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Re: [Fsf-friends] Fwd: Govt Stand on Linux
by Ajith Kumar 04 Oct '02

04 Oct '02

pandarinathan raman wrote: > It is highly irregular to pass comment about officials > without knowing full context. It could have been > rejected probably some existing applications have to > be ported. What is the present level of computerization in the govt. offices. Does it go anything beyond MSOffice. If a panchayat is capable of handling its requirements using GNU/Linux, preventing it by an order from Trivandrum is sheer misuse of power. Once I had the following experience. We we met the mayor of a corporation , that was computerizing some records, to talk about Free Software and he directed us to the officer handling it. When we pointed out about the cost savings the curt response from the officer was "we have enough funds from the government". This is the prevailing mentality. If money is there, just spend it. If somebody under you come up with something better , reject it without assigning any reason. If linux is rejected due to the lack of some application, he should have point out that reason. Sending an order "strictly objecting to installing linux" is not a sensible thing to do. Such reply comes from the attitude " I do not have to explain any reason since I have power" I am also a govt. employee and working in a place where more that 100 machines running GNU/Linux for word processing, communication, databases, scientific computing and control applications. Fortunately it not under an official who rejects something without reason. > > We can progress by our actions and not by accusing > others or by emotional outbursts. For real success in > govt sector you should show some successful sites in > India entirely running on FS, which I think are > reallly rare. The decision makers in the govt. also should keep their eyes open. They should interact with academics in places like engg. colleges and IITs. At least they should see what is happening around the world. If they do not do any of these, at least they should not issue orders "strictly objecting to something without assigning any reason" . A nations fate cannot be decided by the information provided by sales representatives. If somebody does that, one can always suspect the motive. ajith >

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Fwd: Govt Stand on Linux
by CK Raju 04 Oct '02

04 Oct '02

On one hand the Government says that it has decentralised and transferred most of the powers to local bodies, and here it appears to be strengthening its hold. CK Raju KILA ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: letter Date: 3 Oct 2002 17:28:43 -0000 From: "ramanunni s sivasankaran" <hitharamanunni(a)rediffmail.com> To: ckraju(a)zyberway.com I invite your kind attention to the resolution adopted by the Pattanchery Grama Panchayat about the installation of Linux in the computer during the month of January this year. In this regard we had sent a letter to the secretary to the government for the approval of Linux installation in the computers. The additional secretary for secretary department of local administration in his letter ltr.no 31914/02 dla dt.25.9.02 to the secretary pattanchery grama Panchayat has strictly objected the installation of Linux as operating system in the computer when it is being installed in the Panchayat instead of windows. The secretary pattanchery grama Panchayat called on me over the phone yesterday and informed this fact to me. This is for your information please. Nothing more at present. Thanking you, (Ramanunni) -------------------------------------------------------

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Free software movement in Cochin University of Science and Technology
by bharat chandran 03 Oct '02

03 Oct '02

Sir, An Open Forum of Free Software Movement was held in the Dept of Polymer Science,Cochin University of Science and Technology,Cochin,Kerala,India on 25th September at 2 P.M. for promoting Free Software Movement in CUSAT.The following decisions were taken (i) To form a core group of people interested in Free Software (ii) To form an egroup for Free Software Movement in CUSAT. ('FSCUSAT'(CUSAT Free Software Movement > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fscusat/) is now available) (iii) To start loading Linux in the systems of interested users (iv) To arrange a workshop on Free Software towards the end of October.(For atleast two representatives from each Department) (v) A committee was formed with two convernors 1. Mr. G.Santhosh Kumar (Lect. ,Dept of Computer Science) 2. Mr. Bharat Chandran.R.S (Student, Dept of Instrumentation) Regards, Bharat Chandran NB:- Please tell me how to be a member of FSF india.Also tell me how our members in Cochin University will be able to a member in FSF India __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC & Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com

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Good News!
by Nagarjuna G. 02 Oct '02

02 Oct '02

A very good news. I am just coming from a meeting with Mr. M.S. Sridhar (of Cyberscape Multimedia Limited) and Prof. Jitender Shaw (VJTI, Mumbai). Sridhar is releasing the Indian Language TTF fonts (more than hundred) under GPL today the the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi. He has fonts for all the languages. The press release and release note will be posted by evening. I wanted to break the news to all of you. We have been trying to have this meeting happen, but it happened today. The fonts will be putup on FSF-India's website for download, as well as their companies web site. The details will be announced soon. I will put it up on the FSF site as soon as I get the CD. We can also put them up at indic-computing site at sourceforge. Now the task is to make use of the set of TTF fonts and solve the immediate problem of encoding and rendering with TTF fonts in all the Indian Languages and release the GNU/Linux distro with GNOME applications enabled by January 26. The next task is to convert these fonts to Open Type fonts as soon as possible. Mr. Sridhar is only anticipating from the free software community the technical know how so that their company will also start developing applications under GNU/Linux OS, and also help us solve the problem of converting TTF to OTF. I hope this news will add momentum to the efforts of localization. I wish to thank on behalf of the free software community Sridhar and also Jitender Shaw for initiating this process and making this happen. I think this gesture of Sridhar will be a slap on the face of CDAC and other both Govt and private companies who are refusing to share such resources. Nagarjuna

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02 Oct '02

Hello, Register your protest against the inclusion of a products from a Multinational Company in the IT@school syllabus by sending mail to the following. The Executive Director IT @ SCHOOL Project SCERT Buildings Poojapura Thiruvananthapuram-12 email: itschool(a)asianetindia.com Also ask your friends, especially school/college teachers, who are familiar with GNU/Linux to do the same. regards ajith

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Ten ways to promote communication within a GNU/LUG
by Frederick Noronha 02 Oct '02

02 Oct '02

Thanks to Shyam Kumar.s <shyamkumars(a)yahoo.com> for his feedback and constructive criticism on an earlier version of this posting. Responsibility for errors, or conceptual flaws continues to be mine. Send in your feedback to fred at bytesforall dot org. FN COMMENT: Ten ways to promote communication within a GNU/LUG... * Build a network of GNU/LUG speakers, who are capable to speak and evangelise on the power of GNU/Linux. It's important to list who's available to speak on what subject, so that the interests of newbies are catered to. Technical issues are imporant; but issues like the philisophy of Free Software needs to be adequately understood. The power of sharing and helping one another also can be emphasised. * List readily available GNU/Linux software, where available, and under what terms it can be shared freely and without artificial restrictions. * List GNU/LUG members and contact details. Group communications through GNU/LUG mailing-lists build a self-learning environment for all, but sometimes one-to-one correspondence may be more apt in order to (i) avoid mailing-list overload (ii) address issues which might not be of wider group interest. * Expanding numbers is important. It helps GNU/LUGs attain critical mass. At the same time, it's equally important to take care of one another's learning needs, and the requirement of building a caring, sharing environment. Sharing and community building could prove more valuable than mere technical excellence, as the latter could lead to stagnation and elitism along its trajectory. * Report regularly on GNU/LUG meetings. This build bridges to those not present. * Plan for GNU/LUG meetings in advance. Meetings with outlined agendas and scheduled talks could attract more people than vague, no-agenda meetings. Meetings should also take care of newbie interests, including talks and subjects that would help to build interest among those who are not so well-versed with GNU/Linux. * If nothing else works, trying to build more mini-GNU/LUGs in your area.

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Indian Language Fonts
by M.S.Sridhar 02 Oct '02

02 Oct '02

Release Notes: M/S Cyberscape Multimedia Limited, Mumbai, developers of Akruti Software for Indian Languages, are here by releasing a set of TTF fonts for nine Indian scripts (Devanagari, Gujarati, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Oriya, and Gurumukhi) under GNU General Public License (GPL). The fonts will be made available through Free Software Foundation of India and will be uploaded at the web site of FSF-India (www.gnu.org.in), indic-computing(a)sourceforge.net and also at the Akruti site (http://www.akruti.com). For any further information or assistance please contact mssridhar(a)vsnl.com.

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Voilation of GPL
by Kanti Jadia 28 Sep '02

28 Sep '02

the following link refers to xvid.org(video cedec software). What actions can be taken to prevent Sigma Designs from further voilating the GPL ? what should be done to prevent such kind of voilations ? http://xvid.org/ regards Kanti Jadia

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[fred@mail.rons.net.cn: Hackerdom Training]
by Nagarjuna G. 26 Sep '02

26 Sep '02

----- Forwarded message from Hong Feng <fred(a)mail.rons.net.cn> ----- Envelope-to: nagarjun(a)hbcse.tifr.res.in cc: fred(a)mail.rons.net.cn From: Hong Feng <fred(a)mail.rons.net.cn> Subject: Hackerdom Training To: nagarjun(a)hbcse.tifr.res.in Hi Nag, our hackerdom training courses are fixed this week, it is published at http://www.rons.net.cn/MNM/training/hackerdom Best, Frederic -- +------------------------------------------+ | Hong Feng | | Publisher, FREE SOFTWARE Magazine (FSM) | | fred(a)mail.rons.net.cn hongfeng(a)gnu.org | | http://www.rons.net.cn/hongfeng.html | +------------------------------------------+ ----- End forwarded message ----- -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ nagarjun(a)hbcse.tifr.res.in www.hbcse.tifr.res.in/gn/ Key fingerprint = C1E2 1B8C 8E98 A697 68B7 ADAC E956 6D4B DE90 BF01

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Free Software to the masses
by Ajith Kumar 25 Sep '02

25 Sep '02

Hello All, If we are not taking counter measures, the so called IT will be the biggest burden on our foreign exchange spendings. It is a fact that our large loans from foreign agencies does not reach the public, it was for selected few. We bought arms, high tech items and stuff like that. Even when something can be made here we imported it, yes somebody was getting the commission and fighting elections with that money. This is the way India has been 'progressing' . IT is now added to the list. Note the enthusiasm of almost all the govt. agencies for computerization. Among the people involved in it , some are eagerly waiting for big purchases to be done and some are not aware of cost effective solutions. The question is How to avoid wasting public money to the MNCs in the name of IT? A grassroot level movement to educate the public about this issue is a must. I have some suggetions. It require time, energy and money. 1. Conduct something similar to the "Sastrakaja Jatha" organized by KSSP some years back. Cover the entire Kerala, talking about Software Freedom, the dangers of MNC exploitation using proprietary software and demonstrating the capabilities of GNU/Linux. Is anybody willing to consider such a thing. If it is May-june, count me. 2. Free/subsidised GNU/Linux trainng centres. One option is to setup our own facilities but an easier option is to have tieup with the existing institutes. We decide the syllabus, help setting up the software and provide some subsidy for each student. regards ajith

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