FSUG-Bangalore March 2009

fsug-bangalore@mm.gnu.org.in

37 participants
42 discussions

Inauguration of FSUG and Awareness program about GNU/Linux and document freedom in EWIT
by Purnateja D Ghat 17 Mar '09

17 Mar '09

Hi list, We at The East West Institute of Technology ,Bangalore are planning to inaugurate a FSUG in our campus in order to promote awareness about Free Software movement and Document Freedom. Thus we present "Muktha Habba" in our campus on Wednesday ,18th March at 2 PM and I'm happy to invite you all. This is for around 100 students and faculty members. We would also like to hear suggestions/comments from your side which would help in this venture. thank you. -- Purnateja.D.Ghat ಸುವರ್ಣ ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ಸಿರಿಗನ್ನಡಂ ಗೆಲ್ಗೆ ------------------------------- www.purnateja.devadutta.net purnateja.blogspot.com

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Happy Birthday RMS!
by Purnateja D Ghat 16 Mar '09

16 Mar '09

HI list, Today on 16th March I wish RMS A very Happy Birthday! Keep us inspired and motivated for Free Software and Free Society! -- Purnateja.D.Ghat ಸುವರ್ಣ ಕರ್ನಾಟಕ ಸಿರಿಗನ್ನಡಂ ಗೆಲ್ಗೆ ------------------------------- www.purnateja.devadutta.net purnateja.blogspot.com

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ILUG Cochin 'Indian Libre User Group'
by Sreenadh H 16 Mar '09

16 Mar '09

Warm greetings to the Free Software Community, Indian Linux Users Group will now on be known as "Indian Libre User Group". Website: www.ilug-cochin.org IRC : #ilugkochi on irc.freenode.net ML : mailinglist at ilug-cochin.org We have adopted the new name after months of discussions on the Mailing List and offline. The new name reflects the fact that "Free Software is a Social Movement". We have also brought about a change to our website as well, by adopting Wordpress. Let us all look forward to a bright future with our new face. Happy Hacking !! Thank You -- http://hackingwithdebian.blogspot.com

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RMS article in todays Hindu
by Senthil Sundaram (sensunda) 15 Mar '09

15 Mar '09

hi, The interview taken by the Hindu during RMS Bangalore visit in todays Hindu "IBM's recently-released Microsoft-Free Desktop, regarded as significant in non-proprietary circles, he says is "interesting" but questions IBM's skirting the ethical issue of freedom. " http://www.hindu.com/mag/2009/03/15/stories/2009031550070200.htm -S

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[OT] Obama deception and the secret government.
by Harish Singh 14 Mar '09

14 Mar '09

All, Sorry for the off-topic post. Even if not directly related to this forum, it should mean something for every citizen of this planet. Please follow the link to view the video - Obama deception or download the torrent. - Harish http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7535755025025800195 http://torrents.thepiratebay.org/4764748/The_Obama_Deception_by_Alex_Jones_…

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Fwd: [Asiasource-l] [F/OSSophy Dept] F/OSS out of the box...
by Anivar Aravind 13 Mar '09

13 Mar '09

Patrice Riemens, an Amsterdam-based people networker and FLOSS-opher is in now Bangalore. Can we plan a meeting with Him? Sunil, Can you communicate with him & arrange it? See an Interesting Post from Him Anivar ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Patrice Riemens Date: Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 9:13 PM Subject: [Asiasource-l] [F/OSSophy Dept] F/OSS out of the box... To: summersource-l(a)lists.tacticaltech.org Cc: africasource2-l(a)lists.tacticaltech.org, asiasource-l(a)lists.tacticaltech.org An interesting post from nettime which goes a long way to demystify Eric Raymond's celebrated "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" essay, and sheds some unexpected light on the differences between Free Software and Open Source. All this even it is primarily written for an artistic/cultural audience rather than for developpers. Cheers from Amsterdam still, patrizio and Diiiinooos! (original, see the therad as a whole too...): http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0902/msg00011.html Hello Donna, > I am looking at open source and implementing this metaphor to a curatorial > practice. What effect would this have on exhibiting artists? Would the > audience benefit? There already is a rich tradition of applying Open Source/free software principles to art; "curatorship" seems a bit problematic as a term (which it is not only in this context), self-organization may be more appropriate. Examples can be found in the hack meetings which, particularly in Italy, were hybrids of activist and artistic events, and many related Internet art projects. But actually, the tradition is older than even the terms "Open Source" and "free software". Since Ray Johnson's New York Correspondance School in the 1960s, the Mail Art network had its own codified system of decentralized, international, open participation art exhibitions, events and publications, with the festivals and non-juried exhibitions of older avant-garde movements forming yet another historical pretext. > Also anyone with an interest in Eric S. Raymond?s free software development > model. He pitched it "Open Source" as a more business-friendly term, against the older, more activist term "free software". > I would like to know the following: > > 1. What are your personal views about the ?Cathedral? and the ?Bazaar?? Again, a lot has already been written about this (for example, in "First Monday" shortly after the Raymond's text appeared). Retrospectively, I think there have been many confusions and urban myths about this essay. Like Roland Barthes' "The Death of Author", it is a text that, polemically speaking, nobody seems to have read yet everybody has an opinion about. Among those urban myths are: - that Raymond pitches an Open Source "bazaar" model against a proprietary Microsoft-ish "cathedral" model of software development. But in fact, it is about the decentralized development of Linux, the operating system kernel supervised by Linus Torvalds [and not what is commonly referred to as the whole Linux operating system], versus the classical small, closed committee style of development that had been characteristic for GNU software, the free BSDs and the X Window System. On top of that, the text is not even literally about Open Source because the term did not yet exist when it was first published. - Looking back at the above point more than ten years later, it is probably fair to say that a clear-cut division of "bazaar"- and "cathedral"-style development methods no longer exists in Free Software development. The development of the Linux kernel has become more hierarchical, with several layers of developer hierarchies that a patch needs to go through in order to be accepted into the main line kernel, while on the other hand the development culture of GNU and BSD software has adapted itself better towards the Internet than in the 1990s. (The now-standard use of networked version control systems like Subversion and git is a clear empirical indicator.) - While not using the term "Open Source" in its initial version, the essay fully preempts the later Open Source-vs.-Free Software controversy by discussing open, distributed development processes as technically superior to closed processes. [There are striking similarities to Bertalanffy's earlier General Systems Theory with its claim that in nature and society, only open systems survive while closed ones die of entropy, and of course to Popper's theory of the open society as the counter-model to societies founded on philosophical idealism.] I remember an article from the German IT journal iX that, ten years after the manifesto, checked those claims and soundly disputed their black-and-white rhetoric. For example, Open Source and distributed development are clearly not a 100% cure against software bugs and security leaks (as opposed to Raymond's statement that "given enough eyes, all bugs are shallow). There have been terrible bugs and security nightmares - such as the recent Debian OpenSSL bug - even in high profile FLOSS software projects. And the dialectics is also true: If there are not enough eyes, bugs can be annoying, for example in FLOSS multimedia authoring software from Cinelerra to PD that thrive on very small and often amateur programmer communities (as opposed to the OS kernels, file systems, network stacks, database servers etc.). It is probably fair to put Raymond's essay into the context of other optimistic late-1990s Internet theories of "crowd wisdom", "smart mobs" etc., that promote a similar cybernetic vision of a self-organizing critical mass that is the magic solution to all problems. Linux and, more recently, Wikipedia show that these theories are not completely off and that networked collaboration can amount to critical mass. But none of these projects are without their own issues (such as conservatism: Linux reimplemented Unix instead of the arguably more advanced and interesting Plan9 or Lisp Machine kernel architectures because Unix kernel architecture is the textbook knowledge of every computer science student; Wikipedia nowadays insists, in its angst-ridden compliance to culturally conservative Wikipedia-bashing, on print publication references for everything that is claimed in a Wikipedia article), and "open collaboration" is not a magic bullet. Mail Art may again serve as a good example, because it was so obsessed with egalitarianism that participation implied to never reject other people's project contributions although the phenomenon of "junk mail" was common and deplored even in the 1970s and 80s. It should be noted, in case you're not familiar yet with Raymond's ultra right-wing libertarian political background, that he chose metaphors of the "bazaar" versus the "cathedral" quite on purpose - referring to a free market model versus regulated production. > I believe we need to get art out of its Cathedral ? It is certainly true that art, inasmuch we speak of the contemporary (visual) art system, is still feudalist in its structure. It is the only of the modern arts whose economy is firmly based on the notion of one material fetish object, with reproduction (unlike in books, music records, films, software) being merely a second-rate, plebeian illustration of the "original". Its sponsors are the modern successors to the old feudal authorities; back then, the church and the courts, nowadays rich people as the new aristocrats and, through its grants and subsidies, the state as the authority that has replaced the church. -F -- blog: http://en.pleintekst.nl homepage: http://cramer.pleintekst.nl:70 gopher://cramer.pleintekst.nl _______________________________________________ Asiasource-l mailing list Asiasource-l(a)lists.tacticaltech.org http://lists.tacticaltech.org/mailman/listinfo/asiasource-l Event info: http://www.tacticaltech.org/asiasource/ Wiki: http://wiki.asiasource.tacticaltech.org/ -- Any responsible politician should be encouraging a home grown Free Software industry because it creates the basis for future jobs. Learning Windows is like learning to eat every meal at McDonalds.

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Re: [FSUG-Bangalore] seeking information regarding the FSUG
by Ravi Jaya 13 Mar '09

13 Mar '09

Dear members, I am new to this list, I am in need of Debian lenny installation media (DVD)., If some one could help me regarding this would be great. cheers RJ

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SUCCESS DOES NOT HAPPEN IN ISOLATION
by Madhusudan C.S 13 Mar '09

13 Mar '09

Hello all, This was an ordinary forward I received to today. But I thought this is an inspirational story and worth sharing with you all. Exactly points out why sharing and collaboration is important. Can we use it somewhere to convince people? --- Story --- There was a farmer who grew superior quality and award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won honors and prizes. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learnt something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors'. "How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?" the reporter asked. "Why sir, "said the farmer, "didn't you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior, sub-standard and poor quality corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn." The farmer gave a superb insight into the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbor's corn also improves. So it is in the other dimensions! Those who choose to be at harmony must help their neighbors and colleagues to be at peace. Those who choose to live well must help others to live well. The value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. SUCCESS DOES NOT HAPPEN IN ISOLATION. IT IS VERY OFTEN A PARTICIPATIVE AND COLLECTIVE PROCESS. So share the good practices, ideas, new learning with your family, team members, neighbors and friends. -- Thanks and regards, Madhusudan.C.S Blogs at: www.madhusudancs.info Official Email ID: madhusudan(a)madhusudancs.info

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Request
by K Srinivasa 12 Mar '09

12 Mar '09

From: ksrinivasa(a)hotmail.com To: fsug-bangalore(a)mm.gnu.org.in Subject: RE: FSUG-Bangalore Digest, Vol 35, Issue 9 Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2009 08:13:15 +0000 Hi All, Thanks for accepting my membership to your group. I am Srinivasa enthusiastic learning linux kernel/internals and drivers. Here with request the group to intimate me any related seminar/training sessions will be very useful to me for improving my knowledge. Thanks Srini The new Windows Live Messenger. You don’t want to miss this. _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live Messenger. Multitasking at its finest. http://www.microsoft.com/india/windows/windowslive/messenger.aspx

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CMRIT is moving to GNU-Linux
by jaykumar hs 12 Mar '09

12 Mar '09

Hi, Today Karthik, Ravishankar and I met Prabhod, a faculty at CMRIT, Bangalore. We were very happy to learn that the computer science dept. in the Institution has moved to GNU-linux platform and also the management has instructed all of its students ( which includes all the streams) to use only GNU-linux on their laptops. Infact, all other departments also have been convinced and are moving to GNU-linux. Prabhod said the management would be very happy from this development as it would save lot of money on licensing. Earlier, about 3 months back, Suresh kodoor and Rakesh had visited CMRIT and taken sessions on free software philosophy and installation session. Prabhod and his HOD informed that installation session of GNU-linux could be held for about 250 students on their laptops during the technical fest. Hence, one day session covering free software philosophy, installation, alternatives available for different streams has been planned on 21.03.2009 at CMRIT. This is for about 250 students of II semester of all the students. Other college students may also join for the same. The HOD has invited us to take one day workshop for their faculty as well for which planning is being done. -jk

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FSUG-Bangalore March 2009