| Frederick Noronha (FN) on Tue, 21 Sep 2004 17:05:39 +0200 (CEST) |
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| <nettime> GNU/LinuxIndia Sept 2004 |
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Compiled by: Frederick Noronha * Sept 20, 2004
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Free Software is the way to go if we desire to have a
society where children are taught to be independent,
resourceful, productive, co-operative, rational, intelligent
and socially responsible. The Free Software Movement has
contributed several thousand useful applications. With
little effort from more volunteers, we could make the free
software wealth reach everyone.-- Ramanraj K
<ramanraj@md4.vsnl.net.in>
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HACKERS WANTED, FSF CALLING: From the FSF-India mailing list
http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-prog there's a word of advice from
Anand Babu <ab@gnu.org.in>: "Yes I am need of developers for Free Software
Projects. If you are new to FSF projects, (you can get started) like this
* Setup a Debian GNU/Linux system (best distro for developers)
* Create an account for yourself at http://savannah.gnu.org.
* Take a look at current GNU Task List at
https://savannah.gnu.org/people/?group=tasklist
Choose one and start hacking. This process will help you prepare yourself
with the GNU's way of hacking software. Then, when you feel you are ready
for the main stream, you can jump into GNU Hurd kernel hacking (the most
important pending task).
Anand Babu <ab@gnu.org.in> said at another time: "Kernel hacking is too
difficult for newbies. I need developers with sold experience in C and
system programming with a Hacker's attitude. I would recommend newbies to
start hacking at the applications level, submitting patches, getting
familiar with GNU coding standards and Free Software development model."
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[GNU]LINUX DEMO DAY IN DELHI: Raj Mathur <raju@linux-delhi.org> announced
plans to hold a Linux Demo Day, organized by India Linux Users Group, Delhi
(ILUGD, www.linux-delhi.org).
Says Mathur: "We will be conducting Linux-related talks and
presentations in the Hamdard Archives Auditorium, on Saturday, Sept
25, 2004, by some of our resident experts, and hopefully they will
interest people who've already taken the plunge as well as those who
are just about to. There'll be lots of demonstrations/talks
throughout the day and plenty of opportunities to gain hands-on
experience of different Linux distributions and applications for
yourself. There is space outside the auditorium, which will be used
for giving the demos. The demos and the talks will go on
concurrently. We'll also be distributing Linux goodies at low or no
cost.
Venue: Jamia Hamdard Archives Auditorium Hamdard University, New Delhi
110062. Landmark: Adjacent to Batra Hospital. Entry from Gate 6 Date:
September 25, 2004 Time: 10 am-6 pm (Registration at 9:30 am)
Contact: ldd2k4@linux-delhi.org Entry: Free -- all are invited.
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LINUX GURUS... IN BHOPAL: kvprashant@yahoo.com has set up the
Linux_Gurus mailing list. He describes it as: "A new linux user
group for people of Bhopal needs your help and guidence." Do
support! To join, send a blank email to
linux_gurus-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
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SEPTEMBER 2004's issue of Developer IQ contains:
* GCC 3.4.1, Tcl/Tk 8.5, Mono 1.0, Python 2.3.4, Visual Tcl 1.6.0,
Mlton-Perl, PHP (among other programming tools). Apache HTTP
server, XEmacs 21.4.5, GTK+ 2.4, PHP source code.
* CD2 is dedicated to the Morphix Gamer. Games run from your CD ROM
drive, regardless of the OS you run.
A summary of the FLOSS-related content has been posted earlier to various
GNU/Linux lists in India.
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INDIA PRESIDENT'S VIEW ON FLOSS:
http://news.com.com/Indian+president+calls+for+open+source+in+defense/2100-7344_3-5259836.html
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HINDI ET AL IN GNOME 2.0: Gnome 2.8 is released, with Hindi,
Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi and Tamil as supported languages. See
http://www.gnome.org/start/2.8/ Source: Guntupalli Karunakar
<karunakar@freedomink.org> Indianisation work:
http://www.indlinux.org
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INDIC SOLUTIONS? Interested in this field, check out
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/indlinux-group
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JOIN THE 'FRIENDLY LUG' ILUG-GOA'S mailing list at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa MAIN LIST
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-goa-announce LOW VOLUME, ANNOUNCE
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/teach-yourself-linux FOR NEWBIES
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linuxgoahelp TECH HELP LIST
OR VISIT http://ilug-goa.notlong.com http://www.ilug-margao.org
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FLOSS IDEAS SPREADING? Please take a look at http://www.feetus.org. V. Sasi
Kumar <vsasi@hotpop.com> describes it thus: " Open access here in India. An
initiative worthy of promotion."
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PROMOTING A PROPRIETARY FORMAT, FORCING A PROPRIETARY APPLICATION: V. Sasi
Kumar <vsasi@hotpop.com> of the Centre for Earth Science Studies in Tvn
writes: "Indian Institute of Science asks alumni to fill up their details in
a document in MS Word format. This is a mail I sent them more than two weeks
back. No response as yet.
"Sir, I find that the proforma for membership records is given in a
proprietary format (MS Word) which forces me to use a proprietary
application. Indirectly you are promoting a particular company's software
that uses a closed format for its files, which is not a very good practice
for an internationally reputed institute like IISc.
"Instead, I suggest that the proforma be made available in open formats like
Postscript, PDF, XML, etc. This would enable anyone using any word processor
or any free application (like xpdf, Open Office, etc.) to read the file
without loss of formatting. May I also point out that even our President,
Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, has prompted scientists and technologists to move
from proprietary software to free software for several reasons, including
national security and economics."
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UPDATES FROM BANGALORE: Atul Chitnis <achitnis@exocore.com> recently
announced the launch of the Linux Bangalore/2004 website at
http://linux-bangalore.org/2004
Adds he: "On behalf of the managers of Linux Bangalore/2004 I invite
all of you visit the site, read all it has to offer, then get onto
the discussion list http://linux-bangalore.org/2004/discuss/ "
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INTERNATIONAL OPEN SOURCE NETWORK: The International Open Source Network
(IOSN - http://www.iosn.net) is a Centre of Excellence for Free / Open
Source Software in the Asia-Pacific Region. IOSN is an initiative of the
Asia-Pacific Information Development Programme (APDIP -
http://www.apdip.net), which has been supporting the strategic and effective
use of Information Communication Technology (ICT) for poverty alleviation
and sustainable human development in the Asia-Pacific region since 1997. Via
a small secretariat, the IOSN is tasked specifically to facilitate and
network Free / Open Source Software advocates and human resources in the
region. Activities undertaken by IOSN is listed below:
A. Free / Open Source Information Resource Facility
1. Collaborative Website: On-going Mapping of Free / Open Source
activities in Asia-Pacific; Collaborative database of
countries; languages, fonts,and organisations in Asia-Pacific;
On-line Information/Clearing-house and Mailing Lists
2. Software Repository: A collection of FOSS software and GNU/Linux
distributions specific to the Asia Pacific is being created.
3. Documentation of Best Practise
4. Open Source Primers: General FOSS by Kenneth Wong/Phet Sayo;
Malaysia; Licensing by Shunling Chen-Taiwan; Policy by Kenneth
Wong; Localisation by Anousak Souphavanh / Theppitak
Karoonboonyanan - Thailand; Network/Security/Infrastructure by
Gaurab Raj Upadhaya - Nepal; and Education by Wooi Tong Tan -
Malaysia.
B. Creation of a Database of Free / Open Source Experts and Human
Resources in the Region
1. Networking of Experts
2. Technical Support
C. Training and Workshops
1. FOSSAP 2004: More than 50 senior policy makers and open source
practitioners from 20 countries attended this event.
http://www.iosn.net/fossap/
2. Training of Trainers: We are currently planning the first
training in Vietnam in partnership with Linux Professional
Institute
D. Research and Development
1. Localisation Toolkit in collaboration with Centre for Advanced
Computing [CDAC], India
2. End-user training material in Text and Multimedia format. Script
by Dr. Nah Soo Hoe, Malaysia and production by GetIT multimedia,
Singapore.
3. GNU/Linux Live CD Project by Colin Charles, Australia of the
Fedora Project.
4. Q&A on FOSS R&D/Case Studies of implementations
5. Micro-grant Programme in collaboration with University of South
Pacific
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AN INDIAN IN MALAYSIA: Nice to note that Sunil Abraham sunil@apdip.net has
taken on the responsibility of being the Manager of the International Open
Source Network. He's located at UNDP Asia-Pacific Development Information
Programme Wisma UN, Block C Kompleks Pejabat Damansara. Jalan Dungun,
Damansara Heights. 50490 Kuala Lumpur. P. O. Box 12544, 50782, Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia Telephones: (60) 3-2091-5167, Fax: (60) 3-2095-2087
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LINDEC: Check plans for the Linux Desktop Conference --
http://www.gnomebangalore.org/lindec/ -- that happens on September
26 (Sunday), 2004.
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DISCUSSION ON THE chillu character in Mayalayam Unicode. One well-informed
discussant was Mahesh T. Pai * http://paivakil.port5.com
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MORE ON INDIC ISSUES: Javier SOLA <javier@khmeros.info> says that discussion
on some Indic issues in Unicode is available at
http://www.unicode.org/~ecartis/indic/ Contact Javier for the required
user-id and password needed to access.
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GNU/LINUX EQUIVALENTS: Sreekiran <dwija@phreaker.net> drew attention to a
file of GNU/Linux equivalents in software terms:
http://linuxshop.ru/linuxbegin/win-lin-soft-en/table.shtml
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INDIC LOCALIZERS MEET AT MUMBAI: G Karunakar <karunakar@freedomink.org>
announced the Indic Localizers Meet that was held on Sept 18-19 in Mumbai.
For more details see http://www.indlinux.org/wiki/index.php/IndicMeet
Languagewise participants expected were:
* Bengali - Ankur group - Sayamindu Dasgupta, Sankarshan
Mukhopadhyay/Runa Bhattacharjee, Indranil Das Gupta
* Gujarati - Utkarsh - Nirav Mehta, Ankur Patel
* Hindi - IndLinux - G Karunakar, Ravishankar Shrivastava
* Kannada - Pramod Raghavendra, Hari Prasad Nadig
* Marathi - Indictrans - Jitendra Shah, Swapnil Hajare
* Malayalam - SMC group - Mahesh T Pai , Arun M
* Punjabi - Punlinux, Amampreet Singh Alam
* Oriya - oriya.sarovar.org - Gora Mohanty
* Telugu - ?
* Tamil - Tamillinux team - R Hariram Aatreya, N Jayaradha
* Urdu - Ravikant Sharma
Others
* Nagarjuna G - FSF India, TIFR
* Prakash Advani - Onward Novell India
* Venky Hariharan - Red Hat India
* Abhijit Dutta - IBM India
* Dr Om Vikas - TDIL, MIT, GOI
* Hema Murthy - ?TeNet, IIT Chennai
* Alka Irani - CDAC
* M Sasikumar - CDAC
* Michael Sauntak - Burmese Localization
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FROM PAKISTAN: The Open Source Resource Center (OSRC)
[http://www.osrc.org.pk] had scheduled a seminar on Free and Open Source
Software in Karachi on 14 September 2004. For registration and details,
visit http://www.osrc.org.pk/seminar/
The Open Source Resource Center (OSRC) is a first such forum in Pakistan
created by Pakistan Software Export Board (G) Ltd. [http://www.pseb.org.pk/]
at Islamabad. The Resource Center aims to bring together wide range of
expertise related to [Free/Libre and] Open Source Technologies and Resources
at one place. The IT companies can access, share, and contribute the
knowledge particular to the development and transformation of IT products on
FLOSS. The Resource Center works to bring together established technology
vendors, startups, open source community members and enterprise IT
users/customers to jointly explore new opportunities for OSS deployment and
how to capitalize on them.
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FLOSS AND EDUCATION: Thanks to the IOSN-General mailing list for this, and
Nandalal Gunaratne of the Lanka Linux User Group.
http://www.schoolforge.net
http://www.schoolforge.org.uk
http://www.schooltool.org
http://www.scholarpack.org
http://www.theopencd.sunsite.dk
http://www.lfsp.net (linux for schools project)
http://http://www.affs.org.uk/education/index.html Free Software assn.
http;//edu.kde.org kde edutainment
http://www.tux4kids.com/tyx4kids
http://www.debian,org/devel/debian-jr
http://www.bluelinux.org
http:/k12os.org
http://www.osef.org/
http://richtex.ca/seul
http://www.freeeduc.org
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PRIMER ON FLOSS, VIA MALAYSIA: IOSN has produced a primer on
Free/Open Source Software Licensing and an early pre-copyedited
draft of the primer is now available for public review and feedback.
This primer is an introductory summary of licensing issues involved
with using the different FOSS licenses, primarily the GNU GPL
license. It offers several scenarios, and proposes a framework for
licensing of government sponsored software. The primer also
addresses common questions and misconceptions regarding copyright
and licensing issues. Further details from khairil@apdip.net
http://www.iosn.net/licensing/foss-licensing-primer/
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IOSN mailing list. Join the International Open Source Network
(Malaysia-based) mailing list iosn-general@iosn.net
http://lists.apdip.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/iosn-general
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SOME ASIAN G/LINKS AND GNU/LUGS: A query brought in some interesting links
to LUGs in and around Asia. Here's a listing of some:
Lanka Linux User Group (LK-LUG) has been operating since 1998.They also have
a localization project: http://sinhala.linux.lk Check out more details at
http://www.linux.lk or http://www.lug.lk
Cambodia's English-language Majordomo-based mailing-list is at
linux@forum.org.kh Once there, one can also have a look at their KhmerOS
Initiative, to create UNICODE based Khmer language software -- in both the
Windows and the Linux environments. Check out http://www.KhmerOS.info
The Iranian LUG is pretty active: http://www.farsilinux.org Saudi's mailing
list is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saudi_linux/
Outside this continent, but probably having shared interests is the
http://fossfa.net This is the body working to promote Free and Open Source
Software in Africa. It has some 53 member states.
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THE STEPS AHEAD: Anand Babu wrote to friends from South Africa that
the FSF-India working group is discussing initiatives on
e-governance, localization and live CD distributions,
super-computing grid and other core GNU tasks through Free Software
Development Lab. Says he: "So far Government has hardly done
anything for the Free Software Movement in India. Here is a three
step approach they need to take: (1) Standardize on Free Software
for all Governmental use. (2) Actively support and promote (educate)
Free Software as #1 choice for the community (3) Fund Free Software
initiatives.
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OPEN OFFICE IN KANNADA: Pramod R <pramodleo@yahoo.co.uk> recently announced
that OpenOffice.org in Kannada is nearing 100% translations. Said he: "We
hope to have a review of the same during October 2nd & 3rd. For details:
http://www.kannudi.org/wiki/index.php?title=Openoffice.org_First_Review_Meet
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NEWSLETTER ON LOCALIZATION: Localization Newsletter Issue 6, Vol 1 ( 1st
September 2004) is out, and available at
http://www.indlinux.org/nl/issue6.html
Highlights include * KDE Hindi translation review workshop at Sarai
* New Pango releases * Mozilla supports Pango upstream * Indic printing to work
from Gnome 2.8 (release mid-Sept) * Utkal - New Oriya Opentype font available
- http://oriya.sarovar.org/download/utkalm.ttf.gz
* Indic Unicode issues and updates on Indic list at Unicode.
* Tamil PC team featured in Team watch
For older issues of L10n Newsletter check http://www.indlinux.org/nl/
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USEFUL SCRIPT FOR STUDENTS: Robin Turner of Bilkent Universitesi in
Ankara-Turkey <robin@bilkent.edu.tr> recently announced on the FSF-India
list that he has just updated his script for enabling students to upload
their work via a web page. Improvements: 1. Students choose which essay they
are submitting and the program automatically renames the file to something
appropriate ("this is because I am fed up with recieving files named 'My
Essay.doc'"); 2. The program now runs in taint mode and untaints submitted
variables ("I don't know if this really makes it any more secure, but it
makes me feel righteous"). If anyone wants to use it, it's at
<www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin/scripts/101upload.cgi>.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
THIS NEWSLETTER IS EDITED and compiled by Frederick Noronha fred at
bytesforall dot org. Your inputs, feedback and brickbats are welcome. Contact
us at fred at bytesforall dot org COPYLEFT 2003. May be freely
circulated provided entire text and credits are left intact.
You can subscribe to receive this FREE newsletter (free beer, free speech!)
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Frederick Noronha (FN) Near Convent, SALIGAO 403511 GOA India
Freelance Journalist Tel: +91-832-2409490 MOBILE: 9822122436
fred at bytesforall.org fredericknoronha at vsnl.net
http://fn.swiki.net (FN's swiki)
http://www.ilug-goa.tk (GNULinux Users Group Goa)
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