Fsf-friends November 2006

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

28 participants
38 discussions

Re: Reliance Web World in nexus with Ankit Fadia
by Vihan Pandey 29 Nov '06

29 Nov '06

> > but sometimes such guys need to be analysed and weighed in public so that > innocent people/ students do not take them as their role models. True. ``we must be very careful when we give advice to younger people; > sometimes they follow it!'' -- Edgar Dijkstra Nice one :-) and very apt in this context. i guess Dijkstra was always the best at giving the best ``path" :-) i know i know poor joke, but i couldn't resist it :-) Regards, - vihan

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ReiserFS author to give plea on wife's murder
by Vihan Pandey 28 Nov '06

28 Nov '06

Hi all, Those of you who are slashdot regulars probably know this but those who don't : Hans Reiser the author of the ReiserFS file system is going to give his plea(guilty/not guilty/manslaughter .....) today(actually tonight as its in California) over the charge of his wife's murder. You can check the Wikipedia page for the whole story : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser i'm sorry for such a horrible post, but i guess people ought to know. By all accounts this is the most morbid and macabre post ever on this list. Never the less, people have to know. Regards, - vihan

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Re: Reliance Web World in nexus with Ankit Fadia
by Ajay Pal Singh Atwal 28 Nov '06

28 Nov '06

----- Prashanth Mohan <prashmohan(a)gmail.com> wrote: > ``we must be very careful when we give advice to younger people; > sometimes they follow it!'' -- Edgar Dijkstra > [Source: > http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD03xx/EWD340.html] > - -- Interesting, thanks for the link. Rephrase: I will request my students to apply their own mind regarding whatever I or Mr fadia has to say. -- Sincerely Ajay Pal Singh Atwal Dept of CSE & IT BBSBEC, Fatehgarh Sahib Punjab, INDIA -------------------------------- http://www.bbsbec.ac.in http://www.ajaypal.com -------------------------------- ajaypal[at]bbsbec.org, ajaypal[at]acm.org

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Re: Reliance Web World in nexus with Ankit Fadia
by Ajay Pal Singh Atwal 28 Nov '06

28 Nov '06

----- Vihan Pandey <vihanpandey(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Anyway, Fadia is more about network security stuff(so is portrayed) he > has > NEVER(again to the best of my knowledge) tried to tell people about > the real > ethics in using Free Software or about how its so important to build > a > society based on Freedom, or the dangers of DRM and software patents. > Why do > we even bother with such people? but sometimes such guys need to be analysed and weighed in public so that innocent people/ students do not take them as their role models. -- Sincerely Ajay Pal Singh Atwal Dept of CSE & IT BBSBEC, Fatehgarh Sahib Punjab, INDIA -------------------------------- http://www.bbsbec.ac.in http://www.ajaypal.com -------------------------------- ajaypal[at]bbsbec.org, ajaypal[at]acm.org

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Transcript of RMS on GPLv3
by Ciaran O'Riordan 27 Nov '06

27 Nov '06

I've recorded and transcribed Richard's talk from last week's GPLv3 conference in Tokyo: http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/tokyo-rms-transcript I also made one of my talk: http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/tokyo-ciaran-transcript -- Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3 http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ GPLv3 and other work supported by http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org

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Re: Reliance Web World in nexus with Ankit Fadia
by Vihan Pandey 27 Nov '06

27 Nov '06

> Friends, > A few months after Prabhat gave us that simple news clip about A Fadia, > and > after the long round of nationwide discussions that we had, it seems that > we > are trying to communicate with someone who (a) doesn't listen and (b) is > not > interested to listen. > > Reliance Web World attempted to launch Ankit Fadia through some back door > activities at Thrissur, but it flopped. In his regular and customary > style, > Ankit arrived late, cut short questions/answers session (he usually does > it > everywhere) and this time around he even cut short his talk to just 10 > minutes. > The ill-informed Reliance Web World executive was seen accusing the > organisers > for the drop in attendance - they never could realise that students are > wiser > than Fadia and could had deliberately chosen to abstain from such > gimmicks. Typical, he pulled that one at Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology(Nerul, Navi Mumbai) a couple of years back as well. Only then he ``refused" to answer some questions on the grounds that it is unethical to reveal cracking techniques in public. Fadia shows undue haste in theorising with what would otherwise be pure > exceptions - which is a bad academic practise - an action that portrays > his > Stanford University (where Google was born in 1996) in a bad light. He > also > relies heavily on the weaknesses of proprietary systems, which, by > default, do > not have any Road Map to the various freedoms enlisted by Free Software. In all honesty, isn't entering an Ivy league school these days more about $$$, a well polished resume/SoP and hearsay recommendations and sometimes a triumph in mediocrity award by the government rather than REAL merit. i mean i've only seen one or two people till now going there with REAL expertise, via either just doing practicals properly in college and at home, and/or then contributing to a technology(again via the Free Software development methodology) and publishing a REAL paper at a REAL venue. No offence to anyone who has gone to an Ivy league school, and let me also clarify i have the highest respect for most of them ;-) Anyway, Fadia is more about network security stuff(so is portrayed) he has NEVER(again to the best of my knowledge) tried to tell people about the real ethics in using Free Software or about how its so important to build a society based on Freedom, or the dangers of DRM and software patents. Why do we even bother with such people? Regards, - vihan

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Reliance Web World in nexus with Ankit Fadia
by doxa＠sancharnet.in 27 Nov '06

27 Nov '06

Friends, A few months after Prabhat gave us that simple news clip about A Fadia, and after the long round of nationwide discussions that we had, it seems that we are trying to communicate with someone who (a) doesn't listen and (b) is not interested to listen. Reliance Web World attempted to launch Ankit Fadia through some back door activities at Thrissur, but it flopped. In his regular and customary style, Ankit arrived late, cut short questions/answers session (he usually does it everywhere) and this time around he even cut short his talk to just 10 minutes. The ill-informed Reliance Web World executive was seen accusing the organisers for the drop in attendance - they never could realise that students are wiser than Fadia and could had deliberately chosen to abstain from such gimmicks. Fadia shows undue haste in theorising with what would otherwise be pure exceptions - which is a bad academic practise - an action that portrays his Stanford University (where Google was born in 1996) in a bad light. He also relies heavily on the weaknesses of proprietary systems, which, by default, do not have any Road Map to the various freedoms enlisted by Free Software. CK Raju India ============ "The more you attribute to Non-free software, the less you retain in yourself." ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using NWebmail, BSNL's Webmail Program

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Re: MDI migrates its network servers to GNU/Linux
by Vihan Pandey 27 Nov '06

27 Nov '06

> Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, where RMS delivered a lecture > during his last visit, has migrated their network from Windows to > GNU/Linux. I am not sure whether this was a result of the talk, but I > know that their IT department had taken a serious interest in the talk > and had even arranged a lunch with RMS. Several students have had Ubuntu > GNU/Linux installed on their laptops. Sounds good. But i hope they did it for both ``social AND technical reasons" rather than ``technical" reasons alone. Incidently, if anyone has any inside information about this place, as to why they decided to switch it would be nice to hear about it. i know, there are migrations happening all the time, but its always interesting to hear the story behind them. Regards, - vihan

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A few bits on corruption
by Ramanraj K 25 Nov '06

25 Nov '06

I have been a long time fan of John Walker's http://fourmilab.ch site. When I recently checked it, a few new pages had come up: [1] The funniest thing I have read in recent times is about this source of "corruption": http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/corrupted_downloads/ [2] John Walker has released the source code for the "Home Planet" program. This program is in the public domain, and if anyone could release a suitable Gnu/Linux version of it, that would be nice. The windows binaries of Home Planet released and found at the site could be used with wine. More info at http://www.fourmilab.ch/homeplanet/ -Ramanraj K

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Definition of Users of Free Software
by Viswanath Durbha 22 Nov '06

22 Nov '06

Hi, I just have a fundamental question on Free Software. We define Free Software as a software that gives the four fundamental freedom to it's users. But what is the definition of "Users"? Let me explain my question better by giving an example. Let's say a school hires a bunch of programmers to write a program that restricts students to do certain tasks on the school computers. The programmers write and release the software under GPLv2. It is released only to the school administration and not available to the students or to the general public. The school goes ahead and installs it on all school computers. Of course, whoever is the administrator for the school, he will have access to the source of the program and so he/she can modify to relax/tighten the restrictions in future if needed. So essentially, this particular "User" has all the four freedoms. But are the students, who actually use that program on those computers entitled to the source? Can they also modify that program to circumvent the restrictions? Or do we not consider them as "Users" of that program and hence decide that they are not entitled to all the four freedoms? If students are also entitled to the four freedoms, then how can we use GPLv2 license to develop any kind of software that restricts the capabilities of some users? Thanks and Regards, Viswanath

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Fsf-friends November 2006