During our recent GNU/LUG meeting in Goa, I had the chance of meeting Prof Vijay A Singh, the National Coordinator of the Science Olympiads. It was nice to know that Dr Singh (IIT Kanpur, on deputation at the Science Olympaids, is also a part of the FSF-Friends list.
Wonder if the ideals of Free Software and FLOSS could be somehow networked with the National Olympaid, so that we could benefit from each other's synergies. Incidentally, Prof Singh is at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, so it could be easy for Prof Nagarjuna to build the links too.
BTW, we have just shifted the venue of the GNU/LUG meetings in Goa to the Goa Science Centre, located at a nice setting on the Miramar beach. Our argument was that while the GSCP (Goa Science Centre Panjim) is promoting science, we are promoting technology -- as such a made-for-each-other match. We hope that we can take the idealism of FLOSS to the younger generation, and thus help take ahead the agenda of the GSCP, while at the same time gaining from a suitable venue for holding our meets. Let's see how this works. In the past, our Goa group had also closely networked with the Computer Society of India (Goa chapter). The only handicap was the lack of hardware for demos at their office premises, which they were very generous to loan out to us without any charge for our meetings held over the past two to three years. FN
Frederick, I will be in India for a month starting from 25th next week. You can forward my email-id to non-profit and government organizations looking for Free Software help in Super Computing and HPC domain.
Frederick Noronha (FN) wrote:
The only handicap was the lack of hardware for demos at their office premises, which they were very generous to loan out to us without any charge for our meetings held over the past two to three years.
Recently, the Hindu reported that the Dept. of Atomic Energy made a grant of Rs. 3.5 crores to the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, out of which the Linux cluster that clocked 1.382 teraflops was realised at the cost of only about Rs. 2.5 crores - a fraction of what supercomputers of this pedigree would cost - `saving' about Rs. 1 Crore. Would it be possible to convince DAE or the others involved in the project to share the remaining Rs. 1 Crore with FSF-India, to provide adequate resources for purchasing hardware, mirroring FSD from India, and support the various activities of FSF-India?
At this point, setting a target of Rs. 10 Crores would be reasonable to start with, so that FSF-India could have its own Hurd or Linux cluster, say spending the same 2.5 Crores, and use the rest of the corpus to create and share hardware resources wherever needed most.
--- Ramanraj K ramanraj@md4.vsnl.net.in wrote:
Frederick Noronha (FN) wrote:
The only handicap was the lack of hardware for demos at their office
premises, which they were very
generous to loan out to us without any charge for
our meetings held over
the past two to three years.
Recently, the Hindu reported that the Dept. of Atomic Energy made a grant of Rs. 3.5 crores to the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, out of which the Linux cluster that clocked 1.382 teraflops was realised at the cost of only about Rs. 2.5 crores - a fraction of what supercomputers of this pedigree would cost - `saving' about Rs. 1 Crore. Would it be possible to convince DAE or the others involved in the project to share the remaining Rs. 1 Crore with FSF-India, to provide adequate resources for purchasing hardware, mirroring FSD from India, and support the various activities of FSF-India?
yes,it would be a good idea.But irony of the whole issue is FSF-India doesn't even remotely come into the picture(from govt's point of view) when we talk about IT. We have a new govt and a new ministry, why don't we lobby the new govt before they form a new IT policy.
TIA
--arky
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On Tue, 2004-05-25 at 02:53, Rakesh 'arky' Ambati wrote:
--- Ramanraj K ramanraj@md4.vsnl.net.in wrote:
Frederick Noronha (FN) wrote:
The only handicap was the lack of hardware for demos at their office
premises, which they were very
generous to loan out to us without any charge for
our meetings held over
the past two to three years.
Recently, the Hindu reported that the Dept. of Atomic Energy made a grant of Rs. 3.5 crores to the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, out of which the Linux cluster that clocked 1.382 teraflops was realised at the cost of only about Rs. 2.5 crores - a fraction of what supercomputers of this pedigree would cost - `saving' about Rs. 1 Crore. Would it be possible to convince DAE or the others involved in the project to share the remaining Rs. 1 Crore with FSF-India, to provide adequate resources for purchasing hardware, mirroring FSD from India, and support the various activities of FSF-India?
yes,it would be a good idea.But irony of the whole issue is FSF-India doesn't even remotely come into the picture(from govt's point of view) when we talk about IT. We have a new govt and a new ministry, why don't we lobby the new govt before they form a new IT policy.
we will and we should. when the first news letter gets ready, we will use that material to make brochure/introduction letters. It would be better if we release the first issue with an article: what should be the IT policy of the pro-people govt. or some such title. Then we will circulate to all the policy makers of all govts. and we will make special efforts to take appointments to the policy makers and start the process. We need this process. This document is necessary, let us prepare this. We are also to send one copy to the president's office.
When we have the material ready, I will go and begin meeting people, on my part, and I will request others to this too at various places. We do have contacts and will try to improve them also.
Nagarjuna
-
Anand Babu -
Frederick Noronha (FN) -
Nagarjuna G. -
Rakesh 'arky' Ambati -
Ramanraj K