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The Hindu: Techies protest proprietary standards; seek policy
by Praveen A 15 Apr '08

15 Apr '08

Today's Hindu has a report on Candle Light Vigil and Campaign for Document Freedom. BANGALORE: Ever since the International Standardisation Organisation (ISO) vote on April 2 adopted Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) as a document standard, techie blogs and websites have been inundated with posts and articles voicing their opposition to proprietary software and technical issues with the new standard. Organisations and online communities — such as the Free Software User Group and the Free and Open Source Software — are looking to raise the issue more aggressively in the public domain. "We call the OOXML format a "banana standard." Besides raising awareness, we want the Government to formulate a policy supporting Open Software and also appeal the ISO mandate," said Anivar Aravind, a software consultant who will participate in a rally in front of the Town Hall on Tuesday to raise awareness about Open Document formats and demand a national policy on standardisation and use of Open Software. In simple words, the problem is one of compatibility, an important issue in this digital world. For example, take the much hyped e-governance. If the Government maintains its land records in a certain digital format, and the documentation uses a proprietary format, then a user will have to keep upgrading his operating system to access the record. Proponents of Free Software argue that even with Microsoft's old document format (.doc), a file created seven to eight years ago may not be recognised by a modern operating systems such as XP. "This is like being sold a house without being given the key to it. We need public support to take it to the policy level," says Venkatesh Hariharan, who was part of a Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) committee. The BIS, which represents India at ISO, had 19 members of which 13 voted against Microsoft's OOXML. Many academics and colleges (NIT-Calicut among others) have written open letters to TCS, Infosys, NASSCOM, Wipro (that voted to abstain) and Microsoft (voted in favour of OOXML). There is a rising fear among academics and advocates of free software standards that BIS will come under pressure in the absence of any national policy. Tamil Nadu and Kerala are the only two States who have a policy in place. "Very big voices like NASSCOM and Infosys that have not participated in even one meeting have voted irresponsibly. We fear that if such lobbying continues, academics and individuals like us will be put on the defensive, unless there is a policy in place," said Nagarjuna G., professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, who was part of the technical committee of BIS. This committee alone identified 200-odd technical flaws in OOXML's 7,000 page document — the Open Document Format is 600 pages — and more than 1,000 others were identified internationally. The National Knowledge Commission Report 2006 and the Eleventh Five Year plan for Information Technology recommend Free Software. http://www.hindu.com/2008/04/15/stories/2008041554380500.htm -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ <GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call! <DRM> What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak? (as seen on /.) Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Sunday Meet I am Waiting For It!
by PenguinPuPPy 15 Apr '08

15 Apr '08

Sure It will be a pleasure to meet after a long time ..I was waiting for a meet since a long time what could be a better excuse that the ASUS Eee PC.BTY i have Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04 beta will get them on Sunday -- To Love The Penguin(aka TUX) You Need To Be As Faithful As A Puppy

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Linux compat Printer
by jtd 14 Apr '08

14 Apr '08

Hi all, My ancient hp 720C which worked for the last 11 yrs is finally showing it's age. The pins on the catridge socket have poor contact resulting in streaky printing. I was planing on buying the HP K5300DN, which works with full capability under linux. Print load is moderate. I require good color print for the occasional printed brochure. Any recommendations? -- Rgds JTD

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Apache -MySQL module ??
by Agnello George 14 Apr '08

14 Apr '08

Hi I would like to know if any one has worked on Apache -MySQL module Just like bind-dlz , i would like to know if it is possible of instead of storing the location of the website directory path in files could it be stored in a MySQL database. And if possible how do i query to that database through the httpd.conf file . Thank you Awaiting your reply -- Regards Agnello Dsouza

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PHP Part 2 - Sunday 20th April
by Prashant Shah 14 Apr '08

14 Apr '08

For those who attended part 1. Details : http://elitemumbai.wordpress.com/ Please register -- Elite System. http://elitemumbai.wordpress.com/ elite.mumbai(a)gmail.com Join our group for seminar announcements : http://groups.google.com/group/elitesystems

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Re: [ILUG-BOM] ASUS eee PC WiFi connection
by Arun Khan 14 Apr '08

14 Apr '08

> From: Rony > Subject: Re: [ILUG-BOM] ASUS eee PC WiFi connection > The stock os supports only wep. It also supports wpa but I have not had a chance to connect it to a wpa AP. It is strange that wpa2 is not supported by the GUI given wpa2 has been around for a while. -- Arun Khan

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Bangalore, 15th April: Candle light vigil for Document Freedom
by Praveen A 14 Apr '08

14 Apr '08

Dear Friends, Recently International Standardisation Organisation (ISO) is approved Microsoft's broken standard OOXML( with 1000s of Technical Flaws) also as a Document standard. India's Vote was No to this standard that creates vendor lock-in and prevents interoperability. Micro$oft played a lot of nasty games to get the approval from member countries. In this context we are Conducting a Candle Light Vigil for Document Freedom Demanding bureau of indian standard (BIS) to appeal ISO's Decision of approving the banana standard OOXML Venue : In Front of Townhall, Corporation Circle , Bangalore Date : 15th April 6.00pm The programme is planned as a starting point for various events & awareness campaigns on Document freedom . Please use following wiki page for organising the programme http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Campaign_for_Document_Freedom Also add your name on campaigners section Contact : Praveen A <pravi.a at gmail.com> +91 9986348565 Anivar Aravind <anivar at movingrepublic dot org> +91 9449009908/ +91 080 23435606 Why Document Freedom? We live in an age in which paper documents increasingly get replaced by electronic records. Document freedom is fundamental for your documents to outlive the application you are currently using and allows you to choose and change applications freely. Previous proprietary document formats have become difficult or impossible to read within little more than a decade. There is no reason to believe this trend will not continue if allowed so to do. Without open standards for our documents we are likely to inflict a 'digital dark-age' on our descendants when they discover that they are unable to read any of the sources for their history, such as Government records, acts of Parliament, property title deeds, scientific research papers, and family histories. They will not forgive us if we fail to act to protect them now, but instead allow another generation of poorly specified proprietary standards to become widely adopted. Document Freedom and Democracy Electronic records kept today include records of your government, such as tax and legal records or minutes of parliamentary proceedings. Making sure that such records remain in the control of the government is essential for a functioning democracy. The same is true for all interactions between citizens and their government, which should never depend on monopolies or on the proprietary product of a single company. How to achieve Document Freedom? Make a stand by saving your documents in ODF today. If your application does not support ODF, get one of the ODF supported applications like OpenOffice.org, Staroffice, NeoOffice, KOffice, AbiWord, Google Docs, IBM Lotus Symphony etc We request all users to 1. not send attachments in proprietary formats like .doc, .xls, .ppt 2. not pollute their friends computers and the internet with unethically encoded documents. 3. inform the users that they do not have right to decode the documents they themselves have written, if they use proprietary software 4. distribute open office cds, containing apps with source code for windows. 5. distribute live cds. Regards Praveen -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ <GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call! <DRM> What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak? (as seen on /.) Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Re: [ILUG-BOM] ASUS eee PC WiFi connection
by Arun Khan 13 Apr '08

13 Apr '08

> From: Rony > Subject: Re: [ILUG-BOM] ASUS eee PC WiFi connection > > > Arun Khan wrote: > > A friend has acquired one of the ASUS eee PC. > > > > Is there a way to make the WiFi to work with an AP with WPA2? > > > > Hi Arun, join us tomorrow at HBCSE 10.30 am for the workshop on this > very eeepc. I had other commitments so I could not make it to the meet. Did anyone discuss how to connect to an AP with wpa2, using the stock OS that comes bundled with the unit? I guess, I can set my own AP to do wpa but that may not be an option in other locations. -- Arun Khan

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Issue in SAMBA & LTSP
by Neelesh Gurjar 13 Apr '08

13 Apr '08

Hi, My file server is configured in CentOs 5 samba share (samba version 3.0.26a) and in clients desktops, i have a mix environment windows XP + suse linux 10.3 All clients mount through samba in windows and in linux they share from nfs or samba (using cifs ) In the above case, when we try to open the same file first computer should get rw and other one should get read only. But here i get both files opened in rw mode, which shld not happen. I tried following combinations for one file. 1. I opened one file in Linux and same time I open same file in Windows. I got write permissions at both end. 2. I opened same file in Linux and Linux. I got write permission at one and read only permission at other end. 3. I opened same file in Windows and Windows I got write permission at one end and read only permission at other end. So here I want to eliminate 1 st. It should not open writable at both end. Where I should look for ? Below is my share [test] path = /home/<user> browseable = yes volume = test strict locking = yes force group = windows force user = <user> comment = testing -- Regards NeeleshG LINUX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity

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Problem of Via Chrome9 HC IGP with Ubuntu 7.10
by Raza Sayed 13 Apr '08

13 Apr '08

Hello, I got Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) CD . When i boot the live CD on my laptop , i get the option screen where we have options to start or install ubuntu , start in safe graphics mode etc... When i select 'start or install ubuntu', i get the usual splash screen , then a screen that shows all the drivers getting loaded etc.. , then when it reaches the stage where the desktop is to be loaded , i get a mouse pointer for a while and then the whole screen goes blank . The desktop does not load. Ive tried the following things but none of them worked : 1) I tried using vga=771 as a boot option . 2) I tried booting in safe graphics mode , but the same thing happened. My video card is Via Chrome9 HC IGP . Also, i dont have an alternate CD. I was able to get to the desktop with Ubuntu 6.06(Dapper Drake). So,is this an issue of Ubuntu 7.10 with Via Chrome9 HC IGP video card ?. Also, any way it can be resolved ?. Thanks a lot. Regards, Raza. "Don't tell me the sky is the limit, there are footprints on the moon !!" --------------------------------- Did you know? You can CHAT without downloading messenger. Click here

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