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Mentoring students... from a friend in Bangalore
by Frederick Noronha 13 Dec '02

13 Dec '02

Abhas is a friend in Bangalore who is doing some good work in mentoring youngsters. I'd like to introduce his work to this list. It came up on the Project Resource Centre list earlier. FN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Hi Fred and others... On (11/12/02 23:33), Frederick Noronha wrote: > Hi Rajeev, Great to hear from you. I already know Abhas and have long > admired his work. DeepRoot's mentoring plans in PES IT need to be > replicated by the Free Software and Open Source communities elsewhere. > > Permit me to share this note with friends on the PRC mailing list. > > Maybe you could share with us some of your experiences in mentoring > youngsters. What is the help that they need most? At which point do > bottlenecks come up? What could *really* make a difference to their > achievements? > > Thanks again for getting in touch, FN Here are my views on this issue... Actually we have been working with students for more than a year and a half before we started our PESIT lab. Working with students has taught us a lot about project management and most importantly, about how to work with students. In fact, today we continue to get project requests from students all over India - Pune, Calcutta, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Srinagar, Bangalore, lots of colleges in Karanataka and a whole lot of cities in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. So at any point of time, there has always been an exciting group of students working with us - either at our development center or remotely over email. Genearlly, we've met three types of students: a. Those who have a good knowledge of Linux and are prepared to start off working on projects right away. Here again they are some who have a some specific interests and want to work in a specific field and those who are not yet focused into something specific. b. Those who are just starters getting initiated into Linux through friends, books and Internet c. Those who have are looking at Linux as a way of expressing some of their ideas. Their ideas are not Linux specific but then they somehow understand that working on them in Linux could be the best way to do it. We have different approaches to handling each type of student. Whenever a group of students approach us we try to guage a couple of things about them: a. Their seriousness for the project b. The amount of passion they have for their work/project c. Things they know and have worked with and which are not a part of their curriculum d. The amount and work they are willing to put into their project e. Their motivations and drive Its really important for us to guage this as this will tell us if its worthwhile for us to spend productive time guiding them on their projects. Guiding them on projects can be an enormous sag in our energy and time if the students can't contribute equally in terms of what they are supposed to be doing. Most of the times, we give them something in which we have more than an academic or passing interest. Giving out practical projects that can help achieve something specific is a part of our committment to anyone who applies to us for projects. We then go about analysing what sort of project the students could do. Our project lists is divided into three parts: * A research and testing list * A development and programming list * A documentation list Most projects go through all these three types of tasks. Students first spend time research and test some software and understand basic technology concepts. Then some of them go on to use this knowledge to program while others use this basic knowledge to design and setup more advanced systems and setups which are then tested for things such as stability, performance and so on depending upon what the project is about. We always make it a point to explain that you can't start programming from day one. And that you have to spend some time experimenting with different things so that you can use them later on to program. At, PESIT since we were working in a more formal setting and with a larger number students (around 60 now), we held formal introductory classes for them. These started at the usual discources about Free Software, Softwar Freedom, GNU/GPL, Linux, history and other such elements and went on to make them capable enough to install, configure and manage their own desktops and computers. Our approach was to use very basic and bare-bones utilities (no GUIs or abstraction layers here) to explain how the system boots up and how networking and other stuff work on Linux. Debian GNU/Linux is the distribution of choice in our Lab at PESIT and all students have to do their own installations and configurations. Anyway, there are a couple of things we have learnt about leading students on these projects: * Students don't want a formal setting at all (which is why we are very friendly with them with specific limits) - formality would limit their exploration and growth * Students are mostly very capable and hard-working - their energies just need to be drawn in the correct direction. * Moulding them in any way is up to the people guiding them - you can get them to write ground-breaking software if you could motive and guide them enough. * They just need guidance - we've found that most of them can find their own way around technology. We just show them the basic tools and how to use them (Internet, Mailing lists). * Its important to have an atmosphere congenial to information sharing - all of us share more than information; we also share code and experience. These values of sharing have to be imbibed in students as well otherwise there is no growth at all! * They need to understand the larger picture about what they are doing - so that they know what they are aiming at with their project. Which is why it is important to give out practical projects that can achieve something in the short run as well. (They have 3-6 months for their project work.) * They need to be introduced to FLOSS traditions - that is the only way they will ever remain active developers in the Linux community contributing a lot over the period of many years to come. Another thing we have understood is that sometimes it is difficult to hold them accountable. So there are times when you can't do anything because a student chooses not to do some work on time. At least, this is important for us if we give them a project on which we are also depending upon. Well - these are somethings that came to my mind and I thought that I should write them down. They are a lot more things of course... All I'd like to add is that students can be very powerful force if they can be guided properly and professionally. Now its all up to all of us! cheers, abhas. PS. Please mark a copy of your replies to me as I am not subscribed to the PRC mailing list. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------- Abhas Abhinav | Free Software at its product-ive best. CEO, DeepRoot Linux http://www.deeproot.co.in ---- Server Appliances ---- Ph: +91 (80) 856 5624 ---- Linux Support and Services ---- ------------------------------------------------------------------- Knowlege is power... share it equitably! _______________________________________________ prc mailing list prc(a)mail.sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/prc

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Gunify ... from Pune
by Frederick Noronha 13 Dec '02

13 Dec '02

URL : http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gnunify/ Description Category: [11]Computer Science [GNUnify.jpg?grLDu.9Ac4EPunI9] Unify is the annual fest of SICSR, which has various cultural and academic activities. This year we are introducing an all India Free Software Festival - GNUnify, our own way of contributing to the upcoming use of FREE SOFTWARES &; LINUX. Here we establish a footage for future IT students of the country to be aware of the advantages and use of free softwares. The future of our country pirates or programmers lies in our own hands!! So today, we stand up for ourselves and for all the others who are not even aware of what might be a big leap for the professionals and the whole education system of our country. The event thus organized is devoted to a united effort to promote the use &; knowledge of free softwares among the budding coders. Various academic institutes from across the country are invited to be a part of this first ever event being held. It includes various contests and paper-presentations. More to come sooooon Most Recent Messages Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec 2002 22 Group Email Addresses For more information: [12]http://www.symbiosiscomputers.com Post message: gnunify(a)yahoogroups.com Subscribe: gnunify-subscribe(a)yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe: gnunify-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com List owner: gnunify-owner(a)yahoogroups.com Group Info Members: 21 Founded: Dec 7, 2002 Language: English

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Big Blue counters Gates' offer for Indian software
by Soundara Rajan N.S. 13 Dec '02

13 Dec '02

Big Blue counters Gates' offer for Indian software IANS Thursday, December 12, 2002 BANGALORE: After Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' lavish offerings for health, education and proprietary software, his company's biggest competitor IBM has offered to transform India into a software industry hub if it adopts the open source standard. The world's second largest software company that is also known as the Big Blue is offering to build "enablement centres" for India to shift from being a mere software services powerhouse to a full-fledged software industry hub. "We are willing to invest heavily in the enablement centres based on what decision the government takes. It should standardise on open source and we will create centres for the software industry to flourish," Amuj Goyal, vice president, solutions and strategy, IBM software group, told IANS. Source: siliconindia.com ================================================================= N.S. Soundara Rajan, freelance IT journalist and Knowledge networker, based at Mysore, India ...connecting people to people, and people to knowledge

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Anyone knows more about the Akshaya project (Kerala)?
by Frederick Noronha 12 Dec '02

12 Dec '02

'Akshaya' project ----------------- Reports in the mainstream press say India's 'Akshaya' project plans to set up some 9,000 community information centres across Kerala as part of a campaign to bridge the digital divide. These centres are to be established through private initiative, with the objective of having one centre within two km of each household. The project would commence in Malappuram and Thiruvananthapuram in January 2003 and the entire State is proposed to be covered by May 2004. http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2002/11/17/stories/2002111704810400.htm

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LINK: GNU/Linux in Indian languages ...
by Frederick Noronha 12 Dec '02

12 Dec '02

[Note, please read GNU/Linux instead of Linux below... since this refers to more than just the kernel. -FN] ---------- Forwarded message ---------- GNU/LINUX IN INDIAN LANGUAGES * Call for participation We are a group of people who passionately believe that the benefits of information technology must be widely and freely available to the Indian masses. Our group consists of people who combine skills in written scripts, free/open source technologies, language experts and technology journalism to make this happen. Why Indian languages ? Today, almost all software and operating systems and websites in India are in the English language. Since English is a language spoken by less than 10 percent of India's population (generally considered to be the language of the affluent) language is a significant barrier for the other 90 percent of India. This is creating a new class of people who live in what can be called as "Information Poverty" even as technology becomes cheaper and cheaper. To destroy this barrier we need to create a national-level, collaborative effort to localise Linux to Indian languages. Why Linux ? The openness of Linux allows local linguistic groups to customise user interfaces in ways that are far more culturally sensitive than any centrally controlled approach. Linguistic groups that may be considered too small a market by vendors can also take their destiny in their own hands by customising the Linux interface to their own needs. We therefore believe that Linux is a very attractive long-term solution to India's computing needs. We believe that information technology in India in general and Linux in particular has been confined to the 3 % of the Indian population who feel comfortable reading, speaking and writing English. Given that there are 1 billion Indian citizens, this is a scandal. Linux and its ecology encompass almost all areas of computing today from small embedded devices and clusters with thousands of nodes. We believe that Linux technology should be accessible to all Indians, regardless of linguistic background. How can I participate ? Localising the user interface of Linux to all the 18 official Indian languages will involve changing the menus and help-text to Indian languages and creating a whole stack of applications and tools (word processors, browsers, spell-checkers etc.) to enable computing in Indian languages. To achieve this goal we are looking for people with either of the two skills (if you have both these skills, that's fantastic!): Technical skills: The project needs a variety of technical skills in variety of programming languages (C/C++/Java/Perl) and platforms such as X-Windows GNOME,KDE, font development, application development , locale support etc. Language skills: You must be fluent with the script of at least one Indian language and be willing to contribute to the task of Indianising the menus and help text of Linux. We request linguistic user groups and patriotic individuals to come forward and help us in this task. Join in at www.indlinux.org - - - - - - - - - - Ongoing Indianisation Projects Indian Linux Project , IndLinux.org - http://www.indlinux.org Project page on SourceForge - http://www.sf.net/projects/indlinux Main Focus : Complete language enablement at all levels, building a fully Indian language supported Linux distribution ( http://www.indlinux.org/distro ). Indic Computing Project - http://indic-computing.sourceforge.net Project page at SF - http://www.sf.net/projects/indic-computing The Indic-Computing project is a central resource for the Indian language developer community, featuring information on Indian language computing issues and providing a forum where standards can be discussed and evolved. The project intends to serve the community by collecting information on the various aspects of Indian language text processing in one place, and publishing this in the form of a freely accessible handbook. http://indic-computing.sf.net/handbook/index.html Linux Localisation Initiative - http://lli.linux-bangalore.org Project page of SF - http://www.sf.net/projects/lli Main Focus : Translation of LDP documentation , esp HOWTOs in all Indian languages Language Teams Bengali http://www.bengalinux.org Gujarati http://www.indlinux.org/gujarati Hindi http://www.indlinux.org/hindi Kannada http://kannada.sourceforge.net/ Malayalam https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/smc Marathi http://www.indlinux.org/marathi Oriya http://www.indlinux.org/oriya Punjabi http://punjabi-linux.sf.net/, http://www.indlinux.org/punjabi/ Tamil http://www.tamillinux.org/ Telugu http://www.indlinux.org/telugu Others (add you mother tongue) http://www.indlinux.org/otherlang.php Other Projects NCST Indix http://rohini.ncst.ernet.in/indix BharateeyaOO - OpenOffice in Indian Languages http://www.ncb.ernet.in/bharateeyaoo IITM IndLinux http://www.tenet.res.in/Donlab/Indlinux/ [If you know anyone who can be a potential contributor, please pass on this message.]

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NEWS-BANGALORE: Big Blue counters Gates' offer for Indian software
by Frederick Noronha 12 Dec '02

12 Dec '02

Big Blue counters Gates' offer for Indian software By Imran Qureshi, Indo-Asian News Service Bangalore, Dec 12 (IANS) After Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' lavish offerings for health, education and proprietary software, his company's biggest competitor IBM has offered to transform India into a software industry hub if it adopts the open source standard. The world's second largest software company that is also known as the Big Blue is offering to build "enablement centres" for India to shift from being a mere software services powerhouse to a full-fledged software industry hub. "We are willing to invest heavily in the enablement centres based on what decision the government takes. It should standardise on open source and we will create centres for the software industry to flourish," Amuj Goyal, vice president, solutions and strategy, IBM software group, told IANS. "Innovation on the Microsoft platform has moved out. VCs (venture capitalists) are not investing any more on the MSN platform. Gates' visit was only to carry the message of proprietary software that will not benefit the customers," he said. Goyal, the highest ranking Indian in IBM worldwide, has helped drive the growth of the hardware leader's foray into the software business and made it a $13 billion group in just seven years, displacing Oracle from the position of the world's number two software company. "IBM was on proprietary technology in the early 1990s. We could not see outside that. We were trying to look after ourselves, not the customers, until we started the software business in 1995. Today Microsoft is on the wrong side," said Goyal, an alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur. "We will put up enablement centres (like e-governance or e-business centres) for software centres. Our strategy is different. Customers need to have control and that can come only through open standards. Microsoft's strategy is to get in their proprietary technology. That's a big trap," he added. "Today you can use database from IBM or any other vendor on open standard. The reason why customers like us is because our systems are robust and scalable and for support services. If you are caught in the proprietary trap, the software business cannot be built. Those are hooks and lures he (Gates) is investing in. Customers don't want that," Goyal said. He quoted examples of the governments of Britain, Germany and Singapore that have adopted open source standards. "India does not have a software business. We want to build the future SAP or a BEA in India by focusing on open standards." IBM is leveraging India not only for its "tremendous skills in software and services" but also because it sees the country as an important market. It has set up five software research and development centres and a solution partnership centre in India. The company has committed $100 million until 2003 for the India software laboratory in Bangalore, which is being scaled up from a headcount of 500 to about 600. "But the skills in India can be applied far beyond the Indian market, primarily the English-speaking countries in the Asia-Pacific unlike China or Japan, which are country-focussed labs," Goyal said. So, was the shift in focus from hardware to software during the downturn coincidental? "No, it was not coincidental. We have been on this strategy for the last 10 years. We have recorded growth for 21 consecutive quarters," Goyal said. The software group drives about 30 percent of IBM's profits. It is the largest supplier of Internet infrastructure software, called middleware, which accounts for about 80 percent of IBM's software revenue of over $10 billion. "We are young -- just seven years old -- and growing, and we will continue to grow. Given the current economic situation, if an opportunity exists, we will go in for acquisition, as we did with Rational Software (the world's leading supplier of software tools for $2.1 billion). It makes sense because it is open standard. We have completed seven acquisitions in 18 months." --Indo-Asian News Service

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The Open CD... what's it about really?
by Frederick Noronha 12 Dec '02

12 Dec '02

URL : http://www.theopencd.org/about.php The OpenCD is a collection of high-quality Open Source Software. All of the programs on the disc run under Windows; the disc is intended to be an Open Source showcase. New users can try out Open Source software in the comfort of their own, familiar operating system, rather than having to take the drastic step of reformatting their hard drive to install Linux. Currently, the disc is aimed solidly at non-techies. The primary audience is expected to consist mostly of people who use computers regularly for their work, but are not power users. This might be, for example, Jane from Accounting, who spends a lot of time working on spreadsheets and checking her email. She can find her way around the computer without too much trouble, but wouldn't know a kernel from a TCP/IP stack. By showing the benefits of Open Source Software to users such as these, we hope to encourage its adoption -- in the workplace, in schools, and by individuals. The OpenCD features a CD browser application that allows for easy browsing of the programs on the CD. It also includes a selection of essays about Open Source philosophy, and links to other programs that might be of interest. The OpenCD The following programs are on the OpenCD. Click a program name to see a full description, with screenshots and a link to the program's own home page. * [1]OpenOffice.org 1.0.1 * [2]DictInstall 0.9.3.2 * [3]AbiWord 1.0.1 * [4]Beonex Communicator 0.8.1 * [5]FileZilla 2.1.1 * [6]Putty 0.52 * [7]WinVNC 3.3.3r9 * [8]XChat 1.8.10a * [9]Audacity 1.0 * [10]CDex 1.40 * [11]7-Zip 2.24 * [12]NetTime 2.0b6 * [13]Win Privacy Tray 0.5.5 * [14]Sokoban YASC 1.53 * [15]Celestia 1.2.4 * [16]More OSS Programs These are candidate programs, most of which are not currently on the CD. http://www.theopencd.org/programs/MorePrograms.html

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The OpenCD : (URL - http://www.theopencd.org/)
by Frederick Noronha 11 Dec '02

11 Dec '02

URL : http://www.theopencd.org/ The OpenCD [2]What is TheOpenCD? [3]The Programs [4]Download [5]CD Covers [6]Getting Help Project [7]Forum [8]FAQ [9]Nominate a Program [10]Contact Us Links [11]The FSF [12]The FSF - Europe [13]OpenSource.org [14]Knoppix [15]GNUWinII [blueline.gif] Update, 3 December 2002. We are proud to announce the release of the OpenCD's first edition! [16]Download and enjoy! "TheOpenCD" is a trademark of Henrik Nilsen Omma. References 1. http://www.theopencd.org/ 2. http://www.theopencd.org/about.php 3. http://www.theopencd.org/programs/index.html 4. http://www.theopencd.org/mirrors.php 5. http://www.theopencd.org/covers.php 6. http://www.theopencd.org/help.php 7. http://www.theopencd.org/forum/ 8. http://www.theopencd.org/faq.php 9. http://www.theopencd.org/nomination.php 10. http://www.theopencd.org/contact.php 11. http://www.fsf.org/ 12. http://fsfeurope.org/ 13. http://www.opensource.org/ 14. http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html 15. http://gnuwin.org/index.html 16. http://www.theopencd.org/mirrors.php

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How to make Motorola SM56 internal modem work ?
by R. Sreekumar 11 Dec '02

11 Dec '02

Hello if fact I am using SM56 speaker phone modem and is working(with RH7.1). But the problem is that it will not work with RH versions higher than 7.2. The kernal will not support. I reccoment to use "Connexant modem". As they provide source code we can use for any disto , any version. this should be popularised sreekumar On Sun, 08 Dec 2002 Mahesh T. Pai wrote : >N S Srikanth wrote: >>But to make internal modem work, it was no way. I installed >>sm56 rpm, > > >If you use Motorola's SM 56 SpeakerPhone modem, there is no way >it will work with GNU/Linux. > >I have tried, and resigned. > >SM 56 data/fax and data only modems may work, not the SM56 speakerphone modems. > >With much sympathies, > >Regards, >Mahesh T. Pai. > > >_______________________________________________ >Fsf-friends mailing list >Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in >http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends

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Living without Microsoft
by KG Kumar 11 Dec '02

11 Dec '02

Check out www.livingwithoutmicrosoft.org

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