMUNITY THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. INTERESTED PEOPLE ARE HEARTILY WELCOME HERE TO JOIN US. IF IT SOUNDS INTERESTING TO YOU PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO ALL OF THE GROUPS YOU BELONG TO. (for further information please mail me back at ex_josephite(a)yahoo.com) Thanks Sami Chowdhury Computer Science & Engineering University of Dhaka --------------------------------- Relax. Yahoo! Mail virus scanning helps detect nasty viruses!

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African Free Software on a firm footing... (Tectonic)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 28 Feb '06

28 Feb '06

TECTONIC NEWS Tracking the shifts in technology www.tectonic.co.za 27 February, 2006 AFRICAN FREE SOFTWARE ON A FIRM FOOTING ----------------------------------------- This week's newsletter is a little late because I have just returned from a few fantastic days in Nairobi, Kenya. I was there for the FOSSFA Idlelo2 conference which was a great opportunity to gauge how the free software movement on the continent has fared over the past two years since Idlelo1 in Cape Town. (Read more at http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=892&s=news) The good news is that African free software looks to be in robust health and it was heartening to see the links being developed between groups around the continent, in particular those with West Africa. As with any continental movement there are challenges of course - of language, experience and expections - but on the whole the trip well worth the time and an encouraging precursor to what we can expect over the coming year. Here's to a good African free software year, Alastair ------------ SITA TENDER WINNERS NAMED http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=884&s=news Eight companies have been selected to be the suppliers of open source software and support services to the government and the State IT Agency over the next three years. News of the winners of potentially South Africa's most lucrative open source deal ends months of nail-biting for tenderers involved. FREE SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS DO IT TO LEARN NEW SKILLS http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=883&s=news Despite an increase in the number of corporates involved in the development of free and open source software applications, the majority of FOSS code is still being developed by individuals and the vast majority of these do it primarily to learn new skills. Rishab Ghosh of Maastricht University said this during the opening of the Idlelo 2 conference in Nairobi, Kenya this morning. SHUTTLEWORTH URGES TELECOMS REFORM http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=888&s=news Entrepreneur and Ubuntu Linux founder Mark Shuttleworth yesterday hit out at the African telecoms sector saying the existing monopolies in the sector were not able to deliver effective and affordable bandwidth to the continent. He urged national regulators to unbundle their wired networks and develop competitive strategies to improve broadband access to Africans. SA TAX MAN EYES DESKTOP LINUX http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=882&s=news The South African Revenue Service has issued a tender for a proof of concept Linux desktop solution for the tax-collecting government department with a R355 billion ($58 billion) revenue. While SARS admits that the challenges of moving to Linux on the desktop are numerous, a successful proof of concept could see 14 000 desktops running Windows migrated to Linux. FOSSFA RATIFIES CONSTITUTION, ELECTS COUNCIL http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=887&s=news The Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa last night formally adopt its constitution and elected a new council to take the organisation forward for the next to years. ======================================== TECTONIC SURVEY 2006: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK AND WIN ---------------------------------------------------- What do you think of Tectonic? What are you interested in? What do you want to see us write about? Now it is your turn to tell us by taking part in the Tectonic 2006 reader survey. (www.tectonic.co.za/survey/) All we need is five minutes of you time and in return we'll enter your name into a draw for a box of Linux goodies kindly sponsored by Obsidian Systems. There are also a handful of Tectonic Magazine subscriptions up for grabs. ======================================== UBUNTU GOES SMALL http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=889&s=news The family of operating systems based on the Ubuntu platform continues to expand – this time to the ever-growing embedded world of small, light devices like PDAs and Internet tablets. A new Ubuntu project, Embedded Ubuntu, hopes to bring Ubuntu down to size. LENOVO BRAND LAUNCHES IN SA http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=890&s=news Lenovo South Africa launched its products officially on Friday, with desktops and laptops that look distinctly non-IBM. The new company is hoping to capture a slice of the lucrative home user and SME markets with its 3000 series, while the Think brand continues to play in the corporate arena. PROJECT HIGGINS FOR USER-CENTRIC ID MANAGEMENT http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=891&s=news IBM, Novell and Parity Communications today announced that they are contributing code to an open source initiative -- code-named 'Project Higgins' -- that will spawn a new generation of security software, giving people more control over their personal online identity information. Project Higgins builds upon a concept developed by Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. FREE SOFTWARE MOVEMENT HEADS FOR NAIROBI http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=878&s=news Free software developers and advocates from across the African continent will be heading for Nairobi in Kenya this week as they gather for the second Free Sofware and Open Source Foundation for Africa conference. Keynote speakers during the opening day of the conference will include Ubuntu's Mark Shuttleworth as well representatives of Google. INNOVATION HUB HOSTS OSS SHOWCASE http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=881&s=news 1 April is the date set for an open source event to be held at the Innovation Hub near Pretoria. The event will include LPI certification exams, guest speakers and an open source technology showcase. OPINION ----------------------------------------------------- THE STATE OF AFRICAN FREE SOFTWARE Alastair Otter http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=892&s=news A trip to Nairobi, cocktails with Microsoft, and a conference room full of African free software advocates. Alastair Otter checks in with the growing African free and open source movement to see how things are going. IN BRIEF ----------------------------------------------------- PANDA SECURES DESKTOP LINUX http://www.tectonic.co.za/viewatw.php?sel=885&s=news REDHAT'S ANSWER TO NOVELL'S EYE CANDY http://www.tectonic.co.za/viewatw.php?sel=886&s=news ---------------------------------------- Contact Tectonic: Editor Alastair Otter alastair(a)tectonic.co.za 083-267-7657 -- Tectonic's newsletter is sent out weekly to subscribers and delivers the best of open source news from around the continent direct to their desktop. To subscribe visit http://phplist.tectonic.co.za/lists/?p=subscribe or send your email address to news(a)tectonic.co.za. To advertise in Tectonic's weekly newsletter email info(a)tectonic.co.za or phone 083-267-7657. For more information on the newsletter visit http://www.tectonic.co.za/default.php?action=m_d Visit http://www.tectonic.co.za for the latest news and most up to date resources on open source software on the continent of Africa. All material copyright Free Speech Publishing. You are free to distribute copies of this newsletter on the condition that credit is given to www.tectonic.co.za. For permission to re-print articles that appear in this newsletter or on the www.tectonic.co.za website email news(a)tectonic.co.za

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LDD in MIT Feb. 26.
by navaladi a 27 Feb '06

27 Feb '06

Hi guys,Coming Sunday (Feb. 26) Linux Demo Day in MIT is jointly organized by ILUGC & NRCFOSS.This demo is dedicated to all newbies,advanced programmers,hackers,Geeks,addicts,This demo also explore future of open source & Linux,and lot more.... So i request everyone participate and make really a fun & joy.All your queries are clarified by eminent persons from ILUGC &AU-KBC. The list of topic's are, http://carteblanche.in/Demos.html For more Details http://carteblanche.in/ Entry is Free... Open To All... Thanks & Regards, ;-) :-) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It does not matter what your computer can do;But what you can do with computer"

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Invitation to NITC FOSS Meet
by प्रव ीण् ए (Praveen A) 27 Feb '06

27 Feb '06

Hi, This is an invitation to join NITC FOSS Meet 2006. The latest version of this document is availbale in wiki form at http://fci.wikicities.com/wiki/Calicut/NIT/FOSS_Meet/06/Invitation Regards Praveen A NIT Calicut, formerly known as REC Calicut <http://nitc.ac.in/> is hosting a two day FOSS <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOSS> event on 18th [Saturday] and 19th [Sunday] of March 2006 ( NITC FOSS Meet 2006 <http://fci.wikicities.com/wiki/Calicut/NIT/FOSS_Meet/06>). It is the second edition of the event [Last year it was called FLOSS Meet] - FLOSS Meet 2005<http://fci.wikicities.com/wiki/Calicut/NIT/FOSS_Meet/05> The event has grown from last years 4 speakers/3 talks/one day to 13 speakers/10 talks + 2 workshops/bofs and more/two days. It is part of the ongoing effort from the FOSS EDU group<http://foss-edu-in.sarovar.org/>to popularise FOSS among students. FOSS EDU already conducted successful events at BMS College of Engineering<http://fci.wikicities.com/wiki/Bangalore/BMSCE>, PES Institute of Technology <http://fci.wikicities.com/wiki/Bangalore/PESIT>, [Bangalore/MCC| Mount Carmel College]], Sapthagiri College of Engineering<http://fci.wikicities.com/wiki/Bangalore/SCE>(all in Bangalore <http://fci.wikicities.com/wiki/Bangalore>). Our next destination after NIT Calicut <http://fci.wikicities.com/wiki/Calicut/NIT> is MSRIT<http://fci.wikicities.com/wiki/Bangalore/MSRIT>, Bangalore. NITC FOSS Meet is a part of the FOSS Month 2006<http://fci.wikicities.com/wiki/Bangalore/FOSS_Month-2006>celebrations FOSS EDU group is started as an offort to provide FOSS Education tools customised for Indian educational institutions. The first step in this direction is to produce a dollar one encyclopedia<http://www.techmag.biz/dollar_one_encyclopedia>, ie, to bring out a CD/DVD edition of wikipedia <http://wikipedia.org/>. Now back to the event details. 9 Talks + 2 Workshops March 18,19 2006 - Arun M Foss - General Talk [FOSS in Society] Intellectual Property, Copyright, Licence issues - Gopal Vijayraghavan DotGNU / Mozilla Hack - Kalyan Varma Network Security - Philip Tellis Education/Creative Commons - Praveen and Dilip Debian Workshop - Premshree Pillai Ruby - Sharath Lakshman Live CD Workshop - Shreekumar Quake 3 - Fun and more - Shreyas Srinivasan GNOME Hack - Pradeepto K Bhattacharya KDE Development - Shyam Mani Gentoo Developer - Aanjhan R Embedded Linux - Kushal Das Fedora BOF Apart from the scheduled talks there will be bofs on various topics like we saw in FOSS.IN <http://foss.in/2006> Looking forward to your support and participation. -- "GNU is the system, and Linux is the kernel." A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org Me scribbles at http://www.pravi.co.nr

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FLOSS breaks many walls... but not among the genders?
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 26 Feb '06

26 Feb '06

FLOSS, or Free/Libre and Open Source Software, has dramatically changed the way software is produced, distributed, supported and used. It has a visible impact on enabling a richer social inclusion. But how has it allowed the gender problem existing in the software industry to be replicated in the world of FLOSS? Amsterdam-based Taiwanese researcher Yuwei Lin lists seven reasons why women stay off FOSS -- including its strong long-hour coding culture, a lack of mentors and role-models, discriminatory language (including in documentation), a gendered text-based environment, a lack of women-centered views in FOSS-development, a male-dominated competitive worldview, and the lack of sympathy from woman peers. http://www.metamute.org/en/node/5596 -- ------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick 'FN' Noronha | http://fn-at-google.notlong.com Goa, India | fred(a)bytesforall.org Co-Founder, BytesForAll | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9822122436 -------------------------------------------------------------

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Korea Plans to Build Linux City, University
by Anilkumar K V 21 Feb '06

21 Feb '06

"The Korean government plans to select a city and a university late next month where open-source software like Linux will become the mainstream operating programs. The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) Wednesday revealed the scheme of building up the city and university, which will operate as test beds for the open-source programs......" read more<http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/tech/200602/kt2006021517494311780.htm> -Anil

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Parody of Pablo Neruda's poem
by Manilal K M 20 Feb '06

20 Feb '06

I came across a parody of Pablo Neruda's poem. http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/02/14/207248&from=rss regards manilal

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FSFI@LA2006 - Participation Report
by Amol Hatwar 18 Feb '06

18 Feb '06

Disclaimer: These are my opinions and doesn't reflect that of FSF in particular. Also, this was my first time at Linux Asia 2006, so I am not aware of tradition and expectations towards the event. Thanks to the good people at FSF, Kerala, we got handouts for SPACE and FSF in time (one day before the show). The SPACE handouts are all out, the FSF one's are still remaining. Sameer had gotten the posters and stickers printed well in advance. There were plans about T-shirts and CDs... but they remained plans. Well, next time. FSF India had 2mx2m space in the Org mela. The Org mela itself was unconveniently located at an unsheltered area; well away from where the main events were taking place. However, as early birds on Feb 8, we got ourselves a stall that was very visible from the entrance. This had its own benefits... Quite a few people, three to be precise, asked me whether the Org mela was a part of the main event. Besides that, our stall was an easy target for freebie mongers. There was a small card that was circulated with stall numbers on it. Get it signed/stamped at at least 15 stalls and get a freebie. Guess what? Stalls in the Org mela had no stall numbers at all! They weren't fetured on the stall directory or the stall map. General visitors to the stall included young students who wanted to do something on Linux but had no idea what; and middle-aged to old managers who knew that Linux runs somewhere in their organization but no idea of exactly where. I'd say 95% of people that came fell into these categories easily. People who knew about FSF was quite surprised to find an FSF stall. These guys got the GNU sticker. The rest 5% were uber-clever people from the Fedora stall... with the general opinion that FSF is all advocacy, and that we should do some projects for community benefit. They were right, but had no reason to cry about it. There is still quite a lot of confusion around. I'll clear it for one last time: FSF _IS_ advocacy. And yeah, we do projects... please head to http://gnu.org. Rahul Sundaram (Fedora) in particular gave a good suggestion of keeping a list of ongoing projects on a very visible URLs where people can get engaged. Someone (sorry I don't remember who) said that we should keep printed manuals for sale. I guess we were quite succesful in showing the 95% of the audience the differences between Open Source and Free Software. It was a good opportunity to tell how the GPL works, why there so few software companies for India's one billion+ population and how a few people got filthy rich. As far as fellowship and donations go, two people wanted to hand over cash... we asked them to go the URL at http://fsf.org.in/ instead. Cash corrupts! The FSF stall had quite a lot of people behind it: Sameer Ingole (_strike_), Vinod Ganjre, Bir Chandra Sanasam and Milind Paralkar. These guys stuck to stall even after being sponsored to attend the Tech Talks at the event. A special mention goes to Nikhil Prabhakar (nipra). He took a lot of effort to start the show early in the morning. However, there were a few times when the stall did get left unattended: lunch and private sessions with the Gurus (Knopper and Shuttleworth) with the rest of the guys from ILUG-Delhi. We were expecting Bhaisampayan to come and talk on Django. His last minute ditch wasn't going to go down well. Ramki and I made sure that Indranil Das Gupta utilized that space and gave a talk on the Free Software Philosophy. Unfortunately, I got stuck in traffic and couldn't attend the talk personally, but people spoke highly of it. Indranil and Ramki deserve kudos for being available at the last moment and saving the day. I was expecting to talk on Free Software in Education. Things turned bad at the last moment... made a presentation in distress and tight schedule... got no intimation of when and where the talk will be held... concluded no talk better than a bad talk... shelved the talk. Due to the event's extreme commerical nature I had a set kind of quality expectations in my mind. Many people (including me) felt it was a let down. It probably didn't get the audience for the hype. If there was any, only a few came down to the Org mela. Still, I'd say it was worth the effort as what the FSF and we had to say did change quite a few opinions. Also most of the 95% had a misconception of Free in Free Software equals Free Beer. Some had used GNU/Linux without knowing a thing about GNU or FSF for that matter. So our, handouts, discussions and talks did have a shattering effect. From my personal experience, this is a good thing. A paradigm-shift in one persons thinking goes on to affect at least 10 more people. With this, I'll repeat Dr Nagarjuna's words: "We'll go wherever we get a chance to tell people about our efforts". Our participation in the event wouldn't have been possible without his encouragement at the right time. Further, we should always keep events like FOSS.IN, GNUnify and Linux Asia 2006 in our radar and participate regularly with even better planning and preparation. Stall Pictures (thanks to Karunakar): 0. http://www.cartoonsoft.com/gallery/linuxasia06/271_7153 (Org Mela Area) 1. http://www.cartoonsoft.com/gallery/linuxasia06/271_7156 (FSF Stall - Bir and Vinod) 2. http://www.cartoonsoft.com/gallery/linuxasia06/272_7273 (Me, Sameer, Vinod and Milind) Warm regards, ah

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Leveraging with software
by Ramanraj K 18 Feb '06

18 Feb '06

A recent talk by Honb'le Mr.Justice Yatindra Singh on Leveraging Open Source Software was delivered at 9th e-Governance held from 2-4th February 2006 at Kochi Kerala and is available at http://www.allahabadhighcourt.in/event/Leveraging_OSS.odt I should invite attention to the Q & A session mentioned therein, between the President and the Author, which brings out the benefits of spontaneity that is free, open, natural and relaxed: <quote> 16. Last year I was at Bhopal attending a colloquium on 'Law, Science and ethics'. The President of India also addressed us through video conferencing. During the question session, I asked him, 'Computers and information technology have an important role in reducing the arrears in the court as well as in helping in other areas. Broadly there are two kinds of softwares to do that. Proprietary and Open Source. Which one is better? 17. He answered, 'First of all, I would like to clarify that the choice of proprietary vs. Open software is driven by the usage and requirements of the user at the operating system level. Since, proprietary software is predominantly used at the client level; many users are familiar and confor table with this. However, at the server level mature users choose the software as per their requirement. Open source operating system enables the development of language independent software's and also building one's own security algorithms to suit his requirement. Indian IT industry is capable of providing a solution for the justice delivery system and its eGovernance to the justice administration on top of any proprietary or open source systems. What is important here is justice delivery system should be interoperable system built on top of open standards such as web services.' 18. The challenges and difficulties in shifting over to OSS are apparent from the answer. The majority is used to proprietary software and is trained in it. The main challenge is, · in changing over; · getting used to the new environment; and · training the staff. 19. This is vicious a circle. If you don't shif t then you rely more on the proprietary sof tware and more you have to pay. Perhaps what is required is to change our perception regarding OSS and increse its awareness. We may consider the following points: (i) The awareness regarding OSS should start from the school level: Computer education is already in curriculum of the schools and colleges. There is hardly any representation of OSS in their curriculam. Most of the topics that are there belong to proprietary sof tware. The operating system of computers are in proprietary sof tware. Curriculum of schools and colleges should compulsory have topics on OSS and the computers should leave operating system in OSS. (ii) Utilisation of grant: The government gives grants for purchasing computers and for different projects. The government grant may be utilised for purchasing computers having OSS operating system. Apart from operating systems there are applications. Many applications are on OSS and run on all kinds of operating systems including the proprietary ones. Even if the operating system is the proprietary one, then at least it should have applications that are on OSS. (iii) Exclusive OSS cell: It is ture that we are leading IT community in the world but many IT exper ts in government organisation work exclusively with proprietary software. It will be good idea to create separate cell in government and semi government departments to develop applications exclusively in OSS. (iv) Solution in OSS first: A policy decision may be taken to find solutions of projects first in OSS and in case it is not possible only then it may be sought in the proprietary software. 20. The Allahabad High Court has taken a policy decision to work in Open Source Software and store documents in open document format. All new computers have linux as operating system. Apart from it, OpenOffice.org suite, Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird have been adopted as applications software. A chart mentioning others details and the projects under taken is appended as Appendix 1. </quote> If the observations are taken seriously by the policy makers here, it could ensure a certain victory for all. Regards, Ramanraj K __ A man to whom it has been given to bless the world with a great creative idea has no need for the praise of posterity. His very achievement has already conferred a higher boon upon him. -Albert Einstein at the Max Planck Memorial Services, 1948.

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Re: Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 34, Issue 10
by Mishi Choudhary 14 Feb '06

14 Feb '06

hello rajshekhar yes youre absolutely right in your view about lawyers but dont forget i am a lawyer too though very new to all this but isnt prof moglen and his team already an inspiration.but yes you re right it could be boring for the free software community to hear things like whats a source code and things of the same genre.thnx a ton for this positive response and i'll be greatful if you could suggest what kinda topics we should cover apart from a basic key note address telling them about what we re talking.it will be of tremendous help.april is when i plan to hold this conference and would look forward to all of you guiding me through this with ideas ,suggestions, orders and participation ,i really think this can work out Warm Regards Mishi Choudhary

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Re: Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 34, Issue 13
by Mishi Choudhary 13 Feb '06

13 Feb '06

hi B.G thnx for the recommendation,i havent read it so far but i shall grab a copy soon.can you tell me who these coveted free software hackers in india are? i'll be delighted to know them the only one i am aware is MR ramanraj as for now.since you expressed your interest about the onference,can i request you to sparetime and attend the same,i'll forward details once things re aa lil settled and finalized Warm Regards Mishi Choudhary

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Re: Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 34, Issue 13
by Mishi Choudhary 13 Feb '06

13 Feb '06

hi B.G thnx for the recommendation,i havent read it so far but i shall grab a copy soon.can you tell me who these coveted free software hackers in india are? i'll be delighted to know them the only one i am aware is MR ramanraj as for now.since you expressed your interest about the onference,can i request you to sparetime and attend the same,i'll forward details once things re aa lil settled and finalized Warm Regards Mishi Choudhary

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The mint with a hole goes to court
by V. Sasi Kumar 13 Feb '06

13 Feb '06

People go to absurd limits to "protect" what they call their "intellectual property", though in reality the aim is only to eliminate competition. It seems Nestle had tried to register the shape of their "mint with a hole" in the UK Patent Office! Fortunately, and perhaps due to some oversight by the attorney who drafted the application, courts rejected it when challenged. See: http://www.jenkins-ip.com/mym/autumn2004/item_14.htm -- V. Sasi Kumar <sasi.fsf(a)gmail.com> Free Software Foundation of India

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Re: [Fsf-friends] conference!
by Raj shekhar 12 Feb '06

12 Feb '06

in infinite wisdom Mishi Choudhary spoke thus on 02/10/06 19:59: > > open mindedness as in ? Lawyers are usually very conservative and slow to change their point of view. > i'll go and give a preview and beforehand briefing to all of them > although computer literacy wont be very high however this could be an > introductory conference since this community cannot be ignored > considering prof moglen and his team of lawyers working for fsf That should prove useful - however, I still suggest you plan out what topics you want to touch upon. Things which will be extremely obvious to any free software programmer will seem like heresy to others. Cheers -- _.-, raj shekhar .--' '-._ http://rajshekhar.net _/`- _ '. http://rajshekhar.net/blog '----'._`.----. \ ` \; WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE ;_\ -- God's Last Message to his Creation

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conference!
by Mishi Choudhary 12 Feb '06

12 Feb '06

hello everyone some of you might remember me from the basic questions and queries i keep shooting your way.i am a lawyer practising at thedelhi high court and supreme court of india and wish to introduce the concept of free and open software to the legal community in northern india.i am aware that most of you learned ppl are based in the southern part of the country which is also the geek hub,the northern india especially the legal community is unaware ofthe same despite the kinda conferences being organised as linux asia which wound up today only.considering the growth of free software ,the day is not far when all developers would need legal advise to avoid any hassles in their creative work.in view of the same i as a member of the delhi bar association wish to organise a conference on the same and request your contribution in terms of ideas,participation anything and everything .kindly give it a thought and consider my proposal Warm Regards Mishi Choudhary

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Re: Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 34, Issue 10
by Mishi Choudhary 11 Feb '06

11 Feb '06

hello rajshekhar yes youre absolutely right in your view about lawyers but dont forget i am a lawyer too though very new to all this but isnt prof moglen and his team already an inspiration.but yes you re right it could be boring for the free software community to hear things like whats a source code and things of the same genre.thnx a ton for this positive response and i'll be greatful if you could suggest what kinda topics we should cover apart from a basic key note address telling them about what we re talking.it will be of tremendous help.april is when i plan to hold this conference and would look forward to all of you guiding me through this with ideas ,suggestions, orders and participation ,i really think this can work out Warm Regards Mishi Choudhary

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Free Software Foundation of India announces Associate Fellowships
by Baishampayan Ghose 11 Feb '06

11 Feb '06

Hello Freedom Lovers! I am very glad to announce that the Free Software Foundation of India (FSF-I) has started offering associate fellowships to organisations and individuals. This with the primary aim of collecting funds for its operations. The money thus collected will be utilised for running expenses of the FSF-I and to achieve the objectives for which it was established. The fellowship also offers some benefits to the fellows such as FSF-I merchandise and discount on its publications. The FSF-I has obtained 80G status under the Income Tax Act under which all donations will get a 50% Income Tax exemption. We invite you to become a fellow of the FSF-I and show your support for the Free Software Movement in India and beyond. More details about the fellowships can be had from http://www.gnu.org.in/fellowship/ or you can mail us directly at fellowship AT gnu.org.in Regards, Baishampayan -- Baishampayan Ghose Free Software Foundation of India b.ghose at gnu.org.in

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(no subject)
by Mishi Choudhary 11 Feb '06

11 Feb '06

hello everyone some of you might remember me from the basic questions and queries i keep shooting your way.i am a lawyer practising at thedelhi high court and supreme court of india and wish to introduce the concept of free and open software to the legal community in northern india.i am aware that most of you learned ppl are based in the southern part of the country which is also the geek hub,the northern india especially the legal community is unaware ofthe same despite the kinda conferences being organised as linux asia which wound up today only.considering the growth of free software ,the day is not far when all developers would need legal advise to avoid any hassles in their creative work.in view of the same i as a member of the delhi bar association wish to organise a conference on the same and request your contribution in terms of ideas,participation anything and everything .kindly give it a thought and consider my proposal Warm Regards Mishi Choudhary

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Belenix... the crafted-in-Bangalore (partly) OS
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 10 Feb '06

10 Feb '06

Have you read of Belenix, which DeveloperIQ (January 2006) calls the "latest Open Source software product from India". Description: "Belenix OPenSolaris has been built with the enterprise customer in mind. Closer to FreeBSD than [GNU]Linux, it is the more advanced of the lot. The code base has evolved over decades!" S Ramdas, former editor of DeveloperIQ (whom some of us met at FOSS.in 2005) met with some members of the Belenix team to chat on the project and associated technologies. He spoke to lead developer Moinak Gosh, Sriram Popuri and Venkata Kishore... all of whom work with Sun Microsystems. -- ------------------------------------------------------------- | India Linux Users' Group, Goa | | Join the friendly user group | | Mail list http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa/join | ---------------------------------------------------------- | | http://groups.yahoo.com/group/teach-yourself-linux | | http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa-announce | | http://www.iosn.net/country/india/organizations/ilug-goa/ | ------------------------------------------------------------- , , / \ .-. * SOFTWARE ((__-^^-,-^^-__)) (. .) * FREEDOM `-_---' `---_-' / V \ * SHARING `--|o` 'o|--' // \\ \ ` / /( )\ KNOWLEDGE IS POWER ): :( '.^^_^^.' SHARE IT EQUITABLY :o_o: \_/ \_/ "-"

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Metting today 5.30 to discuss Dollar One Encyclopedia
by प्रव ीण् ए (Praveen A) 09 Feb '06

09 Feb '06

Hi, We will have a quick discussion on details of the wikipedia on CD effort ( http://www.techmag.biz/dollar_one_encyclopedia ) today 6.30 pm at Coffee World, 17th Main Road, Koramangala (Near Canara Bank junction). Looking forward to meeting you Cheers Praveen A PS: The discussion happened on the FOSS EDU mailing list can be accessed at http://lists.wikicities.com/pipermail/fci-l/2006-February/000073.html The discussion thread : http://lists.wikicities.com/pipermail/fci-l/2006-February/thread.html -- "GNU is the system, and Linux is the kernel." A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org Me scribbles at http://www.pravi.co.nr

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[Free/Libre and] Open-Source Approach Works to Find Stem Cell Fabrications
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 08 Feb '06

08 Feb '06

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/tech/200602/kt2006020616301311780.htm Linux, Hwang Woo-suk and Lies Open-Source Approach Works to Find Stem Cell Fabrications By Kim Tae-gyu Staff Reporter Shown above is a captured picture of the Web site of the Biological Research Information Center. The site played a pivotal role in finding out stem cell paper fabrications by cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk. Linux, the open-source software, seems to have nothing to do with South Korea’s disgraced cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk, at least at a glance. Yet, a professor points out the fall of Hwang’s once-hailed saga on cloned stem cells does relate to the spirit of Linux -- to improve something using the teamwork of anonymous people. "Look at the process of how Hwang’s purported medical exploits on stem cells proved to be lies. Then you can taste the spirit of Linux," Prof. Min Kyung-bae at Kyung Hee Cyber University said. "Just as glitches in Linux continue to be fixed by developers from across the world because its underlying sources are open, Korea’s young scientists collaborated to discredit Hwang," he said. Indeed, a group of young scientists who casually visited the Web site of the state-backed Biological Research Information Center (BRIC), at bric.postech.ac.kr, played a pivotal role in detecting Hwang’s fakes. A woman fidgets in her bag before getting off the subway without clearing poop of her pet. After this photo was revealed through the Internet last year, she became the target of nationwide criticism. When the public was leaning toward allowing Hwang to prove the veracity of his team’s stem cell research last December, they changed the tide by pinpointing how Hwang doctored data. Their findings prompted Seoul National University (SNU), where Hwang worked, to get to the bottom of "Hwanggate," and SNU finally concluded most of Hwang’s purported exploits were hoaxes. Likewise, Linux, a free and open-source software first developed by Finnish university student Linus Torvals, is the result of numerous people’s efforts. Unlike such disclosed-source operating systems as Microsoft Windows, the source codes of Linux are available to the public and anyone can freely use, modify and redistribute it. Programmers upgrade Linux seamlessly to improve it. Such worldwide collaboration empowers Linux, which now poses a genuine threat to the thus-far dominant Microsoft Windows. "Both cases amply demonstrate that collective intelligence always scores a victory over monopolistic players, such as Microsoft or Hwang," Min said. "That might not be true in the short run. But over the long haul, I firmly believe the power of conscious folks overwhelms power ruled by a handful of secrecy-obsessed inner circle members," he said. Linux-Like Culture & Fall of Stem Cell Myth In Feb. 2004, Hwang dramatically lionized himself by announcing he and his crew had cloned human embryos and extracted stem cells from them in an article in the U.S.-based journal Science. He strengthened his reputation last May with a highly touted follow-up paper, which was also printed by Science, on tailor-made stem cells. The 53-year-old claimed that his team had established a total of 11 stem cells of somatic cells of as many patients suffering from incurable diseases or inabilities. The customized stem cells were expected to open the door to so-called "cell therapy." The cells, when transplanted, are supposed to retain an ability to become any type of cell in the human body. The off-the-rack cells especially draw attention because they were believed not to trigger immune responses in transplantation since they were cloned from patients themselves. However, the Hwang’s star fell as abruptly as it rose: the SNU professor was found to have fabricated data for the papers. Linux Penguin An investigative panel at SNU concluded that Hwang’s team never created cloned embryonic stem cells, and a police investigation is now underway. A local TV network, MBC, initially raised suspicions on the veracity of Hwang’s works late last year but the allegation was on the verge of being discarded due to controversies over the broadcaster’s inappropriate way of collecting data regarding Hwang. MBC was revealed to have threatened some of Hwang's underlings and that drew the ire of many Korean citizens, who lashed out at the TV station and asked them to stop investigating the legitimacy of the stem cell papers. At the time, the BRIC site surfaced and anonymous writers voluntarily subjected the photos documented in Hwang’s Science papers to microscopic scrutiny. A pair of frequenters at the site posted a message saying the Science pictures seemed to be fabricated, and others confirmed the suspicion by showing how the they were cooked. Their allegations were backed with material evidence and gained a broad-based acknowledgement. SNU finally launched probes into the case to eventually uncovered the fakes. "A number of Korea’s no-name scientists did what even keen-eyed referees at the illustrious Science journal could not do during the review process. It amply demonstrates the powers of collaboration and Korea’s Linux-type Internet culture," Min said. Negative Aspect of Korean Internet Culture Although Koreans could detect Hwang’s misconduct through the collective intelligence coupled with its unique Internet culture, some observers say this could be problematic. "Korea's boisterous Internet culture can end up as cyber terrorism at any time because the country’s awareness of ethics falls short of its technical reputation," Prof. Lee Su-jin at Kookmin University said. "Let me take an example. See the so-called dog excrement girl who became the target of an Internet witch-hunt due to a really minor reason," she said. Last year, a woman got off a subway car without cleaning up her pet's poop. Then her photograph was posted on the Web, and netizens relentlessly attacked the girl, turning the event into a kind of nation-wide cyber lynching. She might not be able to lead a normal life afterwards since some netizens revealed her name, age and school, usually under the veil of anonymity. The incident, which showed that ordinary citizens as well as public figures can fall victim to cyber attacks, raised alarm flags for many people who have experienced attacks and groundless criticism on the Internet. "The case reveals the flip side of Korea’s Internet culture. Sometimes it works in the right direction but sometimes it does not. We need to be aware of it," Prof. Lee at Kookmin said. Prof. Min at Kyung Hee concurs. "Our Internet culture is kind of a double-edged sword. It can help Korean society to be transparent and scandal-free as shown by the Hwanggate, but it can trigger scandal itself or spawn innocent victims," Min said.

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[Fwd: Call for Participation Opens for 2006 O'Reilly EuroOSCON]
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 07 Feb '06

07 Feb '06

-------- Forwarded Message -------- Call for Participation Opens for 2006 O'Reilly European Open Source Convention Sebastopol, CA-- EuroOSCON, the O'Reilly European Open Source Convention, is now accepting speaking proposals for its second annual event. This year's theme is "Opening Innovation." With free and open source software use on the rise all across the continent and particularly in governments, EuroOSCON creates a place for developers, sys admins, entrepreneurs, and business people working in free and open source software to come together to delve into critical issues across the spectrum of open source technologies. EuroOSCON takes place 18-21 September in Brussels, Belgium. Proposals are being accepted until 6 March. The program committee is seeking session and tutorial proposals full of actionable information and advice, above and beyond what's available online or in books. Proposals on the following platforms and applications are especially welcome: -Multimedia including voice (VoIP) and video -AI including spam-busting, classification, clustering, and data mining -Collaboration including email, calendars, RSS, OPML, mashups, IM, presence, and session initialization -Project best practices including governance, starting a project, and managing communities -Microsoft Windows-based open source projects including .NET, Mono, and regular C/C++/Visual Basic Windows apps -Enterprise Java techniques including integration, testing, and scalable deployment solutions -Linux kernel skills for sysadmins including virtualization, tuning, and device drivers -Device hacking including iPods, Nintendo, PSP, XBox 360, and beyond -Design including CSS, GUI, and user experience (XP) -Entrepreneurial topics including management for techies, how to go into business, and business models that work -Security including hardening, hacking, root kits (Sony and otherwise), and intrusion detection/cleanup -Fun subjects with no immediate commercial application including retro computing, games, and BitTorrent EuroOSCON co-chairs Nat Torkington and Nikolaj Nyholm would also like to review proposals for EuroOSCON that focus on the specific needs of the European FLOSS community, particularly policy and government roles. Notes Torkington, "We're taking the great response from last year, along with delegates' suggestions, and building a EuroOSCON program that's focused on the issues critical to the professional European open source community." EuroOSCON brings a wide range of technologies, projects, and dimensions of interest together under one roof. Tracks at EuroOSCON include: business; desktop apps; databases, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, Ingres, and others; emerging topics; Java; Linux dernel for sys admins; Linux for programmers; Perl; PHP; programming, including everything that's not specific to a particular language; Python; security; Ruby, including Ruby on Rails; web apps, including Apache; and Windows. EuroOSCON and its US counterpart, OSCON, are where developers, sys admins, innovators, decision-makers, and open source advocates using free and open source software gather to share ideas, discover code, find solutions, and connect face to face. More information on speakers, sessions, tutorials, and events will be available when general registration opens in April 2006. O'Reilly conferences include: the O'Reilly Emerging Telephony Conference (ETel); the O'Reilly European Open Source Convention (EuroOSCON); the MySQL Users Conference, co-presented with MySQL AB; ETech, the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference; Where 2.0 Conference; and Web 2.0 (co-hosted by Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle, and co-produced with MediaLive International). O'Reilly conferences bring together forward-thinking business and technology leaders, shaping ideas and influencing industries around the globe. For over 25 years, O'Reilly has facilitated the adoption of new and important technologies by the enterprise, putting emerging technologies on the map. Additional Information: For convention details and to submit a proposal, visit: http://conferences.oreilly.com/eurooscon For news articles, blogs, announcements, and photos (available for use with attribution) from EuroOSCON 2005, see: http://conferences.oreillynet.com/eurooscon/coverage/ For information on exhibition and sponsorship opportunities at O'Reilly conferences, contact Andrew Calvo at (707) 827-7176 or andrewc(a)oreilly.com. To become a media sponsor at O'Reilly conferences, contact Yvonne Romaine at (707) 827-7189 or yromaine(a)oreilly.com. Upcoming O'Reilly conferences (http://conferences.oreilly.com): -O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, March 6-9 in San Diego, California -MySQL Users Conference, April 24-27 in Santa Clara, California -Where 2.0, June 13-14 in San Jose, California -O'Reilly Open Source Convention, July 24-28 in Portland, Oregon About O'Reilly O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly has been a chronicler and catalyst of leading-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism. For more information: http://www.oreilly.com # # # O'Reilly is a registered trademark of O'Reilly Media, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

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Re [Fsf-friends] Mozilla & Fedora contributer in Bangalore Y!
by doxa＠sancharnet.in 07 Feb '06

07 Feb '06

Dear Basil, Bangalore news agents are already tied-up with change of political guard there. If trips like these are arranged at least once in other states also, perhaps they can also be helpful in sending across a national message. Keeping such issues in mind, may help the cause in a better sensible way. One of the folks, CK Raju --------Original Message ------- Discard if u guys are already aware Hi folks... Long time Mozilla contributor Christopher Blizzard and Fedora community manager Greg DeKoenigsberg are visiting Bangalore soon and want to meet the FOSS geeks around here.

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Mozilla & Fedora contributer in Bangalore Y!
by b a s i l 06 Feb '06

06 Feb '06

Discard if u guys are already aware Hi folks... Long time Mozilla contributor Christopher Blizzard and Fedora community manager Greg DeKoenigsberg are visiting Bangalore soon and want to meet the FOSS geeks around here. Christopher Blizzard has been a long-time contributor to open source software. He has contributed to GNOME and Mozilla since their inception in the late 1990s and has worked at Red Hat since 1998. He's currently a board member of the Mozilla Corporation, an organization founded to promote and develop the Firefox web browser, and manages the desktop group at Red Hat. Greg DeKoenigsberg joined Red Hat in 2001 as an engineering manager for Red Hat Network. He has been working full-time with the Fedora community since 2004. In that time he has organized several FUDCons, led the Fedora Extras project, and established the Fedora Ambassadors and Fedora Live CD projects. He is currently the community relations manager for Red Hat. You can meet them at the Yahoo! office on M.G Road on Monday 6th Feb at 6:30 PM, i.e., today folks ! For those who weren't there when Mark Shuttleworth had come there - it is near the Trinity circle end of M.G road behind the UTI bank and opposite of Nalli silks. So see you all today evening and have a good time with the Fedora folks. Sorry for the delayed mail. -- \|||/ (o o) ----ooO-(_)-Ooo-------- b a s i l e-mail : basilappackan(a)gmail.com gsm : +91 9880936210 " Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better" ~Albert Camus

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Donations for FSF India, activities in North
by Arun M 06 Feb '06

06 Feb '06

Hi Friends, FSF India is now having 80 G status. That means any donations to FSF India will be tax exempted (50%). We request you to consider providing personal donations to FSF India. Also if you think your company or your employer will be interested in contribution to FSF India please get in touch and help us raise funds for expanding our activities. FSF India is now participating in All India People Science Network meeting organised in Guwahati. We are able to network with several organisations in North India. In coming year we will be organising more programs in Northern part of India. With Regards, Arun.

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[Fwd: [ox-en] "Arctic Monkeys" - breakthrough for Free Music?]
by V. Sasi Kumar 06 Feb '06

06 Feb '06

Sorry for cross posting, but this is really interesting! -------- Forwarded Message -------- From: Stefan Merten <smerten(a)oekonux.de> Reply-To: list-en(a)oekonux.org To: list-en(a)oekonux.org Cc: Stefan Merten <smerten(a)oekonux.de> Subject: [ox-en] "Arctic Monkeys" - breakthrough for Free Music? Date: Sun, 05 Feb 2006 23:06:14 +0100 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hi! A few minutes ago in a German TV newscast they said that in Britain the band Arctic Monkeys has a #1 in the music charts. They said that this band started to distribute their music by Internet and still do. This sounds really exciting :-) . Can anyone provide us with some more information on this? Links? Mit Freien Grüßen Stefan -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.7 <http://mailcrypt.sourceforge.net/> iQCVAwUBQ+Z21QnTZgC3zSk5AQHDmwP9GqBSOeHwyh3tZPivt9TFeTrfEuP2bC+y 27qhAs6LqUm0awJLodC9lJelJJKDLdNcOvxXw28lhZX4eBq5DykNimPdbKZUexbk edR0Sy9uA1Rs8Kfw+7UqTXPW0kmhxKbAjKQnQTwCvbc6Bu/DoyugfP6h0PTqn4SG xs+dK1AuDHM= =YdUD -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _________________________________ Web-Site: http://www.oekonux.org/ Organization: http://www.oekonux.de/projekt/ Contact: projekt(a)oekonux.de -- V. Sasi Kumar <sasi.fsf(a)gmail.com> Free Software Foundation of India

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No Software Patents (People's Democracy)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 05 Feb '06

05 Feb '06

No Software Patents People's Democracy (Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) Vol. XXIX No. 50 December 11, 2005 No Software Patents Govt Assures FSF India UNION minister of commerce and industries, Kamal Nath has assured that the Indian government is committed to its stand of not allowing software patenting for the time being and that it would reiterate this stand in the forthcoming meeting of WTO ministerial at Hong Kong. This was conveyed to a delegation of Free Software Foundation of India (FSF India), which met the minister on December 6 in New Delhi and discussed with him about the proposal for software patenting which came up early this year. It comprised M Arun, secretary and Y Kiran Chandra, secretary FSF AP Chapter. CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and MP, Sitaram Yechury and CPI(M) central committee member and MP, P Madhu accompanied the delegation. A memorandum was also submitted to the minister on this issue. In a statement released to the press, the FSF India representatives termed the discussion with the minister as fruitful. The minister informed the delegation about his opinion that copyright provides reasonable protection for the software industry. However, pointing out that there was a strong demand from sections of the Indian IT industry to allow the patenting of software in conjunction with hardware, the minister expressed the need to find a via media between arguments of different groups. The FSF India stated that in the coming days it will interact with industries, particularly small and medium industries, to highlight the harmful effects of generic software patenting and also in order to understand the needs of the industry. "It would be working with the industry to find a via media which will protect the larger social interests and at the same time protecting economic interest of industries", the statement assured. (INN)

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Fwd: Asia Commons: Asian Conference on the Digital Commons
by Anivar Aravind 04 Feb '06

04 Feb '06

---------------------------- Original Message ---------------------------- From: jchittoor(a)csdms.in Date: Wed, February 1, 2006 8:04 pm -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Asia Commons: Asian Conference on the Digital Commons April 18-20, 2006 Bangkok, Thailand http://www.asia-commons.net During the last 20 years or so, the level, scope, territorial extent, and role of copyrights and patents have expanded into new sectors. There has been much discussion and debate on the impact of copyrights and patents at a micro level of economic activity while at a macro level, policy dialogue in several international fora, not least of which is WIPO, has been addressing barriers posed by copyrights and patents. Asia Commons: Asian Conference on the Digital Commons invites researchers working in the area of copyrights and patents, promoters of collaborative models, development practitioners engaged in collaborative content creation and dissemination and custodians of public information to go beyond the current dialogue and debate to explore key issues and ideas related to access to knowledge and culture in Asia. Participants are invited to explore key themes and questions related to the Asian Commons: * What is the relationship between infrastructure and copyrights on access to culture and knowledge? * How do software and business process patents affect innovation? * What are the impacts of patents on software innovations in Asia? * What are the emerging Open Business Models for content production in Asia? * Given existing legal, cultural and infrastructural environments both within and outside of Asia, how can we contribute to increasing access to knowledge and culture through an Asia Commons? While we will be inviting a number of speakers who are seen as thought-leaders in the field of Access to Knowledge and Culture, we will also look to innovative approaches to ensure a high degree of interaction among participants in spaces and sessions which are designed to maximize the exchange of experiences and ideas. Conference Fees, Registration, and Scholarships: There are no fees for participation in the conference which is supported through funding made available by the International Development Research Centre's (IDRC's) Pan Asia Program (http://www.idrc.ca/panasia). If you are interested in participating, please register online at http://www.asia-commons.net/conf_registration/add or email registration(a)asia-commons.net to receive a registration form which can be submitted through email. Please register before March 8, 2006. Thanks to the generous support of IDRC's Pan Asia (http://www.idrc.ca/panasia) and UNDP APDIP's IOSN (http://www.iosn.net) there are also a number of scholarships available for participants in need of financial support. Please visit http://www.asia-commons.net/participate for more information. Can't Join Us? For those unable to join us physically during the event, we invite you to participate through the participants discussion list and visit http://www.asia-commons.net for outputs during the conference itself. To subscribe to the participants discussion list, send an email to participants-request(a)asia-commons.net with the word subscribe in the subject. A special issue of i4d Magazine (http://www.i4donline.net) will be produced in June 2006 based on the conference and its themes. We look forward to seeing you at Asia Commons. Your Organising Committee: - Shikha Shrestha, Bellanet Asia (in partnership with SAP International) (http://www.sapint.org) - Sarah Kerr, Bellanet International Secretariat (http://www.bellanet.org) - Jaya Chittoor, Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (http://www.csdms.in) - Sunil Abraham, UNDP APDIP's International Open Source Network (http://www.iosn.net) ----------------------------------

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From "manipulative grace" to "public disgrace"
by doxa＠sancharnet.in 03 Feb '06

03 Feb '06

"THIRUVANANTHAPURAM APRIL 13. The Information Kerala Mission (IKM), functioning under the Department of Information Technology of the Government of Kerala, has emerged as one of the three institutions in the race for the prestigious national awards instituted by the Computer Society of India..." The graceful-plot hatched by IKM in 2002 to hoodwink the UDF Government (after successfully convincing late Chief Minister EK Nayanar with the 'cat and mouse' story - that both M$ Windows and GNU were mere cats, and the need was 'just to catch the rat'). Full story appearing in The Hindu at http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2002/04/14/stories/2002041405350400.htm "KOCHI: Awards for exemplary initiatives in e-governance were given away at the national e-governance conference here on Thursday. Kerala Public Works Minister M.K.Muneer distributed the awards in various categories. There were Golden, Silver and Bronze icons in each category...." The disgraceful exit from national scene in 2006. Full story at http://www.hindu.com/2006/02/03/stories/2006020304741700.htm --------------- Compiled by CK Raju, Thrissur

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Create a custom GNU/Linux network install image
by प्रव ीण् ए (Praveen A) 03 Feb '06

03 Feb '06

Hi, Built on LinuxCOE a powerful set of tools recently open sourced by Hewlett Packard, Instalinux makes installing Linux easier than ever. http://www.instalinux.com/ LinuxCOE http://linuxcoe.sourceforge.net/ News stories: http://linux.sys-con.com/read/176353.htm Almost the same - http://www.pclinuxonline.com/article.php?sid=10355 Cheers Praveen -- "GNU is the system, and Linux is the kernel." A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org Me scribbles at http://www.pravi.co.nr

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Freeculture... from an Indian blog
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 02 Feb '06

02 Feb '06

http://openfreeworld.blogspot.com/ A Generation is waking up Recently I came across the site http://freeculture.org/, an international student movement for free culture. Their manifesto says... "The mission of the Free Culture movement is to build a bottom-up, participatory structure to society and culture, rather than a top-down, closed, proprietary structure. Through the democratizing power of digital technology and the Internet, we can place the tools of creation and distribution, communication and collaboration, teaching and learning into the hands of the common person -- and with a truly active, connected, informed citizenry, injustice and oppression will slowly but surely vanish from the earth. We believe that culture should be a two-way affair, about participation, not merely consumption. We will not be content to sit passively at the end of a one-way media tube. With the Internet and other advances, the technology exists for a new paradigm of creation, one where anyone can be an artist, and anyone can succeed, based not on their industry connections, but on their merit." After reading the manifesto one can easily figure out that the founders of this movement are highly influenced by the free software, open source movements. If one can spend some time on the internet searching for sites similar to these... he/she is bound to be overwhelmed. www.publicknowledge.org, creativecommons.org, www.plos.org are some of them. If you are a book worm never miss out www.gutenberg.org, there are over 17,000 free eBooks in their repository. And never be content to sit passively at the end of the one-way media tube, bring out the artist/journalist/writer/activist or whatever in you. Take back the web, take back the world. posted by suresh_balasubra @ 6:27 AM 0 comments

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Free Electron goes online
by james mathew 02 Feb '06

02 Feb '06

Friends, Kerala Education Grid Project <http://www.edugrid.ac.in/> has uploaded the Free Electron iso images and documentation. You can now download Free Electron from http://www.edugrid.ac.in/webfolder/download/freeElectron/fe.html If you have any queries on Free Electron please join the mailing list <http://mm.gnu.org.in/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-electron> James. --

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Open and popular ... FLOSS in Tamil
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 30 Jan '06

30 Jan '06

http://www.flonnet.com/fl2302/stories/20060210003909700.htm Open and popular A CORRESPONDENT An open-source suite of Tamil applications for the Windows operating system is the first of its kind for the platform. PANACEA DREAMWEAVERS, a Chennai-based software company, has released an open source suite of Tamil applications and tools into the public domain. It includes an accounting package, two dictionaries, a management software for self-help groups (SHGs), a simple text editor and a feature-rich word processor, and about 250 free fonts. Most of the products ship with the source code. It is claimed that this is the first such initiative by a company or organisation in the area of public domain Tamil software. A similar effort was sponsored by the Central Government, in which a collection of tools was acquired from private players and released for public consumption in a compact-disk form by Minister for Communications Dayanidhi Maran. However, none of the software included in the package was in open source format. Besides, the company claims that its efforts are a first in the Microsoft Windows-based Tamil computing environment. Most open-source Tamil applications are developed for the Linux operating system. Open-source software is software whose source code is made available to the public, enabling anyone to copy, modify or redistribute the source code without paying royalties or fees. Open source is associated with collaborative development, wherein developers who have access to the product's code correct any problems or deficiencies in it or add additional features, thereby helping the software to evolve. Many such applications are backed by a large number of developers from all over the world and have evolved into robust systems. Some well-known examples of open-source initiatives are the Linux operating system, the Integrated Development Environment Eclipse, the Apache web server and the Mozilla suite, including the web browser Firefox, which recorded its 100 millionth download recently. One of the most prominent advocates of free software is the Free Software Movement started by Richard Stallman in 1983. The movement is also active in India, but its adherents focus all their energies on writing software for open-source operating systems such as Linux and not for the commercial Windows platform. In the CD under review, the products are neatly divided into sections: Panacea Apps (short for applications), Panacea Desk, Panacea Valaiyodi, and Source. Panacea Apps comprises Mugavari (Tamil-English address book), Sangam Pro (SHG management package), Selvam (accounting software), Valluvan (documentation software), and Pulavan-Paalam (dictionaries). The Panacea Desk folder comprises Pathippu-250 (collection of 250 fonts), R4U (English-Tamil word processor), Saarathy (keyboard driver) and Tamil Olai (simple Tamil text editor). The Source folder includes the source code of all the products except R4U and Valaiyodi. According to the company, Sangam Pro is meant for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to assess and evaluate the performance of SHGs. Some of the features are the ability to enter and save details of loans, repayments, meeting schedules, deposits and membership. Selvam, the software for maintaining accounts in Tamil, is aimed at small and medium enterprises and is also suited for home users. R4U, a Tamil-English word processor, easily creates Tamil and even multilingual documents. Users can easily switch between English and Tamil typing. The other products in the suite are also useful and easy to navigate. The company's stated mission to develop the Valaiyodi browser into one that can translate English Web pages into Tamil is something to look forward to. Th applications have a few bugs, but they are minor and should not stand in the way of encouraging such attempts. The country sorely needs free software and open-source initiatives for the Information Technology revolution to reach most segments of society. And it is widely accepted that the best way to go about achieving this is to write software in the language of the people and make it available free of cost. Nevertheless, a few points need to be made. The collection of fonts in TAB and TAM formats is no doubt excellent but run the risk of obsolescence in a world that is quickly adopting Unicode as the standard for recognising non-English textual characters. In text processing, Unicode takes the role of providing a unique a number for each character. In other words, Unicode represents a character in an abstract way, and leaves the visual rendering (size, shape, font or style) to other software, such as a Web browser or a word processor. Microsoft Windows NT/2000/XP make extensive use of Unicode as an internal representation of text, while Unix-like operating systems such as Linux, BSD and Mac OS X have adopted it as the basis of representation of multilingual text. Secondly, the dictionaries - both of which are well-structured and simple to use - need to be updated. The Tamil language has kept pace with the modern world and a dictionary with contemporary words and phrases and their usage will be most handy. It is hoped that the budding entrepreneurs behind the venture will do what is needed, for the collective good of the Tamil computing world. Panacea Dreamweavers, which is hardly a year old, is the brainchild of a group of entrepreneurs whose goal is to develop solutions for the Tamil language computing space, according to the founders. Their corporate philosophy is that Tamil language software must not place any financial compulsions on the end-user. The software developer community in India and abroad would do well to emulate this endeavour and come out with more such products so that the divide between the digital haves and have-nots is bridged.

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Meeting minutes of 27th Jan
by प्रव ीण् ए (Praveen A) 29 Jan '06

29 Jan '06

Hi, The last meeting at Kunningahm Road on 27th about FOSS Month ( http://fci.wikicities.com/wiki/Bangalore/FOSS_Month-2006 ) was awesome. We came up with a lot of ideas. Checkout the details http://fci.wikicities.com/wiki/BoFs/Jan27-2006 Cheers Praveen -- "GNU is the system, and Linux is the kernel." A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org Me scribbles at http://www.pravi.co.nr

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Localization as a movement in India (Rajesh Ranjan)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 29 Jan '06

29 Jan '06

http://www.redhat.com/magazine/015jan06/features/rhindia/ Localization as a movement in India by Rajesh Ranjan A few days back, a famous writer from Kannada, India, U R Anantmurthy, mentioned in an interview that languages are the repositories of culture. The importance of enabling this culture of languages to not merely survive but flourish in this digital age cannot be understated. If a language is not becoming part of digital advancement then the language will become outdated and endangered and in some cases might even become a thing of the past. End of a language means end of a culture. Thanks to the free software ideology and contemporary open source development methods that have given a new lease on life to many different languages, no matter how small we are, we now have the potential to fix this fundamental issue. Free and open source software, unlike other bureaucratic processes, enable each individual, including you, to contribute toward enabling local language computing and thereby expediting the process of adoption of technologies enabled by computers in rural India. We all can cherish Mahatma Gandhi's quote "Whatever you do will be insignificant but it's very important that you do it." That is why the free software movement enabled by collaborative peers in the community is of paramount importance here. It is a fact that proprietary groups cannot afford to fulfill the needs of the masses, especially in an economy with limited purchasing power, but we in the community of open source computing can rise to the occasion. In India, so many groups are working to have their languages enabled on computers. "Localizing free software for a free country" is the slogan of IndLinux, a major and popular group having enormous success with this work. IndLinux is a group of people who believe, not so surprisingly, that the benefits of information technology must be widely and freely available to the Indian masses. They are a group of people who combine skills in written scripts, free/open source technologies, and technology journalism to make this happen. This organization has inspired so many new groups to come forward to work together. Punlinux is one of the most successful examples. Within two years, this group has localized an enormous amount of content in Punjabi, a vibrant language and culture of India. Everything from Fedora® to GNOME to KDE to OpenOffice and all! A great success story from an organization based in rural India! None of the Punlinux members has any urban base! Mix of love for language and open source has produced unbelievable results like this one example. There are several other efforts being made to Indianize Linux®. One major effort, the Ankur Bangla Project, is a collaborative initiative aimed at bringing Bangla to the FLOSS (Free Libre Open Source Software) desktop. The core objective of the Ankur Bangla Project is to make available a completely localized GNU/Linux OS and they have received notable success in this field. Open source contribution of Utkarsh in giving the power of computers to the Gujarati speaking populace is also immense. It is one of the most professionally managed organizations. IndianOSS is another one committed to the cause of Gujarati computing. Tamil has several active communities. http://sourceforge.net/projects/zha is one of the major efforts. TAMIL-LINux is another group involved in the development of Tamil on Linux/Unix. The BharateeyaOO project is an initiative to bring OpenOffice to India in Indian languages by the ICT Research and Training Centre (India). It is being done as part of the activities of the Development Gateway Foundation. Project Malayalam for the Malayalam Package offers a set of macros and fonts for typesetting Malayalam, which is the primary language of an estimated 33 million people in the South Indian state of Kerala. The Linux in Oriya project is the initiative for making Linux available in Oriya. The GNU/Linux Telugu Localization Effort aims at localizing most common applications on GNU/Linux to Telugu including GNOME, KDE, Mozilla, and OpenOffice. Swathantra Malayalam Computing at present is focusing on translating/localizing GNU/Linux GUI into Malayalam. Swathantra Malayalam fonts is a sub-project of Swathantra Malayalam Computing. Their aim is to make enough free (Swathantra) Malayalam fonts. Indic Trans also works in the field of Linux localization in Indian languages. The Indic-Computing Project is providing technical documentation for Indian language computing issues. There are several more names: Kannada Localization Initiative works for Kannada language and Thamiz Linux is yet another effort from the Tamil language. Free software localization in Assamese works for Assamese, MarathiOpenSource works for Marathi language, Swecha is a GNU/Linux Telugu localization effort for Telugu language, and http://thamizha.com encompasses multiple projects such as localization of Firefox and OpenOffice among others. A project has even started for minority languages like Maithili, which is spoken in a particular part of a state of India and was incorporated in the schedule of the constitution of India in recent years. It is a fact that in some projects, the pace of work may not be as rapid, but the above examples show there is great awareness and response towards transparent and collaborative open source localization and its methodology. If the subcontinent of India could be described in a single keyword, diversity would be it. There are about 500 languages in India in which 22 of them are considered official. It's easy enough to imagine the situation merely by knowing that in a small country like Nepal there are more than 50 languages. Sooner or later these smaller languages can hope to go hand in hand with information technology but only through the free software philosophy. The localization movement in the neighboring countries of India has also started. The language of the mountains of Gorkhali, a.k.a. Nepali, has only 1.6 million speakers. A group working with Madan Puraskar Pustakalay has shown a significant momentum in the field of localization in Nepali language last year. This group has completely localized the Gnome desktop. Dzongkha, sometimes called Bhutanese, is the national language of the Kingdom of Bhutan. The goal of Dzongkha Localization Project is to incorporate Dzongkha script into Linux to enable computing in Dzongkha to provide the benefit of information and communication technology to the Bhutanese masses. This project is implemented by the Royal Government of Bhutan and is being funded by International Development Research Center (IDRC), Canada, through its Pan Asia Networking (PAN). The Sinhala Linux Project is another project to localize Linux in Sinhala. This was started by Lanka Linux User Group (LKLUG). The PAN Localization Project has a broader reach. It is a regional initiative to develop local language capacity in Asia. This organization is working for the following languages: Bangla, Dzongkha, Khmer, Lao, Nepali, Pashto, Sinhala, and Urdu. Generally, dominant languages suppress minority languages. But in the case of Punjabi in Pakistan it is different. In Pakistan, Punjabi is spoken by the majority but the government there does not seem to support this language. So Punlinux has planned to start the localization of Punjabi in Shamukhi script and already filed an enhancement request to create a separate locale for it. This can only be possible in the world of open source! Just like a democracy where every person is equal, in the eyes of open source, every language can be made equal in computing! Localization of open source software is a transparent and community-driven process. That is why it is easier to customize the software according to local needs. Sometimes, due to cultural differences, people may not be comfortable with western user interfaces. But the difficulty does not stop there. Imagine the struggle of the typical rural Indian to understand metaphors like folders and recycle bins! You might as well as speak Greek, no offense to the friendly folks from Greece. It is particularly true in the case of a major language like Hindi and languages like Bengali and Punjabi that are spoken in two different countries that the whole language is basically split into different zones in two neighboring countries. Hindi is spoken and understood by more than half of the Indian population and has innumerable dialects. In the open source environment, it is easier to modify things according to specific needs irrespective of the profit-loss theory so very typical of the proprietary world. The open source model is not only helping to achieve the local need but also maintains respect for the local emotions. For example, Bengali is now divided into two separate locale (bn_BD and bn_IN) in Fedora and Mozilla after the demand from the community. Basically, localization in open source alone has the power to represent futuristic language computing. The contribution of Red Hat making the localization effort successful and lively is enormous. By selecting five Indian languages (Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Punjabi and Gujarati), Red Hat has given great impetus to l10n and i18n works related to Indian needs. Working on a computer with local languages was never so easy. Red Hat launched Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora in those five Indian languages and localized them at not only the application level but at the operating system level also. Red Hat is going to launch similar efforts in eight more languages: Assamese (as), Kannada (kn), Malayalam (ml), Marathi (mr), Oriya (or), Sinhala (si), Telugu (te), and Urdu (ur). This is enough to demonstrate Red Hat's compassion and commitment to India and its local language computing industry. The President of India, Abdul Kalam once said, "In India, open source code software will have to come and stay in a big way for the benefit of our billion people." In a poor country like India where per capita income is much lower than the average, words of our president and visionary Mr. Kalam should be an important bottom line. These localized computers will be very useful in the field of rural computing. The people of real India only speak their native languages. For them, English represents the language and culture of British domination and exploitations. In analyzing why radio and television has a deep-rooted impact in India, especially in the rural areas, we can understand that the main reason is the availability of television programs produced in local languages. The localization movement in India has made 'alien' computer 'desi' one--hamara computer, tumhara computer. The Local Language IT market is in a development stage and it is rising with exponential growth. E-governance is one major field where localization of software is a must. The cost of hardware is going down very fast and in this context, the future of localized open source software is great. Last year the government started a program to launch localized CDs in all 22 official languages. Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu language CDs have already launched. Many of the applications available on the CD were released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). This is a success story of the localization movement in India. The initiative has been funded by the Indian government. It has planned to distribute 3.5 million copies of the Hindi Language CDs after the popularity. IndiX is a project funded by TDIL working on Indian language support for Linux. CDAC, a government organization, has also done important work for supporting open source software localization. There are many people and several organizations in India that support the open source ideology. A strikingly unique example of this is the establishment of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya (Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi University) in 1997. An eminent Hindi poet and former Secretary in the Ministry of Culture of India, Mr. Ashok Vajpeyi was the first vice chancellor of the university and he made the decision to run the university completely on open source. During his tenure, two books (in Hindi) and a bilingual magazine (in Hindi and English) were published completely on open source technology. Having open source computer based technology which works in a native language, particularly in Hindi, was the main target of the university. (On the website it is still the same!!) It is unfortunate that the situation hasn't been so positive after the completion of his term! The Delhi-based non-profit organization Sarai is fully committed to the use, propagation, and development of free software. Sarai has played a key role in the localization of some of the Indian languages. According to Sarai, free software emerged as a democratic alternative to proprietary control over code. Sarai has encouraged so many people to engage and enlarge this domain by giving fellowships and having several workshops. The work of localization started long before and now it has taken the form of movement. Internet availability, lack of resources, and illiteracy are some hindrances in the path of local language computing. The major hurdle is the mentality of the English speaking elite who sneer at the local language computing efforts. The elite have not had any grass-root experience, but they are still controlling the major positions within administration and finance. But ultimately they have to stumble down against the force of the local language computing market. Two decades ago, the condition of the television industry was similar to the present computer industry in India. Positive changes are inevitable and also not very far off in the field of computers. Poet Mr. Ashok Vajpeyi once wrote that the Indian tradition of selfless distribution of knowledge is very old and universal. We can say that the free software movement is the western version of the old Indian tradition. Mr. Vajpeyi's statement is very right and so, in the long term, Indian soil will prove itself very fertile for open source software. "Where knowledge is free" was the dream of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore for his nation and now the time is moving ahead toward his dreamland About the author: Rajesh Ranjan is Language Maintainer, Hindi at Red Hat. He is working with several localization projects including Fedora, GNOME, Openoffice.org, and Mozilla. He is the Indic Language Co-ordinator for the Native Language Confederation of Openoffice.org. Before joining Red Hat, he worked with The Indian Express Group and Literate World, Inc.

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by sarang pathak 27 Jan '06

27 Jan '06

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