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Indianisation of GNU/Linux
by Frederick Noronha 24 Aug '02

24 Aug '02

I was fishing around for some information on the possible Indianisation of GNU/Linux. As Ms Mita puts it, Edward Cherlin's info (via the Simputer mailing list on yahoogroups) appears to be mind-boggling. What do others on this list think of it? Any feedback? FN On Fri, 16 Aug 2002, Mita wrote: > Dear Edward, > What an excellent and valuable input! Thank you! By the way, you don't > sound like a generalist at all, more like a specialist! > Checked out both the sites you recommend; one was rather technical, but > the sil.org site is really great. > So did you go to the presentation of the Simputer there in California? > Did anybody on this list go? Please do tell us first hand how it was! > Did the simputer live up to all your expectations? > Cheers > Mita > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Edward Cherlin [mailto:cherlin@pacbell.net] > Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2002 9:29 PM > To: simputer(a)yahoogroups.com > Subject: Re: [simputer] [OFFTOPIC] Request for some inputs for an > article > > On Tuesday 13 August 2002 02:06 am, Frederick Noronha wrote: > > Dear friends, > > > > I am thinking of doing a piece on the challenges posed by plans for > > Indianisation of GNU/Linux. > > > > If you could give me some additional insights into the following > > issues (in a language that a simple reader would follow), I'd be > > very grateful. If you could send me the replies in a day or two, > > I'd be even more grateful. > > > > For my side, I will circulate the article among all before the > > Bangalor meeting. Thanks again. Frederick > > You're welcome. Where will this be published? > > > PS: Issues I need information on: > > > > What is your reading of: > > > > * Demand for Indian-language computers > > Although I have met a few engineers from India who speak only > English, the answer is that the demand for Indian-language computers > equals the demand for computers in India, plus a bit for places like > the UK, Pakistan and Bangla Desh that do significant business with > India or have significant Indian minorities. You can find current > sales and installed base numbers on the Net. If you need help with > this, e-mail me offline. > > > * Main languages which could be tackled at this stage > > By next year, the Pango project should support all nine official > Indic scripts, so the answer is "All of them." > > > * Which languages would pose greater difficulties > > Languages that are traditionally not written, or are written in > non-standard variants of the standard scripts. Talk to Peter > Constable at SIL.org about this. > > > * Applications that are needed to be run in Indian languages > > Everything. Don't take "No" for an answer. On Linux, you can > volunteer to Indicize any application. In the future, when font > management and rendering are standardized, all applications will run > in Indian languages for input and output without further ado, and > anyone will be able to create a localization file to customize the > user interface. Volunteers are also needed to translate documentation. > > > * Lack of support in other OSs > > Indic and other South Asian scripts are the final challenge to > computer vendors for full I18n support. Progress is slow at Microsoft > and Apple. Linux should pass them by the end of the year, or early in > 2003. > > > * Technical challenges in supporting Indian languages > > The principal problem is rendering conjuncts without proper rendering > engines and properly encoded fonts. Users want to type a sequence of > characters, and not concern themselves with the details of rendering. > This requires fonts with appropriate tables giving the possible > character sequences and the glyphs for rendering each, and an engine > that knows to read the tables. > > Apple and Microsoft are not willing simply to support typing, > display, and printing. They will not release language and writing > system support until they have complete locales built, preferably > including a dictionary and spelling checker. Linux is under no such > constraints. > > > X > > The Free Standards Group together with Li18nux.org are proposing to > rationalize and simplify I18n support under X, including a common > rendering engine, shared font paths, and other standards that will > greatly simplify the business of supporting all writing systems and > all languages. > > > Toolkits > > Dozens. Write to me off-list and tell me what tasks you want tools > for. > > Fonts? Check out pfaedit. > Keyboards? Unix keyboard files can be prepared in any text editor. > Rendering? Pango, Graphite > Software localization? IBM ICU, GTK, various languages... > Multilingual editing? Yudit and emacs both support several Indic > scripts, and could be extended with only moderate effort on the part > of a few experts. I have not tested vim, the other Unix Unicode > editor. Most other Unix applications accept some Indic input. > > Mandrake Linux includes Bengali, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Hindi > Devanagari, and Tamil out of the box. That leaves Oriya, Malayalam, > Telugu, and Kannada still to be done, along with the Indic-derived > Lao, Sinhala, Myanmar, and Khmer. Tibetan and Thai are moderately > well supported. > > > Fonts? > > There are two projects to create a complete rendering engine: Pango > (Pango.org, Li18nux.org) and Graphite (sil.org). They also have plans > for complete sets of Unicode fonts (including not just the Unicode > characters, but also all of the non-character glyphs for rendering > Indic scripts. > > > Voice synthesis and recognition? > > IBM and several other companies have projects to support 40 or more > languages each. I can put you in contact with a voice engineer in > Silicon Valley, and you of course have access to the voice engineers > involved in the Simputer design. > > > Any right-to-left languages? > > Arabic and Hebrew are officially supported on Windows, Mac, and Unix. > Other languages in the same scripts (Urdu, Pashto, Farsi/Dari, etc.; > Yiddish, Ladino, etc.) can be typed but do not have full support. > Syriac (once used to write Malayalam) is included in Unicode but not > well supported. Thaana, used for Dhivehi in the Republic of Maldives, > is similarly encoded but not well supported. I can provide more > details, or put you in contact with experts on any of these. > > > What other challenges do Indian languages pose? > > That's it. We have them all in hand. Well, dictionaries and spelling > checkers, of course. Word-breaking doesn't operate the same way in > Indic scripts as in the Latin alphabet. Fine typography, which you > don't find in consumer or office applications in any language. And > the sheer number. There are more than 800 languages spoken in India. > > > * Projects that are currently underway, and which are interesting, > > in your opinion. > > As I said, Pango, Graphite, Li18nux, Free Standards. Mandrake Linux > emphasizes multilingual support, and welcomes offers of help. And of > course Simputer.

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Forwarded: Free software for radio?
by Frederick Noronha 23 Aug '02

23 Aug '02

Pls reply to Robert Michel <Robert.Michel(a)post.rwth-aachen.de> FN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Slave Alokesh, Fred & Georg, thanks for sending radio news from India. The news"local communities, non-profit organizations and educational institutions (Universities) for educational, cultural and economic development " request the question, what is necessary for build a low budget radiostation? The most important element becomes Software. Why not writing "free software" under GNU GPL for making radio ? Some weeks ago I found the vision from Patrick, swiss, and started to support him: HTTP://ross.sf.net Ross should be a toolbox, able to make a radio with one laptop only to running a big radio-network with satellite and internetlinks. Why "free software" - there are already 3-5 commercial solutions? - these are very expensive and keep the costumers in dependency to these software-houses. In analog times, everybody was able to replace a player "out of order", nowadays you have wait for support on telephone. - cheap solutions used by non-profit organizations are good enought for playing music, not for journalistic work - licence restricted software make it impossible for new people to learn using it at home. - analog radio times was good for blind people, software based radiostations are not usable today for them. - ....... ============== Can you help me ? ============== I'm looking for developer worldwide. People with radio experiences to saying me what regional culture of radio-studios they know, what software should be, programmer (C++), and later translator to make the software international. Which mailing-lists, websites, radio active people do you know? Do you have some more informations about these new stations in India? When will this start? Thanks for your attations - a better mail for sending to mailinglist we will write next weeks. The ross-team are already 6 people with more or less time for this. (Swiss, Germany, Austrian) Would be nice to find people for ross in India, too. Greetings form Aachen, Germany Robert

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[INFO] FLOSS Project Report
by Raj Singh 22 Aug '02

22 Aug '02

Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) : Survey and Study FLOSS FINAL REPORT (http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/report/index.htm) International Institute of Infonomics University of Maastricht, The Netherlands Berlecon Research GmbH Berlin, Germany June 2002 Final Report * Part 0: Executive Summary Overview of the FLOSS project * Part I: Use of Open Source Software in Firms and Public Institutions * Part II: Firms Open Source Activities: Motivations and Policy Implications * Part II B: Open Source Software in the Public Sector: Policy within the European Union * Part III: Basics of Open Source Software Markets and Business Models * Part IV: Survey of Developers * Part V: Source Code Survey * Raw data from Source Code Survey Overview of the FLOSS project This project remedies the lack of information on Free/Libre/Open Source Software (1) starting at the very beginning: by conducting surveys to generate a unique base of primary data on Free/Open Source Software usage and development; identifying indicators to measure value creation and dissemination in the OS/FS arena; identifying business models based on these indicators; identifying the impact of and recommending changes in government policy and regulatory environments with regards to OS/FS; finally, the development of a base for extending these to the broader economic measurement of non-monetary and trans-monetary activity in the information society, beyond the domain of OS/FS. The specific features of this project are: 1. The collation of a base of hard data (until now no such data exist) on the importance and role of OS/F software in today s economies and an impact assessment for policy and decision-making. 2. The development of indicators for the measurement of value creation within the OS/F software communities, especially in order to identify the distribution patterns of contribution within OS/F software communities and projects. 3. The measurement of contributions and identification of dependence on such contributions as are provided by user organisations OS/F software, including government/international institutions, on the developer community and on project development at large. 4. The evaluation and identification of business models and best practices in the OS/F software community, especially the transition to and from commercial software operations. (1) Throughout this report and project documents the terms Free Software and Open Source Software are used interchangeably, except where a specific distinction between the terms is explicitly made. This page is part of the FLOSS study (http://www.infonomics.nl/FLOSS/). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Re: [Fsf-friends] i18n and T16n
by baiju m 18 Aug '02

18 Aug '02

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i18n and T16n
by Frederick Noronha 18 Aug '02

18 Aug '02

I was working late night on this piece of Indianization of GNU/Linux, when an unsual thought struck... If internationalization can be reduced to i18n can Thiruvananthapuram become T16n? (There are 16 alphabets between T and n in the city's name.) Guess you'll excuse me for this unusual posting today. Just a bit bored with myself ;-) FN PS: If the idea clicks, do remember who suggested it first....

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NEWS-INDIA: Kerala to get Centre's help to push e-governance
by Frederick Noronha 16 Aug '02

16 Aug '02

Kerala to get centre's help to push e-governance By Sanu George, Indo-Asian News Service Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 16 (IANS) The centre will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) this week with the Kerala government, offering it all assistance in promoting e-governance. The state is viewing this as a reward for its consistency in networking government affairs and putting them online. State IT minister P.K. Kunjalikutty said federal Communication and IT Minister Pramod Mahajan would be here Sunday to sign the MoU that would facilitate technical and financial help from the centre. "We are really proud because this is the first time any state government has been asked to sign an MoU with the centre in this field. This is going to boost our efforts to promote private investment in the IT sector," Kunjalikutty said. Mahajan will during his visit also inaugurate a 600,000 square foot building at Thiruvananthapuram's Technopark, which currently houses 60 companies. The major push for e-governance in Kerala had come during a crippling 32-day strike by government employees from February. Apart from providing Rs.1.2 billion for projects to improve efficiency in various departments, the budget earmarked Rs.150 million to set up a single point access for those seeking services like welfare benefits and revenue certificates. Plans for the MoU came in the wake of a study by the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom) ranking Kochi as the second most preferred destination in the country for the setting up of business process outsourcing or IT-enabled companies (ITES). The government is currently working on a state-of-the-art 400,000 square-foot building in Kochi to house such companies. "The building would be ready for occupation by the end of next year," said IT Secretary Aruna Sunderarajan. Another encouraging development for the IT industry in Kerala has been the rare political consensus on pushing the sector and ironing out the creases. "We had a problem in one of the Technopark companies here. Because of the wholehearted support of the opposition, the issue has been sorted out without any problems. This is a good sign for all potential investors," said Kunjalikutty. --Indo-Asian News Service

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Simputer... changes a viewpoint
by Frederick Noronha 16 Aug '02

16 Aug '02

Permit me to forward a posting from the Solaris mailing-list in Delhi. Perhaps GNU/Linux enthusiasts could also look at ways in which we could enhance our involvement in this GNU/Linux-based project. FN ---------- Forwarded message ---------- http://www.bayarea.com/mld/siliconvalley/business/columnists/mike_langberg/ 3866243.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp From the San Jose Mercury News. At LinuxWorld in San Francisco a number of interesting projects were presented yesterday including Open Knowledge Network, the Brazilian volkscomputers, and the following one--the Simputer. Langberg is a critical enthusiast when it comes to consumer items. He's not a development expert. A good opening line to keep local high tech folks reading this piece! Steve Posted on Wed, Aug. 14, 2002 Simple computer helps close digital divide By Mike Langberg Mercury News I've always been a digital-divide cynic, suspecting all the talk about transforming the lives of poor people through Internet access to be self-serving narcissism from Silicon Valley technologists seeking a justification for making themselves rich. Vinay L. Deshpande has changed my mind. Deshpande, a Stanford-educated software entrepreneur in Bangalore, India, is the driving force behind the Simputer, a handheld device that resembles a Palm personal digital assistant. The Simputer (www.simputer.org), which costs from $175 to $375 depending on features, is designed for impoverished rural villages in India and other under-developed parts of the world. This isn't a cure for hunger or disease, but Deshpande makes a convincing argument for how the Simputer could make life better for people living far from the technology fast lane. If you're struggling to feed your family on an income equal to a few dollars a day, you don't need access to Amazon.com or eBay. What you do need are the latest commodity prices for your crops if you're a farmer, or accurate weather reports if you fish from a small boat, or a reliable way to gather medical data if you're a rural health worker. These are things the sturdy Simputer can do at a far lower cost than temperamental and fragile laptop computers. Deshpande, who spoke Wednesday at the LinuxWorld trade show in San Francisco, got the idea for the Simputer at a family wedding near Mumbai in November 1998, where he met the owner of a small community bank. The banker had a problem: He operates what is called a ``pygmy deposit scheme,'' where independent agents travel to isolated villages to collect deposits and make payments as small as one rupee, or about two cents. The agents give paper receipts, and sometimes cheat the bank by turning in altered copies of the deposit slips listing smaller amounts. Catching such cheaters often takes days or weeks. The banker wanted a handheld device costing no more than $200 with an attached receipt printer that agents could use to collect deposit data, downloading the information by phone to the bank's computers at the end of the day. This device wouldn't eliminate theft by the agents, but they'd have a hard time disappearing with more than one day's worth of funds. Deshpande, 55, assembled a team of academics from the Indian Institute of Science and engineers from his company, Encore Software (www.ncoretech.com), both based in Bangalore. The group quickly realized any device created for the banker could solve many other problems in many countries. The Simputer is designed to be easy to operate, reliable, rugged and to run on easily obtained AA batteries. There's a slot for sliding in smart cards, which cost less than $1 and can be given to every person in a village for storing their personal information. A built-in modem makes it possible to collect information and send out messages through the Internet. Villages beyond the reach of phone lines can send and receive data through the smart cards. To hold down costs, the Simputer runs a slimmed-down version of the free Linux operating system -- eliminating royalty payments that would be required for the Palm or Microsoft PocketPC operating systems used in today's PDAs. Deshpande and his colleagues also developed visual icons and text-to-speech feedback so that even illiterate users could benefit from the Simputer. Encore Software began producing the first run of Simputers this month at a contract manufacturing plant in Bangalore; another production line is due to start up next month in Singapore. The Simputer isn't available yet in the United States, but Deshpande is talking with several potential distributors and expects to have a deal in place by year-end. Meanwhile, the Simputer Trust is willing to license its hardware and software designs to any interested manufacturer for a one-time fee of $25,000 to companies in the developing world and $250,000 to companies in the developed world. As word of the Simputer has spread, Deshpande is hearing more ideas for how his creation could be used. The post office in India, for example, is considering giving the Simputer to mail carriers who handle money orders. A villager could send money through a smart card, plugged into the mail carrier's Simputer, for delivery to a relative on the other side of the country, downloaded to the recipient's smart card. This would eliminate sending money orders through the mail, where they are often lost or stolen. Health care agencies in South Africa want to develop a small ultrasound monitor that could be plugged into the Simputer for tracking fetal development among pregnant women in rural settlements. The Indian government is also interested in the Simputer for collecting reliable and timely information on agricultural production, a process now bogged down by inaccurate and slowly gathered paper documents. Asked to summarize his hopes for the Simputer, Deshpande spins around and points to a logo printed on the back of his official Simputer Trust T-shirt: ``Radical simplicity for universal access.'' There's no guarantee, of course, the Simputer will succeed. Even if it does, technology alone can't fix all the problems causing poverty. But I found Deshpande to be uplifting. The technology revolution, in the end, really could help everyone on Earth make better lives for themselves. Contact Mike Langberg at mike(a)langberg.com or (408) 920-5084. � 2001 siliconvalley and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved. http://www.siliconvalley.com Steve Cisler 4415 Tilbury Drive San Jose, Callifornia 95130 http: home.inreach.com/cisler 1-408-379-9076 cisler(a)pobox.com solaris--independant forum for IT & development issues un/sub info: solaris-request(a)mail.sarai.net with the word "help" in the subject line or in the body of the message. URL: http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/solaris/ archive: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/solaris/

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IT@schools
by Ajith Kumar 15 Aug '02

15 Aug '02

hello, here is a proposal for cost effective computer infrastructure for schools. ajith

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What a thread !
by CK Raju 14 Aug '02

14 Aug '02

The biggest thread that I have ever seen, reflecting on a single article. The article is worth examining. The link is at http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2002-05-20-006-26-IN-LF-PB CK Raju

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Mail Server will be down on 13th
by Nagarjuna G. 12 Aug '02

12 Aug '02

The mail server running the mailman for our mailing list will be down for few hours on 13th during the day. We are upgrading the machine and the server will be back to work by 6pm, if everything goes as expected. BTW, the webserver is also the same machine, so that also will be down. Nagarjuna

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