- Fsf-friends - lists.fsci.in

FairPlay is now Hymn
by Rakesh 'arky' Ambati 11 May '04

11 May '04

Hi list, The project has been renamed Hymn, according to Anand Babu, the maintainer of the project. It is being hosted on two sites by a US-based hosting service provider. Babu said last month that the project would be hosted outside the US. Read the complete story here. http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/main_news.cfm?NewsID=8637 cheers --arky __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Has anyone tried using Knoppix 3.3 ?
by "Kenneth Wong <ken＠apdip.net>"＠apdip.net 09 May '04

09 May '04

Ramanraj K <ramanraj(a)md4.vsnl.net.in> wrote .. > I just tried using Knoppix 3.3 that came with the May issue of > LinuxForYou. Looks like good free software! Warning - not all of Knoppix is Free Software. Some things like acrobat reader (4.0) aren't free software. That said, it's possible to use only the free parts and have a fully functional system. Knoppix 3.4 just came out last week also and it supports even more hardware than 3.3. The live-CD is a wonderful thing for introducing people to free software. -- Kenneth Wong IOSN Programme Consultant, UNDP-APDIP, Malaysia DID: +603 2091 5169 Fax: +603 2093 9740 UNDP Asia Pacific Development Information Programme: http://www.apdip.net

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Has anyone tried using Knoppix 3.3 ?
by Tarun Gaur 08 May '04

08 May '04

Hi Ramanraj, Knoppix 3.3 Its a good one. I liked it too. I have always closely watched their work. Knoppix like projects could help us get over with preinstalled proprietry software. I consider it to be very good work. A good ambassador to our philosophy. regards, tarun _________________________________________________________________ Get head-hunted by 10,000 recruiters. http://go.msnserver.com/IN/35984.asp Post your CV on naukri.com today.

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FREEDOM, PHILOSOPHY and FREEDOM SOFTWARE
by Tarun Gaur 08 May '04

08 May '04

Hi Harish, Great to have an enthu response to my mail from you. On building the masses ... atleast we agree that masses need to be built. Let agree to disagree. You build the mass your way, i will build it my way; with mutual respect for the philosophy.;) I repeat again and again. You and many others are misquoting me. I never mean to say that Free Software is not good or it is not tending to be good. Still, Philosophically speaking it sounds great talking about the fact that "promote the philosophy and good software follows" .... Its like saying promote the brand name and products will follow. Sell promises the action will follow. Show rosy pictures stuffed with philosophy, the dreamland will follow. An idealistic society with FREEDOM for all and everyone will understand on their own. Social Change ... on its own. History is witness ... aggressors gain resources, promote philosophies, accumulate knowledge and are remembered. REST are a part of never existant idealistic society of Socrates. A PHILOSOPHICAL MINORITY. No friend, the actions speak louder than words. Give them free good software, you will not need to support the philosophy. The philosophy will travel on its own. I will give you an example here ... Linux happened and people saw the potential and RMS was able to push the philosophy, first in a very minority community writing some "GOOD" software, then they were able to promote their philosophy because of their work with some GOOD Software and attain wider acceptance. Lets agree to disagree here. I strongly believe that philosophies are duds without followers and philosophies turn into mass revolutions only when promoted to show an effect on masses. I am not saying Linux and other Free software projects are not doing that; neither i have anywhere said that Free software philosophy is flawed. Both can be promoted concurrently and you cant ignore either of them. Still statistics dont support that philosophy is seeping in. (I dont mean i dont understand the philosophy) When this thread started, it was because there was this respected end user called Mr Rammanohar Reddy (Editor, The Hindu); who genuinely tried working with Linux and dumped it for Windows after 1 month of frantically trying to set his Display of KDE right. The moment i tried to put his mail across to the list ... we had responses like "I dont Care" ; "Who cares till i am happy" ; to hell with what Mr Rammanohar thinks". What a way to promote a philosophy. Another wonderful hilarious way is .. I am happy, my friend called Mr. NASA and Mr. ISP is happy. Now i dont care whether kids are following it or not; whether schools are teaching it or not; whether journalists, doctors, lawyers and each one of them out there is using free software or not. I am happy till philosophy is realised but i wont use good free software as an agent to promote the philosophy. My question is friend ... then how will you do it ... Come on lets do 10,000 road shows singing the philosophy. Lets see how many switch. [ ;) though i dont mind doing 1 or 2 .. lol ] Whenever i come across ancdotes and examples of being happy with Free software, they are from our highly enlightened friends (FSF evanglists and Open Source guys - Primarily techos). I am yet to see very happy masses. Good Free Software is the ambassador for our philosophy. Just to add to your experience with Laptops, 2 months back i bought a Sony and got Linux preinstalled on demand; i succeded where you failed. But i really dont care about my own experience or your experience with Linux and free software because you and me are a MINORITY - a small drop in the ocean. What is important is that the masses start thinking what you and me think. The philosophy is not promoted by "I dont care" attitutes. A sad thing is that from so many days we have been discussing this issue ... Everyone seems to catch the FREE vs GOOD debate but manages to miss the point. The point is that ..... An end user is not happy. Lets get togather and help him out. By doing this we are not hurting the philosophy but supporting it by our actions. The RED HAT thing, i will explain again .. they are launching servers ... price range $1000 to $3500. It just the start, then comes the services bug in terms of more software. Though open source, completely open source. Is this what Free sofware all about ... RMS please comment !! Who are they? the Red Hat people .. how did they start? Who knows it better than RMS? As per you billions will never be affected by "free/non-free nonsense"; Friend there are thousands of philosophies that are born and die every single day, the ones who attain critical mass are the ones which evolve and are fiercely promoted ... For how many more years are we going to hide under the garb of saying ... "It is just a start" .... GNU project was launched in 1984 .. its already 20 years ... Its not a start anymore. ITS TIME TO GAIN CRITICAL MASS !! hail fsf, tarun _________________________________________________________________ Easiest Money Transfer to India. Send Money To 6000 Indian Towns. http://go.msnserver.com/IN/48198.asp Easiest Way To Send Money Home!

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FREEDOM, PHILOSOPHY and FREEDOM SOFTWARE
by Tarun Gaur 08 May '04

08 May '04

>From: Harish Narayanan <harish(a)gamebox.net> >To: Tarun Gaur <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com> >CC: fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in >Subject: Re: FREEDOM, PHILOSOPHY and FREEDOM SOFTWARE >Date: Fri, 07 May 2004 19:12:55 -0400 > >I can't help it, I better get these out of the way, >- Curious, why do you keep switching to all capital letters at arbitrary >points. It doesn't add to clarity, but I keep interpreting it as you're >screaming. >- Why don't you continue responses without changing the subject line? >- Again, freedom is a noun. Freedom software sounds very odd >- The reason that email you forwarded aggravated many people, was the way >in which it was suddenly thrust in. A little bit of etiquette can go a long >way. (Interpretation is subject to the index of one's own mind, still respecting your opinion i will not use capital letters, though sometimes you have to be loud to reach some deaf ears) I am not really worried about your obsession with nouns and verbs ... and neither did i thrust anything on anyone. It was not a junk proprietry windows source code that i forwarded or a secret note describing the rigging in American elections ... it was a simple mail describing an end user's experience with linux. I was not contesting the philosophy in this mail, nevertheless it seems like it is useless discussing it anymore ... cause i think very few are concerned on what is the importance of a good end user experience with free software and its relation to promotion of the philosophy. > >No one is misquoting anyone. Either your usage of words or tone seem to >mean or imply that free software as it is today is lacking. You keep >talking about, for instance, > Misquoting was a subtle expression ... seems like understanding the concern is a bit difficult for you here. >- "improving" to attract the masses, >- asking everyone to see it as an end user as opposed to a hacker (I safely >assumed this meant, hackers to some extent are more familiar with the >internals, so can deal easier with software that is superficially >unfriendly), >- the end user is not happy, or >- plugging all the holes so that the business men will be comfortable using >it. > >From these, among other things, some people will tend to make assumptions >regarding what you're trying to say. Maybe it is a fundamental >communication gap. > >As I've explained in another reply on another thread (because my mail >client likes to sort it like that), I bought my computer a while ago. >Things have changed in the recent past. But none of that matters, it isn't >too hard to wipe a hard drive. I was just trying to portray the hold >monopolies can have on vendors, and consequently the mind share they have >amongst users. If a person hadn't seen anything else, they'd be just as >happy with GNOME, KDE, Mac OS, Windows, BeOS, or whatever for basic needs >when introduced to them. It's when all you've ever seen and previously >worked on is, say, Windows, you will likely go with the most familiar even >when handed a choice. Even at the extent of loss of freedom. > Were we talking about monopolies of the vendors .. I think here mahesh agrees with me ... it was a matter of choice that i excercised and you did not. >RedHat is doing exactly what free software from a corporate perspective is >all about. They sell entirely free software at large markup, purely for the >peace of mind their support offers to big companies. There is nothing >preventing you, an individual, who will not want to spend the 3500$, from >obtaining any of it for free, studying it, modifying it, distributing it, >and of course, expanding upon it. > >[ http://www2.uibk.ac.at/zid/software/unix/linux/rhel-rebuild.htm ] > >They've done more than most other companies ever will for the growth of >free software. For years they've allowed anyone and everyone to download >the huge ISO images of fully free distributions fully free of charge, for >instance. Who pays for their bandwidth? How do they survive if they can't >charge for services and support centered around their products as well? If >you find it exorbitantly expensive, find another source for your software. >That is what choice is about. If no one buys it, they will have to lower >their prices or die naturally. Don't criticize or get angry, just let your >choices do the talking. > >[ http://www.redhat.com/about/mission/business_model.html ] Seems like you have something to do with Red Hat. Are you working for them or sell Red hat boxes ... Just plain curious (like you were .. not changing the subject lines) If you are not ... it would really help the philosophy and the cause for you to focus on GNU/FSF. > >If you give an average person a very good program that satisfies their >immediate requirements, they will use it. If it were free, it would be >free, if it weren't, then it wouldn't be. I have an old Mandrake box at >home which does everything my parents need, and which I can administer >remotely. Let's assume I haven't told them anything about the freedom >they're consequently enjoying. All they know is that they aren't paying for >it, it works well, and that while their friends get affected by viruses and >worms, they have no problems receiving email from their son. Where in this >was the philosophy communicated? If tomorrow the hard drive were to crash, >and the local computer man were to install Windows, they will adjust to it >and use it. I'm trying to indicate that philosophy and social implications >are bigger than just free software. > Sorry again here friend, but seems like you have graduated from your experience to your parents experience. I am talking about the generation maturing, the generation that is using XP and similar proprietry software. Give me a break. I repeat "you" and "I" are a MINORITY. We need to promote philosophy by using good free software as an ambassador to reach them and gain critical mass. You seem to pick up sentences that suit a useless argument ... ignoring the importance of good end user experience everytime. Did I ever say that philosophy is not imprortant. But i did say that free software is an ambassador of our philosophy. And philosophy and good free software compliment each other. >Give them good free software and they will use it, sure. The software will >travel on it's own. This, and the communication of ideals aren't >necessarily linked. They are using it because it's good. Give them free >software and explain to them why being free makes it inherently good, and >they will still use it. But more importantly, the ideals have also spread. > >I am willing to take my chances on another kernel stepping up to the plate >even if the Linux kernel hadn't filled a hole in the GNU system. It might >have taken more time to reach the level of adoption we see today (or maybe >even less if it were even more popular for some reason), but it would have >happened independent of Linux. Point being, there would have been someone >who valued all this (and was skilled enough) to write things that worked to >fill this void. > >And all this about fierce promotion, gaining critical mass, mass revolution >and things like that. I really wish to know what it is your aim for all of >this is. Please elaborate on what do you mean by "What my aim is" ... still i will answer ... My aim is to ensure that end user experience - especially negative is not repulsed. They are helped and philosophy reaches the masses through each one of them ... each single one of them. Its not a start anymore ... Its time to reach critical mass. hail fsf, tarun _________________________________________________________________ Contact brides & grooms FREE! http://www.shaadi.com/ptnr.php?ptnr=hmltag Only on www.shaadi.com. Register now!

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FREE SOFTWARE THAT IS GOOD ...
by Tarun Gaur 07 May '04

07 May '04

Hi harish, You are missing the point here again. It is not the words that matter. I, like you also believe that software has to be free but i strongly contest the fact that people who do not embrace it dont matter to us. They do matter and we have to make them understand why FREEDOM, FREE software and FREE GOOD SOFTWARE (is important). Just because we believe in freedom does not mean that we do not listen to what they have to say. Now, Please read my previous note again and tell me where i have said that end user is unintelligent, does not understand or does not value freedom .... The very fact that he is intelligent is an indication enough for us to convince him rather than show "I dont care, they will learn by themselves" attitude. We need to educate - rather make them aware; of our philosophy and i am sure each one of them feels as strongly for Freedom as you and I do. Sometimes as an analyst you have to keep yourself away from your own beliefs and philosophies and try and compare and criticize what you think might not be correct ... And here what i feel is that we need to value the opinion of " Intelligent end users" and be our own ciritics at every point as that would help us plug the holes and evolve. You took the discussion to "Intellectual Property Rights" and Free Software and morals and ethics of it. I think we all ... we all understand freedom, FSF and Free software very well. As per me the entire IT community put togather is not more than 2% of the world's population. We need to come out of the technical closet and think about the rest 98% of the world and how we can make them adopt our philosophy and software. And trust me for that, we dont have a choice ... WE HAVE TO BE GOOD and we are good, then why not be supportive rather than being dismissive to the "Intelligent End Users". I can also say ... I like Free Software because .... Reason 1 ...... to Reason 100. But i dont because i am more concerned and focussed to see that Free Software Philosophy penetrates to the masses. Once it does, you will see it everywhere. I again highlight; whenever we see someone saying that I have a problem with Free Software ... rather than shooting the guns at him, ask him if we could help restore his faith and then go and help him. This is in the best interest of our philosophy, cause philosophies are duds without followers. Remember, It is not you and me that decides what is good ... it is the majority and the facts. We are good, brilliant people ... we write amazing codes ... we just need to make them a bit more simple. We are doing it slowly but surely. I am not contesting here on Freedom or good or bad. I am contesting that we cant ignore 210 million people and more. We need to make them understand, enlighten them, educate them and we cant do this by shooing them away. In the proprietry world, companies like IBM, RED HAT and numberless others used Free Software Fundamentals to manouvere against Microsoft and another entry is Novell. Now these companies are also people and look at how others and Red Hat moved to take a big market share, riding on open source. What are we doing sitting and allowing them to manouvere and criticizing people cause they say that free software evangelists are deaf if not dumb. Its a simple thing friends, entertain criticizm, consult, discuss and do something about it; even if it means contesting RMS opinion. He sure started it but its freedom what it is all about .. right? Bottomline, BECOME A MASS MAJORITY RATHER THAN PHILOSOPHICAL MINORITY. hail FSF, tarun _________________________________________________________________ MSN Toolbar provides one-click access to Hotmail from any Web page FREE download! http://toolbar.msn.com/go/onm00200413ave/direct/01/

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Good FREEDOM Software
by Tarun Gaur 07 May '04

07 May '04

Hi Dr. Nagarjuna, Sorry for being a bit late in replying but let me add to Rishi's compliment that you write well and are very articulate in expressing your thoughts. I believe that you agree with me that over all we should attempt to write "good freedom software". Now by being focussed on what "good" means here you have asked a very Macro question because you, me and all our friends know that "GOOD" means different things to different people. Its an extremely relative term. Still I will try to answer your question in a very generic way and in total lay man jargon ... According to me ... 1. a software is good if it helps me achieve desired set of functional tasks with minimum focus on technicalities (end user perspective) 2. a software is better if it helps me achieve desired set of functional tasks with minimum focus on technicalities and is extremely pleasing to work with through consistent interfaces (end user perspective) 3. a software is best if it helps me achieve desired set of functional tasks with minimum focus on technicalities, is extremely pleasing to work with through consistent interfaces, has a definite growth plan, manovers to incorporate best industry practices and APPEALS TO THE MASSES. Now ... i redefine the definition of a good software here ... a good software is that tends towards the best with a plan to be the best. Over and above that, if it is FREE; masses would embrace it instantly. Dr. Nagarjun, in that case your, my and FSFs beliefs of FREEDOM SOFTWARE are realized to its full potential. I stress ... the POTENTIAL exists. If our software wins, our philosophy wins. I am not saying that we are not getting there. I stress ... We have taken giant strides in recent years. But there is a lot to be done. You may show some features and tell me that the issues i have highlighed in above points are there to some/great extent in freedom software, still my experience with end user says otherwise. I repeat ... Good to Great ... cause there is a lot to be done. On software front as well as promoting the philosophy. I was sad at seeing the reaction to a small mail from an end user "Rammanohar Reddy" with some of our friends saying it does not matter to FSF on what he or any other end user has to say on Free software/Linux. It does matter ... Friends philosophies die without mass support and appeal. Though CLASSES are using the FREE Software, still we are far away from MASSES. Statistics support what i mean. Windows XP: 210 Million Copies Sold http://www.forbes.com/business/businesstech/newswire/2004/05/03/rtr1356086.… Now my question is ... do these 210 Million people who might have bought this software dont matter to us? Some would say they dont. I would say they do. We could make them switch by helping them. another question: How many of them have heard about us and our philosophy? another question: If they have heard, How many would switch? If Yes, why and if not, why not? another question: Are they paying for the software because they hate us and our philosophy? I will answer this one - they are paying cause they dont have an option. Give them an option and trust me friends they would switch. If you think you have already given them an option then explain them your options. "I dont care attitude" does not help. 210 million people are 209 million too many to ignore. Atleast for me. Microsofts mention triggers a useless defensive reaction from a lot of our friends at FSF and elsewhere too. I am yet to understand why? We could take a leaf out from their research on customers and the expectations. I repeat FREEDOM matters, does it stop us from evolving and improving. I have said this before, i will say it again and again and again ... LETS TURN FROM A PHILOSOPHICAL MINORITY TO A MASS MAJORITY. There is a lot of work to be done. I am sure Dr. Nagarjuna is doing his part, Rishi is doing his part and i am doing mine. Lets write Good FREEDOM software. P.S. Dr. Nagarjuna and friends i assume we understand what do Masses and Classes mean. Hail FSF, Tarun ================== IF NOT I, THEN WHO? IF NOT NOW, THEN WHEN? ================== _________________________________________________________________ Watch LIVE baseball games on your computer with MLB.TV, included with MSN Premium! http://join.msn.com/?page=features/mlb&pgmarket=en-us/go/onm00200439ave/dir…

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Freedom matters - So does good software !!
by Tarun Gaur 07 May '04

07 May '04

Hi Anurag, I totally agree with you that free software can be made easy to use. I am infact not in favor of writing any software that is a nightmare to work with. That is the reason i initiated this debate by forwarding a mail from an end user to the list. Does RMS ever say that Free software should not be designed to be easy to use? i doubt. Infact we all know that Freedom matters, Free Free Free ... Lets get over with the basics and get our heads down to write good FREE software. We have the Freedom and we promote it too. .. And the world has heard us loud and clear. They say the DEVIL LIES IN THE DETAILS ... So its useless to talk about freedom and free software without backing it up with good software. We have come this far with good work. Lets just keep on doing the good work and not pay a deaf ear to end user's perspective. hail the spirit of FSF regards, tarun -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WORRY NOT ON WHAT HAS BEEN DONE, WORRY ON WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE. FOR EVOLUTION IS NOT WHAT EXISTS, IT IS WHAT WE DO WITH WHAT EXISTS. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From: fsf-discuss-request(a)mm.gnu.org.in >Reply-To: fsf-discuss(a)mm.gnu.org.in >To: fsf-discuss(a)mm.gnu.org.in >Subject: Fsf-discuss Digest, Vol 7, Issue 1 >Date: Wed, 05 May 2004 12:00:43 +0530 > >Send Fsf-discuss mailing list submissions to > fsf-discuss(a)mm.gnu.org.in > >To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-discuss >or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > fsf-discuss-request(a)mm.gnu.org.in > >You can reach the person managing the list at > fsf-discuss-owner(a)mm.gnu.org.in > >When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific >than "Re: Contents of Fsf-discuss digest..." > > >Today's Topics: > > 1. free good and easy to use software (Mathur,Anurag) > > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > >Message: 1 >Date: Wed, 5 May 2004 11:57:11 +0530 >From: "Mathur,Anurag" <amathur(a)iPolicyNet.COM> >Subject: [Fsf-discuss] free good and easy to use software >To: <fsf-discuss(a)mm.gnu.org.in> >Message-ID: > <D269C7CBDF116A48982D4DC51F111BE34C22DE(a)nsezhpmail01.india.ipolicynet.com> > >Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > >Hi Tarun, > >Please refer to ur opening mail. >I think free software can be made good and easy to use without much effort. > >Thanks > >Anurag Mathur >iPolicy Networks > >*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* >Life is too short to be glum, put a smile on your face and spread it to >others. >*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* > >

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Using Apt-spy
by Raghavendra Bhat 06 May '04

06 May '04

> I need to create list for both testing/Unstable. Can I use this with > -d option Using apt-spy for two different trees would not work out correctly. Here testing is separate and unstable is a different kind of cake altogether. Browse the site http://www.apt-get.org/ and insert appropriate lines in your /etc/apt/sources.list file instead of using apt-spy .... -- ragOO Amateur Radio VU2RGU DRM is clearly an attempt by publishers to unilaterally impose restrictions that go beyond copyright law. That is, a power grab -- RMS

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Using Apt-spy
by Rakesh 'arky' Ambati 06 May '04

06 May '04

Hello Friends, Am using Apt-spy to make my sources.list file.Here are few things am unable to do nicely*. 1) I need to create list for both testing/Unstable. Can I use this with -d option. 2) Apt-spy creates list with one or two sites.Sometimes most packages won't be found on that site,due to various reason's (don't flame,often I kindly let the mirror site about this). It would be great if you can tell me how to have secondary or bit slower site also listed too. Can you please share some of the apt-spy tricks so that I can save my bandwidth. * I can run apt-spy couple of times and cat the files ok that's not what am look for here. TIA --arky __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Using Apt-spy
by Mahesh T. Pai 06 May '04

06 May '04

Rakesh 'arky' Ambati said on Thu, May 06, 2004 at 05:31:23AM -0700,: 1) I need to create list for both testing/Unstable. Can I use this with -d option. Why don't you experiment? It will not kill you. And you certainly can educate yourselves. 2) Apt-spy creates list with one or two sites.Sometimes most packages won't be found on that site,due to various reason's (don't flame,often I kindly let the mirror site about this). There is some misunderstanding here. apt-spy looks only for official Debian mirrors. If you need unofficial packages, like backports, you need to manually edit sources.list -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://paivakil.port5.com +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+

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Playfair News
by Rajkumar S 04 May '04

04 May '04

Some more press coverage http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/0503freesoft.html http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/05/03/HNundauntedbyapple_1.html raj

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Sun considers GPL license for Solaris
by Titty Jacob 03 May '04

03 May '04

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/04/30/HNsolarisgpl_1.html -- Debian GNU/Linux .~. The Choice /V\ of a GNU /( )\ Generation ^^-^^ .''`. : :' : `. `'` `-

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IT@School
by Arun M 03 May '04

03 May '04

On 26th April teachers union from Kerala, KSTA, made a protest demonstration in front of IT@School project (school IT education program of Govt of Kerala). One of the issues raised in this protest was lack of teacher training in GNU/Linux.

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Spam problems
by Rakesh 'arky' Ambati 02 May '04

02 May '04

--- Rishi <rishi(a)gangfam.com> wrote: > On Sunday 02 May 2004 1:58 am, Rakesh 'arky' Ambati > wrote: > > Hello List, > > > > I have a seen a considerable increase in spam > and > > auto-remailing virus in my mailbox.Is it possible > to > > prevent to mask email addresses on mailing list > > archives. > > Hi > > Don't know about masking of e-mail addresses but > this service called Spam > Arrest is really great.. > > http://spamarrest.com > > They have a 30 day free trial and I haven't received > a single spam since. hi, Is this GNU/Free software ? I have addressesed the email to mailing-list admin. --arky __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover

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[twnfeatures] World Summit on Information Society Skirts three key issues
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 02 May '04

02 May '04

Interesting debate. More knowledge needs to be in the public domain; we need to extend the debate beyond software. FN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- World Intellectual Property Rights Day 26th April 2004 WORLD SUMMIT ON INFORMATION SOCIETY SKIRTS THREE KEY ISSUES The recent World Summit on the Information Society adopted a declaration and action plan aimed at a people-oriented information society where everyone can create, access and share information and knowledge. However, due to basic disagreements, decisions were postponed on two key issues (global Internet governance and creating a Digital Solidarity Fund) while another key issue (intellectual property) was hardly addressed. By Martin Khor Third World Network Features The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) ended with the adoption of a declaration and action plan aimed at a people-oriented information society where everyone can create, access and share information and knowledge. The Declaration has 11 key principles and the Plan of Action contains 147 proposals. Many familiar issues in the discussion on the information age found their way into the Summit documents, such as the right to information, equity, access, the right to cultural identity and diversity, local content, and building the capacity of the poor and marginalised. But some key issues, such as the impact of intellectual property, were hardly addressed. And decisions on two contentious subjectsInternet governance and the setting up of a new Digital Solidarity Fundhad to be postponed until the second phase of the Summit, to be held in Tunis in 2005. The wrangling over the two controversial issues at one stage threatened the atmosphere and outcome of the Summit preparatory process. They remained unresolved, to the bitterness of many developing country leaders. But a compromise was worked out whereby they will continue to be debated, with the assistance of two separate task forces to be set up under the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and final decisions will be made at the Tunis meeting. The governance of the Internet was one of WSISs most contentious issues. The issuance of Internet domain names is presently administered by a private organisation, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) based in San Francisco. Many developing countries argued that the administration of domain names and other aspects of global Internet management should come under an inter-governmental body, such as the International Telecommunications Union. However, the developing countries demand for an inter-governmental oversight of the Internet was strongly resisted by some developed countries. In the end, the Summit decided to postpone taking a decision, and instead asked the UN Secretary-General to set up a working group on Internet governance to make appropriate action proposals by 2005. The group should develop a working definition of Internet governance; identify relevant public policy issues; develop a common understanding on the roles and responsibilities of governments, existing international agencies, and other forums, and the private sector and civil society; and prepare a report to be presented in Tunis in 2005. The second major contentious issue was how to finance the many proposals in the Summits action plan to bridge the digital divide and upgrade facilities in the poorer countries. The developing nations proposed the concept of a Digital Solidarity Agenda to mobilise human, financial and technological resources for inclusion of all men and women in the emerging Information Society. But their proposal for a Digital Solidarity Fund to finance the Agenda was turned down by the developed countries, some of which claimed that existing amounts and channels of aid were enough and that the developing countries should commit their own funds. This caused many Third World leaders and diplomats to complain that the Summits fine sentiments and proposals would eventually mean nothing concrete for their countries, since there would not be the financial means of implementing the proposed actions. Again, a final decision on this divisive issue was turned over for the 2005 Tunis meeting to make. And again, the UN Secretary-General was asked to set up a task force, to review the adequacy of existing financial mechanisms to meet the challenges of ICT for development. A third contentious issue is how present and future intellectual property rights regimes are raising the cost of information and communications to consumers, and in turn affecting the access of the public, especially of the poor, to information and to the use of ICT. Some NGOs and research organisations are increasingly taking up this issue, pointing out that the principles and actions promoted by the Summit on access to all and participation by all in the information society are being undermined by the monopolising power of corporations making use of existing and new intellectual property rights regimes. This has enabled the high prices for software and may also lead in future to restrictions on and increasing costs of data transmitted through the Internet. At the Summit, civil society groups issued their own joint Declaration, Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs, which was presented to governments at their final official session on 12 December. The NGOs said the vast majority of humankind has no access to the public domain of global knowledge. Yet, instead of extending and strengthening the global domain, recent developments are restricting information more and more to private hands with patents being extended to software for example. They called on the UN to carry out a review of the impact on poverty and human rights of current arrangements for recognition and governance of monopolised knowledge and information, including the work of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the World Trade Organisation. They added that efforts should be made to limit intellectual monopolies, stimulate innovation and reward initiative, rather than keeping knowledge in private hands until it is of little use to society. Whilst the NGOs recognised that the current trend of governments granting more intellectual property rights to companies would counter so many of the fine principles of public access and equity expressed in the Summit documents, the subject is inadequately and inappropriately treated in the official Declaration. The Declaration instead tries to strike a balance between intellectual property protection (which grants monopoly and restricts access) and the need for dissemination and sharing of knowledge, and asks that everyone be empowered to debate and decide on these issues. This is skirting one of the biggest issues in the right and access to information. Needless to say, it will return in a bigger way in future as questions are raised whether the Summits aims and plans can be implemented if the current intellectual regimes continue and expand. The Declaration then states 11 key principles, namely: * The shared roles of governments and all stakeholders in promoting ICTs for development; * The need to develop ICT infrastructure including to reach to remote areas; * The ability for all to access and contribute information (stressing the need for a rich public domain, and affordable access to software); * Capacity building, where skills to take part in the information society are made available to all; * Building confidence and security in the use of ICTs; * Creating an enabling environment (including through regulations, fair competition, standards and proper Internet governance); * ICT applications should benefit all aspects of life (such as government operations, health, education, business, agriculture, environment, culture, and poverty eradication); * There should be respect for cultural identity and cultural and linguistic diversity and the creation and dissemination of content in diverse languages and formats; * Reaffirming freedom of the press and information; * Stressing the ethical dimensions of the information society (with all actors asked to prevent abusive use of ICTs motivated by racism, hatred, violence, child abuse, etc.); and * Committing to international and regional cooperation. The Plan of Action, which contains 147 action proposals, follows closely the 11 principles of the Declaration. Third World Network Features. -ends- About the writer: Martin Khor is Director of the Third World Network. When reproducing this feature, please credit Third World Network Features and (if applicable) the cooperating magazine or agency involved in the article, and give the byline. Please send us cuttings.

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Spam problems
by Rakesh 'arky' Ambati 01 May '04

01 May '04

Hello List, I have a seen a considerable increase in spam and auto-remailing virus in my mailbox.Is it possible to prevent to mask email addresses on mailing list archives. TIA --arky __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover

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Transcript of speech on Free Software by RMS
by Vijay Kumar 01 May '04

01 May '04

The transcript of RMS' speech at the National Institute of Technology, Trichy is available from http://glugt.linuxisle.com/projects.shtml A few quotes from the speech: * About a year ago, some developers... some researchers found out that, they figured out that, Windows XP when it asked for an upgrade, also reports to Microsoft, what's installed on your disk. And it does this secretly, it sends the list of files encrypted, so that it was impossible for people to tell easily that this was going on. * Even more bizarre, there is a malicious feature in the music sharing program, Kaza, where the company... the developers sell time on your computer. So, other people will pay Kaza, so that they can run their programs on your computer. * Paradoxically speaking, when you have a choice between several non-free programs to do the same job, which ever one you choose the support for it is going to be a monopoly afterwards, so at the beginning you get a choice, but afterwards you are stuck in a monopoly. * Well, there are lots of people in India who might be able to afford the computer, but couldn't possibly afford the software, because they can just barely afford a computer. So free software can make a big difference in terms of who in India can get a computer and run it. * But this is not what they are doing. And you can see easily if you look around easily, government organization in India are mostly using non-free software. And schools in India are using non-free software. This is a terrible mistake, it is a foolish and disastrous policy, governments of course deserves to use free software.... * And Microsoft did something really stupid. Well, really absurd. Supposedly, they offered various governments access to the source code. But they did it in a way that is fraudulent... * As far as I can tell, some people are born with the skill program, are born with their brains growing so that they will have the skill to program. They will be natural programmers. But writing clear understandable software is something you have to learn. That's judgment. The way you learn is by reading lots of source and by changing lots of programs. * So schools should use free software for the sake of education, but there is an even deeper reason, because schools are not supposed to teach just facts, just skills, but even more deep, they are supposed to teach the spirit of goodwill, the habit of cooperating with other people. * ...two weeks ago, when I met with Dr. Kalam and explained to him about why schools should use free software and about how non-free software is colonial system, I was really delighted, because he understood it instantly. * But sometimes, there is a different issue that does make sense for hardware. And that is the design spec, visible. You know, can the public get copies of design, to find out what the hardware does. Well, this is necessary in certain cases, so that you can check for malicious features... * There are portable phones in Europe which have this feature, that somebody can remotely tell the phone to listen to you. It really is a spy device, in the most classical sense. And if you have a portable phone, do you know who could be spying on you at any time? Vijay -- Free the Code. Free the User. ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP(http://www.nitt.edu)

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The Hindu reports about India's fastest academic computer built at IIMSc
by Ramanraj K 30 Apr '04

30 Apr '04

`The Hindu' in its Chennai edition dated 28-4-2004 carried an article titled `India's fastest academic computer to vie for top spot', and sorry I could not get any online links to the article. It has been reported that the Dept. of Atomic Energy made a grant of Rs. 3.5 crores to the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, out of which the Linux cluster that clocked 1.382 teraflops was realised at the cost of only about Rs. 2.5 crores - a fraction of what supercomputers of this pedigree would cost. AB, you wrote about working on a similar project - is that a connected project?

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Freedom, Merit and Control
by Tarun Gaur 30 Apr '04

30 Apr '04

Hi Krishna, A Great way to describe Free Software. I fully agree with you and second your opinion. Freedom and Merit go hand in hand and merit is subject to hard work and research put behind it. Direction of research is again ascertained by keeping our ears open to the NEED; need of the classes and need of the masses. I think with FSF there is no reason why we cant touch base with both the segments. regards, tarun > >Message: 4 >Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 19:53:16 -0700 (PDT) >From: Krishna Pagadala <krishnaact(a)yahoo.com> >Subject: [Fsf-friends] Freedom, Merit and Control >To: fsf-friends(a)gnu.org.in >Message-ID: <20040430025316.29080.qmail(a)web11903.mail.yahoo.com> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > >There was an interesting discussion on who controls >Free Software development process. I thought that >three distinct ideas were intermixed, when they >should not have been. I am writing out my thoughts on >the ideas. > >i) Freedom > Free software is all about Freedom, and nobody can >dictate what you can and cannot do with such software. >In other words nobody has control (`cracy`) over >anybody else. > With regard to the linux kernel it was written that >"Linus Torvalds controls the kernel development >process." > >That is not true Linus only controls his own tree, he >cannot control anybody else's tree. Anybody and >everybody can have their own kernel tree and kernel >development process. > >Also he does not have a road map of where the kernel >is going, and in that sense where Linux kernel goes is >more of a collaborative effort than a form of `cracy` > > >ii) Merit > I think that Linus tree has more merit in the >sense that it fits the needs of various people, that >any other tree I have a hope of building myself. > > It has been written on this list that >"Linus Torvalds has much more influence in the future >direction of Linux than I have." > > I am entirely in agreement with the idea of his >having an influence on the kernel. > Altough his influence comes from the merit of his >ideas, he still does not have control, and if some of >his ideas do not have merit they must be discarded. > >iii) Control > I am not a believer in control (coercion), >whatever disguised form it might take. > > It has been written on this list that >"Generally open source software is a meritocracy - >the "best choice" is purely based on a meritocracy. >meritocracy is how all of this functions." > > I think that we must base our decisions on merit, >however the fact that a persons ideas have merit >should not mean that the person gains some form of >control. `Cracy` can be and should be seperated out >from merit. > > I think free software is about being able to >recognize merit in each other and therefore build a >better society, while retaining freedom. i.e. without >giving up freedom, and without giving control to >others. > >Thanks >Krishna > > >===== >To Reflect, to Inspire and to Empower >http://www.employees.org/~krishnap/ > > > > >__________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs >http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover > > >------------------------------ > >_______________________________________________ >Fsf-friends mailing list >Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in >http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends > > >End of Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 12, Issue 31 >******************************************* _________________________________________________________________ Need quick cash? http://go.msnserver.com/IN/46923.asp Click here !

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Freedom, Merit and Control
by Krishna Pagadala 30 Apr '04

30 Apr '04

There was an interesting discussion on who controls Free Software development process. I thought that three distinct ideas were intermixed, when they should not have been. I am writing out my thoughts on the ideas. i) Freedom Free software is all about Freedom, and nobody can dictate what you can and cannot do with such software. In other words nobody has control (`cracy`) over anybody else. With regard to the linux kernel it was written that "Linus Torvalds controls the kernel development process." That is not true Linus only controls his own tree, he cannot control anybody else's tree. Anybody and everybody can have their own kernel tree and kernel development process. Also he does not have a road map of where the kernel is going, and in that sense where Linux kernel goes is more of a collaborative effort than a form of `cracy` ii) Merit I think that Linus tree has more merit in the sense that it fits the needs of various people, that any other tree I have a hope of building myself. It has been written on this list that "Linus Torvalds has much more influence in the future direction of Linux than I have." I am entirely in agreement with the idea of his having an influence on the kernel. Altough his influence comes from the merit of his ideas, he still does not have control, and if some of his ideas do not have merit they must be discarded. iii) Control I am not a believer in control (coercion), whatever disguised form it might take. It has been written on this list that "Generally open source software is a meritocracy - the "best choice" is purely based on a meritocracy. meritocracy is how all of this functions." I think that we must base our decisions on merit, however the fact that a persons ideas have merit should not mean that the person gains some form of control. `Cracy` can be and should be seperated out from merit. I think free software is about being able to recognize merit in each other and therefore build a better society, while retaining freedom. i.e. without giving up freedom, and without giving control to others. Thanks Krishna ===== To Reflect, to Inspire and to Empower http://www.employees.org/~krishnap/ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover

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[Fsf-friends] Freedom to write good software! From Freedom to Free software!
by Tarun Gaur 29 Apr '04

29 Apr '04

Dear Rishi, =========================================== We regard non-free software as a problem to be solved, not as a solution to any problem. =========================================== This is the last line from the FSF-India philosophy that you sent; just thought of sending it back. I am focussing on how to help Mr. Ram. I repeat philosophies are duds if not implemented. I am just doing what i think is right. I just try to look at what is left to be done and gain some insight from end user experience and then focus on helping others do it. Thats about it. Nothing more nothing less. regards, tarun > >Where did you even assume that was part of the deal? As reagards what FSF >is >committed to promote .... please read the following text... I've copied and >pasted it from the FSF-India website. > >============================================================= >FSF India is a non-profit organisation committed to advocating, promoting >and >propagating the use and development of swatantra software in India. Our >goal >is to ensure the long term adoption of free software, and aim for the day >when all software will be free. This includes educating people about >software >freedom and convincing them that it is the freedom that matters. We regard >non-free software as a problem to be solved, not as a solution to any >problem. >============================================================= > >If you or Mr. Reddy want the Mandrake distro to have a "Rich User >Experience" >please use the link below. >http://www.mandrakesoft.com/company/contact/feedback > > > > So you mean to say that if the software come for FREE I should not >expect > > it to be good. What a foundation "WE" (FSF evangalists) are laying down >for > > others to follow. > >Again...if you are referring to the Mandrake Distro, refer to the link >mentinoed above. > >If not, get specific as to which particular free software you are talk >about >not being 'good' enough for Mr. Reddy. I'm sure there is a forum out there >that would be happy to hear yours or Mr. Reddy's feedback on how it can be >better. > > > Let me remind you I am not talking about "you", the IT guy. I am talking > > about the end user for whom computers is a tool to do his work. And >trust > > me he values "RICH USER EXPERIECE" more than getting a free software. IS > > THIS WHAT YOU CALL FREEDOM? > > >Freedom in Free software is not about price. See the following link to >understand what free software means. >http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html > >And thank you for finally making my point. He (Mr. Reddy) obviously values >"rich user experience" more than "freedom". > >What do you value more? "freedom" or "rich user experience"? > >I hope you value freedom more than software that should have "rich user >experience" ... If you do, great. Please try and talk Mr. Reddy into >attending a speech of RMS so that he could possibly moved into considering >valuing "freedom" more than "rich user experience". > >For the time being you could download this Video of RMS as it's pretty >good. > >http://audio-video.gnu.org/video/rms-speech-curitiba.mpg > >It's about 30 minutes and 55 MB in size. > >This may help bring the focus on freedom instead of Rich User Experience. > >I'd be happy to courier you and Mr. Reddy the CD if you like. Just give me >your address. I think there is a copy of this video on this month's LFY >mangazine too. > > > > FREEDOM for who? You or the MASSES? I repeat lets move from >"PHILOSOPHICAL > > MINORITY" to "MASS MAJORITY" and for masses your so called "SHALLOW" >user > > experience matters. > > >Once again... please target the disappointments of user experiences of the >software to the Mandrake Company and not FSF. > > > Windows market share is a testimony to this SHALLOW concept. > >Sure, that's because lots of people have had no choice but to pay up huge >dollars (or not) to use it. ;-) > > > I remind you again ... i am not decrying linux .... of FSF. I am myself >a > > strong supporter and have followed linux from its nacence. > > >As I mentioned in my ealier mail, I was using what I called 'Linux' since >1996, but got to realize the funda of freedom only in 2001 after attending >an >RMS speech. > >Have you ever attended one of those? > >If not you should... > > > > Anyways, its been great interacting with you .. no point in dragging >this > > any further, i dont think we are going anywhere with this. Lets agree to > > disagree. > > >It's been great interacting with you too.... However, you keep wanting to >make >your point, which I'm still struggling and wanting to understand, but at >the >same time you want to end the discussion by 'agreeing to disagree'.... > >I truely hope to succeed in communicating this funda of freedom to you and >Mr. >Reddy. > >Regards > >Rishi > _________________________________________________________________ Contact brides & grooms FREE! http://www.shaadi.com/ptnr.php?ptnr=hmltag Only on www.shaadi.com. Register now!

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FREEDOM! FREEDOM! FREEDOM!
by Tarun Gaur 29 Apr '04

29 Apr '04

Dear Rishi, I am sorry if i offended you in some manner. My idea was not to offend you but i am still a firm believer of turning springs into rivers. I value freedom as much as you do and understanding freedom is not about listening to RMS speech. Though for your information sake ... I am associated with Linux for as long as you are and have heard RMS on not just once but number of occasions. And to highlight again ... I am contributing software to FSF and not just mails. I am fine with worrying about writing the software and pitching in with my own effort. There are others to worry about philosophy. And be sure we understand philosophy as much as you do. And i intentionaly refrain from compartmentalizing LINUX. Good work does not require acknowledgement ... we all know who started it ... Thanx to RMS. My intention of sending Mr. Ram's mail was just to highlight the importance of moving ahead and what needs to be done. I am sure I will solve his problem. And this time i wont be listening to an RMS speech but doing what he preaches. Thanx but we had a good debate; this keeps the spirit alive. It would be great to make friends with you as you seem an FSF oldie too. hail FSF, tarun _________________________________________________________________ Let your desktop sizzle! Get the hottest wallpapers. http://www.msn.co.in/entertainment/ Right here at MSN Entertainment!

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Freedom {X VS X} AND Rich User Experience
by Tarun Gaur 29 Apr '04

29 Apr '04

Dear Rishi, "WE" here stands for FSF evanglists who value FREEDOM as much as you do. I really wonder whether FREEDOM again means not trying to write good software. What you call FREEDOM for yourself is the hard work of countless Open Source guys towards a common goal - promoting Free software. So you mean to say that if the software come for FREE I should not expect it to be good. What a foundation "WE" (FSF evangalists) are laying down for others to follow. Let me remind you I am not talking about "you", the IT guy. I am talking about the end user for whom computers is a tool to do his work. And trust me he values "RICH USER EXPERIECE" more than getting a free software. IS THIS WHAT YOU CALL FREEDOM? FREEDOM for who? You or the MASSES? I repeat lets move from "PHILOSOPHICAL MINORITY" to "MASS MAJORITY" and for masses your so called "SHALLOW" user experience matters. Windows market share is a testimony to this SHALLOW concept. I remind you again ... i am not decrying linux .... of FSF. I am myself a strong supporter and have followed linux from its nacence. Anyways, its been great interacting with you .. no point in dragging this any further, i dont think we are going anywhere with this. Lets agree to disagree. Regards, tarun >From: Rishi <rishi(a)gangfam.com> >To: "Tarun Gaur" <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com>, >anivar@linuxmail.org,fsf-friends@mm.gnu.org.in >Subject: Freedom VS Rich User Experience >Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 22:42:32 +0530 > >Hi Tarun, > > > Now, he is a live example of an END USER PERSPECTIVE on Linux Desktops. >Let > > me remind you I am not talking of Linux as a Server. > >I use Linux at home and office as a Desktop. Been doing that for the past 1 >year now.... Linux Servers have been at the office and home since 1996. >;-) > > > Now I have a question for you ... are "Diversity" and "Flexibility" > > synonyms of "Complexity" and "Non-Rich User Experience"?? > >Sure they are. But the more crucial point I'm trying to make is the Value >of >Freedom which according to me, supercedes the more shallow concept of >having >a 'Rich User Experience'..... > >This of course depends on the crux that the end-user values freedom. > >From where I sit and all the friends at FSF, I'm sure we value freedom >first >and then "Rich User Experience" > > > So, when the competetion picks up it is the BUYERS market and you have >to > > be very agile to pick up a market share. And we have to behave very > > responsibly and look at the world from customer's perspective. We have a > > big > > resposibility here. Remember we are not a market leaders but intend to >be. > > You like it or dislike it Microsoft is still there on 94% of wold's > > desktops. You know why .. because they dont ignore the suggestions of >guys > > like Ram Reddy. > > >That's the other issue.... who is 'we' ? > >FSF Friends: Are a group of people that value freedom and wish to >participate >and help people spread the concept of free software. We're not working on >becoming market leaders. > >Red Hat / Mandrake / Suse: Are comercial organizations that value the >concept >of freedom and make software products / services available to the public at >a >price. They are working on becoming market leaders. > >This is the angle that's different... There isn't software (product) to buy >in >the free software world. If at all there are services to be bought... > >1. With Free Software ... it's usually supported by the community who >provide >support through newsgroups and e-mail .... such as the FSF Friends list. > >2. With non-Free Software ... it's usually supported by the hardware / >software vendor's that's making money on selling/installing the software >product for the end-user. In the case of Windows and MS Office, hardware >vendors in India typically (90%) install it for 'free' (piracy) so that >they >get to sell a computer... > >In Mr. Reddy's case did he buy Mandrake with installation support? Or did >he >get the CDs from some guy? > >Note: Windows without installation charges cost Rs. 5-8K per PC. > >Mandrake or Redhat (Fedora) can be bought at much lower prices than 5K. > > > > Please do not look at this as a Developer, try looking at it as a >business > > man or an end user. > > >Sure... If he (Mr. Reddy) want's to install Linux he can pay someone (you) >to >do it. You could charge him Rs. 500-2000 to do the job.. I would if I were >you. > > > > We have have done a lot to reach here, lets not assume that we are the > > best, lets plug each and every hole one by one ... cause thats the only >way > > we can turn from a philosophical minority to MASS Majority. > > >Here comes that 'we' thing again. ;-) > >You need to figure out who 'we' is .... > > > > Please do not take this note as personal, it is for every Linux >Evangalist > > who thinks we are the best. If you still think so, please read the mail > > sent by Mr. Ram Reddy (and you can be sure that he is a responsible guy > > giving genuine opinion) once again. > > >His feedback, I'm sure is great... but it needs to be directed towards the >commercial organization providing the Linux Distro "Mandrake" and not the >FSF >group of friends. > > > > Lets continue to improve, to end the note .. I am going to Mr. Ram >Reddy's > > place this weekend and be sure we will win one more guy for FSF !! > > >We're here to improve our friend ship and talk about freedom. We're, at >least >I am, even here to help you out with the installation if you get stuck... >or >probably point you in some direction to get help. > >Good luck to you and Mr. Reddy. Do let us know how the installation of >Mandrake goes. > >Regards > >Rishi > _________________________________________________________________ BharatMatrimony.com. http://www.bharatmatrimony.com/cgi-bin/bmclicks1.cgi?72 The No 1 Indian matrimony.

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:) FREEDOM - I value it as much as you !!
by Tarun Gaur 29 Apr '04

29 Apr '04

Hi Friend ... FREEDOM DOES NOT MEAN BAD SOFTWARE !! AND I AM NOT DECRYING LINUX BROTHER. I know and value freedom as much as you do. But i also believe that each user shifting base from Windows to Linux matters to me. To me FREEDOM means freedom of free software to masses and i am sure Free Software is reaching there; sooner or later. LETS AGREE TO DISAGREE. Just to remind you friend, I have been associated with FSF for a long time, contributed in number of projects and am running a project at Savanah with 16 members in it. Alsp i have contributed a lot of code in APACHE. So who can understand the movement better ... regards and cheers, tarun _________________________________________________________________ Post Classifieds on MSN classifieds. http://go.msnserver.com/IN/44045.asp Buy and Sell on MSN Classifieds.

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[Fsf-friends] Free as in free beer Re: Freedom {X VS X} AND Rich User Experience
by rajeev joseph sebastian 28 Apr '04

28 Apr '04

Dear Mr Gaur, Free as in Freedom, not Free as in Free Beer. > Dear Rishi, > > "WE" here stands for FSF evanglists who value > FREEDOM as much as you do. I > really wonder whether FREEDOM again means not trying > to write good software. > What you call FREEDOM for yourself is the hard work > of countless Open Source > guys towards a common goal - promoting Free > software. Not really, FREEDOM arose from the GNU conception of Free software, not the OSI conception of free software. Of course free software is doing a LOT. Apache, et al are doing a marvellous job at the cost of fragmentation, which is the holy grail of Software Configuration Management (which I learnt in Semester 7). In any case, the end-user as you said does not _care_ whether software is Free. (but whether it is free matters to them a lot.) In that case, wouldnt it better to make Free software, than merely free software ? The usefulness, flexibility, usability etc of software is a totally seperate consideration from whether software is Free or not. The former is measured by the way the artifact operates (ie, engineering values and metrics), and latter considers the means of distribution, utilization and improvement (ie, social values and social perception of the process of engineering) > > So you mean to say that if the software come for > FREE I should not expect it > to be good. What a foundation "WE" (FSF evangalists) > are laying down for > others to follow. > I still wonder whether you are arguing on the side of Free or free software. > Let me remind you I am not talking about "you", the > IT guy. I am talking > about the end user for whom computers is a tool to > do his work. And trust me > he values "RICH USER EXPERIECE" more than getting a > free software. IS THIS > WHAT YOU CALL FREEDOM? > > FREEDOM for who? You or the MASSES? I repeat lets > move from "PHILOSOPHICAL > MINORITY" to "MASS MAJORITY" and for masses your so > called "SHALLOW" user > experience matters. > > Windows market share is a testimony to this SHALLOW > concept. windows market share is due to the inferiority of the masses: they are not fit to evaluate the choices available to them (I am also making a point abt democracy here). windows market share is due to heavy marketing ... when was the first time you saw a GNU/Linux ad on TV ? (I saw the IBM ad about 2 weeks ago) I saw the Microsoft "1 degree seperation" .NET ad about a year back (if i remember correctly). However, look at the technical market for OSs and professional software ... almost every one of those runs on Unix and variants. The technical market knows their options, and more importantly understand them. This is the method I take the side on - make every company on Earth dependent on Linux, and the rest (your so-called shallow tool-Lusers) will follow. Morover i dont see anything "RICH" about about the dry packages that comes with an MS-XP install (Solitaire, Minesweeper, Notepad, Wordpad, anything else ? oh yeah regedit). Whereas the basic install of PCQLinux .... I really LOVE gnofract4d and Celestia and OpenOffice ... that pretty much makes for a VERY rich user experience than XP could hope for (then again i'm talking from the viewpoint of a _legal_ basic installation :) ) > > I remind you again ... i am not decrying linux .... > of FSF. I am myself a > strong supporter and have followed linux from its > nacence. > On a side note, a "strong" supporter would call it GNU/Linux not merely linux ;) just joking ... Rajeev J Sebastian Stendek R&D Kochi __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Win a $20,000 Career Makeover at Yahoo! HotJobs http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/careermakeover

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:)
by Tarun Gaur 28 Apr '04

28 Apr '04

Hi Friends, I understand and respect your confidence and am myself a staunch follower of FSF and open source. Infact the company where i am working is a live example where i have ensured that they have moved to linux rather than win 2003 and .NET. But Dear Rishi and Anivar, Let me give you a backgrounder. Mr. Ram Reddy is the editor at "The Hindu" and has been referred to me through another friend of ours at FSF. The reason I sent a copy of what he wrote about Linux is to initiate a debate and i am happy that we are discussing this further. Now, he is a live example of an END USER PERSPECTIVE on Linux Desktops. Let me remind you I am not talking of Linux as a Server. If you were at Microsoft or even IBM and giving statements like "I care a Damn on what Mr. Ram Reddy" thinks .... you know the result. Now I have a question for you ... are "Diversity" and "Flexibility" synonyms of "Complexity" and "Non-Rich User Experience"?? No! You can be as flexible as you want and still be Flexible and diverse. And I am not decrying Linux, i know we are reaching there slowly but surely and we all know Microsoft is struggling to retain 2 million Windows NT base. So, when the competetion picks up it is the BUYERS market and you have to be very agile to pick up a market share. And we have to behave very responsibly and look at the world from customer's perspective. We have a big resposibility here. Remember we are not a market leaders but intend to be. You like it or dislike it Microsoft is still there on 94% of wold's desktops. You know why .. because they dont ignore the suggestions of guys like Ram Reddy. Please do not look at this as a Developer, try looking at it as a business man or an end user. We have have done a lot to reach here, lets not assume that we are the best, lets plug each and every hole one by one ... cause thats the only way we can turn from a philosophical minority to MASS Majority. Please do not take this note as personal, it is for every Linux Evangalist who thinks we are the best. If you still think so, please read the mail sent by Mr. Ram Reddy (and you can be sure that he is a responsible guy giving genuine opinion) once again. Lets continue to improve, to end the note .. I am going to Mr. Ram Reddy's place this weekend and be sure we will win one more guy for FSF !! Hail FSF, regards, tarun >From: Rishi <rishi(a)gangfam.com> >To: "Anivar Aravind" <anivar(a)linuxmail.org>,"Tarun Gaur" ><gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com>, fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in >Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] I'll restore Linux and your confidence too !! >Date: Wed, 28 Apr 2004 09:18:03 +0530 > >On Tuesday 27 Apr 2004 9:25 pm, Anivar Aravind wrote: > > "Tarun Gaur" said on Mon, 26 Apr 2004 07:42:56 +0000 > > > > > I am sure i will be able to restore your confidence in Linux and open > > > source. On our front we will make every effort to ensure that the >Linux > > > is made easy for the end users. > > > > i have enough confidence on linux kernel. if u want to restore anyones > > confidence plz send personal mails to them. i dont want any mail in the > > class "opensource" through free software foundations list. > >Hi Anivar, > >I guess Tarun was just trying to get us to help Mr. Reddy. Maybe we could >be a >little helpful... what say? > > > Is FSF is alotted FSF friends list as Tarun Gaur's personal mail box? > > then rename it as gaur's-friends and unsubsribe me from it > >Just some thoughts on how to re-phrase the sentence above to achieve the >same >goal but with a more gentle approach. ;-) > >======================================================== >Hi Tarun, > >In future, could you forward the e-mail to the FSF list requesting for >assistance in helping you with getting Mr. Reddy to stay motivated with >using >free software, instead of BCC the fsf-friends list? >======================================================== > >Regards > >Rishi > _________________________________________________________________ Dont miss out on jobs that are not advertised. http://go.msnserver.com/IN/47510.asp Post your CV on naukri.com today.

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Re: PlayFair project
by Anand Babu 28 Apr '04

28 Apr '04

Hi RMS, ,----[ Richard Stallman <rms(a)gnu.org> ] | Whether PlayFair would be considered legal in the US is a hard | question, given the details of what it does. I think it is safer to | host it outside the US, in countries where there is really no law like | the DMCA. | | I am looking for help in the Brazilian government. | | If people interested in hosting the program want to talk with the | PlayFair developers, can you serve as an intermediary? `---- PlayFair author has already made me (Anand Babu) as official project-maintainer and I am part of the development team. So I will be the contact-person for this project. People from FSF-India are actively exploring possibilities to help PlayFair project, both in terms of hosting service and legal guidance. Fighting DMCA is no easy task. We would like to get as much help as possible. Thanks -- Anand Babu Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org>

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I'll restore Linux and your confidence too !!
by Tarun Gaur 28 Apr '04

28 Apr '04

Hi Ram Sir, I am sure i will be able to restore your confidence in Linux and open source. On our front we will make every effort to ensure that the Linux is made easy for the end users. Infact the current state of Linux is that there are multiple initiatives going on to catch up with proprietry software (especially Windows), in the process you will come across multiple versions (distros) of Linux. Each one of them is unique and has its own features and set of specialization though all of them are now converging fast. These are some drawbacks of open source but the very spirit with which we have reached so far is worth acknowledging and trust me sir, the day is not far when you will see Linux replacing Windows not only on the server side, but desktops too. In your case i think the best version is Red Hat / Fedora. I will make sure that i carry them with me when i visit you. Or else if you have a special affinity towards the Mandrake magic, then we will bring that one too. regards, tarun >From: Rammanohar Reddy To: "Tarun Gaur" <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com> >CC: KG Kumar <kg(a)tug.org.in> >Subject: Re: Pleasure to help you Sir >Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 12:12:26 +0530 > >Thanks, Tarun > >Perhaps we should think of the next weekend -- it may otherwise be very >diffficult. > >But I must warn you that right now I am terribly disappointed with Linux -- >my attempt toload Mandrake for the 4-5 weeks have failed. And right now I >can say more Windows' reliability!! > >best > >Ram Reddy > _________________________________________________________________ Ready cash in just 72 hours. Apply Now !!! http://go.msnserver.com/IN/46922.asp

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[Fwd]: [Fsf-friends] "The free software option" by C. Rammanohar Reddy in "The Hindu"
by Mahesh T. Pai 28 Apr '04

28 Apr '04

----- Forwarded message from Ramanraj K <ramanraj(a)md4.vsnl.net.in> ----- > Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2003 10:12:19 +0530 > From: Ramanraj K <ramanraj(a)md4.vsnl.net.in> > Subject: [Fsf-friends] > "The free software option" by C. Rammanohar Reddy in "The Hindu" > To: fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in, rms(a)gnu.org > User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.1a) Gecko/20020610 > > "The Hindu" newspaper has published in its issue dated 22nd November, > 2003, at page 10, an article titled > > "The free software option" > by > C. Rammanohar Reddy > > This is also available online at: > > http://www.hindu.com/2003/11/22/stories/2003112200721000.htm > ----- End forwarded message ----- -- +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+ Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M., 'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road, Ernakulam, Cochin-682018, Kerala, India. http://paivakil.port5.com +~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+

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Re: [Fsf-friends] I'll restore Linux and your confidence too !!
by Suresh Titus John 28 Apr '04

28 Apr '04

On Wed, 28 Apr 2004 Rishi wrote : >On Wednesday 28 Apr 2004 9:26 am, Mahesh T. Pai wrote: > > I am not sure that we need to tell Mr. Reddy the concept of freedom in > > software. IIRC, he actually wrote on this a few months back. > >Whoa! Sorry. ;-) >Then what's his problem? >Can you point me to that article if it's on the NET? I'd like to first read it >and then write to him... > Hmm, i think this is the one: http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mag/2002/12/01/stories/2002120100100300.htm suresh

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Re: [Fsf-friends] I'll restore Linux and your confidence too !!
by Anivar Aravind 28 Apr '04

28 Apr '04

"Tarun Gaur" said on Mon, 26 Apr 2004 07:42:56 +0000 > I am sure i will be able to restore your confidence in Linux and open > source. On our front we will make every effort to ensure that the Linux is > made easy for the end users. i have enough confidence on linux kernel. if u want to restore anyones confidence plz send personal mails to them. i dont want any mail in the class "opensource" through free software foundations list. <snip> > These are some drawbacks of open source .... </snip> i subscribed only fsf lists. i dont want to here such spam contents of this list.this is the draw back of moderator of this list. <snip> >the day is not > far when you will see Linux replacing Windows not only on the server side, > but desktops too. i am not interested in just linux replacing windows. but in freedom replacing proprietory ie GNU replacing proprietory > In your case i think the best version is Red Hat / Fedora. I will make sure > that i carry them with me when i visit you. Or else if you have a special > affinity towards the Mandrake magic, then we will bring that one too. Is FSF is alotted FSF friends list as Tarun Gaur's personal mail box? then rename it as gaur's-friends and unsubsribe me from it ~Anivar Aravind -- ______________________________________________ Check out the latest SMS services @ http://www.linuxmail.org This allows you to send and receive SMS through your mailbox. Powered by Outblaze

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For C Rammanohar Reddy
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 27 Apr '04

27 Apr '04

Dear Mr Reddy: Like you, I hesitated for a for a year-and-half before being able to take the leap. What was worse, I had GNU/Linux installed on my PC, but just didn't dare to change. To add to my discomfort, I was a founder member of the local [GNU]Linux Users Group in Goa ;-) Today, I use Free Software for 95% of my work. The other 5% is in a cybercafe or at some other office, over which I simply don't have any choice. My main complaint is that my old systems simply go on and on and on working, without giving any major (or, often, minor) problem either. The only time I fidget with the PCs (often getting someone else to do so, agreed Free Software isn't as easy as the click-on-the-exe-file usability... but then, that's compensated by security and that fact that a virus also finds it tough to get control) is when there's some upgradation done. For years (since 2001-02), my computers have not been hit by a virus. The only time a Trojan actually got in -- all my data was restored, nothing lost -- was when I stubbornly clung on to Redhat 6.2, inspite of repeated warnings that it was too long outdated and that security flaws had been reported. My suggestion is get someone else to do the installation. Changing over to a new OS can be rather frustrating, since everything "seems different". For sometime, one doesn't even know where to start searching. But that is soon done with. As Stallman says, even if Free Software was an inferior product, I would still continue using it... just because of the principles behind it. FN in Goa. > >From: Rammanohar Reddy To: "Tarun Gaur" <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com> > >CC: KG Kumar <kg(a)tug.org.in> > >Subject: Re: Pleasure to help you Sir > >Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2004 12:12:26 +0530 > > > >Thanks, Tarun > > > >Perhaps we should think of the next weekend -- it may otherwise be > > very diffficult. > > > >But I must warn you that right now I am terribly disappointed with > >Linux -- my attempt toload Mandrake for the 4-5 weeks have failed. And > >right now I can say more Windows' reliability!! > > > >best > > > >Ram Reddy -- --------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa, India f r e d e r i c k n o r o n h a @ v s n l . n e t Ph 832.2409490 / 832.2409783 Cell 9822 122436 Phone calls: preferably from 1300 to 0500 (IST) Try landlines is mobile is temporarily unavailable http://linuxinindia.pitas.com http://www.bytesforall.org ---------------------------------------------------------

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GNU/LinuxinIndia * April 25, 2004
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 24 Apr '04

24 Apr '04

e88~~\ 888b | 888 | / 888 888 ,e, d888 |Y88b | 888 | L 888 888-~88e e88~\888 " /~~~8e 8888 __ | Y88b | 888 | I 888 888 888 d888 888 888 88b 8888 | | Y88b | 888 | N 888 888 888 8888 888 888 e88~-888 Y888 | | Y88b| Y88 | U 888 888 888 Y888 888 888 C888 888 "88__/ | Y888 "8__/ X 888 888 888 "88_/888 888 "88_-888 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Formerly LinuxInIndia * Compiled by: Frederick Noronha * Apr 25 2004 -------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ########################################################################### --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Patents and copyrights are totally different, and the way to help people understand them is never to mix them up or lump them together.... Software patents bring nothing to our community except danger. I am glad that Red Hat is getting some patents to use to defend against Microsoft's patents. (I hope Red Hat never turns around to use them for aggression.) But the only help these patents give us is to block part of the danger of patents -- and only part of it! They have no positive effect. Taken all together, the patents do not play any role in the vitality of our community. Most patents threaten us, and a few may partly defend us from the threat of the rest. We would be much better off if nobody had any software patents. India has wisely refused to allow software patents. Every supporter of free software in India should be helping to support that policy. Would you please help? Please don't invite people to lump together a hypothetical future Indian law (software patents) that can kill our community and an existing Indian law (copyright) that has no such power. -- Richard M Stallman <rms at gnu.org> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ########################################################################### --------------------------------------------------------------------------- FROM BANGALORE, Kartik N <kartikn79 at symonds.net> sent out a recent reminder about plans for April's BLUG (Bangalore Linux Users' Group) meet, which was held on April 23. The agenda focussed on talks on filesystems in GNU/Linux (by Arun) and the CD file system features (by Sreekiran). BLUG meets usually take place between 6 to 8 pm at Hotel Ashraya International Infantry Road, Opposite Police Commissioner's Office, Phone : +91 (80) 2262921. Map - http://linux-bangalore.org/images/ashraya-map.png Cover charge is Rs.100 per person (includes dinner). More details at: http://linux-bangalore.org/meetings/200404/ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ LOCALISATION LIST from Bangalore is at http://lli.linux-bangalore.org ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ GNUS GRAZING @ BANGALORE: Fans of the Free Software movement meanwhile announced a meeting at Bangalore. It was called on Sunday, April 18 at the unearthly hour of 10 am (no offence meant, I'm usually fast asleep by then). The rendezvous-point was in front of Gangaram's Bookstore on MG Road. Difficult to miss. You could get more details via Fsf-friends mailing list Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ AFFORDABLE CDs ARE AVAILABLE VIA MAIL-ORDER FROM swathantra software <s2s2(a)linux.net> One recent email announced that available CDs included: * CD with more than 2000 HOWTOs just for 100 Rupees (Learn more about server setup, programming, kernel, network, installation, adminstration, troubleshooting, and more.) * Other popular distributions also available RedHat 7.1(2 CDs), 7.3, 8, 9 -set of 3 CDs Rs 120 Redhat 7.3,8 single CD with autoinstallation (GLUE CD) Rs.60 * Fedora Core 1 set of 3 CDs Rs 120 * Mandrake 9.2 set of 3 CDs Rs.150 * Mandrake 10-set of 3 CDs Rs.180 * K12LTSP (a popular distro with terminal server and a lot of educational softwares) set of 4 CDs Rs.250 * GISMorphix Rs.100 * Knoppix 3.3 (Debian) single live CD Rs.70 (HD installation possible) * OpenOffice 1.1, Mozilla 1.5, Mozilla Firebird 0.7 (Linux/WIndows) Rs 80. Shipping charges extra as applicable. (Rs 20 by courier, Rs 10 by ordinary parcel). Send demand draft in favour of Swathanthra Software Solutions and Support payable at Kannur (Kerala) or money order. Or contact by email or phone Sujeevan, Swathantra Software Solutions & Support (S2S2), 33, Brigade Center, Gr Floor, Nr Prabhat Building, Fort Rd, Kannur 670001 Kerala Phone: Off 0497-2761182 Res: 0497-2790811 Cell :9447449107 Email: s2s2<at>linux.net Web site http://www.s2s2net.netfirms.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ GET A FREE linux.net email address: http://linux.net Powered by Linare Corporation http://www.linare.com/ Check the Chennai link... ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ CONGRATULATIONS, CRV: Radhakrishnan aka CVR <cvr at river-valley.org> recently announced his marriage to Vidya, "my long time friend and colleague for a decade". The big-day was April 18, 2004. The marriage was marked by what CVR calls "a very simple function attended by our family members and closest friends alone". Take a peek at http://tug.org/~cvr/knot/ Congrats to this longtime champion of TeX and the Tug User Group down south. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ FROM THE PHILIPPINES GNU/Linux mailing list (see details or subscribe at http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug-misc ) Holden Hao <holden at philonline.com.ph> writes in to say: "Linux For You is a great magazine. Anybody know if this is already available in the Philippines?" Here's hoping India can meet the potential when it sees it! ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ KDE, KPPP AND INTERNET DIALERS: Guntupalli Karunakar <karunakar at freedomink.org> is working on the KDE live CD, and is planning to have kppp ("the cool KDE Internet dialer") to include some prominent ISPs across India configured for it -- e.g. VSNL, BSNL (Sancharnet), Satyam, etc. Says he: "I need their dialup numbers and any other setting that are used for them. Ideally you one could just send me /home/user/.kde/share/config/kppprc (of course with the username / password removed ). We will have an internet dialup icon on desktop or panel, clicking which will make the kppp dialog to come up. All the user would then need to do is select his ISP number and give the username and password, and dial. At present it would work with external modems only." Please do help, if you can! ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ THIS NOTE IS FROM INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST Frederic Dubois <frederic at cmaq.net> of Montreal in Canada who says: " I have written an article on free software in India and Canada. You can read it at: http://www.rabble.ca/news_full_story.shtml?sh_itm=3d9755aef06d3654ab98d07488 e37a5a&r=1 There is also a discussion happening in the babble section: http://www.rabble.ca/babble/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=31&t=000211 " ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ WANNA BUY A SIMPUTER? Check this note from S D Sudarsan, a member of the senior research staff at the CRL-BEL in Bangalore <sudarsan_crl(a)yahoo.com> who informs: "I've been receiving enquiries on buying Simputers from BEL. The contact details are as below: Deepak Kumar MMF Division Bangalore Complex Bharat Electronics Limited Jalahalli PO Bangalore - 560 013 Tel: 080-23618184 Cell: 98800 88396 As I understand the lowest model is below 10K and goes upto 20K for the Amida Simputer. You can contact Mr Sudarsan at crl-bel bangalore - 560013 tel: 080-28381125/26/27 fax: 080-28381168 sdsudarsan at crl.bel.co.in or sudarsan_crl at yahoo.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ QUOTE... UNQUOTE: We in India have a Vision 2020... Can we reach there by keeping security holes in the armour? Don't we need to have some IndLix, Bhartix or Tricolix, duly certified by (computing institutions like) NCST, C-DAC etc that will work for the whole of country and sort out the interoperability issues also along with it? -- J.S. Sandha CEO Jagriti e-Sewa (www.jagriti.com) Jalandhar 098141-84878 <jsandha at vsnl.net> ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ HERE'S SOME MORE GOOD NEWS courtesy Tarun Kant <tarunkant at linux.net> who says: Mandrake Linux is available in 66 languages and Hindi is one of them. Check out the following link and you will be pleasently surprised: http://www.mandrakelinux.com/l10n/hi.php3 To know about what other languages are supported check out: http://www.mandrakelinux.com/l10n/translations.php3 [ Dr Kant is a scientist at the Forest Genetics & Tree Breeding Division, Arid Forest Research Institute, Jodhpur http://www.geocities.com/bobkant/ ] ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ THREE CHEERS TO KERALA: This input is from linux_schools at yahoo.com (Herald), who writes: Kerala is leading in Free/Libre and Open Source Software front. 200 schools multiplied by 100 students on an average gives 20 thousand GNU/Linux users. Children are very curious and fast in experimenting and learning new things. When they go home and talk about it, the elders also will be automatically interested in checking what this software is. Similarly the Engineering students will start getting interest in Free Softwares.... In Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh there are only the private schools to harvest as the government ones have been captured by Microsoft. Check http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/linux_schools/ MAHESH T PAI added earlier: About 200 schools in Malappuram district installed GNU/Linux. The driving force behind this initiative, AFAIK, is one Mr. Sujeevan P, of an organisation called IIRC, S2S2. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ CHECK OUT THE linux-india-programmers mailing list linux-india-programmers(a)lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-india-programmers ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ READER-RATED WEB-PAGES From Arun Sharma <arun at freebsd.org>, a message that came in via the FreeBSD list: I've been experimenting with a new way of separating the more interesting content on the web from the less interesting ones. Mainly by using human intelligence. http://www.sharma-home.net/software/vote/vote.html If you find this interesting, you're welcome to download this small piece of open source software and try it out. The more users there are, the more useful this tool will be. The mozilla firefox extension requires you to customize the toolbar and manually add the new button to the toolbar. It takes about 5 mins for a new submission to show up on the results page. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ INTERESTED IN FREE BSD? Check out http://www.bsd-india.org/mailman/listinfo/bsd-india ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVING GNU/LINUX: Shrave <shrave1 at yahoo.com> who does much to keep active the mailing list http://in.groups.yahoo.com/group/blore-linux/ comments: The following I feel are the top three areas that need to be addressed for moving Linux into the massive consumer and small office markets. 1) I would suggest students to try and target one critically important piece of the Linux desktop puzzle: USB synching of OpenOffice documents and a cross platform PIM such as Chandler. This would allow Linux notebooks and tablets to be deployed en masse in most Windows based offices. Market share would then likely be built very rapidly as the case with Palm Pilots and their USB connected strategy. With market share, follows developer support, and a relatively quick destruction of the Microsoft desktop monopoly. 2) Adding a GOCR module to OpenOffice should be another high priority goal. GOCR is the open source optical character recognition project (OCR). For those that are not familiar (with the concept), OCR is used to convert paper based documents into editable word processor documents using a scanner. GOCR is currently command line-based, but works very well. Developing this into a GUI version that could become an optional add on module for OpenOffice would be very useful for small offices and home offices considering a Linux desktop. Unlike developers, most end users live in a sea of paper-based documents and adding a bridge to access these documents digitally allows businesses to go to Linux desktops much more confidently. 3) Adding a photo-editing module to OpenOffice similar to Apple's iPhoto. This would tend to really help in promoting uptake of OpenOffice and Linux desktops in consumer market. Digital cameras are now outselling film cameras and this is going to get even more important in the next few years. ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ INTERESTED IN FLOSS in Mangalore (coastal south-western India)? Find more about us at http://www.linux-mangalore.org ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ LOCALISATION NEWSLETTER: G Karunakar <karunakar(a)freedomink.org> who is the IndLinux.org coordinator, says: On behalf of the Localization community in India we are happy to bring out the first issue of the Localization Newsletter. Aim of this newsletter is to highlight localization activities based on Free/Libre and Open Source Software, present a complete picture, and to serve as a mouthpiece for all localization teams and their volunteers. HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS ISSUE: * Headlines : Bengali, Punjabi supported languages in Gnome 2.6, Hindi and Tamil supported in KDE 3.2 * In News Bits : PCQLinux2004 with Indic support, Devanagari & Gujarati Opentype fonts, Mozilla build with Indic support. * In Team Watch : Sayamindu Dasgupta speaking on Ankur Bangla project. Read complete issue at http://www.indlinux.org/nl/nl150404.html A pdf of it is available at http://www.indlinux.org/nl/nlvol1.pdf (238KB) Comments are welcome, and can be mailed to the editorial team or posted on http://www.indlinux.org/wiki/index.php/NewsletterFeedback If you would like to recieve copy of newsletter regularly you can subscribe to the mailing list http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/indlinux-news ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ SOME MORE ON LOCALISATION: "Arky" <rakesh_ambati at yahoo.com> says: Perhaps being children of lesser god we don't have such resources, yet localization work is going at a good pace (see http://www.indlinux.org/wiki/index.php?LocalizationNewsletter ) ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ MADE IN INDIA, WELCOMED IN THE GULF: A comment from the Gulf region, where Manoj Menon <manojcmenon at yahoo.com> recently commented on the Linux-middleeast(a)yahoogroups.com newsgroup: Linux based PDA for less than 1000 AED ... and best of all, its made in India. http://www.amidasimputer.com ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ QUESTIONS ABOUT THE ASSAMESE LANGUAGE: Jyotirmoy Saikia <jyotirmoy_saikia at yahoo.com> of Picopeta, the Simputer guys in Bangalore, asks an interesting query: Can I type Assamese from Yudit using Inscript? Assamese and Bengali scripts are same except two consonants: (i) Consonat RA (this is character U09F0 in Assamese and character U09B0 in Bengali) (ii) Consonant VA (this is chracter U09F1 in Assamese, which is equivalent of Devanagari character U0935). As far as I know, there is no consonat VA in Bengali. I have looked at the Open Type Akaash bengali font and found that the characters U09FO and U09F1 are present in the font. But using the Inscript keyboard layout for Bengali, I can't type these characters. I believe we need a seperate Inscript keyboard map for Assamese. What is the suggestion from other people in the group? Similarly, we'll need a Assamese keyboard map for the Milan release also; am I wrong? ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ OFFICIAL SUPPORT FOR LOCALISATION WORK? Jitendra Shah <jitendras at vsnl.com> reports that it is now "certain" that he will be working from C-DAC Mumbai (formerly NCST) on a Central Government Localisation project with the objective of localising Free/Opensource (GNU/Linux) in indian languages with three angles: development of localised software (OS and some applications for SOHEdu), deployment, and building a community of developers and users. Says he: "I think the objective is broad enough." Sometime back, Shah started the work with a volunteer team. "It is heartening to see that there are souls in the government who can identify and support such noble causes too. While I believe such work will have to be done by dedicated people without a pre-condtion of government support, there can be no doubt that progress can leapfrog when there is official backing, particularly when such support includes support for community participation rather than excluding it." Shah has a team of "good people who may want to contribute". But he's also looking out for others who could get involved and help. He adds: "Since the work is at all three levels -- system level, application level and (only to some extent) content level, many people can contribute." Shah and team have also been working on the conversion of legacy documents to Unicode. He adds: "I am trying to convert the silos of legacy data from ISFOC/Akruti/ShreeLipi/whathaveyou to unicode. This has been welcomed by the (Maharashtra) State government as well as Central government and corporates. I propose to use the programs to help generate sustainance for the developers through services rendered and eventually all programs will be free/open source. I have now converted the Rajya Sabha webpage into Hindi and also IITBombay pages." -------------------------------------------------------------------------- YOUR INPUTS and criticism to this newsletter are welcome. Contact us at fred at bytesforall dot org COPYLEFT 2003. May be freely circulated provided entire text and credits are left intact. You can subscribe to receive this FREE newsletter (free beer, free speech!) by subscribing directly at http://www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/list?list_id=linuxinindia -------------------------------------------------------------------------- COMPILED BY --------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha * Freelance Journalist * Goa, India f r e d @ b y t e s f o r a l l . o r g Ph 832.2409490 / 832.2409783 Cell 9822 122436 Phone calls: preferably from 1300 to 0500 (IST) Try landlines is mobile is temporarily unavailable http://linuxinindia.pitas.com http://www.bytesforall.org ---------------------------------------------------------

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AI .... calpp !!
by Tarun Gaur 23 Apr '04

23 Apr '04

Dear Ramanraj, I appreciate your view on things and your suggestion on trying to concentrate on AI. But at the moment i would keep myself limited to the Naming architetures. Anyways thanx for your advice. Never the less, i did visit calpp site. I am sure i will be able to help you to devise a naming scheme. But for starters i would need some knowledge on the functional domain (Legal Procedures and Proceedings). I dint find much high level description on your project at the site. Architectures and design patterns is my specialization so may be i can pitch in with some suggestions. As for AI, you need an extremely dedicated focussed research work. I am not in a position to put in that kind of effort. I am already part of three major open source software. regards, tarun >From: Ramanraj K <ramanraj(a)md4.vsnl.net.in> >To: Tarun Gaur <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com> >CC: fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in >Subject: Re: Epistemology and Naming >Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 17:29:05 +0530 > >In the Tarka Samgraha - the most common examples given are that of cowness >and jarness: what are the qualites that make a cow a cow, and a jar a jar? > The fundamental concepts required for building full fledged artificial >intelligence systems are found in just this single work. Please do get a >copy of Tarka Samgraha - it is available at the nearest Ramakrishna Math >Book store for Rs. 25/- only. > > >Instead of exploring its relevance to IT generally you may try focusing on >AI specifically. > > >My project is .^. Calpp: Computer Aided Legal Procedures and Proceedings. >The most fundamental problem that I faced was with naming objects in the >law, and my solution was to have just a simple heading and key scheme, that >is easily stored in database tables - and therefore have the ability to >store innumerable facts/data without any artificial limit. Calpp keeps >count of headings and keys, and this way have control of forms, procedures >and proceedings. I have already written index.inc and Index.php scripts >that could index the atoms in the way we want. I won't be wrong if I say >that Index.php is very close to a plane like human consiousness. If >interested do visit >http://gborg.postgresql.org/project/calpp/projdisplay.php . >A mailing list has also been started recently at >http://gborg.postgresql.org/mailman/listinfo/calpp-calpp-general >Arky here is along with me there. > >Regards, >Ramanraj. > _________________________________________________________________ Dont miss out on jobs that are not advertised. http://go.msnserver.com/IN/47510.asp Post your CV on naukri.com today.

2 1

Epistemology and Naming
by Tarun Gaur 22 Apr '04

22 Apr '04

Hi Ramanraj, My work primarily stems from trying to focus of abstract similarities and yet being able distinguish entities. Integrative pluralism is the key that, despite accepting the relativism of distinct place values, does so within a universalist framework. My work on epistemology is limited to exploring the domain of binding entities togather and its relevance to IT. Still, it was nice to read your mail the way you compiled it. Please write more on your work; it will be a great learning experience. regards, tarun _________________________________________________________________ Easiest Money Transfer to India. Send Money To 6000 Indian Towns. http://go.msnserver.com/IN/42198.asp Easiest Way To Send Money Home!

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RE: [Fsf-friends] Giving subject titles that describe content
by Senthil_OR＠Dell.com 21 Apr '04

21 Apr '04

-----Original Message----- From: Ramanraj K Subject: [Fsf-friends] Giving subject titles that describe content Senthil_OR(a)Dell.comwrote: >One request.While replying kindly keep the subject line >intact so that people (like me, who sort the mails in threaded fashion >using the Subject line) may keep track and enjoy the discussion. Your >subject line ofcourse relates to your content, but It would be a good ( >list) practise I believe. What do you say? > >Please thread using message-id. Gnus threads incoming mail correctly - please try using it. Anand Babu and RK Muthukrishnan have already shared their .emacs and .gnus.el files here and it should help to get started. This way, the archive indexes at http://mm.gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/ are easier to refer in the future. Thanks for pointing me to that! Yeah, I see that Message Ids can be used. ( Will be figuring it out with Outlook Express and Evolution) But for the Mahesh. T.Pai's solution of using X-BeenThere header;it points to fsf-friends(a)gnu.org.in to mails in the list. I doubt if it can help in conversional track of the messages. The Message ID for that matter has some <number>@<yourisp> and has some logic of tracking. ( what logic?) If its simple leave it to me :), if it interesting, why not share across? Regards, Senthil

3 2

Universal Distributed Naming !!
by Tarun Gaur 21 Apr '04

21 Apr '04

Hi Gurusami, Thanx once again. If you check RFC 2138 of RADIUS you will find again that it is a bit specific like LDAP. I will try and explain what i am looking for. I am developing a Distributed Naming Architecture as part of my reasearch work. The Beauty of this Naming architecture is that it will be able to hold information on any kind of entity, still be able to uniquely identify it in the Global Namespace. Now the catch is that this entity need not be related to any specific domain or stream !! I am a bit abstract but i believe it should make some sense. The implications of such a Naming structure is not difficult to understand !! Naming is the key to Discovery and Discovering is the key to Usage ... Usage is based on Trust .... its all woven toagather. Regards, tarun >From: Annamalai Gurusami <annamalai.gurusami(a)email.masconit.com> >Reply-To: annamalai.gurusami(a)email.masconit.com >To: "Tarun Gaur" <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com> >CC: imran(a)imran.info, fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in >Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] Something more Generic and Distributed ... >Naming!! >Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 11:51:30 +0530 > >"Tarun Gaur" <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com> writes: > > > Yep LDAP is more specific. Infact I am looking at some ideas related > > to distributed secure naming architecture that could be applied in > > and out of virtual world. If anyone knows of any such work > > somewhere, it will be of great help. > >Does Remote Authentication Dial In User Service (RADIUS) protocol of >any interest? > >Rgds, >anna > >-- > >Time-stamp: <2004-04-08 09:56:03 annamalai.gurusami> > >Memtest86 is thorough, stand alone memory test for x86 architecture >computers. BIOS based memory tests are a quick, cursory check and >often miss many of the failures that are detected by Memtest86. > > http://www.memtest86.com > _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail on your mobile. Messenger on your mobile. http://www.msn.co.in/mobile/ Stay connected to what matters.

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Kernel Compilation !! Something like this ...
by Tarun Gaur 21 Apr '04

21 Apr '04

Maybe we could initiate some tech topics and post such articles on fsf-prog ... i am sure it will help ======================================================= How to Compile 2.6 kernel for RedHat 9/8 Mike Chirico Last Updated: Mon Apr 5 06:45:59 EDT 2004 The latest version of this document can be found at: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/souptonuts/README_26.txt?download For configs ref: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=79320&package_id=1099… STEP 1: Download the latest version of the kernel and any patches. This documentation is done with linux-2.6.3, but look for later versions. http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.6/ Also take a look at http://www.codemonkey.org.uk/post-halloween-2.5.txt This has some useful hints on some of the changes needed. STEP 2: Download the latest version of module-init-tools "module-init-tools-3.0.tar.gz" and "modutils-2.4.21-23.src.rpm" http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rusty/modules/module-init-too… http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/rusty/modules/modutils-2.4.21… STEP 3: Install module-init-tools. This will replace depmod [/sbin/depmod] and other tools. tar -zxvf module-init-tools-3.0.tar.gz cd module-init-tools-3.0 ./configure --prefix=/sbin make make install ./generate-modprobe.conf /etc/modprobe.conf STEP 4: Install modutils-2.4.21-23.src.rpm. You may get warnings about user rusty and group rusty not existing. Also, yes, you'll have to force the install. If you don't do these steps for both Redhat 9 and Redhat 8, you'll have problems with the make modules_install. rpm -i modutils-2.4.21-23.src.rpm rpmbuild -bb /usr/src/redhat/SPECS/modutils.spec rpm -Fi /usr/src/redhat/RPMS/i386/modutils-2.4.21-23.i386.rpm STEP 5: Install and configure the kernel. Do NOT use the /usr/src/linux area! Reference the README. I put my files in /home/src/kernel/ gunzip linux-2.6.3.tar.gz tar -xvf linux-2.6.3.tar cd linux-2.6.3 If you have patches install these now: bzip2 -dc ../patch-2.6.xx.bz2 | patch -p1 STEP 6: Copy the appropriate /usr/src/linux-2.4/configs [kernel-2.4.20-i686.config, kernel-2.4.20-i686-smp.config] to .config in whatever directory you are installing. In my case it's /home/src/kernel/linux-2.6.3 cp /usr/src/linux-2.4/configs/kernel-2.4.20-i686.config \ /home/src/kernel/linux-2.6.3/.config If you don't have the source configs, you can download them from here: https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=79320&package_id=109… I've also included a file config2.6-chirico which was a 2.6 version for some of my systems. This isn't a bad reference if you run into trouble. STEP 7: Assuming you copied the appropriate kernel-2.4 config to .config, run the following which will run through necessary questions for the 2.6 kernel. Or, you might want to use the config2.6-chirico...this has already been run through make oldconfig on my system, and I've answered the necessary questions for a general system. make oldconfig STEP 8: This is very important. Make sure you're .config has the following in it CONFIG_EXT3_FS=y You'll run into the following error if you leave this =m instead of =y: pivotroot: pivot_root(/sysroot,/sysroot/initrd) failed This is because Redhat 9.0 and 8.0 use the ext3 filesystem for /boot ... STEP 9: Edit the Makefile and add changes to the Extraversion as desired. Patches will update these values as well. VERSION = 2 PATCHLEVEL = 6 SUBLEVEL = 3 EXTRAVERSION = -skim-ch6 STEP 10: make bzImage STEP 11: make modules STEP 12: make modules_install STEP 13: make install If you come across errors here, what version of "depmod" is being picked up in your path? Also, if you get a module not found, say the following: No module aic7xxx found for kernel 2.6.x Then, in /lib/modules/2.6.x/kernel/drivers/scsi/aic7xxx/ cp aic7xxx.ko aic7xxx.o insmod should look for aic7xxx.ko ;but , it looks for aic7xxx.o If you still have trouble, make the following change in the .config CONFIG_BLK_DEV_SD=y and go back to STEP 10. You also may want to ref kernel-2.6.3-i686-smp-chirico-aic7xxx.config in http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/souptonuts/configs-0.3.tar.gz?download STEP 14: mkdir /sys STEP 15: /etc/rc.sysinit needs to be modified. Look for the following line: action $"Mounting proc filesystem: " mount -n -t proc /proc /proc and after this line enter the following: action $"Mounting sysfs filesystem: " mount -t sysfs none /sys Here's my /etc/rc.sysinit for reference: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/souptonuts/rc.sysinit.txt?download Be very careful at this step. Backup the /etc/rc.sysinit file. Thomer [http://thomer.com/linux/migrate-to-2.6.html ] also added changes to /etc/fstab. I only had to do STEP 16 below. STEP 16: Add the following to /etc/fstab for usb support. /proc/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb usbdevfs defaults 0 0 STEP 17 (CHECKING EVERYTHING): Check the following: a. The new image file should be installed on boot and there should be sym link to it. My latest kernel is 2.6.3-skim-ch6, and I got the "-skim-ch6" from the values I put in the Makefile, so I see the following: _________________________________________________________________ Post Classifieds on MSN classifieds. http://go.msnserver.com/IN/44045.asp Buy and Sell on MSN Classifieds.

1 0

Lets revive fsf-prog !!
by Tarun Gaur 21 Apr '04

21 Apr '04

Or we could lay down some tutorial or something alike for the newbie's to get a headstart and a gradual progression. What do you say Anand? tarun >From: Anand Babu <ab(a)gnu.org.in> >To: "Rakesh \"arky\" Ambati" <rakesh_ambati(a)yahoo.com> >CC: Tarun Gaur <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com>, fsf-prog <fsf-prog(a)mm.gnu.org.in> >Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] Compiling HURD .. Lets revive fsf-prog !! >Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 04:25:25 -0700 > > >,----[ Tarun Gaur <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com> ] >| > Let me initiate a technical discussion out there ... I have couple >| > of friends who are very eager to start working on HURD but they have >| > no idea on how to go about compiling their own kernel from >| > scratch. Is there someone who is real good at it and can help the >| > newbie's out .... >`---- >If they don't know how to compile the kernel, they are probably not >ready for hacking GNU HURD yet. I very much recommend them to start >with submission of new-feature and bug-fix patches for existing Free >Software projects. > >http://savannah.gnu.org/people/ has a list of "Projects Needing Help" > >If they are already a free software contributor and a newbie, I won't >recommend kernel hacking in the first shot. > >,----[ "Rakesh \"arky\" Ambati" <rakesh_ambati(a)yahoo.com> ] >| When we started working on building FSF-Bangalore chapter,this was one >| of the issue that came up.We here at bangalore planning to hold >| meetings regularly wherein users (experts & newbie's alike) can >| bring-in their box's and get their problem's sorted out. >| >| We can even arrange special interest talks on topic's like using or >| programming GNU/Hurd. >| >| May be we can even build a digital library of free software.If someone >| wants a copy of GNU/Hurd he can burn it there for a nominal charge. >`---- > >Mridul Jain <mridul.jain(a)californiadigital.com> has good understanding >of GNU/HURD OS and its inner workings. He is in Bangalore and has >helped me fix critical bugs in my HURD RPCI project. He would be glad >to help. > >-- >Anand Babu >Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org> _________________________________________________________________ Easiest Money Transfer to India. Send Money To 6000 Indian Towns. http://go.msnserver.com/IN/42198.asp Easiest Way To Send Money Home!

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Compiling HURD .. Lets revive fsf-prog !!
by Tarun Gaur 21 Apr '04

21 Apr '04

Hi Ab, nice to hear from you ... I thought we will help them with compilation tips. Hacking would come as a sequential step. I am sure there are numerous folks out there seeking a headstart. Nevertheless i will start my effort, it will be great if you could pitch in. Regards, tarun >From: Anand Babu <ab(a)gnu.org.in> >To: "Rakesh \"arky\" Ambati" <rakesh_ambati(a)yahoo.com> >CC: Tarun Gaur <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com>, fsf-prog <fsf-prog(a)mm.gnu.org.in> >Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] Compiling HURD .. Lets revive fsf-prog !! >Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 04:25:25 -0700 > > >,----[ Tarun Gaur <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com> ] >| > Let me initiate a technical discussion out there ... I have couple >| > of friends who are very eager to start working on HURD but they have >| > no idea on how to go about compiling their own kernel from >| > scratch. Is there someone who is real good at it and can help the >| > newbie's out .... >`---- >If they don't know how to compile the kernel, they are probably not >ready for hacking GNU HURD yet. I very much recommend them to start >with submission of new-feature and bug-fix patches for existing Free >Software projects. > >http://savannah.gnu.org/people/ has a list of "Projects Needing Help" > >If they are already a free software contributor and a newbie, I won't >recommend kernel hacking in the first shot. > >,----[ "Rakesh \"arky\" Ambati" <rakesh_ambati(a)yahoo.com> ] >| When we started working on building FSF-Bangalore chapter,this was one >| of the issue that came up.We here at bangalore planning to hold >| meetings regularly wherein users (experts & newbie's alike) can >| bring-in their box's and get their problem's sorted out. >| >| We can even arrange special interest talks on topic's like using or >| programming GNU/Hurd. >| >| May be we can even build a digital library of free software.If someone >| wants a copy of GNU/Hurd he can burn it there for a nominal charge. >`---- > >Mridul Jain <mridul.jain(a)californiadigital.com> has good understanding >of GNU/HURD OS and its inner workings. He is in Bangalore and has >helped me fix critical bugs in my HURD RPCI project. He would be glad >to help. > >-- >Anand Babu >Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org> _________________________________________________________________ Marriage? http://www.bharatmatrimony.com/cgi-bin/bmclicks1.cgi?72 Join BharatMatrimony.com for free.

1 0

People from Hyderabad ??
by Tarun Gaur 21 Apr '04

21 Apr '04

Hi Rakesh, Thanx for your prompt mail. Infact I mailed Dr. Nagarjun to find out if there is some Hyderabad Chapter or not? As per him we dont have it as yet. So i was thinking of getting some mail ids and contacting like minded people in hyderabad and throwing a small party for them and take it ahead from there. Please advise and suggest on how we could go about it. regards, tarun >From: "Rakesh \"arky\" Ambati" <rakesh_ambati(a)yahoo.com> >To: Tarun Gaur <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com>, fsf <fsf-friends(a)gnu.org.in> >Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] Compiling HURD .. Lets revive fsf-prog !! >Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 03:48:52 -0700 (PDT) > > > I fully agree with Sajit that we should start > > discussing some programming > > topics in the lists and help revive the list .... > > > Its really great idea,let's make sure that we stick >to discussing to free software programming only. > > > Let me initiate a technical discussion out there ... > > I have couple of > > friends who are very eager to start working on HURD > > but they have no idea on > > how to go about compiling their own kernel from > > scratch. Is there someone > > who is real good at it and can help the newbie's out > > .... > >When we started working on building FSF-Bangalore >chapter,this was one of the issue that came up.We here >at bangalore planning to hold meetings regularly >wherein users (experts & newbie's alike) can bring-in >their box's and get their problem's sorted out. > >We can even arrange special interest talks on topic's >like using or programming GNU/Hurd. > >May be we can even build a digital library of free >software.If someone wants a copy of GNU/Hurd he can >burn it there for a nominal charge. > > >tarun,please do let me know about any FSF related >activities in Hyd off the list. > > >--arky > > > > > > >__________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢ >http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail on your mobile. Messenger on your mobile. http://www.msn.co.in/mobile/ Stay connected to what matters.

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Compiling HURD .. Lets revive fsf-prog !!
by Tarun Gaur 21 Apr '04

21 Apr '04

Hi Friends, I fully agree with Sajith that we should start discussing some programming topics in the lists and help revive the list .... Let me initiate a technical discussion out there ... I have couple of friends who are very eager to start working on HURD but they have no idea on how to go about compiling their own kernel from scratch. Is there someone who is real good at it and can help the newbie's out .... Lets keep a date and Start our postings on this learning, if others can suggest other topics it will be great !! Let this be in fsf-prog .... Hail Open Source ! regards, tarun ============================================================ If not I, Then Who? If not now, Then when !! - Steve Waugh _________________________________________________________________ Marriage? http://www.bharatmatrimony.com/cgi-bin/bmclicks1.cgi?72 Join BharatMatrimony.com for free.

2 1

Compiling HURD .. Lets revive fsf-prog !!
by Tarun Gaur 21 Apr '04

21 Apr '04

great Sajith, I was thinking of Actually going into the details of helping out newbies ... with step by step help. I have written mails to a lot of guys who would want to learn and contribute. I am sure we will see some activity soon in fsf-prog. regards, tarun >From: Sajith T S <sajith(a)symonds.net> >Reply-To: Sajith T S <sajith(a)symonds.net> >To: Tarun Gaur <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com> >CC: fsf-prog(a)mm.gnu.org.in >Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] Compiling HURD .. Lets revive fsf-prog !! >Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 16:10:39 +0530 > >Tarun Gaur wrote: > >>Let me initiate a technical discussion out there ... I have couple of >>friends who are very eager to start working on HURD but they have no >>idea on how to go about compiling their own kernel from scratch. Is there >>someone who is real good at it and can help the newbie's out > >Nice start Tarun :) > >To start working on Hurd, it is not at all necessary that you compile >kernel from scratch and all. You just install Debian GNU/Hurd and go :) > >See http://www.debian.org/ports/hurd > >If you want to start hacking stuff rightaway, there's the Hurd Hacking >Guide by Wolfgang Jährling. The Hurd Reference Manual is another source. > >I hope Anand Babu might step in and comment :) > >Regards, >Sajith. >-- >Your friends will know you better in the first moment you meet than >your acquaintances will know you in a lifetime. > -- Richard Bach, "Illusions" > > _________________________________________________________________ Strike the right balance! News, gossip n fundas! http://www.msn.co.in/women/ Get it all at MSN Women!

1 0

CDs
by swathantra software 21 Apr '04

21 Apr '04

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Something more Generic and Distributed ... Naming!!
by Tarun Gaur 21 Apr '04

21 Apr '04

Thanx Imran, Yep LDAP is more specific. Infact I am looking at some ideas related to distributed secure naming architecture that could be applied in and out of virtual world. If anyone knows of any such work somewhere, it will be of great help. Regards, tarun _________________________________________________________________ Strike the right balance! News, gossip n fundas! http://www.msn.co.in/women/ Get it all at MSN Women!

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Re: Yep ... Sure Sajith !
by Tarun Gaur 20 Apr '04

20 Apr '04

Yeh I concur again. you are right. I will pull some socks up in hyderabad to ensure that we kick some work out here. Infact I was enquiring from Nagarjun for some people involved in FSF from Hyderabad or else we will kick a chapter out here. regards, tarun _________________________________________________________________ Strike the right balance! News, gossip n fundas! http://www.msn.co.in/women/ Get it all at MSN Women!

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Yep ... Sure Sajith !
by Tarun Gaur 20 Apr '04

20 Apr '04

Yep thanx Sajith for reminding. I totally agree with you. Actually i have been out of touch with it for some time now. Dont you worry, you will for sure see a lot of activity in hyderabad soon. Infact please suggest and lets do it all togather. You and me in the list make it two. But posting it there makes sense if we encourage others to frequest those lists. regards, tarun >From: Sajith T S <sajith(a)symonds.net> >Reply-To: Sajith T S <sajith(a)symonds.net> >To: Tarun Gaur <gaur_tarun(a)hotmail.com> >CC: imran(a)imran.info, fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in >Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] Something more Generic and Distributed ... >Naming!! >Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 20:32:48 +0530 > >Tarun Gaur wrote: > >>Yep LDAP is more specific. Infact I am looking at some ideas related to >>distributed secure naming architecture that could be applied in and out of >>virtual world. If anyone knows of any such work somewhere, it will be of >>great help. > >Incidentally, fsf-prog(a)gnu.org.in and fsf-dev(a)gnu.org.in mailing lists >are long dead and stink like anything. (What a shame. On all of us.) Why >not take discussions like these there? > >Let's think about what can be done to rejuvenate those lists. After all, >this happens to be the Free /Software/ Foundation. Software development >also needs some attention :) > >Sajith. _________________________________________________________________ Contact brides & grooms FREE! http://www.shaadi.com/ptnr.php?ptnr=hmltag Only on www.shaadi.com. Register now!

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Re: [LIG] [OT] Sarovar, Fairplay, Apple
by Raj Mathur 20 Apr '04

20 Apr '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 >>>>> "sdg" == Sayamindu Dasgupta <sayamindu(a)clai.net> writes: sdg> Hey, Looks like Apple has unleashed it's lawyers upon sdg> sarovar.org for hosting fairplay. sdg> http://sarovar.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=474 No, I don't agree with the project being taken down. Enough arm-twisting by corporates who want to protect their ``Intellectual Property'' by killing innovation and the individual hacker (not cracker!). If the project is taken down it will create a bad precedent in India, which will eventually lead to DMCA, PATRIOT and similar restrictions being placed on Indian developers without anyone having raised his/her voice against it. Sarovar, CVR, etc, please fight this case. And to put my money where my mouth is, I'm putting in Rs. 1000 to help you get a lawyer. I'm also forwarding this message to more lists and requesting people to come up and help defray your legal costs. Please set up some sort legal fund and fight! Regards, - -- Raju sdg> I don't seem to understand what Apple really wants - on one sdg> hand it leaves open gaping holes in its DRM scheme[1] - and sdg> on the other hand, it goes after programmes designed to sdg> decode it's protected AAC file into MP3s. Seriously - you sdg> don't need Fairplay to convert the AAC files into MP3s/Oggs. sdg> -sdg- sdg> [1] sdg> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=104270&cid=8881865 - -- Raj Mathur raju(a)kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5 0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F It is the mind that moves -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.8 <http://mailcrypt.sourceforge.net/> iD8DBQFAgKjZyWjQ78xo0X8RAhK6AJ9J50wbLplXjBveDW4Y4obdrCB4OACeM9JI 2k8RZn6i27yqyiis/+37Gc8= =ldKp -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Hyderabad Chapter
by Tarun Gaur 20 Apr '04

20 Apr '04

Hi Friends, Could someone please help me get in touch with the hyderabad chapter of FSF. It will be great getting in touch with some FSFites. regards, tarun _________________________________________________________________ Apply to 50,000 jobs now. http://go.msnserver.com/IN/46921.asp Post your CV on naukri.com today.

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