FSUG-Bangalore August 2005

fsug-bangalore@mm.gnu.org.in

18 participants
43 discussions

VTU FLOSS campaign and VC's response.
by Praveen A 15 Aug '05

15 Aug '05

Hi folks, This is about the petition to VC of VTU. http://bangalore.gnu.org.in/?VTU-FLOSS_Campaign > > On August 6th Saturday we got an apponitment to meet the VC at VTU Campus > in Belgaum. We (Thejesh <http://www.techmag.biz/>, Ramakrishna<http://ramkrsna.objectis.net/>, > Vivek <http://www.geocities.com/vivekvarghesecherian/> and myself - > Praveen A <http://www.pravi.co.nr/>) met at Coffee Day at MG Road on 4th > Evening and discussed the plans and presantation. We left for Belgaum on 5th > Evening and reached there by 6th Morning. We preapared the presantation and > by afternoon we reached the VTU campus. To our great disappointement the VC > was not there. He didn't keep his appointment. So we had to give the > petition to the Registrar and comeback (We were very angry about the way VC > responed and it even becam grave when registar told us that every weekend he > is in Bangalore ! We had clearly mentioned that we are coming from bangalore > and if he is in bangalore every week, then Why did he give an appointment at > Belgaum ? He might have thought that we won't go thus far to meet him ! > Anyway we are not gonna let it go. We are trying to meet him in bangalore. > If w cannot go some one else will be ready. He will have to listen to us one > day.) > > First, nothing would be achieved with rage, change is a slow process, we > should take this experience as good lesson. > The rage was not beacuse VTU did not embrace FLOSS just after our petition. But it was beacuse he didn't keep his word. He gave an appointment on Sat eve ate Belgaum and when we reached there he was not there and Registrar told us every weekend he is in Bangalore !!! He knew that we are coming from Bangalore and so what emotion we should have ? It was a basic courtecy that anyone expect especially one in a position like VC. If something urgent was there he could have informed us before. It was not an unscheduled visit to Bangalore, every weekend he is Bangalore !!!!! See I and Thejesh took leave for this and Vivek came all the way from Trivandrum to Belgaum just for this. It was not the response to the petition that made us angry but the way he did not keep his word and cheated us. we are planning to meet the VC here in Bangalore. Well as the great quote > goes "First they laugh at you, then they neglect you, then they fight you > and then you win". We will keep putting our views in front of him. > > Next steps: > > (1) Keep the petition alive. > > (2) Meet VC at Bangalore. > > (3) Start FLOSS awareness at colleges. > > It would be better if we use the mailing-list for the further discussion. > --arky > The discussion is on at http://bangalore.gnu.org.in/?VTU-FLOSS_Campaign-status -- "GNU is the system, and Linux is the kernel." A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org My Weblog at http://www.pravi.co.nr Rediscover the web ! Get firefox at http://www.getfirefox.com Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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Hi "FSUG"
by b a s i l 14 Aug '05

14 Aug '05

Hi FSUG........., I'm Basil ( Arky.. I meet you with Nivead and Akshay Sasikumar in IISC). I am basiclly from Kerala (near to cochin). Currently I am working in IBM, Bangalore. I came to the world of free softwares recently .... got fascinated with this great field..and community .... Regards, ---- b a s i l e-mail : basilappackan(a)gmail.com gsm : +91 9880936210 "Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better" ~Albert Camus

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Berners-Lee on the read/write web
by Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati 13 Aug '05

13 Aug '05

Dear Friends, Tim Berners-Lee is famous for his work on creating World Wide Web,but the knight charming English gentlemen is man who brought standardisation to the much of the technologies on chaotic Internet with his W3c [http://www.w3c.org]. If his past work brought humans to use the Web better, his future work on semantic web will make data better accessed by robots and expert system.So,very soon I can create a computer program called My Man Friday(MMF) who will search and tell all the traffic jams on the road am just gonna talk or book me the train/bus/plane tickets. :o) Here the latest interview of him on BBC. Berners-Lee on the read/write web In August 1991, Sir Tim Berners-Lee created the first website. Fourteen years on, he tells BBC Newsnight's Mark Lawson how blogging is closer to his original idea about a read/write web. Mark Lawson : Because of your invention, I was able to look up every article written by or about you quickly and easily. But at the same time, I was sent several unsolicited links to porn sites. I have to accept that someone in Mexico may have stolen my identity and now be using it. Is the latter absolutely worth paying for the former? Tim Berners-Lee : That's an interesting question that you ask, as though it's a yes or no answer. As though our choice is to turn off the whole thing, or turn on the whole thing. I feel that the web should be something, which basically doesn't try to coerce people into putting particular sorts of things on it. I feel that we need to individually work on putting good things on it, finding ways to protect ourselves from accidentally finding the bad stuff, and that at the end of the day, a lot of the problems of bad information out there, things that you don't like, are problems with humanity. This is humanity which is communicating over the web, just as it's communicating over so many other different media. I think it's a more complicated question we have to; first of all, make it a universal medium, and secondly we have to work to make sure that that it supports the sort of society that we want to build on top of it. ___________________________________________________________________________ When you write a blog, you don't write complicated hypertext, you just write text, so I'm very, very happy to see that now it's gone in the direction of becoming more of a creative medium Tim Berners-Lee ___________________________________________________________________________ ML : When you think in terms of what it has allowed, what is the achievement of the web? TBL : It's a new medium, it's a universal medium and it's not itself a medium which inherently makes people do good things, or bad things. It allows people to do what they want to do more efficiently. It allows people to exist in an information space which doesn't know geographical boundaries. My hope is that it'll be very positive in bringing people together around the planet, because it'll make communication between different countries more possible. But on the other hand I see it as a substrate for humanity, I see it as something on which humanity will do what humanity does and the questions as to what we as individuals and we collectively do, are still just as important and just as much as before, up to us. ML : But do you feel responsible? You say humanity will do whatever it does with it, do you feel responsible for what happens? TBL : I do not feel responsible for everything that humanity does, no. I suppose I feel a responsibility when people take on the web expecting one thing and get something else, so yes I suppose that's partly why I'm involved with the World Wide Web Consortium, and lots of other people are trying to make it better. Towards a rewritable web ML : I'm interested that at what sense you began to sense the possibilities. You weren't thinking car rental, you weren't thinking blogging, I assume. TBL : Well in some ways. The idea was that anybody who used the web would have a space where they could write and so the first browser was an editor, it was a writer as well as a reader. Every person who used the web had the ability to write something. It was very easy to make a new web page and comment on what somebody else had written, which is very much what blogging is about. ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ SIR TIM BERNERS-LEE Born in London in 1955 Read physics at Queen's College, Oxford Banned from using university PC for hacking Built own computer with old TV, a Motorola microprocessor and soldering iron Created web in late 1980s and early 1990s at Cern Offered it free on the net Founded World Wide Web Consortium at MIT in 1994 Named by Time magazine as one of the top 20 thinkers of the 20th century Knighted in 2003 ___________________________________________________________________________ For years I had been trying to address the fact that the web for most people wasn't a creative space; there were other editors, but editing web pages became difficult and complicated for people. What happened with blogs and with wikis, these editable web spaces, was that they became much more simple. When you write a blog, you don't write complicated hypertext, you just write text, so I'm very, very happy to see that now it's gone in the direction of becoming more of a creative medium. ML : Moving on to the consequences and the uses of the internet, the first question that arises a lot is the quality, the reliability of the information that is there. Now some people think that the internet has led to this great empire of lies, of unreliability. You simply don't know what the state of any of this information is. TBL : When you say there are a lot of lies out there, if you go randomly picking up pieces of paper in the street or leafing through garbage at the garbage dump what are the chances you'll find something reliable written on the paper that you find there? Very small. When you go onto the internet, if you really rummage around randomly then how do you hope to find something of any of value? But when you use the web, you follow links and you should keep bookmarks of the places where following links turns out to be a good idea. When you go to a site and it gives you pointers to places that you find are horrible or unreliable, then don't go there again. You see out there right now, for example, when you look at bloggers some of them are very careful. A good blogger when he says that something's happened will have a point to back, and there's a certain ethos within the blogging community, you always point to your source, you point all the way back to the original article. If you're looking at something and you don't know where it comes from, if there's no pointer to the source, you can ignore it. Powerful tool ML : You must reflect though on the law of unintended consequences because it wasn't remotely ever your intention when you started on this that so much of the web would be given over to sexual exhibitionists masturbating in their bedrooms with webcams. Do you ever have bad moments about that? TBL : Well I don't see that stuff. My goal for the web in 30 years is to be the platform which has led to the building of something very new and special, which we can't imagine now Tim Berners-Lee ML : But you know it's there though? TBL : Some people tell me. I suppose the question is to what extent the people use it for things which should seriously concern us. For example, are people using the web to get information about how to do illegal things, whether it's to make explosives, how to kill people, poison people, or whatever it is. So there's a certain amount of danger that this tool can be used for bad purposes. It's a very powerful tool. ML : And you've never had a sleepless night over that? TBL : No I haven't. I haven't had a sleepless night over it because I suppose I'm so much more surrounded by the good things that people are doing with it. There are lots of positive stories of people doing great things, putting educational information out there for people in developing countries and things, for example. There's a huge spirit of goodness. Most of the people I meet who are developing the web are focused on all those things. ML : You have a convenient benchmark, because you have a daughter who was born just as the web was beginning. Her stages of development are the same as the web in years. So, when she is 30, say, what would you want the web at 30 to be? TBL : People often quite successfully compare the web with a growing person, and it's certainly had its years of adolescence when it's been trying to push the boundaries, see how far we can go, and I think some of these things, with spam and phishing that we see at the moment are examples of that. And people have been pushing backwards and forwards about piracy, and I think a lot of those things will settle down. When it's 30, I expect it to be much more stable, something that people don't talk about. Really when you talk about an article, you don't say, "Oh, I'm going to write an article on paper!" The fact that we use pen and paper is sort of rather understood. Similarly the web will be, hopefully, will be something which is sunk into the background as an assumption. Now, if as technologists develop, we've done our job well, the web will be this universal medium, which will be very, very flexible. It won't, itself, have any preconceived notions about what's built on top. One of the reasons that I want to keep it open like that, is partly because I want humanity to have it as a clean slate. My goal for the web in 30 years is to be the platform which has led to the building of something very new and special, which we can't imagine now. ML : Tim Berners-Lee, thank you very much. Mark Lawson's interview with Tim Berners-Lee is broadcast by Newsnight on BBC Two, Tuesday 9 August at 2230 BST in the UK. You can also watch the programme from the Newsnight website, live and on-demand for 24 hours after first broadcast. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/technology/4132752.stm Published: 2005/08/09 09:28:35 GMT © BBC MMV -- arky GPG Key ID: 0x92BCF7D4 Blog [ http://arky.in ] Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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First Annual Bangalore Debian Developer Conference
by Kanti Jadia 13 Aug '05

13 Aug '05

Hi All, The Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore (IIIT-B) is organising a one day Debian Conference on 20th August, 2005. The conference is mainly to create a platform for Debian Developers in India and create an environment for more contributions to Debian Project from India. http://lwn.net/Articles/147360/ A good take guys. Be one of the very few ( 1000 ) developers working on Debian GNU/Linux Regards Kanti ----------------------------------------- Enjoy your Freedom,use GNU/Linux. http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html -----------------------------------------

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Re: [fsug-bangalore] Hi "FSUG"
by Kanti Jadia 13 Aug '05

13 Aug '05

Hi Basil, Welcome to FSUG-Bangalore >I came to the world of free softwares recently .... got fascinated with this >great field..and community .... > For sure that you would enjoy your time working with Free Software. > Regards Kanti ----------------------------------------- Enjoy your Freedom,use GNU/Linux. http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html -----------------------------------------

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hi everyone!
by Nirmal Thacker 11 Aug '05

11 Aug '05

arky introduced me a few days back, on the lists. my name is nirmal thacker. im a UG student in BMSCE. thats all about me, but there was something on my mind which i'd like to share. i had signed the VTU petition for the use of open source software a long time back. i was not aware of this lists at that time. anyways have you guys heard of EDUSAT? it is a distance learning project already in full swing by VTU. and Microsoft Corp is a major part of it. heres the link to the edusat site: http://elearning.vtu.ac.in/ heres the link to the several newspaper articles of edusat. you will find several instances of Microsoft helping EDUSAT in different ways :http://elearning.vtu.ac.in/inmedia.htm# what im getting at is will VTU still use open source software? after all if microsoft is playing a huge role in EDUSAT , VTU may feel commited towards them although the use of open source software is beneficial for both them and us. Secondly, again before joining up for this lists i had decided that i would do my bit for the open source community by distributing CD's like GNU/ linux distros, open source software collection and anything related to it (on cds!) for free. since we have a newsletter in our college, where im actively involved , making announcements are easy. and i really dint mind spending a bit of money ( an empty cd today costs only about 9/8 rs each, if bought in bulk) if i could convince people of the benefits of this new revolution. Cant we do the same? i mean as a group , our reputation would increase if we began in ways such as these. who knows , you may then get sponsors to distribute open source stickers, t shirts, etc. one of the best ways to spread anything related to engineering students is by getting involved with the various fests held by the colleges. please send in your replies and opinions. do we have some kinda meetings ? im new around here so im not sure thanks again for letting me be a part of this! nirmal thacker

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Ranganath
by Sree Ranganath BK 10 Aug '05

10 Aug '05

Hi friends, i am new to this group. my friend told me about the group and about the greatness of open source i did my m.tech at NIT Calicut. I will try my level best for the benefit of the group ok bye Ranganath

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hi from nivead
by nivead 09 Aug '05

09 Aug '05

Hi FSUG, I'm nivead. new for this group. got introduced to this group by arky.... me presently working for yahoo, bangalore (rajsekhar, i'm there in NOC). and i'm basically from cochin. looking forward for a great experience with u guys!!!! nivead

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Software Freedom Day
by Kanti Jadia 08 Aug '05

08 Aug '05

Hi All, Let show our support for Free Software on the Software Freedom Day this year. [1] Mark September 10th 2005 on your calendar! It is the second annual Software Freedom Day. We should get our team listed as SFD team , A wiki page to keep track would be a good starter. http://softwarefreedomday.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=25&… Regards Kanti ----------------------------------------- Enjoy your Freedom,use GNU/Linux. http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html -----------------------------------------

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Re: Re: [fsug-bangalore] Participation by FSF-India in LB-05
by Kanti Jadia 08 Aug '05

08 Aug '05

>A couple of TODOs towards this: > 1. Spread awareness about the Free Software Foundation ,India. 2. Distribute FSF Goodies stickers, posters, handouts, and T-shirts We should be dropping CD's from the list as it would not be feasable. No writer etc. as well. 3. Collect donations on behalf of FSF-India. 4. Put up a GNU/Hurd box on demo. ( i have not worked on hurd yet ) 5. Getting official GNU manuals and books ( need to work on details ). I know of only one book published in India.The cost of bringing the other books would be high i suppose.(40$ - 1800 Rs for GNU C library). Any alternatives On the list of sessions we need to get 1. A session on the recent software patents bill and the related events 2. A session on the FSF activities in India, in the past as well as present 3. Kiran's activities in Andhra could be put Regards Kanti ----------------------------------------- Enjoy your Freedom,use GNU/Linux. http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html -----------------------------------------

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FSUG-Bangalore August 2005