hi, my new year resolution: whatever it takes, avsap must knock tally off its pedestal
positives: translation is no problem - enough guys around to do it tally has opted for mysql and shot themselves in the foot avsap has tamil, telugu, gujarati and hindi - tally doesnt
negatives: indians dont like to work for free
conclusion: as long as there are guys to translate, i'll do the rest
btw
like tally, avsap is hiring:
no pay, only qualifications is a willingness to work invoicing and inventory control modules should be up in a week
happy new year all
kg
Hi KG,
On Fri, 2004-12-31 at 19:13, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
hi, my new year resolution: whatever it takes, avsap must knock tally off its pedestal
no pay, only qualifications is a willingness to work invoicing and inventory control modules should be up in a week
I have just one word. BRAVO!
happy new year all
Wish you, all fellow GLUGers and their family GNUew Year!
kg
With regards,
Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
negatives: indians dont like to work for free
Who said so ? Misconceptions my dear friend. :-) Anyways I am currently working on an antispam/antivirus project project in C & Perl, which has the power of Amavisd-new and has the flexibility of MailScanner, integrates with SpamAssassin and has its own signature detection algorithm one very different from DCC and Razor2 and is optimised to work with the working standards of Postfix (Not Sendmail because I don't like it and not Qmail because I don't know about it :-) ). And I am going to make the Project and its source public (and that too for free) perhaps by the mid of the new year (If my office hours don't drag too long). Although this project has nothing to do with Desktop level applications and there are already many such scanners available as open source, but the feature list that I am trying to build is compiled from my past experiences in fighting with Spams and Viruses.
On Friday 31 December 2004 08:45 pm, you wrote:
Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
negatives: indians dont like to work for free
Who said so ? Misconceptions my dear friend. :-) Anyways I am currently working on an antispam/antivirus project project in C & Perl, which has the power of Amavisd-new and has the flexibility of MailScanner, integrates with SpamAssassin and has its own signature detection algorithm one very different from DCC and Razor2 and is optimised to work with the working standards of Postfix (Not Sendmail because I don't like it and not Qmail because I don't know about it :-) ). And I am going to make the Project and its source public (and that too for free) perhaps by the mid of the new year (If my office hours don't drag too long).
after you release it, let me know how many indians join to *work* with the development - i will then be pleased to withdraw my remarks
regards kg
Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
On Friday 31 December 2004 08:45 pm, you wrote:
Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
negatives: indians dont like to work for free
Who said so ? Misconceptions my dear friend. :-) Anyways I am currently working on an antispam/antivirus project project in C & Perl, which has the power of Amavisd-new and has the flexibility of MailScanner, integrates with SpamAssassin and has its own signature detection algorithm one very different from DCC and Razor2 and is optimised to work with the working standards of Postfix (Not Sendmail because I don't like it and not Qmail because I don't know about it :-) ). And I am going to make the Project and its source public (and that too for free) perhaps by the mid of the new year (If my office hours don't drag too long).
after you release it, let me know how many indians join to *work* with the development - i will then be pleased to withdraw my remarks
Sure. I'll be happy if more Indians come aboard the GNU Ship :-) Ne ways wish all of you a happy and Delightful new year and hope that Linux becomes more popular this year. :-)
On Fri, Dec 31, 2004 at 07:13:13PM +0530, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
hi, my new year resolution: whatever it takes, avsap must knock tally off its pedestal
positives: translation is no problem - enough guys around to do it tally has opted for mysql and shot themselves in the foot avsap has tamil, telugu, gujarati and hindi - tally doesnt
negatives: indians dont like to work for free
conclusion: as long as there are guys to translate, i'll do the rest
btw
like tally, avsap is hiring:
no pay, only qualifications is a willingness to work invoicing and inventory control modules should be up in a week
happy new year all
I wish you all the best. Great resolution! do let me know what help I can give you in making this happen.
Nagarjuna
On Saturday 01 January 2005 09:33 am, you wrote:
I wish you all the best. Great resolution! do let me know what help I can give you in making this happen.
install the software
at the first level - give feedback on it second level - contribute patches third level - join as a developer
regards kg
On Friday 31 Dec 2004 7:13 pm, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
negatives: indians dont like to work for free
I normally dont respond to mails on the list. but this one caught my attention. "Indians dont like to work for free"... hmm... I suggest you open your eyes and look around. I myself have contributed a lot of my time and work to GNU, SPI-INC, Debian, Drupal and I havent received a penny. Look a bit further. Karunakar started the project without any funding. Later FreeOS decided to hire him. Sirtaj of the KDE project does not get paid for his work at KDE.
Ciao.
On Sunday 02 Jan 2005 7:46 am, Warren Brian Noronha wrote:
On Friday 31 Dec 2004 7:13 pm, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
negatives: indians dont like to work for free
I normally dont respond to mails on the list. but this one caught my attention. "Indians dont like to work for free"... hmm... I suggest you open your eyes and look around. I myself have contributed a lot of my time
Also look at sourceforge.net/projects/efc My aim for this year is to make it better coded(with well defind APIs), more features, good documentation and a good user interface.
On Sunday 02 January 2005 04:48 pm, you wrote:
On Sunday 02 Jan 2005 7:46 am, Warren Brian Noronha wrote:
On Friday 31 Dec 2004 7:13 pm, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
negatives: indians dont like to work for free
I normally dont respond to mails on the list. but this one caught my attention. "Indians dont like to work for free"... hmm... I suggest you open your eyes and look around. I myself have contributed a lot of my time
Also look at sourceforge.net/projects/efc My aim for this year is to make it better coded(with well defind APIs), more features, good documentation and a good user interface.
Have you had anyone volunteering to join? I cant as i dont do C, but there are hundreds of OSS guys who do C - where are they?
my personal experience - have on and off joined several projects. I now and then see some of my fellow countrymen volunteering to join. almost invariably, they produce a lot of gas - and rarely contribute anything, especially the grunt work ... there are shining exceptions, many mentioned in this thread. But they remain exceptions. Generally, they dont like to work in a team - unless they are the boss. Team work means, often, making compromises debugging others code - documenting others code and pitching in to do the boring stuff. I know the localisation guys have done a lot - but how many of them are there? I get the impression that there is a severe shortage of hands
regards kg
Sometime Today, Warren Brian Noronha assembled some asciibets to say:
your eyes and look around. I myself have contributed a lot of my time
[snip]
penny. Look a bit further. Karunakar started the project without any funding. Later FreeOS decided to hire him. Sirtaj of the KDE project
3 persons per billion is a very high percentage no?
Philip Tellis philip.tellis@gmx.net writes:
penny. Look a bit further. Karunakar started the project without any funding. Later FreeOS decided to hire him. Sirtaj of the KDE project
3 persons per billion is a very high percentage no?
You fail to see the point. Its not _only_ the developers (who are able to send code patches) who are contributing. By using the software, and grumbling about its problems., there are a lot more people contributing (for testing). Some write documentation. Some dont do mainstream programming but contribute stuff like fonts, etc.. The l18n project is an example of that. Many have contributed for translation..
Sometime Today, Joe Steeve assembled some asciibets to say:
You fail to see the point. Its not _only_ the developers (who are able to send code patches) who are contributing. By using the software, and grumbling about its problems., there are a lot more people
ok, 30? Compare that with several hundred thousand who write strictly not for share code for money, and the many more that use and grumble about proprietary software.
hello all
I am trying to upgrade mysql from 3.23 version to 4.0.22. but its creating problem. After removing 3.23 version rpms(even tried without removing them) i have installed MySQL 4.0.22 related all rpms. Before installing rpm mysql was running perfectly but after installation its failing to start. In /var/log/messages i found error as follows:---
Jan 3 13:21:35 svohra mysqld_app_init: Stopping MySQL: Failed to find pid file Jan 3 13:21:35 svohra mysqld_app_init: Stopping MySQL: Falling back to killall Jan 3 13:23:36 svohra mysqld_app_init: Stopping MySQL: Still answering telnet connections... Jan 3 13:23:36 svohra mysqld_app_init: Stopping MySQL: Trying killall Jan 3 13:25:38 svohra mysqld_app_init: Stopping MySQL: Still answering telnet connections... Jan 3 13:25:38 svohra mysql: Stopping MySQL: failed Jan 3 13:27:42 svohra mysqld_app_init: Stopping MySQL: Socket file still hasn't appeared... Jan 3 13:27:42 svohra mysql: Starting MySQL: failed
thanks for any help
________________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony
Did you upgrade teh database ? If not that is where your error is. Look at the MySQL site for more info on upgrading from 3.x to 4.x.
- Navneet
On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 08:05:17 +0000 (GMT), crisppy f linuxbee2001@yahoo.co.in wrote:
hello all
I am trying to upgrade mysql from 3.23 version to 4.0.22. but its creating problem. After removing 3.23 version rpms(even tried without removing them) i have installed MySQL 4.0.22 related all rpms. Before installing rpm mysql was running perfectly but after installation its failing to start. In /var/log/messages i found error as follows:---
Jan 3 13:21:35 svohra mysqld_app_init: Stopping MySQL: Failed to find pid file Jan 3 13:21:35 svohra mysqld_app_init: Stopping MySQL: Falling back to killall Jan 3 13:23:36 svohra mysqld_app_init: Stopping MySQL: Still answering telnet connections... Jan 3 13:23:36 svohra mysqld_app_init: Stopping MySQL: Trying killall Jan 3 13:25:38 svohra mysqld_app_init: Stopping MySQL: Still answering telnet connections... Jan 3 13:25:38 svohra mysql: Stopping MySQL: failed Jan 3 13:27:42 svohra mysqld_app_init: Stopping MySQL: Socket file still hasn't appeared... Jan 3 13:27:42 svohra mysql: Starting MySQL: failed
thanks for any help
Yahoo! India Matrimony: Find your life partner online Go to: http://yahoo.shaadi.com/india-matrimony
On Sun, 2 Jan 2005 17:00:25 +0530 (IST), Philip Tellis philip.tellis@gmx.net wrote:
Sometime Today, Warren Brian Noronha assembled some asciibets to say:
your eyes and look around. I myself have contributed a lot of my time
[snip]
penny. Look a bit further. Karunakar started the project without any funding. Later FreeOS decided to hire him. Sirtaj of the KDE project
3 persons per billion is a very high percentage no?
It's not that bad considering the PC penetration and the broadband cost in India. I won't even talk of the literacy rate and per capita income.
On Monday 03 January 2005 02:15 pm, you wrote:
3 persons per billion is a very high percentage no?
It's not that bad considering the PC penetration and the broadband cost in India.
what has this got to do with involvement in FOSS? - i know for a fact that one indian contributor to XFCE did a major part of his work on diallup - i have done so on a much lesser scale on sloooow diallup. I was even involved in one project where contribution was by email.
I won't even talk of the literacy rate and per capita income.
this also has nothing to do with the subject. On this list alone i would bet there are 100+ computer literate persons with broadband access - how many of them contribute?
The reasons lie elsewhere. Maybe we should conduct a poll to find why those who dont contribute dont?
maybe fred has better statistics, but a think a total of around 150 - 200 FOSS contributors in a country of our size is demeaning ...
kg
On Mon, 2005-01-03 at 15:36, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote: <snip>
maybe fred has better statistics, but a think a total of around 150 - 200 FOSS contributors in a country of our size is demeaning ...
I was speaking to Sanjiva who heads the Lanka Software Foundation and they said that Sri Lanka now has 50 committers to Apache of whom 25 are active. I would assume that most of the Indian names on the list of Apache Committers are NRIs.
If anyone can explain why there are so few Indians "uploading" to FOSS projects and what can be done to better the situation, I would be most interested in hearing them.
Venky
On Monday 03 January 2005 04:19 pm, you wrote:
If anyone can explain why there are so few Indians "uploading" to FOSS projects and what can be done to better the situation, I would be most interested in hearing them.
i think that the key word is 'self-taught'. ppl who have taught themselves are more likely to contribute - but the majority of ppl developing in linux in india are doing so because their employers mandate it. We have two firms in ooty - each employing around 30-40 ppl - exclusively linux. But, if tommorrow the respective bosses shift to windoze or mac, the whole lot would shift without a murmur. In lb2004, i noticed that the number of attendees without degrees in IT was minimal, whereas i think that in other countries one would find a lot of college dropouts (or guys who have just scraped through) keynoting. I have a feeling that if you poll the top 50 indian contributors to FOSS, you will find very few with formal qualifications
solution: go to this segment - doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants, middle level management, teachers, lecturers, small business men. Just for an experience of what this means, lurk on gnumed devel mailing list for a few days. When ppl like this get involved, then applications that they need start getting developed.
since this segment typically uses pirated M$, they are not dissatisfied enough to look for an alternative as happens abroad
i have no contact with the academic world, but i would like to ask how many lecturers program their own bits of software to help them teach?
just a few paise worth
kg
On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 16:54:01 +0530, Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@thenilgiris.com wrote:
On Monday 03 January 2005 04:19 pm, you wrote: i think that the key word is 'self-taught'. ppl who have taught themselves are more likely to contribute - but the majority of ppl developing in linux in india are doing so because their employers mandate it. We have two firms in ooty - each employing around 30-40 ppl - exclusively linux. But, if tommorrow the respective bosses shift to windoze or mac, the whole lot would shift without a murmur. In lb2004, i noticed that the number of attendees without degrees in IT was minimal, whereas i think that in other countries one would find a lot of college dropouts (or guys who have just scraped through) keynoting. I have a feeling that if you poll the top 50 indian contributors to FOSS, you will find very few with formal qualifications
I agree with the "self taught" part. That is a good observation.
solution: go to this segment - doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants, middle level management, teachers, lecturers, small business men. Just for an experience of what this means, lurk on gnumed devel mailing list for a few days. When ppl like this get involved, then applications that they need start getting developed.
You need to have a good understanding of computers to write "complex" software. But most programmers do not know much about other fields e.g. medical. This is partly because of 'division of labour' (remember it was taught in primary schools :) There are exceptions though such as Con Kolivas (a kernel hacker and a practising doctor :) which is an example which springs to mind immediately.
Programmers can collaborate with people from other professions and write software for them. It is a well established fact that FOSS does not work well in most niche areas unless some experts from that field write software for themselves or collaborate with programmers. examples include complex software for astronomy, medical imaging, software that controls particle accelators, biomechanics etc.
since this segment typically uses pirated M$, they are not dissatisfied enough to look for an alternative as happens abroad.
FOSS doesn't offer many alternatives for "niche areas". FOSS thrives when there is a huge userbase and active people giving feedback. FOSS stutters where there is a small and very specialised userbase. There are notable exceptions to this though.
i have no contact with the academic world, but i would like to ask how many lecturers program their own bits of software to help them teach ?
Confusion yet again. Teaching and programming are two different things. You can be one and not the other easily and still be good at your job. Just as every hacker does not know how to write a research paper or give a seminar. But brilliant programmers and academicians are quite competent at both. This is again besides the point. This again brings me back to the focal point of your earlier post that suggests that you need to program to contribute to open source which is simply untrue.
just a few paise worth
my 2 paise worth too :)
On Monday 03 January 2005 06:00 pm, you wrote:
You need to have a good understanding of computers to write "complex" software.
not true - there are a lot of ppl out there with minimal knowledge of computers writing pretty complex stuff - thats the power of FOSS, one doesnt need to be a qualified programmer to program application software
Programmers can collaborate with people from other professions and write software for them. It is a well established fact that FOSS does not work well in most niche areas unless some experts from that field write software for themselves or collaborate with programmers. examples include complex software for astronomy, medical imaging, software that controls particle accelators, biomechanics etc.
as things progress - programmers will become less relevant for application software in niche areas
Confusion yet again. Teaching and programming are two different things. You can be one and not the other easily and still be good at your job. Just as every hacker does not know how to write a research paper or give a seminar. But brilliant programmers and academicians are quite competent at both. This is again besides the point. This again brings me back to the focal point of your earlier post that suggests that you need to program to contribute to open source which is simply untrue.
what i am suggesting is that with the coming of FOSS - as far as application software is concerned specialised programmers will become more and more irrelevant - coding will slowly become an everyday activity for most computer literate ppl. and possibly guys who dont know how to code will not be able to hack it in most professions - i know this sounds radical, but there are signs that it is happening
kg
There are many Indians who are contributing to open source moovement.They do so selflessly and without speaking a word ...... those who do not grumble about others not contributing.
Sometime Today, Kenneth Gonsalves assembled some asciibets to say:
solution: go to this segment - doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants, middle level management, teachers, lecturers, small business men. Just for an experience of what this means, lurk on
well, we're lucky to have Shahrukh (doc), Saswata (CA), and numerous teachers/professors (Jitendra, Nagarjuna) and small businessmen (too many to list) on this list
On Monday 03 January 2005 08:47 pm, you wrote:
Sometime Today, Kenneth Gonsalves assembled some asciibets to say:
solution: go to this segment - doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants, middle level management, teachers, lecturers, small business men. Just for an experience of what this means, lurk on
well, we're lucky to have Shahrukh (doc), Saswata (CA), and numerous teachers/professors (Jitendra, Nagarjuna) and small businessmen (too many to list) on this list
thats great - i had conducted a survey on some other lists and came up with only 5 ppl. I'm thinking of forming a group called proFOSSionals to cater to this constituency - any one interested may contact me offlist
regards kg
Philip Tellis wrote:
Sometime Today, Kenneth Gonsalves assembled some asciibets to say:
solution: go to this segment - doctors, lawyers, chartered accountants, middle level management, teachers, lecturers, small business men. Just for an experience of what this means, lurk on
well, we're lucky to have Shahrukh (doc), Saswata (CA), and numerous teachers/professors (Jitendra, Nagarjuna) and small businessmen (too many to list) on this list
I have been talking of GNU/Linux based accounting software for a long time on the group. I am not a developer (unless you bring VB.Net to Linux -- that will take a long time to do) but I can help developers with domain knowledge. I said this many times. But nothing happened. There are good FLOSS web-based accounting softwares that we just need to modify to suite indian rules and way of working. Not one person came forward to work on it. The talk is a waste of time.
Venky pointed me to RedHat Student program where many accounting software projects are being done and suggested i join as a mentor. I looked at the projects on the site, most of them were from Engineering college students just doing it for college credits, none of them looked serious.........they were either redefining the wheel or completely lacked focus.
May be I dont know how to be a mentor, may be they need someone like me to redifine the project, but how do i know that any of those projects are serious ?
(Sorry Venky, perhaps I should have got back to you on this)
So, Philip, count resources only if you (or the community) can make use of it. Otherwise, we are just having a fun chat.
Regards Saswata
On Wednesday 05 January 2005 09:54 am, you wrote:
Venky pointed me to RedHat Student program where many accounting software projects are being done and suggested i join as a mentor. I looked at the projects on the site, most of them were from Engineering college students just doing it for college credits, none of them looked serious.........they were either redefining the wheel or completely lacked focus.
May be I dont know how to be a mentor, may be they need someone like me to redifine the project, but how do i know that any of those projects are serious ?
avsap is serious and desperate for a mentor
kg
Sometime Today, Venkatesh Hariharan assembled some asciibets to say:
If anyone can explain why there are so few Indians "uploading" to FOSS projects and what can be done to better the situation, I would be most interested in hearing them.
I think the only people who can answer that are those can but do not contribute.
On Mon, Jan 03, 2005 at 08:44:29PM +0530, Philip Tellis wrote:
Sometime Today, Venkatesh Hariharan assembled some asciibets to say:
If anyone can explain why there are so few Indians "uploading" to FOSS projects and what can be done to better the situation, I would be most interested in hearing them.
I think the only people who can answer that are those can but do not contribute.
I don't contribute to any Indian "FOSS" projects because I've got my own fish to fry.
-- "One lawyer can steal more than a hundred men with guns." -- The Godfather
On 3 Jan 2005, Philip Tellis spake thusly:
Sometime Today, Venkatesh Hariharan assembled some asciibets to say:
If anyone can explain why there are so few Indians "uploading" to FOSS projects and what can be done to better the situation, I would be most interested in hearing them.
I think the only people who can answer that are those can but do not contribute.
We Indians are just plain lazy. That is, except the few who actually do contribute. :) Seriously though, I think most of the folks here worry about feeding their family and buying a house. The mental attitude to do programming for the sake of the fun is not acquired by most here. Students are more worried about marks and job offers. Life here is not that easy. It is a very lucky few who have developed differently.
On Thursday 06 January 2005 11:48 am, you wrote:
We Indians are just plain lazy. That is, except the few who actually do contribute. :) Seriously though, I think most of the folks here worry about feeding their family and buying a house. The mental attitude to do programming for the sake of the fun is not acquired by most here. Students are more worried about marks and job offers. Life here is not that easy. It is a very lucky few who have developed differently.
they also dont realise that there is a hell of a lot of money to be made out of FOSS
kg
On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 15:36:23 +0530, Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@thenilgiris.com wrote:
On Monday 03 January 2005 02:15 pm, you wrote:
3 persons per billion is a very high percentage no?
It's not that bad considering the PC penetration and the broadband cost in India.
what has this got to do with involvement in FOSS? - i know for a fact that one indian contributor to XFCE did a major part of his work on diallup - i have done so on a much lesser scale on sloooow diallup. I was even involved in one project where contribution was by email.
Does this apply to all/most of the people who contribute all over the world to FOSS ??
It is a myth that only writing code is contributing to FOSS. Let me help you debunk that. AFAIK all of the following can be considered as contributing to FOSS. 1) Writing code. 2) Designing a website for some FOSS project. 3) Doing artwork for FOSS project. 4) Writing article on FOSS / Giving a talk at the local LUG. (just look at the number of Indian contributers on linuxgazette.net website). 5) Anwering to questions on mailing list/webforums/IRC. 6) Distributing CDs and evangelising free software in your neighbourhood. 7) Filing bugs and testing software. (and this is an incomplete list . . . )
Free software is useless without good documentation and users/testers/integrators. (Is this suprising ??).
I won't even talk of the literacy rate and per capita income.
this also has nothing to do with the subject. On this list alone i would bet there are 100+ computer literate persons with broadband access - how many of them contribute?
This has everything to do with the subject. Do you mean to say that more than a billion people in India with access to computers and are developers as well not contributing to FOSS ??
In a country where drinking water and food are still major issues, contributing to free software is least of the troubles.
Come off your high pedestal and take a look around.
The reasons lie elsewhere. Maybe we should conduct a poll to find why those who dont contribute dont?
maybe fred has better statistics, but a think a total of around 150 - 200 FOSS contributors in a country of our size is demeaning ...
You need to get the facts right (reread my post above and ask the question again). Have a cold coffee and chill. You are having one of those FOSS developer burnouts. :)
For the record I am a software developer and do contribute to FOSS.
:) cheers Vinayak H
On Monday 03 January 2005 04:57 pm, Vinayak Hegde wrote:
what has this got to do with involvement in FOSS? - i know for a fact that one indian contributor to XFCE did a major part of his work on diallup - i have done so on a much lesser scale on sloooow diallup. I was even involved in one project where contribution was by email.
Does this apply to all/most of the people who contribute all over the world to FOSS ??
yes - FOSS long preceeded broadband
It is a myth that only writing code is contributing to FOSS. Let me help you debunk that. AFAIK all of the following can be considered as contributing to FOSS.
- Writing code.
- Designing a website for some FOSS project.
- Doing artwork for FOSS project.
- Writing article on FOSS / Giving a talk at the local LUG.
(just look at the number of Indian contributers on linuxgazette.net website). 5) Anwering to questions on mailing list/webforums/IRC. 6) Distributing CDs and evangelising free software in your neighbourhood. 7) Filing bugs and testing software. (and this is an incomplete list . . . )
correct - count how many are doing this. I see the same guys on every list and in every chat room
This has everything to do with the subject. Do you mean to say that more than a billion people in India with access to computers and are developers as well not contributing to FOSS ??
this does not deserve a comment
In a country where drinking water and food are still major issues, contributing to free software is least of the troubles.
have you considered the faint possibility (ridiculous as it may sound) that conributing to free software could help in some small way to solve these major issues?
You need to get the facts right (reread my post above and ask the question again).
ive got my facts right
regards kg
On Mon, 3 Jan 2005 17:31:00 +0530, Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@thenilgiris.com wrote:
On Monday 03 January 2005 04:57 pm, Vinayak Hegde wrote:
what has this got to do with involvement in FOSS? - i know for a fact that one indian contributor to XFCE did a major part of his work on diallup - i have done so on a much lesser scale on sloooow diallup. I was even involved in one project where contribution was by email.
Does this apply to all/most of the people who contribute all over the world to FOSS ??
yes - FOSS long preceeded broadband
Yeah but look at where most contribution for FOSS came from. UCB,Univ of Helsinki,MIT,Stanford ..etc. They came from universities or organisations where connectivity to the internet was good. Again when I am saying this, there will be exceptions but look where the concentration is. Besides there was no broadband back then :). Internet makes it possible for people to collaborate which is necessary if the software being written is good and useful to many people. This is what I was hinting at, in an earlier post. This is also why FOSS succeeds. It lets the developers listen to the users.
This has everything to do with the subject. Do you mean to say that more than a billion people in India with access to computers and are developers as well not contributing to FOSS ??
this does not deserve a comment
(as you don't have an answer :()
In a country where drinking water and food are still major issues, contributing to free software is least of the troubles.
have you considered the faint possibility (ridiculous as it may sound) that conributing to free software could help in some small way to solve these major issues?
Not unless you can grow food on computers and write programs to make driniking water come out of floppy drives :). Feel free to supplement my stunted imagination. But seriously, FOSS can help the common man like getting land records (done in Karnataka) / getting price of crop in the market etc. But I doubt it can solve basic problems like food and water. But then I can be wrong.
You need to get the facts right (reread my post above and ask the question again).
ive got my facts right
but the source wrong ?? I still maintain that the figures are wrong though I agree that FOSS can do with a lot more developers. But there are definitely more than 150-200 developers that you are quoting.
Contribute and spread the word and let people do the rest. Don't take the arguments personally. There are not directed at anyone. I am just trying to arrive at a consensus in the collaborative spirit.
On Monday 03 January 2005 06:22 pm, Vinayak Hegde wrote:
In a country where drinking water and food are still major issues, contributing to free software is least of the troubles.
have you considered the faint possibility (ridiculous as it may sound) that conributing to free software could help in some small way to solve these major issues?
Not unless you can grow food on computers and write programs to make driniking water come out of floppy drives :). Feel free to supplement my stunted imagination. But seriously, FOSS can help the common man like getting land records (done in Karnataka) / getting price of crop in the market etc. But I doubt it can solve basic problems like food and water. But then I can be wrong.
education, mapping resources, crop planning, watershed management, eliminating middle men in marketing, bringing transparency to administration, knowledge base development, sharing experiences over rural areas, disaster management - just a few areas, this and many more can be done efficiently and at low cost by FOSS - no, maybe you cant grow food on computers and write programs to make drinking water come out of floppy drives - but you can grow more food, distribute it more efficiently, tap more water sources, conserve the existings ones with FOSS. Remember knowledge is power and FOSS has immense potential to disseminate knowledge among the rural people
regards kg
You need to get the facts right (reread my post above and ask the question again).
ive got my facts right
but the source wrong ?? I still maintain that the figures are wrong though I agree that FOSS can do with a lot more developers. But there are definitely more than 150-200 developers that you are quoting.
Contribute and spread the word and let people do the rest. Don't take the arguments personally. There are not directed at anyone. I am just trying to arrive at a consensus in the collaborative spirit.
Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
On Monday 03 January 2005 06:22 pm, Vinayak Hegde wrote:
In a country where drinking water and food are still major issues, contributing to free software is least of the troubles.
have you considered the faint possibility (ridiculous as it may sound) that conributing to free software could help in some small way to solve these major issues?
Not unless you can grow food on computers and write programs to make driniking water come out of floppy drives :). Feel free to supplement my stunted imagination. But seriously, FOSS can help the common man like getting land records (done in Karnataka) / getting price of crop in the market etc. But I doubt it can solve basic problems like food and water. But then I can be wrong.
education, mapping resources, crop planning, watershed management, eliminating middle men in marketing, bringing transparency to administration, knowledge base development, sharing experiences over rural areas, disaster management - just a few areas, this and many more can be done efficiently and at low cost by FOSS - no, maybe you cant grow food on computers and write programs to make drinking water come out of floppy drives - but you can grow more food, distribute it more efficiently, tap more water sources, conserve the existings ones with FOSS. Remember knowledge is power and FOSS has immense potential to disseminate knowledge among the rural people
regards kg
First rule of Economics is that people need to meet basic requirements first. When they are hungry, they are not bothered if someone is able to walk on the moon or build a new spaceship.
Indians are still in a stage where they need to survive. They need to make enough money to meet their expenses, save money to be able to retire without having to beg for money when they have no jobs. They will therefore work for money.
After working full 14-16 hours a day at office, who has the time to work on FLOSS projects ?
The americans can do it because they work 8 hour days, have government paying social security when they dont have work. How many of the 20 million programmers in india have PC at home ? You will be suprised by the answer. Many of those who have it, is because their children need it.
Solving problems using GNU is all nice and fancy, but it does not solve the problem of the guy who is going to write the program for free. It can solve problem of land records, but the guy who will write the program (for free), still needs money at the end of the day to buy his meal. The government is not giving him food for a year for having solved the govt problem which was pending for 10 years.
Most of GNU work has been out of government or university funded institutions (and now industry funded). That funding is not available in India except in few pockets like IIT or NSCT. That is the major difference.
You need to get the facts right (reread my post above and ask the question again).
ive got my facts right
but the source wrong ?? I still maintain that the figures are wrong though I agree that FOSS can do with a lot more developers. But there are definitely more than 150-200 developers that you are quoting.
Contribute and spread the word and let people do the rest. Don't take the arguments personally. There are not directed at anyone. I am just trying to arrive at a consensus in the collaborative spirit.
Hi All,
Most of GNU work has been out of government or university funded institutions (and now industry funded). That funding is not available in India except in few pockets like IIT or NSCT. That is the major difference.
And I have not seen any contribution coming out of IITs, NCSTs etc. in Free/Open Source Software. :-(
Why?
With regards,
Sometime Today, Dinesh Shah assembled some asciibets to say:
And I have not seen any contribution coming out of IITs, NCSTs etc. in
Umm, NCST has several contributions. For starters, the IndiX project. Then there's the course scheduling system in perl, and HTML.Template.java.
On 6 Jan 2005, Dinesh Shah wrote:
Hi All,
Most of GNU work has been out of government or university funded institutions (and now industry funded). That funding is not available in India except in few pockets like IIT or NSCT. That is the major difference.
And I have not seen any contribution coming out of IITs, NCSTs etc. in Free/Open Source Software. :-(
Slowly the momentum is picking up at NCST(Now CDAC Mumbai). We have done Indix, and now on the verge of completion of a Localisation toolkit, which include a how to guide (I can say a book) and various open source tools needed for localising FOSS. This project is in colloboration with IOSN. And there might be many which I am not aware of.
Now you know, NCST, IIT and IBM came together to do start OSSRC. Work has just started.
Go through...
http://www.ncst.ernet.in/groups/research/oss/ and http://www.ncst.ernet.in/groups/research/oss/portal/index.shtml
And everyone knows that IITB is encouraging GNU/Linux usage. I heard that for KRESIT Mtech students, GNU/Linux is compulsory for the first sem.
I am sure that more people from NCST will start contributing to the community.
Thanks & Regards, -- Rajendra Prasad Murakonda, ETU division, C-DAC Mumbai (erstWhile NCST). Off Phone : 91 22 27565303 extn : 302 Mobile(WLL) : 0 93235 83185 rajncst@yahoo.co.in , rajendra.prasad@gmail.com
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