Forwarded at the request of RMS... His reply. FN
On Tue, 2 Sep 2003, Richard Stallman wrote:
Could you please forward this to India-egov@yahoogroups.com, pubsoft@isoc.org, fsf-friends@gnu.org.in, linux-india-general@lists.sourceforge.net, gkd@phoenix.edc.org, bytesforall_readers@yahoogroups.com since most of those lists will not accept mail from me?
Thirdly, instead of reinventing the wheel, we do need to keep track of the initiatives underway at the international and national levels. In this sphere, a lot of work can -- and should -- be shared.The FSF (in the US) is developing the Free Software Directory, whose aim is to list all free software that will run on a completely free GNU or GNU/Linux system. It sounds like that is similar to the FSD.
However, currently the directory lists only 2400 packages, and there are thousands more to go. Our paid staff person can only check and add some 1000 packages per year.
A part-time volunteer can easily add 150 packages per year. We now have one such volunteer, in Brasil. If we had five more volunteers, we could maybe enter 2000 new packages per year. Would anyone like to volunteer?
It requires some training to learn to follow our practices, to make your entries reliable and consistent with the rest of the directory, so we're looking for people who will make a commitment to keep working steadily on the directory for a year or more. If you want to volunteer, please write to jcasey@gnu.org.
Meanwhile, if the Indian government hires one person in India to work with us, that could enable us to add 1000 more packages per year. We would appreciate the help.