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Free without ambiguity and overapplicability
by Ramanraj K 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

There is an animadversion that proprietary software is given away "free" and therefore, Free Software is ambigious. Let us see if there is any truth in this criticism. Since the literal use of the word "free" is involved, let us have a look at what "free" means. Upon the word "free", the OED says: ~ not in bondage to another, having personal rights, social and political liberty ~ inheriting citizen rights and liberties ~ member of fraternity for mutual help and brotherly feeling ~ unfettered in action, unimpeded ~ open to all comers ~ spontaneous, unforced, unearned, gratuitous, willing ~ voluntary, not concealing one's opinions, blunt ~ released from difficulty ~ no fees charged ~ make free, set at liberty If the word "free" is used to qualify software, then it would naturally and literally mean and include all the above meanings listed above. If the object qualified with "free" is not free in any sense of the word, then the overapplicability should be restricted, to convey the true qualities of the software without ambiguity. We rightly use "free" in Free Software scoring a clean 10 out of 10, whereas, the proprietary software companies use the word "free" incorrectly, inappropriately, ambigiously and with overapplicability, really scoring a poor 0 out of 10, meaning they cannot use the word "free" correctly or honestly and is only a misnomer. Let us closely examine the context in which the word "free" is used by the free software community and the proprietary software entities to qualify software. [0] No bondage to others: Free software is a collection of software like GNU/Linux or FreeBSD that is a full fledged system, for single or multiple users or processors. Every thing including the kernel (Linux, HURD, FreeBSD), shell (bash, sh, csh, tcsh), compiler (gcc), office suites (OpenOffice), browsers (Netscape and Mozilla), database servers (PostgreSQL etc), networking applications (apache, sendmail, including general scripting software like PHP, Perl, guile, elisp), graphics applications (gimp), and hundreds of other utilites (tar, bc, cat, less, more) required to serve our needs are available under the GPL or like Licence, with full source code, making it possible to freely share, copy, and modify software for our use. New tools and utilities are created by every new generation of developers, and in the same traditions the software is added with liberty. Free software if free for every user, and for every type of use, personal, commercial or governmental, without any restrictions. Any one can freely share and use Free Software without seeking permission from anyone else. Free means freedom, totally negating the restrictions imposed by proprietary software licenses. For example, a school could use Free Software and freely give copies of the software used to its teachers and pupils without restrictions. Governments could freely use and distribute free software in the welfare of its citizens. Now, proprietary software companies release just a trivial application like a browser free of price and claim to having released "free software". The word "free" here is a misnomer, because, to use this piece of proprietary software, the user should have paid and purchased other components - the kernel, shell, or other systems under a licence from the proprietor. The ingenuius proprietary software licence will carefully give a full working system free of price, without source code, to governments and to educational institutions, just to ensure that the citizens and their children will forced to use proprietary software, and ultimately buy and use their proprietary software in their homes and offices. In reality, the "free" proprietary software is not "free" but merely mis-branded as "free" solely for marketing purposes. [1] Inheriting citizen rights and liberties Free software is freely inherited by the whole global community and society. Every new generation will freely inherit a rich body of code produced by the free software community. With proprietary software, one should always be ready to purchase new licences at the drop of a hat. To keep the free software free for the community, developers who modify the free software source code and release to the public are required to release the modified free software under the same terms of the licence of the original software. The copyright holder of free software can always sue the author who modified the software, for not freely releasing the modifications. This is the only right the author of the software code reserves for himself, just to ensure that future versions of the free software remains free for the whole community. The spirit of the free software movement is all pervasive, and sharing is practically automatic and happily done with grace. [2] member of fraternity for mutual help and brotherly feeling Sharing is free with Free Software. Proprietary software licences restrict sharing, and further will even prosecute for sharing which is even worse. There is an air of fraternity, brotherhood and freedom in the free software community, which is simply unknown in the proprietary software world, where users are chained and tied with a licence that will not allow any sharing or modification. [3] unfettered in action: Free Software may be used freely for commercial, office, home, education, governmental or other purposes. There are no fetters on copying, sale, exhibition, trading or installation of Free Software. With most proprietary software, one has to spend a lot of time studying licence restrictions on using components and literally several practical actions required to use the software itself are fettered in one way or the other. The proprietary software licence may say that even the licenced user can use only one instance on any one computer at any given point of time making realistic practical use of the software cumbersome. [4] open to all comers: Free Software has promoted the principle of equality like never before, and all are welcome to the free software community. With proprietary software, all doors are closed to people who cannot afford to purchase the software. [5] spontaneous, unforced, unearned, gratuitous, willing: The whole free software community acts spontaneously and voluntarily to develop high quality software to add well deserved honour to their names, and willingly and gratuitously give away the software under the GPL or like Licence. These freedoms are not possible or imaginable with proprietary software. [6] voluntary, not concealing one's opinions, blunt Free software is used voluntarily, and enables users to express their opinions about the software plainly and fruitfully in a way promoting the interest of the entire community. If a user finds something amiss, he may set out to correct the fault on his without wasting another moment, and release his work to the public, happy to have been of help. [7] released from difficulty: The souce code for most free software is mostly written in ANSI C, and free software applications can be compiled with gcc using standard procedures. This gives great freedom to port software on to a number of platforms and wide range of hardware, to suit a variety of needs. Proprietary software companies do not release source code, and they cannot be compiled with this kind of freedom, and are often tied to a particular platform, or even worse, to a unique version of a particular operating system. [8] no fees charged Free Software is free of price, if downloaded from Internet, or shared between friends. The truth is that free software is more valuable than being merely available free of cost. Since further copying and trading is free, we can only say Price is Free plus profit if you can earn it. If the same free software is distributed through a "commercial package" the distributor gives the free software for a price greater than zero, which may be the cost of providing warranty cover and other distribution costs of CD/DVD media, printed manuals, packaging, shrink wraps, advertisement and tranportation costs, dealership margins, sometimes at a premium to those who can afford, and other business costs. All users know that the free software included in the commercial package is available at no cost elsewhere, and deliberately chooses to buy a commercial package to suit their convenience or to promote the free software. Some criticize that the cost of implementing and maintaining free software may be as high as proprietary software. This is for a short span of time when documentation and other forms of help have not yet evolved, mostly because free software developers spend most of the time developing the software, and find little time to write elementary manuals. But with time, excellent free online manuals are published, through which a user can learn without spending any money on purchasing documentation or training. One is free to learn through public mailing lists, and even public libraries. Proprietary software companies sometimes give away their software like soap samples, only to promote purchases, and cannot qualify to be free for all the above reasons. Even documentation for proprietary software cannot be shared or freely reproduced. [9] make free, set at liberty: Free Software makes software users free and promotes their liberty in several ways. Proprietary software can do only the opposite. Therefore, while we correctly and meaningfully use the word "free" in Free Software, proprietary software entities use the word "free" without any substantial meaning or content, with overwhelming ambiguity and overapplicability.

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On The Internet Galaxy
by doxa＠sancharnet.in 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

Manuel Castell has published a book on The Internet Galaxy, where there are countless references on Free software and other related developments. Great Book from Oxford. CK Raju

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Free without ambiguity and overapplicability
by Manilal K M 30 Nov '03

30 Nov '03

Hello everybody, Actually many words in english may have various different meanings in different context. This is bound to linguistics rather than software or GPL. So is the case with word 'free'. When it cames to software we can use as 'free as in freedom'. But we cannot stop the usage such as 'free with this pack'. because it's a common usage. and I agree with eiidp's view that GNU should focus on the 'GPL concept'. with regards Manilal ----- Original Message ----- From: eiidp <eiidp(a)md3.vsnl.net.in> Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 10:31:19 +0530 To: fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] Free without ambiguity and overapplicability > > > Freedom is the noun form of the adjective free. Freedom is derived from > > free. > > The reverse is the fact. And through this only a single meaning of the word > 'free' is evolved. And that same word 'free' is used for various other > purposes. > > > What is needed is curtailment of the abuse of the word "free" by > > proprietary software entities. > > There is no question of abuse, It is a question of common usage which may vary > spatially, sector-wise and cultural-wise. > > > The whole point is that there is little need to explain the correct and > > proper usage by the free software movement. When the words we use exactly > > fit and match our matter at hand, our joy doubles. > > To fit and match it exactly, the explanation should be accompanied. 'Joy' is > a state of mind. This can also be attained if one is prepared to accept > something else. > > The most valuable contribution made by GNU to the society is the concept of > GPL. The war on words contriutes little. > > Regards, > > Anil > > _______________________________________________ > Fsf-friends mailing list > Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in > http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends -- ______________________________________________ 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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Hello
by Manilal K M 28 Nov '03

28 Nov '03

Hello everybody I am a new member in fsf-friends Manilal -- ______________________________________________ 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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Legal Recourse
by doxa＠sancharnet.in 24 Nov '03

24 Nov '03

Arun, Since the "deal" involves a huge amount, I don't think press releases are enough. Those in power would do anything to get it on. Merely relying on "Opposition" to take up the case also would result in a lost case. When LDF took up the project with M$, it was MM Hassan who voiced against the move from the opposition benches. Now when MM Hassan's team is in power, Achuthanandan is trying to make noices. This cycle would continue. The case would have been different if the civil servants played a sensible role. They too are bothered about losing out on their commission. So why would this nexus try to shed all inhibitions, glory and money to cry for the common man? That would never happen. I think we are now strong enough to plan a legal engagement. CK Raju

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[COMMERCIAL] GNU/Linux CDs available in Goa...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 23 Nov '03

23 Nov '03

=> Following is a comprehensive listing of the GNU/linux software available => for sharing.. => To place an order for your personal copy and for further info, pls => contact: Aniket Navelkar : aniket <at> gmx.net => Cost of the media Rs 30/- only per CD. Payment mode via Cash, Demand Draft or Money Order. Money has to be paid in advance & the order has to be confirmed via email only. Demand Draft in favor of: Aniket Navelkar, c/o Jegu Senai Navelkar, Near Post Office, Assolna Salcete, GOA - INDIA +---------------------------------------------------------------- | Software | Version | No of CD's | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | RedHat | 6.2 | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | RedHat | 9.0 | 3 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | Debian Woody | 3.0 | 7 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | Mandrake | 7.2 | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | Mandrake | 8.2 | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | Mandrake | 9.1 | 3 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | Knoppix | 3.2 | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | Knoppix | 3.3 | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | ELX Powerdesk | 1.0 | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | ELX Powerdesk | 2.0 | 2 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | GNU Win | 2.1 | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | Linux in a Teaspoon | | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | Free BSD | 5.0 | | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | Lindows OS | 4.0.3 | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | Lindows OS [bootable] | 4.0.4 | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | Server Optimised Linux [SOL] | | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | Dynebolic | 1.03a3 | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | The Open CD | | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | Free Educ | | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | SUSE LiveEval | 8.1 | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | Gnoppix | 0.5-3 | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | Slackware | 9.0 | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | RockLinux | 2.0 | 2 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | Connectiva | 9.0 | 4 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | ArchLinux | 0.5 | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | ArkLinux | | 3 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | GSCP RedHat | v10 | 1 | |-------------------------------+------------+------------------+ | | | | +---------------------------------------------------------------- => Latest distributions will be added as & when they become available to => us.

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[Fsf-friends] "The free software option" by C. Rammanohar Reddy in "The Hindu"
by Ramanraj K 22 Nov '03

22 Nov '03

"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

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For the records: OSI forking
by Ramanraj K 21 Nov '03

21 Nov '03

The free software movement forked in 1998 with the open source initiative labelling free software as "open source". We have seen why "open source" is superficial and why it cannot distinguish itself from proprietary software. If the OSI forks again, and continues its "open source" line for businesses, but joins the main stream "free software" movement in actions connected with the law, it would be in the best interests of both the movements and the community. Hence I sent a mail to Mr. Eric Raymond of the OSI. But my mail was rejected as follows: >Your message cannot be delivered to the following recipients: > > Recipient address: esr(a)thyrsus.com > Reason: Server rejected MAIL FROM address. > Diagnostic code: smtp;550 5.0.0 <ramanraj(a)md4.vsnl.net.in>... net.in blocked" Then I sent the contents to osi(a)opensource.org, and the replies revealed that they have also blocked reasoning, which is far worse. Mr. Russell Nelson of the OSI fairly wrote: >Please accept that we'll call it open source, and you'll call it free >software, and that we both mean the same thing. This however missed the concern how the law should call it. Therefore, I replied inviting the attention of Mr. Russell Nelson to this specific issue, which was replied as follows: >Microsoft gives away free software. >... "free software" is inherently confusing. Why do you think >RMS always has to give his free speech/beer footnote? Why do you >think proprietary software companies give away free software? Because >they're our friends? I don't think so. >The solution to all of this nonsense is to establish a certification >mark, which is what we've done. >I don't want to continue this discussion. A "certification mark" assumes discerning users, who might very well distinguish directly between "free software" and "proprietary software", without the aid of a third party certification. Law and software thrive upon building through reasoning, with an open mind, anticipating future scrutiny. Since Mr. Russell Nelson closed the discussion, we are free to ignore the fork that would meet its nemesis on its own. --

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[Fsf-friends] Re: Pitching free software directly before UN and other govt. circles
by Ramanraj K 20 Nov '03

20 Nov '03

Russell Nelson wrote: >Ramanraj K writes: > > understand that both are one and the same to us, from the point of view > > of the copyright law, the expression "free software" makes it plain that > > copying, sale, exhibition, installation, modification, redistribution, > > and trading are "free" with "free software" but these rights are > > "restricted to/by proprietor" in the case of proprietary software. > >Microsoft gives away free software. > > > The availability of source code, price, quality of software, > > development model etc. are qualites that cannot distinguish or > > differentiate our software from proprietary software. It would be > > in the best interests of our community to promote "free software" > > terminology in govt. circles to maintain clarity avoiding needless > > confusion. Hence this request. > >Sorry, but "free software" is inherently confusing. Why do you think >RMS always has to give his free speech/beer footnote? Why do you >think proprietary software companies give away free software? Because >they're our friends? I don't think so. > >The solution to all of this nonsense is to establish a certification >mark, which is what we've done. > >I don't want to continue this discussion. > > > Time alone can bring home the truth.

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[Fsf-friends] Re: Pitching free software directly before UN and other govt. circles
by Ramanraj K 20 Nov '03

20 Nov '03

Russell Nelson wrote: >Ramanraj K writes: > > Would you consider pitching "free software" directly before the UN and > > other government circles? > >Probably not. You're re-opening a battle we don't want to fight. >Please accept that we'll call it open source, and you'll call it free >software, and that we both mean the same thing. > > > Dear Mr. Russell Nelson, You may market "free software" as "open source" to the business community, highlighting one of the basic inherent qualities of free software. The issue is if you would consider pitching "free software" directly as "free software" before the law, to clearly distinguish free software from proprietary software. Please do leisurely read the postings referred. Please do not view this as a fight or battle, between the movements, for our real enemy is proprietary software. Though I understand that both are one and the same to us, from the point of view of the copyright law, the expression "free software" makes it plain that copying, sale, exhibition, installation, modification, redistribution, and trading are "free" with "free software" but these rights are "restricted to/by proprietor" in the case of proprietary software. The availability of source code, price, quality of software, development model etc. are qualites that cannot distinguish or differentiate our software from proprietary software. It would be in the best interests of our community to promote "free software" terminology in govt. circles to maintain clarity avoiding needless confusion. Hence this request. Thanking you, Regards, K. Ramanraj.

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[Fsf-friends] Pitching free software directly before UN and other govt circles
by Ramanraj K 20 Nov '03

20 Nov '03

Dear Mr. Eric Raymond, You would be interested in the following postings at fsf-friends that centered around "free software" vs "open source" terminology: http://gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2003-November/001238.html - I say "FLOSS" is meaningless. http://gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2003-November/001239.html - RMS says "FLOSS" is neutral. http://gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2003-November/001240.html - I say OSI is openly a pitch for marketing free software. http://gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2003-November/001242.html - RMS says "open source" terminology is superficial. http://gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2003-November/001244.html - I wrote why "open-source" cannot distinguish itself from proprietary software. Please see the table there. Then I suggest http://gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2003-November/001245.html - International Free Software Treaty Would you consider pitching "free software" directly before the UN and other government circles? Regards, K. Ramanraj.

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Is an International Free Software Treaty possible?
by Ramanraj K 20 Nov '03

20 Nov '03

Under our laws, as they stand today, open source utterly fails to distinguish itself clearly from proprietary software, and our open source friends are now having a dose of their own medicine with proprietary software companies releasing source code and calling it "open source". Searching the internet for open source will return several links to non-free software claiming to be "open source". "Free" is a very uncomfortable word for proprietary software companies, who will never give users the freedom which free software gives. We cannot contain the free software movement within the confines of copyright law. It would be like trying to contain the ocean within the confines of our fist. The plain fact is that the free software movement has created its own vast expanse of space in the law, at a global scale. Recognition of free software could correctly be done only at a global scale. We are at a defining moment, like when America or India won its freedom. A great vision is needed to proceed and speed ahead in the right direction. If we fail to perceive and understand the significance of the free software movement, we merely push and put away significant progress and development possible with free software. An International Free Software Treaty, may be the first right step in this direction. The treaty may legally recognise the free software movement, its work, its scope and provide for its active use by the people of this world. RMS could be designated as an Ambassador of Free Software, entitled to immunities and privileges under International law. Adequate international funds could also be provided to promote the progress of the free software movement. The UN ought to be seriously interested because the much wider goals and objects of the UN will be well served by the achievements and aims of the focused free software movement.

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Re: Light on Free Software
by Ramanraj K 18 Nov '03

18 Nov '03

> I wonder if we can think of any practical to measures arrest the > spread of "open source" terminology and associated superficial ideas > in government circles? The terminology that the law ought to use, while referring to software that negates the contituents of proprietary software is both interesting and important at this juncture. If governments use the expression "free software" fully understanding the philosophy of the free software movement, this discussion will be redundant. However, our open source friends are good at promoting free software, and now the stage has come when governments have started taking a serious interest in free software as it is of proven quality, open, saves costs, full of freedom desired by all interested in good governance. Since some governments use "open source" terminology, this discussion assumes importance. We have a duty to bring to the notice of governments which use "open source" terminology, the history of the free software movement, and the legal issues involved. The following is a very brief outline, that may be read along with the previous postings touching on this subject. According to the OED, "proprietary" means rights held in private ownership. Initially, only private individuals and entities created software and owned the rights in it. RMS wished to create software that will be free from this kind of private ownership. Free software was therefore a deliberate and intentional movement intended to negate the restrictions and hardships caused by private ownership of software. Now, the issue is: what would be the best expression in law to convey the idea that such software is free from restrictions imposed by private owners? RMS rightly called it "free software" from the time of its very inception. The chief ingredient of Free Software is that it is free from the oppressive and unscientific restrictions imposed by private ownership. The rights in respect of software are chiefly governed by copyright law. As soon as a person writes a software, by law he is vested with copyright over his software, regardless whether it is registered under a Copyright Act. By default all software are proprietary having an identifiable author in whom copyright for the work will vest. Usually, free software produced under the GNU Project is released from private ownership under the terms of the GNU General Public License. The Open Source Initiative started in 1998, chiefly by Eric Raymond, a hacker guru, argued that free software should be labelled as "open source" software. The initiative, has been successful in promoting the interests of free software, but it has also resulted in an acrimonious debate within the community about the logical classification to be adopted while describing software. The classification now competing for attention are: {free | proprietary} software -vs- {open | closed/secret } source software Fundamentally, Copyright law deals with the ownership and transfer of copyrights, and therefore software licences should be classified for the purposes of law only as free or proprietary. Please study the following: 1. Classification of Software Licences in law: software licences +-----------------+-----------------+ | | free proprietary 2. Table of Rights/Properties distinguishing the two classes: --------------------+--------------------+----------------------------- Right/Property Free Software Proprietary Software --------------------+--------------------+----------------------------- Part A: Rights/ingredients of Licence covered by Copyright Law Copying Free Restricted by/to Proprietor Redistribution Free Restricted Exhibition Free Restricted Installation Free Restricted Assignment Free Restricted Modification Free subject to Restricted making the modified version free as source Sale Free Restricted Hire Assignment itself Restricted Free Trading Free Restricted Importing Free Restricted Subsequent ownership Free Restricted Part B: Properties/ingredients not covered by Copyright Law: Avaliability of Free and Open Could be open or closed/secret Source Code Price Free Fancy prices/Cost if Honest /sometimes free for n days, x persons etc /minor software given free as a marketing tool but a whole workable system is never free Development Model Free and Open Restricted and Closed Prone to Virus Well Protected Weakly vulnerable Quality Unmatched ? Growth Potential High ? Documentation Free Restricted In short: sharing Free Restricted --------------------+--------------------+----------------------------- Please note the division of the above table into Part A, covering ingredients covered by Copyright Law and those that are not under Part B. Strictly speaking, the Copyright law does not look at the element of "price" or availability of "source code" at all. Open/Closed source classification further cannot clarify the question of ownership. To use such criteria to classify software licenses would therefore be inappropriate. Songs, movies, and other literary works are "open" and there is nothing secret about a song or literary works in the way, software could have public object code and secretable source code. Even if source code is revealed, the proprietary software could still say that under the terms of licence, it may not be copied or shared. Open/Closed source classification is therefore not appropriate. But we can say free software inherently has the quality of being open source, owing to the very nature of how free software is created and used. In other words, free software is a parent class, and being open souce is just one of its properties, or qualites. Right from its inception, the expression Free Software has meant a negation of all that constituted proprietary software. Software can therefore be intelligibly classified only as free or proprietary, where each class clearly and fully negates the other, for purposes of law. Further, this would be in consonance with the legal traditions of examining words in their historical context and setting. This is good news for our "open source" friends. Since the Open Source Initiative web site openly admits that they are marketing free software, obviously they are merely highlighting one aspect of free software: that its source is always open. Since they are using "open source" label openly as a sales pitch for marketing free software, they can happily continue with the same. However, when it comes to government, they can easily see the reason why law can deal only with free or proprietary software. But it would be ideal if all of us including the law, media, hackers, users and govenments uniformly use the expression "free software" everywhere, to maintain clarity and stand closer to truth. Regards, K. Ramanraj.

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Re [Fsf-friends] Re: Light on Free Software
by doxa＠sancharnet.in 18 Nov '03

18 Nov '03

I wonder if we can think of any practical to measures to arrest the spread of "open source" terminology and associated superficial ideas in government circles? I think after Govt of Kerala's experience of introducing Free Software in Schools, the political leadership has become more aware of the complications within the terminology. The statements of the Opposition Leader of State Assembly of Kerala, issued through Press Release, contained "Free Software" (in The Hindu and "swatantra software" in the Deshabhimani) being used without any ambiguity. This shows that it is only a matter of time before this phrase catches up. CK Raju Thrissur

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Light on Free Software
by Ramanraj K 17 Nov '03

17 Nov '03

I read the article titled "Groping in the dark ... ", by Frederick Noronha, in LINUX For You, November 2003, and thought some light should be thrown. Sorry, there are no links to the article on the world wide web. >The we-don't-need-to-promote-FLOSS attitude can lull everyone into a false sense >of over-confidence. People who could have used this technology effectively simply >don't get a chance to. ... the FLOSS fold has a special responsibility. Free software was born out of the need and necessity to break free from the tyranny and obstacles of proprietary software. Right from its inception, the expression Free Software has meant a negation of all that constituted proprietary software. Software can be intelligibly classified only as free or proprietary, where each class clearly and fully negates the other. The expression FLOSS was used in a survey and study financed under the European Commission's IST programme, which did a case study of Free/Libre Open Source Software, and the work done is available at http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS . The FLOSS study was started on June 1, 2001 and terminated on October 31, 2002. The concept of sharing which is innate and elementary in the free software movement, was researched by elaborate questionnaires! The FLOSS study report, while referring to PostgreSQL, says "it is mainly deployed in private use and projects not involving mission-critical business operations", which is plainly wrong. Several goverments and entities are developing live projects using PostgreSQL, that has a rich set of functions not available in even commercial database servers. The "FLOSS survey and study" is a gloss, when all relevant material is already available at www.gnu.org and www.opensource.org. Is FLOSS a technology? The expression FLOSS was used in the emperical study to refer to Free/Libre Open Source Software generally, and cannot be called a "technology". Even if the FLOSS study and report are useful to the European Commission, and to others, it would be no reason to use the expression FLOSS to refer to Free Software. If a new group props up from the community, calling Free Software as Public Software, reasoning that "public" is the best word to convey the intent of GPL, then would there be another study group, that surveys Free/Libre Open Public Source Software - FLOPSS? Would we then seek to replace FLOSS with FLOPSS? This would be endess and meaningless. We need to gracefully accept the historical background that led to the free software movement, and avoid inventing new expressions to maintain clarity and stay focused on the deeper goals and intents of Free Software. Some people freely dip into the Free Software Directory to meet needs, but openly refuse to give credit, or use the expression free software, which is only unfair. >The good thing about the meet is that it's [a symposium in Singapore] >trying to network all the FLOSS initiatives in this part of the globe and put >together a more reliable picture of what's hapenning At present, we can check into globally accessible servers, and download, use, modify, improve, and distribute free software. If spreading the use of free software is itself seen as a project, it would be ideal to adopt the same methods adopted to develop free software, by commencing a project at savannah or sourceforge, so that there can be global access and robust practices evolve. It may be a mere shell script that will download relevant software, and install the same in the user's server and this could keep count and create feedback channels. There are no sound reasons for isolating software use from software development, as both are essentially two sides of the same coin. If Asian projects on i18n, l10n, etc are operated from a few well known CVS foundries, then even persons with access to the internet, living in even remote villages, who clearly understand what is happening can make contributions that are globally relevant. Free software movement has incidentally promoted the principle of equality like never before. >Mastering technology is good but it's more important to be large-hearted when it comes to sharing it I hope that this is a reference to our friends who work for proprietary software. Quite obviously, free software is the ultimate in sharing, and it would be crude to accuse people who have contributed towards free software of not being large-hearted. >We could well convert this into a small self-serving club that doesn't grow ... A friend sent me a copy of Tarka Samgraha by Anambhatta, with its expository gloss on ancient Indian epistemology usually called Nyaya [Realism] + Vaisesika [Atomistic Pluralism]. The Indian works on logic were born, not through any gentle flaming, but through an intense burning desire to get to truth. Modern India's motto is a phrase from the Mundaka Upanishad: Sathyameva Jayethe, translated as "Truth Triumphs". The Upanishads are seen as a clear strarting point for studies on logic, and further works on the methods of arriving at the truth by reasoning developed and evolved gradually. The Nyaya Sutras were written by Gautama. The Vaisesika Sutras were by Kanada. Vatsyayana was the first author who explained the entire scheme of Indian epistemology, however, globally better known today for his Kama Sutra. The Tarka Samgraha is a dipika or commentary on the original older works. The Tarka translation in hand was rendered by Swami Virupakshananda of the Ramakrishna Math, Chennai. The opening quotation is: "Logic and grammar are indispensable aids for every branch of Knowledge". AI applications, even today, do not give grammar the importance it deserves. Long before Stephens drafted the Evidence Act in 1872, we had several works, dealing scientifically and comprehensively with primary evidence, verbal testimony, inference, deduction and these works were actually used in every day life. Nachiketa <-at the doorstep of-> Death, Gautama, Kanada, Vatsyayana, Anambhatta are a few names I have listed here, as associated with Indian epistemology. Now, could we call them as "self-serving" individuals who affixed their names to their works? Their works stand on their own, and we will carry forward the memory of the author along with the work, only if we accept their value. I am convinced they are an invaluable source, atleast, to improve my own Calpp: aided legal procedures and proceedings project. Calpp is the mission of my life, and I make no bones about it. The Calpp project could be seen as self-serving its author Ramanraj, but it could also be seen as serving real human needs. We will gain and grow a lot when Indian epistemology is available as part of free software. Section VII, of the Tarka Samgraha dealing with valid verbal testimony says: "Significative potency is the desire that a certain concept be understood from a certain word." Viewed from this angle, RMS, the founder of the free software movement desired the world to break free from proprietary licences and initiated the free software movement. The whole philosophy and concepts behind the movement stand elegantly loaded on the expression "free software". I hope that all of us can see the significance of the free software movement, and voluntarily use the expression "free software" instead of other expressions. Regards, K. Ramanraj.

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Re: Paths of Freedom
by Ramanraj K 17 Nov '03

17 Nov '03

>The solution should better be called e-Administration. >It received an award from the Deputy Prime Minister of India. >The basic version can be made free. >We can discuss more, if you have any ideas on how to go about it. >Thanks. >Krishnan V D G Congratulations! Please do release your application as free software. www.gnu.org explains how it could be done. Briefly, by free we mean releasing the source code under the GPL. Regards, K. Ramanraj. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ramanraj K" <ramanraj(a)md4.vsnl.net.in> To: <fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in> Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 10:14 AM Subject: [Fsf-friends] Paths of Freedom >> To, >> Mr. V D G Krishnan >> >> President & CEO >> LL2B.COM Pvt Ltd >> >> >> Dear Mr. V.D.G. Krishnan, >> > > >>> > The message copy received by me is not clear to me. >> >> >> >> First a pointer to where we are: Please visit >> http://gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2003-October >> Ofcourse, we are now in November, but I have given you last month's >> archive address so that you will find your mail listed there at the >> bottom, and you can relate to what is happening around. >> > > >>> >On our part, we have developed a e-governance and e-transparency solution >>> >which is now under trials at Electronics Corporation of Tamilnadu >> >> (ELCOT), >>> >Govt. of Tamilnadu Undertaking. This tool is expected to bring in total >>> >transparency and speed to the working of the Govt. We hope it will be >>> >adopted as a tool by the Govt. of Tamilnadu. >>> > >>> >You can visit WWW.LL2B.COM for the preliminary details. >> >> >> >> e-governance and e-transparency solutions are most welcome. But then, >> the solution itself should also be free, open and transparent. The >> philosophy section at http://www.gnu.org explains free software. Law >> itself is public, free and open in nature. Our Supreme Court had the >> occasion in Naresh v. State of Maharashtra [AIR 1967 SC 1] to consider >> the merits of open and public trials for "healthy objective and fair >> administration of justice," and quoted Bentham with approval as follows: >> >> "In the darkness of secrecy, sinister interest, and evil in every >> shape, have full swing. ... Publicity is the very soul of justice. >> It is the keenest spur to exertion, and the surest of all guards >> against improbity. It keeps the Judge himself while trying under >> trial in the sense that the security of securities is publicity." >> >> The principles laid are equally true for governance. Without free >> software, it is hard to even imagine a e-governance software. >> >> But, I am personally wary of using the expression "e-governance software". >> >> The law is the common background for all human activity. Besides >> governance, law operates upon a large area. Governance is specially >> grouped under the heading Constitutional Law and Administrative Law. We >> have Law of Contracts, Torts, Law of Property, Family Law, Labour Law >> etc. wherein "governance" is minimal or even totally absent. If an >> application can handle Constitutional Law and Administrative Law, then >> there are no reasons why it should not handle the Law of Contracts or >> the other laws. We have people designing "banking software", "insurance >> software", "billing software", as though the law has these water tight >> compartments. We have ERP, CRM, B2B, B2C, G2G, G2B, etc. etc, with >> others promising to integrate ERP with CRM, CRM with the rest in all >> possible permutations and combinations. It makes business sense but no >> legal sense. >> >> Can any e-governance software check constitutionality of code? If they >> can't, then they better not call themselves by such a name. >> >> Besides, consider the following: >> >> Suppose an e-governance application wants to assist litigants in filing >> plaints. While automating preparation of plaints, some issues arise. >> If more than one plaintiff sues, the script should use "plaintiffs" >> otherwise, "plaintiff". In appeals, for the same reason it chooses >> between "appellants" and "appellant". Soon, a function that would give >> the plural for singular nouns like applicant, petitioner, claimant, >> defendant, and respondent becomes necessary. This exercise soon takes >> one to examining the rules of English grammar. If an application can >> handle legal rules well, then it might handle rules of English grammar >> as well. But the most singular difficulty would be in listing the rules >> of English grammar. Tamil has Agathiam (the primary grammar text, but >> no longer in vogue) > Tholkappiam (Secondary text, based on Agathiam), >> and > finally the recent Nanool, where everything from how letters are >> formed, classified, pronounced, to usage, root words, verbs, >> concatanation, and every thing necessary to use the language are dealt >> with thoroughly. Assuming that after consensus, acceptable rules of >> English grammar for the present are available, we could write functions >> such as: >> >> function get_plural($singlular){ >> // returns plural for a given singular >> .... >> } >> >> To write a perfect get_plural function, we need to know if the word >> passed to the function is a noun or not. Now, we have to write >> >> function is_noun($word){ >> // returns if word is a noun >> .... >> } >> >> >> As you see, one thing leads to another, and soon we will have a large >> library of functions that deal with many aspects of English grammar. >> Then our scripts will write well, and may be read well too. >> >> Once we write such a library, there is no reason why this should be >> confined to just an "e-governance" application. We could use it even >> better in the field of education or wherever English is used. >> >> Consider another scenario. >> >> Recently, an ONGC helicopter crashed into the sea near Mumbai, and an >> Enquiry has been ordered into it. The survivor & eye witnesses reported >> that the helicopter went into a spin before crashing into the sea. It >> is well known that the tail propellor prevents a helicopter from >> spinning. Did the tail propellor fail? We see that the enquiry soon >> has to deal with the basic workings of an helicopter to arrive at the >> truth for the cause of the accident. Though at the top level, things >> look like "e-governance", as we go deep, we find ourselves into the >> thick of rules of English grammar, the laws of aerodynamics, history, or >> other fields of human knowledge. >> >> Ancient sages dealt exhaustively on grammar, philosophy, ethics, >> medicine, law, science and literature single handedly. Agathiar wrote >> Agathiam creating a script for Tamil, codifing the rules of grammar, and >> then dealt with medicine [Paripooranam 400], and initiated Girivalam, as >> the simplest form of yoga, that could be practiced by one and all. >> Agathiar is believed to have brought his first love, River Cauvery, to >> Tamil Nadu. Well, then he might have organised the flow of the River >> with the aid of the local kings. Patanjali wrote upon Sanskrit Grammar, >> Ayurveda and Yoga, and though the works stand distinctively, a common >> thread unites them. A unity at some point is required for scientific >> progress and human prosperity. >> >> Free software offers all the tools we can ask for. The next big step >> would be when human knowlege is ported across so that software >> applications abound with life, intelligence and wisdom. >> >> Regards, >> K. Ramanraj. >

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LFY Nov 2003 * GNU/Linux updates from India ...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 14 Nov '03

14 Nov '03

-------------------------------LINUX FOR YOUR Nov 2003 ----------------- Published from India, Vol 1 No 9 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Would you like to contribute articles to LFY? Contact Rahul Chopra below ------------------------------------------------------------------------ EDITORIAL: Star Office & is the latest version of (Sun's) office suite software. We tried it on both Windows and Linux -- and were impressed by its performance and features... Sun has given its battle cry against Microsoft. And, it couldn't be louder. The attach is on three fronts -- the office suite, the operating system and the enterprise server solution. -- Rahul Chopra LFYedit at efyindia.com * Fedora project updates * Kernel 2.6.0-test8 released * Slackware 9.1 arrives * Knoppix 3.3 is here * Linux device remote-controls UPS * SuSE Linux 9.0 released * New features to keep off worms * Samba 3.0 released * Athlon64 debuts * Mandrake Linux 9.2 launched * Linux-based digital media player rolls out * Novell connects Linux desktop users to MSExchange 2003 * XFce 4.0 lightweight desktop environment launched Major updates and releases: ClusterKnoppix v.3.2.2003-09-05-EN * DietLinux v0.1.2 * dyne:bolic v.1.0 * GNOPPIX v.0.5.4-1 * Mailman v 2.1.3 * Chandler IN INDIA a government program in the large state of Madhya Pradesh aims at providing computer-enabled education and teaching basic computer skills to students in primary and middle schools. The unique project harnesses the power of [GNU]Linux-based open source software. Stellar data recovery tool: Stellar Phoenix is a GNU/Linux data recovery tool that runs from Windows. It does a good job of recvering data, but comes at a price. If you manage a network of Linux desktops, then this is a must-have tool for you. CONTEST: Offer a good slogan and win a gold-plated watch. FEW C/C++ competitors exist for GCC in the world of GNU/Linux. Intel's C++ Compiler 7.0 is one such brave-heart. It fails GCC at some points, but by optimising code for faster performance, it has proved its worth. BhavyaOS: This CD which comes from the magazine promises "all the Red Hat 9 goodies compressed on a single CD". Feedback from users? Some problems have been reported in the past. INDIA MAY NOT be topping the charts in high performance computing. But with software and hardware costs dipping, a number of research organisations and government agencies are now deploying high performance clusters for innovative applications. OpenOffice WRITE HAS features that can help you track changes and save different versions of the same document, when you are working on it with others. OpenOffice Calc, a spreadsheet app, is filled with functions. How to use some of these functions is explained here. * Motorola and Real tie-up for Linux-phones * Samsung to develop Linux smart phones * SuSE to launch US$449 Linux server for small businesses * Criticism leads to Forrester policy change (towards vendor -sponsored research, following publication of a controversial Microsoft-funded study comparing the costs of Linux) * Analyst company disagrees with Sun's Linux strategy * Dell stands up for new Red Hat Linux * Windows developers feel Linux is more secure, as per study * Telstra selects Sun's Mad Hatter (Linux desktop) * Thai schools desert Microsoft products * Tetra Information Services is first partner for Linux Asia 2004 * HP to back Linux byers * Red Hat widens software choice * Linux users furious over Royal Bank SCO investment * Linux not accountable for security, Microsoft's Ballmer says * Ford mulling over change to Linux-based servers * SCO postpones deadline for taking Linux licences * More governments adopt Linux * NTT to link up with OSDL to develop Linux for telecom use INDIAN TRANSPORT sector treads cautiously on the Linux road. Most transport operators acknowledge the role of Linux-based software not only in cost cutting, but also in offering customers a better experience. However, investment costs, lack of support and knowhow are concerns of potential GNU/Linux users in this sector. IN INDIA, ON THE enterprise desktop front, many enterprises use Linux to manage crucial systems. But no IT decision-maker wants to place it on the desktop of the knowledge worker. Why is it so? FINLAND WORKS ON AN APPLIED Linux Institute: Three Finnish public institutions, including Linux Torvalds' alma mater, are setting up an institute for applied Linux, so that people can use and share open systems, which could also help create an environment empowering poeple in the North and the South. BHARTI TELETECH LTD decided to streamline its business processes, and so opted for GNU/Linux. The change not only saved costs but was easier to migrate to. The Bharti Group followed up by upgrading its other Microsoft-run systems to Linux as well. (CON)FIGURING OUT the IBM Directory Server (hands-on) SEVEN STEPS to software samadhi: Migration from Windows to GNU/Linux may take some time, but the process will be a great learning experience. And 'muft' (free-of-cost) and 'mukt' (freedom-based) software could be the best reward for your efforts, writes Linux Lingam. Don't ask what the pseudonym means! TIPS & TRICKS on networking: simple steps that will make you a pro at deploying firewalls, setting up NAT and even working with IP tunnelling. (Elaborate five-page how-to). GNUWinII CD: FREE YOUR WINDOWS> A review of the GNU WinII CD, which has a collection of free/libre and open source software for the Windows platform. Written by Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay. PARALLEL PROCESSING using Perl. You can write programs in Perl that run in parallel to carry out computationally-intensive tasks through two models, the process model and the threads model. KERNEL CORNER reviews the concept of the semaphore mechanism and demonstrates its application in a kernel program. Various kernel semaphore functions are discussed in detail. BOOKS REVIEWED IN BRIEF: * Assembly Language Step-By-Step: Programming with DOS and Linux, Rs 369 with CD, pp 613 * Linux Database Bible Rs 329 in India, pp 715 * Professional Red Hat Linux 9 Secrets Rs 499 with 2 CDs in India. Pp 1038 * Linux in Easy Steps, Rs 89, pp 186 * Beginning Red Hat Linux 9. Rs 379 with 2 CDs, Pp 570 SHELL CORNER: Learn more script features and functions to better control signals and processes. JAVA TIPS FOR your Linux PDA. Learn how to load and run a simple Java application on Sharp's SL-series Zaurus, the Linux-based PDA. FIREWALLING USING ipTABLES: Here's how to use iptables in Netfilter to guard your computer from intruders. GROPING IN THE DARK: Mastering technology is good, but it's more important to be large-hearted when it comes to sharing it, says the BraveGNUIndia column. NEWS FROM INDIA includes * Linare Linux Launched * Wind River releases tools for embedded Linux * Oracle rools out entry-level database for SMEs * Sun rolls out StarOffice 7.0 * IBM launches Lotus Notes and Domino 6.5 * Cadence moves PCB tools to Linux * Sun Microsystems launches Mad Hatter * First Indian distro with bio-informatics tools * Cincom Smalltalk VisualWorks environment for GNU/Linux THE PHD CHAMBER of Commerce and Industry and Tetra Information Services organised an all-day seminar on Linux Readiness: Emergence of a New Era in September at New Delhi. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ LINUX ASIA meets in Delhi on Feb 11-13. See you there... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTACTS: LFY Delhi 26810602 or 26810603 http://www.linuxforu.com

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Asian first-timers prefer GNU/Linux to Windows
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 14 Nov '03

14 Nov '03

ENTERPRISE Unix Roundup: A Linux Pioneer Gets Back in the Game Sever Watch, United States Last week we took a look at SUSE and Red Hat, two long-time Linux stalwarts entering distinctly new phases. This week, another Linux ... <http://www.serverwatch.com/news/article.php/3108641> ASIAN first-timers prefer Linux to Windows The Register, UK >From a report at Linux Insider, we learn why. First-time computer users are flocking to a government-subsidised programme to bring cheap PCs to the public. ... <http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/33963.html> OSDL To Start Pushing on Desktop Linux Slashdot ... Review is reporting that 'IBM, Red Hat and a consortium of computer makers backed by the likes of Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Intel will push to move the Linux ... <http://slashdot.org/articles/03/11/13/121205.shtml?tid=126&tid=152&tid=163&…> EMBEDDED Linux specialist SnapGear acquired by high-end firewall ... Linux News One of the world's first embedded Linux companies has just announced that it is being acquired (again). Embedded Linux security ... CyberGuard to Acquire SnapGear, Extending Product Line to Edge of ... <http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9335598499.html> ALCATEL to develop Linux 3G services Cellular-News Alcatel and Intel have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to jointly promote advanced mobile Internet applications using a Linux operating environment in ... <http://www.cellular-news.com/story/10105.shtml> WIN4LIN support announced for Fedora Linux Desktop Linux NeTraverse announced the immediate availability of Win4Lin for Fedora Linux. Win4Lin allows users to bridge from legacy Windows ... <http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS6351767204.html> LINUX operating system secures place on Middle East's technology ... AME Info, United Arab Emirates Industry evidence suggests that there has been a significant rise in the number of companies in the Middle East investigating the potential advantages of Linux ... <http://www.ameinfo.com/news/Detailed/31146.html> NOVELL'S Masie to Focus On Linux, Upliftment AllAfrica.com, Africa ... SA is a country with massive potential, saying he has big plans for the company and is really excited about the possibilities for the organisation's Linux ... <http://allafrica.com/stories/200311130514.html> REPORT: Visitors to Linux World Frankfurt Give KDE A Thumbs Up KDE.NEWS Continuing the successful run of trade show presences, the KDE team used the opportunity of this year's Linux World Expo and Conference in Frankfurt, Germany ... Desktop Linux Consortium Conference debuts - NewsForge Perens predicts desktop surge, promotes user-driven enterprise ... <http://dot.kde.org/1068663688/> BMC execs talk mainframe Linux at zSeries Expo Search390.com, United States Search390.com recently had the chance to discuss the past, present and future of Linux on the mainfame with two BMC Software executives. ... <http://search390.techtarget.com/qna/0,289202,sid10_gci936627,00.html>

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Red Hat Fedora available on Asian mirror
by Imran William Smith 06 Nov '03

06 Nov '03

If anybody is having trouble downloading RedHat Fedora, the community side of the recent split in the Red Hat product line, it is mirrored at AsiaOSC, our mirror in Malaysia. Download it here: http://mymirror.asiaosc.org/redhat/fedora/linux/core/1/i386/iso/ or read the full article here: There seems to be a problem with many Red Hat mirrors - it seems Red Hat has deliberately made Fedora outside their normal ftp structure, to make it clear to the public that it's not 'just another Red Hat release'. The downside of this is that all mirrors are likely to have to edit their sync scripts, so the project will take longer than usual to appear on mirrors. Imran William Smith imran(a)imran.info / iwsmith(a)mimos.my Asian Open Source Centre, Malaysia http://www.asiaosc.org

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Paths of Freedom
by Ramanraj K 05 Nov '03

05 Nov '03

To, Mr. V D G Krishnan President & CEO LL2B.COM Pvt Ltd Dear Mr. V.D.G. Krishnan, > The message copy received by me is not clear to me. First a pointer to where we are: Please visit http://gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2003-October Ofcourse, we are now in November, but I have given you last month's archive address so that you will find your mail listed there at the bottom, and you can relate to what is happening around. >On our part, we have developed a e-governance and e-transparency solution >which is now under trials at Electronics Corporation of Tamilnadu (ELCOT), >Govt. of Tamilnadu Undertaking. This tool is expected to bring in total >transparency and speed to the working of the Govt. We hope it will be >adopted as a tool by the Govt. of Tamilnadu. > >You can visit WWW.LL2B.COM for the preliminary details. e-governance and e-transparency solutions are most welcome. But then, the solution itself should also be free, open and transparent. The philosophy section at http://www.gnu.org explains free software. Law itself is public, free and open in nature. Our Supreme Court had the occasion in Naresh v. State of Maharashtra [AIR 1967 SC 1] to consider the merits of open and public trials for "healthy objective and fair administration of justice," and quoted Bentham with approval as follows: "In the darkness of secrecy, sinister interest, and evil in every shape, have full swing. ... Publicity is the very soul of justice. It is the keenest spur to exertion, and the surest of all guards against improbity. It keeps the Judge himself while trying under trial in the sense that the security of securities is publicity." The principles laid are equally true for governance. Without free software, it is hard to even imagine a e-governance software. But, I am personally wary of using the expression "e-governance software". The law is the common background for all human activity. Besides governance, law operates upon a large area. Governance is specially grouped under the heading Constitutional Law and Administrative Law. We have Law of Contracts, Torts, Law of Property, Family Law, Labour Law etc. wherein "governance" is minimal or even totally absent. If an application can handle Constitutional Law and Administrative Law, then there are no reasons why it should not handle the Law of Contracts or the other laws. We have people designing "banking software", "insurance software", "billing software", as though the law has these water tight compartments. We have ERP, CRM, B2B, B2C, G2G, G2B, etc. etc, with others promising to integrate ERP with CRM, CRM with the rest in all possible permutations and combinations. It makes business sense but no legal sense. Can any e-governance software check constitutionality of code? If they can't, then they better not call themselves by such a name. Besides, consider the following: Suppose an e-governance application wants to assist litigants in filing plaints. While automating preparation of plaints, some issues arise. If more than one plaintiff sues, the script should use "plaintiffs" otherwise, "plaintiff". In appeals, for the same reason it chooses between "appellants" and "appellant". Soon, a function that would give the plural for singular nouns like applicant, petitioner, claimant, defendant, and respondent becomes necessary. This exercise soon takes one to examining the rules of English grammar. If an application can handle legal rules well, then it might handle rules of English grammar as well. But the most singular difficulty would be in listing the rules of English grammar. Tamil has Agathiam (the primary grammar text, but no longer in vogue) > Tholkappiam (Secondary text, based on Agathiam), and > finally the recent Nanool, where everything from how letters are formed, classified, pronounced, to usage, root words, verbs, concatanation, and every thing necessary to use the language are dealt with thoroughly. Assuming that after consensus, acceptable rules of English grammar for the present are available, we could write functions such as: function get_plural($singlular){ // returns plural for a given singular .... } To write a perfect get_plural function, we need to know if the word passed to the function is a noun or not. Now, we have to write function is_noun($word){ // returns if word is a noun .... } As you see, one thing leads to another, and soon we will have a large library of functions that deal with many aspects of English grammar. Then our scripts will write well, and may be read well too. Once we write such a library, there is no reason why this should be confined to just an "e-governance" application. We could use it even better in the field of education or wherever English is used. Consider another scenario. Recently, an ONGC helicopter crashed into the sea near Mumbai, and an Enquiry has been ordered into it. The survivor & eye witnesses reported that the helicopter went into a spin before crashing into the sea. It is well known that the tail propellor prevents a helicopter from spinning. Did the tail propellor fail? We see that the enquiry soon has to deal with the basic workings of an helicopter to arrive at the truth for the cause of the accident. Though at the top level, things look like "e-governance", as we go deep, we find ourselves into the thick of rules of English grammar, the laws of aerodynamics, history, or other fields of human knowledge. Ancient sages dealt exhaustively on grammar, philosophy, ethics, medicine, law, science and literature single handedly. Agathiar wrote Agathiam creating a script for Tamil, codifing the rules of grammar, and then dealt with medicine [Paripooranam 400], and initiated Girivalam, as the simplest form of yoga, that could be practiced by one and all. Agathiar is believed to have brought his first love, River Cauvery, to Tamil Nadu. Well, then he might have organised the flow of the River with the aid of the local kings. Patanjali wrote upon Sanskrit Grammar, Ayurveda and Yoga, and though the works stand distinctively, a common thread unites them. A unity at some point is required for scientific progress and human prosperity. Free software offers all the tools we can ask for. The next big step would be when human knowlege is ported across so that software applications abound with life, intelligence and wisdom. Regards, K. Ramanraj. Apologies for replying so late. >On our part, we have developed a e-governance and e-transparency solution >which is now under trials at Electronics Corporation of Tamilnadu (ELCOT), >Govt. of Tamilnadu Undertaking. This tool is expected to bring in total >transparency and speed to the working of the Govt. We hope it will be >adopted as a tool by the Govt. of Tamilnadu. > >You can visit WWW.LL2B.COM for the preliminary details. > > > >(044) 5211 5995 >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Ramanraj K" <ramanraj(a)md4.vsnl.net.in> >To: <fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in> >Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 6:57 PM >Subject: [Fsf-friends] Celebrate with free software > > > > >>Dear Countrymen, >> >>There is perhaps no other nation that remembers and celebrates freedom >>as much as we do. Diwali reminds us about the the end of the cruel >>demon, who finally wished that we rejoice his gory conquest and the >>triumph of freedom, with sweets and festivities. Free software is yet >>another reason we have to celebrate, not once a year but every moment >>of consciousness. It heralds in an era when we can find freedom from >>the modern day demons of corruption, concoction, commission, >>collection, concession, capitation, congestion, cunningmen, >>chickenmen, and cynicalmen. We could call all these together as c10n. >>This is c10n - version 1.0, updates are welcome! >> >>Regards, >>K. Ramanraj. >> >> >>_______________________________________________ >>Fsf-friends mailing list >>Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in >>http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends >> >> >> > > > >

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[Fwd: design + linux]
by Arun M 03 Nov '03

03 Nov '03

Hi LL, For DTP you may also look into this. http://www.stacken.kth.se/project/pptout/ regards, arun. -- Arun M <arun(a)gnu.org.in> FSF India

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Smart card based solution provider.
by H S Rai 01 Nov '03

01 Nov '03

Is there not good professionals or firms who can provide Free/Open-source based solution using smart card? If any one knows, please let me know or if there is some other mailing list or News-group for such firms/vendors, which may provide service in North India, I would like to know that. Why I am asking this? Following is the reason. One State Government issued open tender for such a project to be implemented for all technical Institutions in the state. As per my knowledge, no one is there with Free/Open-source based solution. All are M$ based. I would like to take up the issue with State Government, but only if some one is there who can provide such a solution. -- H.S.Rai http://www.grex.org/~hsrai | Registered Linux User # 223684 http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=223684 Try to get all of your posthumous medals in advance.

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WSF
by Arun M 31 Oct '03

31 Oct '03

World Social Forum and FSF India. http://www.gnu.org.in/fsfiwsf.html Background The World Social Forum, 2004 is being held at Mumbai, India, from January 16th to 21st. Click here for more details about the event. Free Software Foundation of India, as an organization committed to promoting and propagating swatantra software in India is organizing seminars on free software at the WSF. Details will be posted here soon. The WSF, according to its charter, is " ... an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and inter-linking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neo- liberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a society centred on the human person". We are seeking active participation from all people interested in helping us. You can help us in the form of:- 1. Monetary Contributions - we need funds to cover the travel expenses of volunteers for FSF - India at the WSF 2. Hardware loans - the FSF - India is planning to put up stalls for demonstrating free software at the venue. We require hardware for demonstrating capabilities of free software. 3. Volunteers - people to run the stall the FSF-India will be putting up at the venue of WSF India; volunteers should be well versed in the concepts and philosophy of free software and also should be able to demonstrate software and applications to visitors -- a thorough knowledge of the GNU history and philosophy pages is required. If you can help in any way, including, but not restricted to above, please feel free to mail us at gnu at gnu dot org dot in. -- Arun M <arun(a)gnu.org.in> FSF India

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LFY GNU/Linux Asia meet in Delhi...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 30 Oct '03

30 Oct '03

This offer is from the editor of Linux For You. Would FSF-India be interested? FN On Wed, 29 Oct 2003, rahul wrote: > From: rahul [mailto:rahul@efyindia.com] > Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 5:41 PM > To: 'Frederick Noronha (FN)' > Subject: RE: For Rahul (LFY) > > > Hi Fred,... > > As for Free Software--we surely could provide a free stall booth to free > software team. As soon as the forms are ready, will have those sent to > you--with no payments involved....

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A shut Gates on open source
by V. Sasi Kumar 27 Oct '03

27 Oct '03

This is a report from the Australian press. V. Sasi Kumar A shut Gates on open source James Riley OCTOBER 23, 2003 MICROSOFT founder and chairman Bill Gates has slammed moves by political parties in Australia and elsewhere to legislate the adoption of open source software. In an interview with The Australian at the Microsoft Office System launch in New York, Mr Gates said any such moves by government were wrongheaded and would result in a reduction in public sector productivity. Mr Gates claimed the open source system was "inferior" and said it represented a false economy in relation to lost opportunities to improve productivity. "Our position is that organisations should simply buy the best software for their situation," he said. "Forcing people to use software that is inefficient? Do you want your Government to be efficient? "Governments are very information-driven. They are not factories. It's all just information," he said. In the past 10 months, politicians at various levels in Australia, Brazil, China, South Korea and Japan have suggested that government procurement procedures should mandate at least the consideration of open source alternatives to reduce overall IT costs. China, South Korea and Japan have outlined tentative plans to design their own open source operating system to compete with Microsoft Windows and applications to compete with Microsoft Office as a means of reducing IT pressures on the public purse. "I think it's just commonsense that people won't choose to use inferior software. People want their tax dollars to go as far as possible, and in most cases they will see more value in the offerings that we provide," Mr Gates said. The Australian Government, particularly the Australian Taxation Office, Centrelink and various health agencies had invested heavily in XML-based technologies and processes. Mr Gates said the argument that its software was too expensive was simply wrong. And despite complaints from some Third World governments about Microsoft's global pricing - where the company's software essentially carries the same list price wherever it is sold -- he maintains the company has been the primary driver in pushing down the cost of IT systems. "Our business model is entirely oriented toward high volume, low price," Mr Gates said. "In any IT project, our software is going to be just 1 or 2 per cent of (the project cost)." Meanwhile, Mr Gates has renewed Microsoft's recent pledges to radically improve its security procedures in conjunction with the rest of the industry following the unprecedented levels of virus and worm outbreaks in recent months. "This is a case where the industry and Microsoft need to do better, (although) the vast majority of our customers have not been affected by these problems," Mr Gates said. "But we take responsibility for the fact that it was too hard for people to know whether they had their firewalls up the right way, and that it was too hard for them to keep their (security patch) software up to date. "If we can make those (functions) incredibly easy, then we'll bring down the scale of these incidents and the frequency very dramatically." He said that improving security on all Microsoft functions had been made a primary focus of the company's $US6 billion ($8.6 billion) research and development budget.

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An open letter to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer Letter
by Soundara Rajan N.S 26 Oct '03

26 Oct '03

An open letter to Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer Letter By newsdesk(a)theinquirer.net The Letterman: Saturday 25 October 2003, 15:16 Messrs William Gates Jnr & Steven Ballmer Microsoft Corporation One Microsoft Way Redmond Washington, USA Dear Sirs I see you have been active again in making interesting and to some degree highly amusing statements about Free/Libre Open Source Software and the many and varied people who make up its community. I in particular would like to thank Mr. Steven Ballmer for your entertaining exposee of Linux's deepest, darkest secret - that it can seriously worry the senior executive of a convicted predatory monopoly, without that ever having been the intention of its principal software designer and initial developer. I would also like to thank you for humming and hawing around the question of the release of source code to people who can use it, in the light of the new MVP source code entitlement program. Well, are they deserving members of the Windows development team or not? In relation to your comments, Steve Ballmer, on Linux's "road map", I will refrain from expounding on Linus Torvalds' comment on the cover of one of Bill Gates' books, showing him standing in the middle of an empty road. It's not nice to make jokes like that, is it, Your Billness? Road kill is no joke, even if some enterprising chef has written a book about it. No, I have something else on my mind, something much more worthy. I would like to challenge you to a software coding bake-out, a bet to see which methodology works, and which doesn't. You have made some progress with your NT source tree, anyone can see that - Windows 2k3 is a more serious product than Windows XP, and definitely a more realistic - and much more massive - product than Windows 95. Congratulations. You have also declared that Windows 95, Windows NT 3.x and NT 4.x are discontinued, end-of-line, unsupported products. And Windows 98 is shortly going to be in the same category, having already been discontinued. And Microsoft is attempting to roll the Win9x features into the NT line. XP is the nearest you have come to success. In the process, Windows users have enjoyed an interesting remote use of RPC and other features that might otherwise bug you. And in the process you have put back Longhorn's release date. My challenge is this - release the entire range of discontinued, end-of-line and unsupported Operating Systems mentioned above (Win9x, NT 3.x and Win4.x) and their related utilities and Productivity Applications, as Open Source under the BSD/MIT license, since you have stated at sundry times and in diverse manners that that license is one you can live with. You are of course expected to sanitise the source trees - we don't want trouble with absurd IP cases. Release the sanitised source trees, minus any bits and pieces of third-party encumbered code Microsoft may have in the Win9x and NT 3.x and 4.x source trees, to the ftp servers at the MIT, ibiblio, the U of Calif. at Berkeley, and the U of Cambridge, UK, with prominent notices stating that they are released under the terms of the BSD/MIT licenses placed in slashdot.org, newsforge.com, computerworld.com, news.com.com, www.theinquirer.net and www.theregister.co.uk and other industry news outlets. My bet is that in the time it takes Microsoft to come up with a half-way decent Windows product, the Open Source development process starting from an earlier, identical initial source tree without constraints will produce one better. The length of time is going to be the same. On one side you have the multi-billion dollar transnational corporation, on the other you have an amorphous world-wide community. One has a head start, but the code bases for this challenge are the same. The only catch - Microsoft is not allowed to use the source code produced by the open source effort until after it has rolled out Longhorn - thus preserving the independence of the challengers, who will not have access to the Longhorn source tree. After the challenge has finished and the bets have been tallied up, then it is a totally different story, because the BSD/MIT license doesn't prohibit incorporation within a closed-source code base, only the denial of attribution. But should Microsoft use the independent effort's code during such a challenge, it would be an admission that the Free/Libre Open Source community is right, and must be met with an appropriate forfeit - the sanitising and opening of the Longhorn source tree. I propose in the interim that the challenge in the interim be named something other than Windows or Office - precisely what will have to be decided upon later. So, there you have it. Are either of you betting men, able to face a challenge? Yours Sincerely Wesley Parish (wes.parish(a)paradise.net.nz) Source: http://www.theInquirer.net/?article=12331

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Microsoft selling anti-Linux speech on CD
by Soundara Rajan N.S 26 Oct '03

26 Oct '03

Microsoft selling anti-Linux speech on CD Volish partners to pay for brainwash? By Fernando Cassia: Wednesday 22 October 2003, 13:30 "Public relations wizards concoct and spin the news, organize phony 'grass-roots' front groups, and conspire with lobbyists". "Toxic Sludge is Good for You: lies, damn lies, and the Public Relations Industry". IT IS NOT news that Microsoft would like to see the Linux airship go down in flames like the Hindenburg. In June 2001, the PR wizards at the Vole's Marketing Department created a document titled 'Partner Guide: Competing with Linux'. It was a training course for Microsoft partners who were obviously getting increasing competition from Linux. That document was dissected and debunked at the time. But now some of our readers whispered to us that Microsoft is selling an updated -we guess- version of this marketing weapon of mass destruction, in the form of a CD-ROM disc to their "Business Partners" which is linked from the web page dedicated to the company's sales and marketing efforts..... Read more at http://www.theInquirer.net/?article=12276

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Re: [fsug-kochi-discuss]Re: Can you pleaze help me ?
by Biju G C 24 Oct '03

24 Oct '03

--- "Mahesh T. Pai" <paivakil(a)vsnl.net> wrote: > > I recall that it used to ISO 8859 or some such. Yes the HTML says "charset=iso-8859-1", but they are using something else cheers Biju ________________________________________________________________________ Want to chat instantly with your online friends? Get the FREE Yahoo! Messenger http://mail.messenger.yahoo.co.uk

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Re: Can you pleaze help me ?
by Biju G C 23 Oct '03

23 Oct '03

Hi all, Can somebody tell me is it possible to view http://www.madhyamamonline.com/ in GNU/Linux If so how? I tried installing http://www.madhyamamonline.com/font.zip Their FAQ tell it is not possible to view in netscape. If I know the "char-set encoding" used I can http://www.madhyamamonline.com/ my mozilla extension to do auto switching http://downloads.us-east3.mozdev.org/quicktools/AutoCharacterCoding.xpi --- nasir nasir <kollathodi(a)yahoo_com> wrote: hi biju, Sorry if I am wrong to contact you for this. But I came across your name while googling for a malayalam font issue.(http://gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2003-October/001214.html). I was unable to view malayalam fonts in my GNU/Linux and thanx to your hack, its working now. But I still have a problem, even though I am able to view most of the sites like www.manoramaonline.com, I am unable to get www.madhyamamonline.com with this. I think they use different character set. I have downloaded and installed the font also. Still not working. Could you please check and suggest me what to do ? I am not a web designer and not familiar with these language settings and all. So plesae ignore this mail if its something trivial. Once again thanx for your great work. Regards, Nasirudheen ________________________________________________________________________ Want to chat instantly with your online friends? Get the FREE Yahoo! Messenger http://mail.messenger.yahoo.co.uk

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Celebrate with free software
by Ramanraj K 22 Oct '03

22 Oct '03

Dear Countrymen, There is perhaps no other nation that remembers and celebrates freedom as much as we do. Diwali reminds us about the the end of the cruel demon, who finally wished that we rejoice his gory conquest and the triumph of freedom, with sweets and festivities. Free software is yet another reason we have to celebrate, not once a year but every moment of consciousness. It heralds in an era when we can find freedom from the modern day demons of corruption, concoction, commission, collection, concession, capitation, congestion, cunningmen, chickenmen, and cynicalmen. We could call all these together as c10n. This is c10n - version 1.0, updates are welcome! Regards, K. Ramanraj.

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INTRODUCING: Hong Feng... of China
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 20 Oct '03

20 Oct '03

SELF-INTRO OF Hong Feng... interesting to see what others in Asia are upto. FN ----- My name is Hong Feng. I was born in 1968 in HuNan Province, China. After graduated from my university, I'd studied mathematics and Pansystems Methodology after the theory founder, Prof. Wu XueMou, in Wuhan during 1988-1991. In 1992-1995, I visited Russia and stayed in Moscow. I was greatly impressed by the Russian social reforms. I founded RON's Datacom Co., Ltd. with other 2 people in May 1995 when I returned from Russia. Since then, I have been exploring how to build a successful business model on the basis of free software (which has wrongly been called as "open sources software" since 1998 in the public media and by part of the community). Free software is so interesting, I have been enthusiastically promoting it in China for years. During 1997-1999, I had worked as the chief editor at O'Reilly & Associates in Beijing. It is an American publisher of computer books. During that time, I translated several books from English into Chinese. But I no longer effort any proprietary publications in the 21st Century. In my spare time, I like reading books on various topics, especially philosophy and history (I should admit I am too bookish); travelling to some places with beautiful nature scenes (one of the places I dream to visit someday is the Kamchatka in Russia); collecting some Chinese traditional style paintings and Russian paintings; swimming in natural rivers and lakes (especially the Han River near my Wuhan home in the summer); and watching the soccer matches. I am a true music fan! I like to play harmonica (mouthorgan) and Spanish guitar. Now I make some excises with a common saw and a bow (that's a quite new invented music instrument. The voice is a little bit like that of a Hawaiian guitar). I admire and respect a few famous scholars, including: * H. Poincare * G. Cantor * A. Einstein * B. Russell * E. Brouwer * D. Hilbert * K. Goedel * A. Robinson I like some poems too, two poets I like the most are Mao ZeDong, and Heinrich Heine because the poems of both in their youth, are quite romantic, but became more revolutionary and less romantic later. My most favorite author is Isaac Asimov, for his unmatchable imagination and high productivity in such high quality. I do not like to follow any sort of so-called "authorities", which forbid my freedom and the independency. I believe the intrinsics of the nature is a "regret" caused by uncompleteness. I have a baby named "MNM Project" (MNM's Not a Million), who is 2 years old now. I am taking care of him to protect my freedom! A large part of the project is Hackerdom Training Program (HTP) going on now. I am a freelance writer, the author of 4 books, including "Free Software: New Game Rules". I am also the publisher of FREE SOFTWARE Magazine (FSM). Till now, it is the only free (the ``free'' in freedom) monthly periodical devoted to the global free software community. It has both a web version and a paper version; both are free to copy and redistribute. I am still writing a biography for my friend, Richard Stallman (the Chinese title of the book is "RMS BenJi") who is the Chairman and one of the founders of Free Software Foundation. It is a hard project, as I try to unleash the technical details of his software in Part II of the book. I would like to write more biographies into the BenJi series for free books (as a part of MNM Project). To publish the free books in Chinese, I need to have a set of nice free fonts. I am designing high quality, free PostScript fonts in METAPOST. Since Chinese has thousands of characters to design, this project is still undergoing. PostScript specification is open, and widely supported by the publishing industry. GNU has a tool, "Ghostscript", which can interpret PostScript files; it is also a stack-based programming language. Because the typesetting is so fun, I founded the Chinese TeX User Group (CTUG) in 2000, which aims to promote Prof. Donald Knuth's TeX system for the community. As a programmer, I like some programming languages, including Lisp, (Objective) C and assembly. Now I heavily work with Scheme for hacking and training. Scheme is a modern dialect of Lisp, quite small yet very powerful indeed (I shall say it is RMS who showed me the power and elegance of Lisp). Maybe you like it too and are interested in joining my MNM Project? You can reach me by snail address: Suite 3-3, WuZhong Street 200, DongXiHu District, Wuhan, HuBei Province, 430040 China P.R. Or, electronically by email: info(a)mail.rons.net.cn to feedback your comment to the web page.

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[Fsf-friends] Indianisation ahoy... talks in Goa on Indian language computing
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 20 Oct '03

20 Oct '03

--------------------------- * Indian Linux project * * http://www.indlinux.org * --------------------------- INDIANISATION AHOY: That untiring campaigner on Indianisation issues, G Karunakar <karunakar(a)indlinux.org> -- to visit the 'Paradise LUG' chapter in Goa later this week -- informs us that IndLinux Milan CD 0.7-2 alpha has been released. Some time back the final release notes were yet to be up. But, says he, you can track the release notes at http://www.indlinux.org/wiki/index.php?IndLinuxMilanReleaseNotes Good news! G Karunakar confirms that he will be in Goa this weekend. He has agreed to allow us to take (fair) advantage of his presence here. He will be speaking about current initiatives at Indian language computing attempts on the GNU/Linux platform. Venue: PCC College of Engineering Location: Along Panjim-Margao highway, 3 kms before Margao Date: October 23, 2003 (Thursday) Time: 4 pm Subject: The Indian Language Desktop Venue: CSI, Computer Society of India Office Location: Naguesh Apts, 3rd Floor, Opp Navtara Hotel, Panjim Market Area, Panjim. Date: October 25, 2003 (Saturday) Time: 4 pm to 6 pm Subject: Indianisation of Computing: The Tech Stuff For those interested in Konkani (or work in any other small language) karunakar(a)freedomink.org recently mentioned: The starting point for translation is to start with the gnome glossary, its a collection of most commonly occuring tech terms, which are used a lot in translations. Work becomes easy if you have this done first, then po files can be taken up. You can get the glossary files at http://www.indlinux.org/downloads/gnomegloss/ Also announce on the gnome-i18n list (see http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gtp/) Also read a rough howto on doing translations at http://www.indlinux.org/hindi/gnome/howto.txt One of Karunakar's preferred quotes: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- A reasonable man adapts himself to the world An unreasonable man tries to adapt the world to himself So all progress in the world depends on the unreasonable man - GB Shaw

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Letter to the Hindu from RMS
by Arun M 19 Oct '03

19 Oct '03

Dear Editors Your Sep 27 article, When "Piracy" Funds Terrorism, violated a basic principle of journalism: not to make an accusation without positive grounds. It accused unauthorized CD producers of funding terrorism, but cited no grounds for this except that some of them are in Pakistan. I have no great sympathy for those who commercially copy music without paying the musicians. (That includes the major record labels, since most of their musicians do not actually receive royalties for their records.) But we must reject the attempts to demonize those who copy, whether it means saying they support terrorists or simply calling them "pirates", because this propaganda campaign doesn't stop with commercial copiers. Its real target is you and me--anyone who sometimes copies a record. The real terror campaign is being mounted by the record companies, which are suing hundreds and perhaps soon thousands of ordinary people in the US. It aims to make people so frightened that they do not dare share with their friends. Helping one's friends is part of human nature, so it takes a lot of fear to make people stop. I hope that the citizens of India will insist on keeping India safe from record company terror. Richard Stallman 545 Tech Square Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

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GNULinuxIndia * Oct 18, 2003
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 18 Oct '03

18 Oct '03

-------------------- --------------------------- * BytesForAll * * Indian Linux project * * bytesforall.org * * http://www.indlinux.org * --------------------- --------------------------- 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 * Oct 18,2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------- SOME GNU/Linux mailing lists: Linux-India-General, Linux-India-Help and Linux-India-Programming. * Send Linux-india-general mailing list submissions to linux-india-general(a)lists.sourceforge.net * To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-india-general * or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to linux-india-general-request(a)lists.sourceforge.net * You can reach the person managing the list at linux-india-general-admin(a)lists.sourceforge.net * (The LIH and LIP lists can also be reached by replacing the word *general* above by the words *help* and *programming*, respectively.) TRIVANDRUM USERS' GROUP: Rajkumar S <s_raj(a)flashmail.com> announced the new url of Trivandrum Linux users group: http://triglug.sarovar.org/ GNU/LINUX DEMO DAY: ILUGC conducted a Linux Demo Day @ MIT Chennai on last month 27th and 28th. Nearly 1000 people are visited the event, according to Bharati S of the IndLinux team, DON Lab, TeNeT Group, IIT-Madras, Chennai. Read the report at http://www.chennailug.org/ldd.html PROGRAMMERS WITHOUT FRONTIERS? This is from my friends Geert Lovink <geert(a)xs4all.nl> of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia and Seppo Koskela of the Applied Linux Institute in Helsinki, Finland and FN of BytesForAll from Goa, India who say: "We would to ask your opinion -- and possible involvement -- in the following idea. A few weeks ago, in Geneva, during difficult negotations about the Plan of Action for the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), an idea was launched--and then dropped -- to create 'Programmers without Frontiers'. Would you be interested to give this idea more shape and actually create such a network? The form of such a networked organization is open and it's aim lies in supporting the spreading of FL/OSS and consolidating the collaboration between users and programmers, especially in the South. If the UN is not able to create and launch it, should we do it? Looking forward to your response." A LIVE-CD IN THE BANGLA LANGUAGE: Sayamindu Dasgupta <sayamindu(a)clai.net>, the young achiever of the Free Software network from Kolkata in eastern India, recently announced the Ankur Bangla LiveCD version 1.0-beta2 (codenamed DaanpiTe Chhele). He wrote: "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, The Ankur Bangla Project is proud announce version 1.0-beta2 (DaanpiTe Chhele) of its Morphix based LiveCD (or if you prefer it in that way -- demo CD)." What is it? The Ankur Bangla LiveCD is a 'khichuri' created out of some of the finest GNU/Linux distributions out there. The bootup, hardware detection and shutdown is done by a combination of Debian GNU/Linux, Knoppix and Morphix. The non GUI system is based on Slackware Linux 9.0 while the GUI runs a version of GNOME 2.4, specifically patched and compiled for the Ankur Bangla group to show off its works. (Yep right! - "patched" means that there is extra functionality and eyecandy) Requirements? The Ankur LiveCD requires 16 MB of RAM and a i486 compatible CPU to run in command line mode. However, to see anything in Bangla, you will have to run the CD in GUI mode, which requires a minimum of 128 MB RAM and a 400 Mhz or better processor to run. You can use it with lesser RAM and lots of swap space, but there's no guarantee this would work! What does it do? With this LiveCD, we aim to provide everything that a stock Windows(TM) install provides. This means, you get a fully functional desktop, a plain-text editor (with beta level support for Bengali spellchecking), a web browser (to render UTF-8 encoded Bangla web-pages perfectly), an instant messaging client, a standalone FTP client, a VCD/DVD/videofile/audiofile/audio CD player, a CD burning software with basic functionality, an image viewer, numerous games, a PDF and PS file viewer, a terminal emulator, a program similar to Microsoft(TM) Netmeeting (TM), a sound recorder, a webcam management utility (being tested), a fancy calculator, a dictionary, an archiver and a "really fancy" character map utility, a system log watching tool, a nice little wizard-based network setup tool. Just pop the CD into the drive, reboot, sit back and relax. In most cases all your hardware will be autodetected, and you will be inside the Desktop in no time. To see screenshots see www.bengalinux.org/screenshots/gnome/ Interested? Contact sayamindu(a)clai.net WORLD SOCIAL FORUM IN MUMBAI (BOMBAY) AND FREE SOFTWARE: Warren Norrix is working with the World Social Forum (India) in Bombay. On behalf of the Free Software Foundation India, he will be coordinating activities of Free Software Movement in WSF which meets in this Indian city in early 2004. Says Arun <arun(a)gnu.org>: Warren should be able to update us soon on what he is doing and what are to be done etc. Can we have a list of organisation relating to free software who would be coming for the event? List of programs to be organised?... MORE DETAILS on the above from : www.hipatia.info - info(a)hipatia.info - www.fsm.hipatia.info wiki.hipatia.info/wiki/1.3.4/index.php?pagename=Foro%20Social%20Mundial%202004 -------------------- Fsm2004 mailing list Fsm2004(a)hipatia.info http://listas.hipatia.info/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fsm2004 SITEWATCH: http://sarovar.org ... check this site that's trying to build itself up as an Indian sourceforge. Can it work? Your help is vital! MOZILLA THAT SUPPORTS INDIC LANGUAGES: raj(a)linuxense.com informs that he has uploaded a mozilla with experimental patches to support indic languages at http://www.linuxense.com/oss/render/mozilla/index.html Even though the seb pages indicate the Malayalam language, there is nothing Malayalam-sepcific in that and all Indian languages should be able to use that, he says. Please pass this note along and bugs and test cases should be reported at http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=215219 FINNISH CAMPAIGNER IN INDIA: Timo Mielonen <timo.mielonen(a)maailma.net> from Finland writes in to say that Marko Ulvila will be shortly visiting India. He was one of key persons when the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs decided to study the role of Free/Libre and Open Source Software in the Third World. Ulvila is a senior activist engaged with a number of movement groups and NGOs. One of his interest is the struggle for freedom of knowledge and information. For this reason, he is an active proponent of free software. In 2000-2002 he was a special advisor to minister for development cooperation, Ms. Satu Hassi (of the Greens Party) who initiated the study on FLOSS in the 'developing' countries. Now he is engaged with a Finnish NGO Coalition for Environment and Development, which is co-organising a number of worksops for Mumbai World Social Forum. Although free software is not on the agenda of CED, Marko is keen to get in touch with the Indian activists in this field. As a GNU/Linux user since 1998 he is keen to deepen his knowledge of and expand his contacts with the members of the community. He will be in India from beginning October to end of January. marko.ulvila(a)kaapeli.fi says himself that he's in Delhi from October 2, in Goa from around Dec 22 to Jan 2, and in Mumbai after that. AT THE GOA ENGINEERING COLLEGE: http://ele.gec.ac.in/resources.html is the site of the Goa Engineering College, which allows students to download a number of distros, tutorials, documentation and other GNU/Linux related material for free and share it with freedom. Incidentally, GEC-Farmagudi was on the itinerary of Free Software Foundation founder Dr Richard M Stallman, when he visited Goa in November 2002. FLOSS champions there include the highly-skilled Prof MSR (Rayadu) and the untiring Prof (Dr) George Easay. ########################################################################## # Send submissions for comp.os.linux.announce to: cola(a)stump.algebra.com # # PLEASE remember a short description of the software and the LOCATION. # # This group is archived at http://stump.algebra.com/~cola/ # ########################################################################## LISTING PACKAGES WRITTEN BY INDIANS: Radhakrishnan CV <cvr(a)tug.org> says on behalf of TUGIndia -- the active and helpful TeX user group -- that TUGIndia contemplate to create a comprehensive page, listing all the packages written by Indians with links and pointers for download. Says he: "I would therefore, earnestly request authors of TeX packages, fonts, utilities and documentation that are released under anyone of the free/open source licences with download links to me privately. A brief writeup about the package would also be helpful. Your cooperation in this matter would be highly appreciated. We would also mirror all the stuff at sarovar.org " Indian TeX Users Group ---------------------- Home: http://www.tug.org.in/ Subscribe: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/tugindia FLOSS TODAY? Keep abrest with what's happening on the FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) front in India on a daily basis. Flosstoday mailing list Flosstoday(a)mail.sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/flosstoday FINDING FLOSS IN SOUTH ASIA: Partha Sarkar <partha(a)bytesforall.org> from Bangladesh offers some links to people working in the field of FLOSS, from his part of South Asia, when we recently asked him. Says he: "Anir Chowdhury" <anir(a)evastra.com is involved with developing Bangla Linux in Bangladesh. "Sayeedur Rahman" <bangla_ict(a)yahoo.com who runs a list on Bangladesh ICT development and is a UNIX specialist. Muhammad Muquit (http://www.muquit.com/muquit/whoami.html) Email: muquit(a)muquit.com. I think these would help. They would also be able to give you more contacts if you need that." If anyone could offer more links to GNU/Linux enthusiasts in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka, it would be very helpful. FROM KOCHI, SOUTH INDIA: Vimal <vimalekm(a)vsnl.net> tell sus that there is a Free Software User Group in Kochi. Check http://puggy.symonds.net/~fsug-kochi Says Vimal: "There is also a very active mailing list." See http://www.symonds.net/mailman/listinfo/fsug-kochi-discuss -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 of cost, and free in other ways too!) by sending an email to linuxinindia-request(a)freelists.org with 'subscribe' in the subject field OR by logging in on to www.freelists.org (a great place to set up free-of-cost technology-related lists!). You can go there directly by clicking on the URL below http://www.freelists.org/cgi-bin/list?list_id=linuxinindia --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Some confusions on Indiaoptions.com
by CK Raju 17 Oct '03

17 Oct '03

There are reports that Indiaoptions.com that has been quite regular in advertising on RHCE courses, are giving confusing remarks on GNU and other related technologies. The first case was reported from the presentation held by the Thrissur centre and now the Kozhikode centre also appears to have made similar remarks. In a fair game, as a defender of proprietary software, attacking the Free Software could be OK, but when it happens under the pretext of offering courses and conducting seminars on Free Software, perhaps the strategy should be aptly called unethical. Does anyone here know more on this company, its dealings and its intentions ? Or is it a new found strategy of M$ ? CK Raju Thrissur

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GNULinuxInIndia Oct 15, 2003
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 15 Oct '03

15 Oct '03

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 * Oct 15,2003 -------------------------------------------------------------------- INDIA... AT THE LINUX COUNTER: Linux Counter has a total of 138722 people registered. 1407 users have been registered by friends. There are 124367 machines registered. This network guesstimates that between 0.2% and 5% of all Linux users have registered with the Linux Counter. So the total number of Linux users is probably between 2,774,440 and 69,361,000 people. Among the country-wide ratings, India is ranked only 137th overall, when judged by GNU/Linux uers per million population. But in terms of overall number of GNU/Linux users registered, India with 2843 registered users is only behind the US (28514 registered users), Germany (11307), Brazil (9785), France (6479), Spain (5558), Great Britain (5307), Canada (4600), Italy (4517), the Netherlands (3595), Sweden (3300), Finland (3137 users). India is ahead of Russia, Mexico and China. Probably improved connectivity to the Net here would make more people aware of the Linux Counter, and give users a better chance to register. Linux Counter recently completed 10 years of its existance. This compiler (FN) is proud to be associated with this initiative, as a volunteer covering Goa-India. More volunteers welcome for regional Indian states. If you use GNU/Linux, acknowledge your debt to the volunteers who (and the philosophy that) made it happen! Not just Linux the kernel, but also GNU! Register at http://counter.li.org 'INDIA'S BIGGEST OPEN SOURCE EVENT': Linux Bangalore/2003, what is called "India's biggest Open Source event", is being held from December 2-4 at Bangalore, India. For details visit http://linux-bangalore.org/2003 Organisers have just announced that speaker registration for Linux Bangalore/2003 is now open. If you wish to be considered to give a talk at Linux Bangalore/2003, check http://linux-bangalore.org/2003/register/ Speaker guidelines at: http://linux-bangalore.org/2003/guides/speakers.php Speaker registration will be provisionally open till November 8th. Some 70+ talk slots will be available. Talks will be selected after that. Those wanting to keep abrest with plans for the event, join the list by sending a blank email to linux-bangalore-2003-subscribe(a)yahoogroups.com LFY ANNOUNCES Linux Asia 2004 IN DELHI, FEB 2004: Linux For You, Asia's first Linux magazine, today announced holding of Linux Asia 2004. The event is aimed at shifting Linux from labs to offices. Linux Asia 2004 will be held from February 11th - 13th, 2004 (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) at The India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. It says it will be "the largest ever event on Linux in India". http://newsvac.newsforge.com/newsvac/03/09/29/1618251.shtml?tid=52 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ########################################################################### --------------------------------------------------------------------------- BUY GNU/LINUX CDs at Rs 30 per CD (plus postage). This network, run by Aniket Navelkar <aniket(a)gmx.net> is supported by the GNU/Linux Users Group of Margao, Goa. To place an order for your personal copy and for further info, pls contact aniket(a)gmx.net. Payment via cash, DD, money order or SBI electronic transfer. Distros currently available include Debian 3.0, Redhat 9.0, Mandrake 9.1, Knoppix 3.3 and 3.2, GNUWin 2.1 (GNU utilities for Windows!), FreeBSD 5.0, Server Optimised Linux (SOL), Dynebolic 1.03a3, The Open CD (for Windows platform), FreEDUC (educational software that boots from a CDrom), SUSE LiveEval, Gnoppix (no, this is not a spelling mistake!), Slackware 9.0, RockLinux 2.0 (lots of Windows Managers Qvwm, Fwvm2, icewm), Conectiva 9.0 (four-CD set), ArchLinux 0.5, ArkLinux, and GSCP Distro (the easy-to-set up version of the Goa Schools Computers Project). http://www.ilug-margao.org/html/cd_library.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ########################################################################### --------------------------------------------------------------------------- TeXLIVE 2003 CD NOW ON SALE: Radhakrishnan CV <cvr(a)river-valley.org> tells us that the TeXLive 2003 CD has been released (stable final release) and the have the iso images of demo, install and live versions of the CD/DVD. Says he: "Install version is what a normal user would need. Live version is ready-to-run TeX system for 12 operating systems in a DVD without installing unto your harddisk and demo is a scaled down live version for Linux, Win32 and Mac OSX alone." All the bzipped ISO images are at: http://sarovar.org/projects/texlive PDF and JPG files of all the CD/DVD labels and covers are also available at the same site. You might find details about TeXLive at: http://texlive.sarovar.org "Be warned that bzipped images of install and demo CD's are roughly 270 MB and 571 MB respectively. Compressed DVD image is 516 MB. The page might show you the filesize as single digit bytes, that's because it is a symlink from the mirror folder. TeXLive is an ongoing project at TUG, so we would sync the newest stable releases always," says he. TUGIndia is making available the TeXLive 2003 collection (3 CD set released by TUG), beautifully packaged in a nicely printed CD cover. It looks like a collectors item. They have fixed the price at Rs. 1,000 per set including forwarding and shipping costs. Says CVR: "We would dispatch CDs to the individual/institutions who have already paid the cost (of Rs. 500 which was the cost of previous release of TeXLive) and waiting for TeXLive's release without any burden of extra cost. This is in recognition of their patience and interest in TeXLive." People who are fortunate to have a fat bandwidth can grab the images from sarovar.org. They are free to make copies and distribute, but respect the licences of the packages. Says CVR: "Recently, Springer-Verlag copied TeXLive 7 CD and distributed along with one of their LaTeX books with explicit instruction on the CD that 'contents of the CD should not be copied or distributed' which is a clear violation of the licences of thousands of packages in the CD. By doing such a thing, one invites the wrath of TUG, FSF and obviously runs the risk of litigation." Compilation of the TeXLive CD is the result of the hard work of hundreds of developers' for several months apart from the terrific work of several thousand contributors who wrote all the software solely for the benefit of the user community. By purchasing the TeXLive, the cost of which is only that of the media and shipping, you promote a great movement that stands for software freedom, adds the Indian TeX Users Group. INDIANISATION AHOY: That untiring campaigner on Indianisation issues, G Karunkar <karunakar(a)indlinux.org> -- incidentally, we're awaiting this guy at the 'Paradise LUG' chapter in Goa later this month -- informs us that IndLinux Milan CD 0.7-2 alpha has been released. Some time back the final release notes were yet to be up. But, says he, you can track the release notes at http://www.indlinux.org/wiki/index.php?IndLinuxMilanReleaseNotes Download the ISO from (total size 531MB). http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11495 Features: * Based on Morphix 0.4-1 * Gnome 2.4 desktop, OpenOffice 1.1rc3 , evolution 1.4 * Extra apps added: Yudit, gtranslator, pfaedit, kbabel, gettext, balsa * Boot options for all major Indian languages added. Hindi (hi) -default, Bengali (bn), Gujarati (gu), Kannada (kn), Malayalam (ml), Marathi (mr), Oriya (or), Punjabi (pa), Tamil (ta), Telugu (te) * Language can be selected boot time by passing lang=code parameter eg. for Bengali, give morphix lang=bn; for Marati give, morphix lang=mr * Install to harddisk (morphix installer) work successfully, but use if carefully. Indic specific additions * two new fonts Gargi (devanagari), Padmaa (gujarati) - from http://www.indictrans.org * Locales for Bengali, Gujarati, Malayalam, and Punjabi * Misc changes: switching between layouts in gkb appled done by \"Shift L + Shift R\" combination. Default keyboard layout - Hindi , additional Bengali, Gujarati, Kannda, Malayalam, Tamil. OpenOffice configured to work with Hindi. Yudit also configured with Indic fonts & keyboard layouts Track IndLinux Demo CD development at http://www.indlinux.org/wiki/index.php?IndLinuxDemoCd Check this mailing list, on Indianisation of GNU/Linux, at https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/indlinux-news BILINGUAL WEB-PAGES: Harveer wanted to know how to make bi-lingual webpages with GNU/Linux. There are two ways to it you could use font based method, where you select the font and type, so font tags are used for it, and that particular font has to be installed on client side. Dynamic fonts can be used, but they won't work on GNU/Linux. Another way is to make webpages in unicode. On GNU/Linux you can use Redhat 9/MDK 9/ Morphix, all of which have Gnome 2.0. Here you will have to do all html coding urself. Mozilla composer can also be used, but its not yet supporting rendering (the stable releases). Check out http://www.geocities.com/alkuma/seehindi.html, that should help you get started. On using yudit read http://www.indlinux.org/doc/yuditguide.html Karunakaran says that they are customising Morphix to make it indian-language enabled, with commonly needed apps. Quite some people have show interest in that. Says he: "You can chekout what we are doing at http://www.indlinux.org/wiki/index.php?IndLinuxDemoCd Also check with http://smc.sarovar.org (the Malayalam localisation group). They made a malayalam knoppix CD and it was probably used in some projects." FROM MALAYSIA: The Malaysian National Computer Confederation (MNCC) and Advanced Technology Studies Centre (atSC) have embarked on a plan to promote open source technology to schools in the country. As a start, they have initiated a pilot project, with sponsorship from local businessman Datuk Siew Nim Chee, to train teachers in open source software (OSS), says a report forwarded by Doug Loss dloss(a)bloomu.edu http://www.technewsworld.com/perl/story/31762.html GARGI RENDERS FINE WITH MOST TEXTS: Prof Nagarjuna G. <nagarjun(a)hbcse.tifr.res.in> reports from Mumbai that the release of Gargi 1.1 seems to be rendering fine with most texts. Mozilla build 1.5b with CTL enabled is also available for download (15mb) from the link: http://www.gnowledge.org/Data/ObjectType/lcalznproject/ http://www.gnowledge.org/Data/Objects/mozilla/ http://www.gnowledge.org/Data/Objects/howtoFont/ Says this doughty campaigner: "Please give feed back on both mozilla and the fonts. We are soon starting xmodmaps for indian languages other than inscript and the printing problem. I will also write soon about the notes on the meeting that we had regarding printing problem where developers from NCST and RedHat participated along with Karunakar and myself." INTL OPEN SOURCE NETWORK: Irfan Khan <khania2(a)super.net.pk> draws our attention to a report on the International Open Source Network at http://www.developmentgateway.org//ict/dg-contribute/item- detail?item_id=350274&version_id=210589&from=alert The International Open Source Network (IOSN) is a Center of Excellence for free and open source software (FOSS) in the Asia- Pacific Region. Via a small secretariat, the IOSN is tasked specifically to facilitate and network FOSS advocates and human resources in ... INVITE TO JOIN THE 'LITTLE LEAGUE': Kunal <kunalbharati(a)yahoo.com> from Navi Mumbai would like to draw the attention of smaller LUGs around India to join the 'Little League', a network meant to promote GNU/Linux in the smaller regions of the country. He suggests that it might be "a good idea to mail the invitation to owners of there respective glugs (GNU/LUGS) i.e. glug listed on (the indian FLOSS magazine LinuxForYou) LFY ... and mention there that this list is not for posting and technical problems ... but for discussion about activities that each and every glug is doing". Sukrit from Pondicherry is the founder of the Little-League concept. Active campaigners from the smaller LUGs are specially invited. To join, send a blank email to little_league-subscribe(a)yahoogroups.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. FN --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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[Fsf-friends] Re: [fsug-kochi-discuss]Automatic Character Encoding switching in Mozilla/Firebird
by Biju G C 14 Oct '03

14 Oct '03

I dont know whether users are facing similar problem mentioned in following mail when visiting other Indian language sites. If so please let me know the websites and required character encoding, I will update my extension for that sites also. --- Biju G C <bijumaillist(a)yahoo.com> wrote: Hi, One of the major issue with Mozilla as well as Firebird Browsers is the need for switching the Character Encoding while visiting Malayalam newspaper sites. In GNU/Linux we can use Galeon, But when I ask many MS-Windows users (mainly NRI's) to try an open source alternative to IE, that is "Firebird" ( http://www.mozilla.org/products/firebird/ ) this becomes a major issue for them. No NRI want to use one browser for Malayalam sites and other for English sites. So they will finally end up in IE. So I created in an extension to just do the Character Encoding switching automatically. Here is the install link http://downloads.mozdev.org/quicktools/AutoCharacterCoding.xpi (source included, works for Mozilla and Firebird, on both GNU/Linux and MS-Windows) sites handled now are http://www.malayalamanorama.com/ http://www.deepika.com/ http://www.deshabhimani.com/ for http://www.mathrubhumi.com/ from menu do "View/Force Auto Font" once. Or open the links in the new tab http://www.keralakaumudi.com/ (no need for my extension) If there are other sites which give problem please let me know. I can also do same thing for other indian languages Warning: This is not a replacement for fonts, and extension wont download fonts by itself. You should download/install font by yourself. PS: After installing only GUI difference you see is menu item "View/Force Auto Font". And a Malayalam "A Ka" toolbar button in Firebird toolbar customization screen. My other extensions http://quickmanager.mozdev.org/ - a popular one at forum http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?p=215162 http://macroeditor.mozdev.org/ - a tool for newbies to create macros, or try scripts before making new extensions http://links.mozdev.org/ - A way to share links (bookmarks) with friends http://quicktools.mozdev.org/ - a collection of many small extensions ________________________________________________________________________ Want to chat instantly with your online friends? Get the FREE Yahoo! Messenger http://mail.messenger.yahoo.co.uk

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PLOS
by Arun M 13 Oct '03

13 Oct '03

First issue of journal biology from Public Library of Science available now. http://biology.plosjournals.org/ Arun

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[Fsf-friends] Fwd:extention of deadlines for event registration to 30 October 2003
by Suresh Titus John 06 Oct '03

06 Oct '03

7 6

URGENT ASSISTANCE
by frazeraloma＠netscape.net 04 Oct '03

04 Oct '03

Good Day, with warm hearts I offer my friendship, and my greetings, and I hope this letter meets you in good time. It will be surprising to you toreceive this proposal from me since you do not know me personally. However, I am sincerely seeking your confidence in this transaction, which I propose with my free mind and as a person of integrity. My name is FRAZER OTTO, the son of TIMOTHY WEWE OTTO, a farmer from Zimbabwe, murdered in the land dispute in my country. As led by my instinct, I decided to contact you through email, after searching for contacts via the internet, as it is the only means I can contact anybody since I am cutting off ties with Zimbabwe for now. Iapologize if this is not acceptable to you. The purpose of this letter is to seek your most needed assistance in a business venture. Due to the land and political problems in Zimbabwe, as a result of President Robert Mugabe's introduction of new Land Act Reform wholly affecting the rich white farmers and the few rich black farmers, all white farmers were asked to surrender their farms to the government for re-distribution and infact to his political party members and my father though black was the treasury of the farmers association and a strong member of an opposition party that did not support the president's idea. He then ordered his party members and the police under his pay row to invade my father's farm and burn down everything in the farm. They killed my father and took away a lot of items from his farm. After the death of my father, our local pastor and a close friend of my father handed us over will documents with instructions from my father that we should leave Zimbabwe incase anything happen to him. The will documents has a certificate of deposit, confirming a cash deposit totaling Fourteen million five hundred thousand united state dollars. [$14.5MUSD] Kept in custody for us in a security company ,but unknown to the company that the content is money hence it was deposited as personal belongings. This money was deposited with this Private Security Company for safety and security reasons, and was to be used for the purchase of land, new machines and chemicals establishment of new farms in Botswana. This violent and barbaric act by Mugabe has since led to the death ofmy beloved mother and kid sister and other innocent lives.I was continually threatened to abandon my inheritance from my fatherafter he was murdered. I resisted for a while, but when the danger became unbearable, and I survived two murder attempts, I fled Zimbabwe with the help of my father's close friend Mr. John Casahans from Australia also a farmer who was leaving in Zimbabwe with us but left with his family following this ugly development I have tried to reach him but all to no avail. I am currently staying in the Netherlands where I am seeking political asylum. In fact my decision to come here to seek asylum, is because the security company from South Africa, has a branch here, I have contacted them to move the safe deposit from their office in Johannesburg here, which they have since done. I need to transfer this money to an account and invest part of the money. Since the law of Netherlands prohibits a refugee (asylum seeker) to open any bank account or to be involved in any financial transaction,especially of this grate magnitude this is why I am seeking a genuine and reliable partner, whose account this money can be transferred, hence this proposal to you. You have to understand that this decision taken by me is a very big and brave one, and it entrusts my future in your hands, as a result ofthe safe keeping of this money. If you accept to assist me, all I want you to do for me, is to assist with arrangements to claim the deposit from the security company from their office here in The Netherlands, as it has now been transferred from Johannesburg, South Africa to their branch here. The company will be legally informed of you representing me. For your assistance, I have two options for you. Firstly you can choose to have 20% of the money for your assistance, and helping me open an account for the money to be deposited here, or you can go into partnership with me for the proper profitable investment of the money in your country. Whichever the option you want, please to notify me in your reply. I have also set aside 1 % of this money for all kinds of expenses that come our way in the process of this transaction, and 4%for Charity donation. If you prefer to accept the 20% for your moral and financial assistance then the balance will be leftin the account here for me. Please, I want you to maintain absolute secrecy for the purpose of this transaction. You can reach me on frazeraloma(a)netscape.net I look forward to your reply and co-operation, and I thank you in advance as I anticipate your co-operation. Sincerely, Frazer Aloma

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*Linux Journal* Oct 2003 available in Goa...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 02 Oct '03

02 Oct '03

THE OCTOBER 2003 issue of Linux Journal contains: * Why Kazaa sucks, and what you can do to avoid it * Using Mondo for bare-metal restories (backup on CDs) * Problems with NFS, and a flexible automount solution * Electronic design automation's leap for GNU/Linux * FLOSS content management systems: Bricolage FOR KERNEL HACKERS and stability fans: Paul McKenney explains the read-copy update (RCU) algorithm he developed at IBM and how he and other kernel hackers are making it work in the eagerly anticipated 2.6 kernel. FACTSHEET: --------------------------------------------- Millions of requests for Python in May 2003: 11.9 Thousands of different servers making requests for Python in May 2003: 325 -------------------------------------------- :FACTSHEET Also: o What's new in kernel development o PhotoGen, great script to create Web albums of pics o Bricolage alerts (keep track of what's happening on your site) o Using RCU in the Linux 2.5 kernel (Read-copy update is a synchronisation technique) o Make simple backups o Linux in the military o Building a GNU/Linux IPv6 DNS server o Getting started with VI o Why Iraq needs GNU/Linux (linux-iraq.org) FN -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) | http://www.fredericknoronha.net Freelance Journalist | http://www.bytesforall.org http://goalinks.pitas.com | http://joingoanet.shorturl.com http://linuxinindia.pitas.com | http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks ------------------------------------------------------------------------- T: 0091.832.2409490 or 2409783 M: 0 9822 122436 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Opportunities in Ahmedabad
by Tapan Parikh 30 Sep '03

30 Sep '03

ekgaon technologies pvt. ltd. is currently seeking technical project staff for it's Ahmedabad office. Primary areas of technology expertise desired are: - Java / J2EE Programming - XML Specification Development - SQL / Database Design and Administration - C++ / Gnome / GTK Programming - Linux Administration Succesful applicants are expected to have technical mastery of at least 2-3 of these areas, and have 1-2 years of experience developing practical applications using these technologies. Please submit plain-text resumes and descriptions of experience to jobs(a)ekgaon.com. Please do not reply directly to this message. Plain text is the preferred mode of delivery, and in no cases will attachments greater than 35KB be accepted for review. Documentation of practical technical development experience is preferred rather than academic background and other unrelated activities. ekgaon is a socially-oriented technology solutions and software company with a registered office in Ahmedabad, Gujarat and field offices in Mumbai and Madurai, Tamil Nadu. ekgaon has a history of technology development in support of social causes, and has worked on a number of development projects with NGOs, Microfinance Institutions and Community-Based Organisations. For more information please visit http://www.ekgaon.com. Once again, please do not reply directly to this message. Please submit all applications, correspondence and inquiries to jobs(a)ekgaon.com. -- ekgaon technologies pvt. ltd. -- http://www.ekgaon.com

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When letters speak
by Ramanraj K 27 Sep '03

27 Sep '03

Dear Friends, There is an article by S. Sivaraman in today's Young World Supplement to The Hindu titled "When letters speak" to commemorate Gandhi on October 2 at: http://www.hindu.com/yw/2003/09/27/stories/2003092700960100.htm It could also serve very well as a how to for email and mailing list posting content. Regards, K. Ramanraj.

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A friend from Finland visiting...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 26 Sep '03

26 Sep '03

On Fri, 26 Sep 2003, Timo Mielonen wrote: > Marko Ulvila is a senior activist engaged with a number of movement groups and > NGOs. One of his interest is the struggle for freedom of knowledge and > information. For this reason he is an active proponent of free software. In > 2000-2002 he was a special advisor to minister for development cooperation, > Ms. Satu Hassi (greens) who initiated the study on free software in > developing countries. Now he is engaged with a Finnish NGO Coalition for > Environemnt and Development which is co-organising a number of worksops for > Mumbai WSF. Although free software is not on the agenda of CED, Marko is keen > to get in touch with the Indian activists in this field. As a linux user > since 1998 he is keen to deepen his knowledge of and expand his contacts with > the members of the community. He will be in India from beginning October to > end of January. marko.ulvila(a)kaapeli.fi -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) | http://www.fredericknoronha.net Freelance Journalist | http://www.bytesforall.org http://goalinks.pitas.com | http://joingoanet.shorturl.com http://linuxinindia.pitas.com | http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks ------------------------------------------------------------------------- T: 0091.832.2409490 or 2409783 M: 0 9822 122436 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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[Fsf-friends] INDIA-GOA: User-group meeting on Saturday, Sept 27, 2003
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 25 Sep '03

25 Sep '03

OUR NEXT ILUG-Goa meeting is At : Saturday, Sept 27, 2003 Time : 4 pm to 6.30 pm (followed by contributory tea, Navtara) Venue : Computer Society of India-Goa Chapter 3rd Floor, Naguesh Apartments Opposite Navtara Hotel, Panjim Municipal Market Area (Behind Navhind Times) Panjim 403001 Goa India (see below) Talks : o Software development with GNU/Linux tools by Salil Talaulicar o Understanding Software Patents by Animesh Nerurkar Other suggestions/volunteers welcome. ^ N M A N D O V I R I V E R ---------------------------------------------------------------- < To Miramar To Ferry Jetty > ---------------------------------------------------------------- Panjim Navhind Times Market Tempo Stand Naguesh Apts HOTEL NAVTARA The above is a rough location map. Not to scale. For directions phone 9822 122436 during meeting hours. FN -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) | http://www.fredericknoronha.net Freelance Journalist | http://www.bytesforall.org http://goalinks.pitas.com | http://joingoanet.shorturl.com http://linuxinindia.pitas.com | http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks ------------------------------------------------------------------------- T: 0091.832.2409490 or 2409783 M: 0 9822 122436 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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WSIS
by Arun M 25 Sep '03

25 Sep '03

> -----Original Message----- > From: plenary-admin(a)wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin@wsis-cs.org] On > Behalf Of Georg C. F. Greve > Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2003 5:11 AM > To: plenary(a)wsis-cs.org > Cc: wsis-pct(a)fsfeurope.org > Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] plenary statement of the Patents, Copyright and > Trademarks (PCT) work group (September 23rd) > > Patents, Copyright, Trademarks (PCT) Working Group > > Civil Society Statement for WSIS Plenary September 23rd, 2003 > > > Georg Greve speaking on behalf of the civil society patents, copyright > and trademarks working group. > > Each generation of mankind is depending upon its predecessors to leave > them with a livable, sustainable and stable environment. The > environment we are discussing today is that of the information age and > future generations will be looking at what we have achieved or not > achieved here. > > To a large extent, this future rests on three columns. > > Science, to advance human knowledge, Law, to provide means of > non-violent conflict resolution and Software, to enter and be part of > the digital domain. All of these three are in imminent danger. > > When asked why he could see so far, Sir Isaac Newton replied that he > was standing on the shoulders of giants. Imagine a world where those > giants refuse to let him stand on their shoulders. Yet this is the > direction that the access to information and knowledge section is > taking. Access to information is how we climb upon the shoulders of > the giants that were before us. > > Law is a tool with which we shape our society. Like any tool it can > turn against its creators. By monopolizing control over our common > heritage as mankind, we give permission to deplete the intellectual > and cultural grounds that future generations will need to build > upon. A strong and healthy public domain of knowledge will be just as > important to them as it was to us. > > Software is the medium of and structuring entity for the digital > domain. The information age will rest upon it. Having been denounced > as a technical development model, Free Software is much more than > that. It is a paradigm that secures equal chances and freedom for > governments, economy and civil society alike. It provides a truly > sustainable model for all areas of society, bringing back competition > and furthering innovation for a prosperous and inclusive information > and knowledge society for all. > > Dear delegates, thank you for your attention. > > -- > Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)fsfeurope.org> > Free Software Foundation Europe > (http://fsfeurope.org) > GNU Business Network (http://mailman.gnubiz.org) > Brave GNU World (http://brave-gnu-world.org)

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HP says will indemnify customers on use of Linux
by Soundara Rajan N.S 25 Sep '03

25 Sep '03

HP says will indemnify customers on use of Linux Reuters, 09.24.03, 12:32 PM ET By Duncan Martell SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co. Wednesday said it would indemnify its customers who use the Linux operating system against potential legal troubles stemming from SCO Group Inc.'s ongoing lawsuit against International Business Machines Corp. alleging copyright infringement. "Today HP becomes the first major Linux vendor to offer ... indemnification from alleged copyright infringement," said Martin Fink, HP's vice president for Linux in a conference call with reporters. SCO, which claims its blueprint for Unix software is used illegally in versions of the free Linux operating system, Wednesday praised HP's decision to indemnify its customers against possible legal tangles using Linux. "Rather than deny the existence of substantial structural problems with Linux as many Open Source leaders have done, HP is acknowledging that issues exist and is attempting to be responsive to its customers' request for relief," SCO said in a statement. Many users and developers of Linux, which is called open source because it can be copied and modified freely, unlike proprietary software such as Unix and Microsoft Corp.'s Windows, have rejected SCO's claims, saying SCO has yet to provide proof that their intellectual property is used in Linux. SCO, which owns the right to Unix, the networking software program upon which Linux is based, sued IBM for billions earlier this year for introducing Unix code into Linux. SCO is also going after companies to pay to use Linux or face litigation." So long as customers do not modify the Linux software code on systems that HP sells using Red Hat Inc.'s and closely held SuSe's and other Linux software, they will be indemnified, Fink said. Customers will be indemnified on systems that are purchased after Oct. 1, Fink said. "We have not signed any Linux-specific agreement with SCO and have not exchanged any monies with respect to indemnification," Fink said. "We're giving the green light to customers on moving forward on their Linux deployment," Fink said, adding that it was up to the court to decide whether or not SCO's claims had any merit. Copyright 2003, Reuters News Service

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FLOSS in Sri Lanka...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 23 Sep '03

23 Sep '03

Does anyone have links with Free/Libre and Open Source Software campaigners in Sri Lanka? Thanks a lot. FN -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) | http://www.fredericknoronha.net Freelance Journalist | http://www.bytesforall.org http://goalinks.pitas.com | http://joingoanet.shorturl.com http://linuxinindia.pitas.com | http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks ------------------------------------------------------------------------- T: 0091.832.2409490 or 2409783 M: 0 9822 122436 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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[Fsf-friends] GNU/Linux updates... Linux-based phones, Java, crypto...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 20 Sep '03

20 Sep '03

<http://newsvac.newsforge.com/newsvac/03/09/19/136233.shtml?tid=52> patricia colby writes "Market's Most Popular Open Mobile Alliance Standards Suite Speeds Linux Phones To Market. DEMOmobile, La ... TRY Some 'Guerilla Capitalism': Get Dell to Pre-Install Linux for ... - LinuxWorld <http://www.linuxworld.com/story/34164_f.htm> ... I talked with their salescritters, and everything went fine until the end, when they said "And Linux, that's a Windows program, right?" I explained what Linux ... Try Some 'Guerilla Capitalism': Get Dell to Pre-Install Linux for ... REVIEW: Java Desktop System on Linux - NewsForge <http://newsforge.com/newsforge/03/09/18/003212.shtml?tid=23> Sun Microsystems' just-released Java Desktop System for x86 is a polished Linux desktop that rivals Windows XP and even Mac OS X for fit, finish and ease of use ... UPDATED crypto software supports Linux-based devices - Linux News <http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4967946397.html> ... platform cryptographic toolkit, Security Builder Crypto, which now includes FIPS-validated algorithms and support for more than 30 platforms including Linux. ... 'PENGUINSTEIN?' Tux Stars in IBM Linux Animations - LinuxWorld <http://www.linuxworld.com/story/34183.htm> "We've made every IBM e-server Linux-enabled, and now we've made a little investment in some Linux fun. We created these animated ... MANAGING Linux Systems with Webmin: System Administration and ... - Help Net Security, Croatia <http://www.net-security.org/review.php?id=103> Webmin is a software tool that offers simplified Linux/UNIX system administration from any web browser. The second Bruce Peren's ... BOOTING Linux Faster - Slashdot <http://slashdot.org/articles/03/09/18/224207.shtml?tid=106&tid=136&tid=185&…> krony writes "IBM's DeveloperWorks explains how to decrease boot times for your Linux box. The concept is to load system services in parallel when possible. ... FOR Linux and Open Source - NewsForge <http://newsforge.com/newsforge/03/09/16/1428222.shtml?tid=17> ... European Parliament (MEP) about Free Software; a day becomes even more unusual when an MEP's assistant starts to talk to you about happy penguins and GNU/Linux ... ASIA may develop alternative to Windows - Seattle Post Intelligencer, WA <http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/aptech_story.asp?category=1700&slug=…> ... from the free Linux operating system could intensify with the help of a powerful Asian triumvirate: Japan and South Korea are prodding China to join an effort ...

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[Fsf-friends] [CrossPosting] [ILUG-BOM] Large order for Linux-OS PCs
by Biju G C 17 Sep '03

17 Sep '03

FYI: just thought of sharing --- Nandkumar Saravade <ns1962(a)hotpop.com> wrote: Dear All The Maharashtra Police seems to be going in for large scale computerization. They have issued a tender notice for 1500 PCs, UPS and modems, with Linux as the OS [tender specification reads: "Linux operating System latest version (along with Devnagiri script and Open Office Suite.) with latest Service Pack (preloaded) license and recovery CD media with every PC and compatible Antivirus software"]. The notice is available at http://www.maharashtra.gov.in/data/tender/document/2003/08/27/2003082716463…. No details of the computerization programme itself seem available, though. Nandkumar Saravade On "GNU/Linux Users Group, Mumbai, India" <linuxers(a)mm.ilug-bom.org.in> ________________________________________________________________________ Want to chat instantly with your online friends? Get the FREE Yahoo! Messenger http://mail.messenger.yahoo.co.uk

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