Fsf-friends March 2006

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Taking Free Software to the Farmers and Fields of India
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 26 Mar '06

26 Mar '06

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8938 Taking Free Software to the Farmers and Fields of India By Frederick Noronha on Fri, 2006-03-24 02:00. International FLOSS is behind an Indian Web site that brings together farmers and agricultural experts to exchange ideas and information. Thanks to work done by the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Bombay) and its partners, IT-savvy and knowledge-hungry people across rural India now can find relevant, demand-driven farming knowledge on the aAqua.org Web site. So far, the site has been a great way to bring together people such as Prasad Kaledhonkar, who has a clue about what the white patterns emerging on tomato plant leaves are; farmer's daughter Niyatee Nilesh, who wants advice on buying agricultural land; and Shirish, from rural Maharashtra, who wants to learn about using waste water from the school kitchen to irrigate gardens and crops. aAqua stands for "Almost All Questions Answered". Dr. Krithi Ramamritham, IIT-Bombay's head at the Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology, said, "It used to be called Aqua. We added a small 'a' in front of it that stands for 'almost'. We want to be as realistic as possible." Dr. Krithi Ramamritham In addition to connecting users, aAqua.org also provides crop recommendations archived by keywords, a search tool to see if a particular question already has been answered and a "crop doctor" with photographs of diseased crops, archived by keywords. The bhav puchiye (ask the price) feature has practical use. Market rates from across India are displayed for farmers and agro-traders. The aAqua Web site contains several forums in Indian languages (Marathi and Hindi, currently) and in English. These forums deal with crops, animals, officials' recommendations, market information and schemes for farmers. The site now has 940 members, 1,364 topics and 3,321 posts. "What we've done is sign up experts from various Krishi Vigyan Kendras [the network of farm-extension services in India]", Ramamritham explained. Anyone wanting information can sign up through a simple process and start asking questions. The aAqua project has brought together some diverse groups. To build a solution that works in the field, IIT-Bombay merged Indic text input, iconic interfaces, meaning-based searches, digital libraries, community forums and water-quality sensors. This work brought together skills from a variety of disciplines, including e-pedagogy, multimedia content, computer-based training, education and light databases. The project members have been working in an area in the central Indian state of Maharashtra, around the Baramati, Pabal, Pune and Khed areas. Work on the first aAqua prototype began in November 2003. Interestingly, the project got its start in a school course. "We started working on it in real earnest when we saw its full potential", Ramamritham said. "We now are trying to scale up. Our challenge is aAqua's reach should be larger", he added. Tomcat, MySQL and mnvforum When asked if Free/Libre and open-source software made the aAqua project possible, Dr. Ramamritham said, "Very much so." The software behind the aAqua Web site is based on lab-developed algorithms for translation, caching and the like that use Java, JSP and Java Servlets technology. The application currently is deployed on a Tomcat Web server, version 5. The software also can run from any Servlet container that is compatible with JSP 1.2 and Servlet 2.3. The Oracle 9i database, with Unicode UTF-8 support, is used as the site's backend software. aAqua at Work aAqua also has been configured to work with MySQL, with Unicode support (version 4.1 onwards). aAqua can be viewed using any popular Web browser, including Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Opera and so on. The digital library software uses C++, Perl and Java and is deployed on a Jakarta Apache server, version 2.0.52. In addition, aAqua is built with mvnForum, a FLOSS-based discussion forum application. mvnForum, in turn, uses other FLOSS components, such as Lucene, an indexer and search engine; Tomcat; and many other components. Ramamritham said the team opted to use mvnForum because it is "easy to use, easy to set up" and offered the option of attaching files to a post, a fully customizable GUI. Among its attractive technical features are support for Unicode characters, which is "a must given India's multilingual orientation". In addition, the MVC architecture behind mvnForum also supports most popular databases, such as MySQL, Oracle 8i/9i, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, hsqldb, Interbase/Firebird, SAPDB, db2 and Sybase. "We wanted industrial strength support for databases as well as easy replicability, hence multiplatform support was essential" Ramamritham said. To deal with the many languages written and spoken in India, IIT-Bombay used its active natural language processing lab when working on the aAqua project. "We try to get most of the language translated automatically, through an intermediate language known as UNL, or universal networking language", Dr. Ramamritham explained. Overall, Ramamritham said the aAqua project has been a "great learning experience". The team's work has been presented with the Manthan Award, an Indian prize for Web sites having useful content. As for the future, Ramamritham said, "We're looking for deeper ways [of using] this technology, for instance, forecasting diseases by using by census data and other information. We want to enlarge its scope of applicability." To this end, the project has received a request for information from the Development Gateway Foundation, which is interested in the possibility of building such portals for other countries. In addition, the government of Western India's Maharashtra region has linked the aAqua site to its own main page. As for other uses of the aAqua model, the metrology department of Pune, in central India, is interested in seeing what the model can do for the department. MarathiWorld.com is interested in using the aAqua model to answer career-counseling queries. And, Drishtee, a project in North India project, sees potential in this model being used for a citizens' complaints system. In short, the aAqua model can be used in a variety of disciplines. According to Dr. Ramamritham, "aAqua can be deployed in any domain--education and health too. It's actually a very simple idea." -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Frederick 'FN' Noronha | Yahoomessenger: fredericknoronha http://fn.goa-india.org | fred(a)bytesforall.org Independent Journalist | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9822122436 ---------------------------------------------------------- Pics from Goa: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/popular-views/

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Test <please ignore>
by Joe Steeve 25 Mar '06

25 Mar '06

-- .O. A proud GNU user ..O OOO http://www.joesteeve.org/

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GPL'd Recruiting Management Application
by Manilal K M 24 Mar '06

24 Mar '06

Hello all, Has anyone came across any GPL'd recruiting/staffing management application developed in PHP/Perl/MySQL . It should have minimum functionality to track the recruitment procedures in mainly in HR departments. Thanks in advance Manilal

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[Fwd: [GNU/FSF Press] Press Release: GPL tested in US courts in Wallace]
by Ramanraj K 23 Mar '06

23 Mar '06

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [GNU/FSF Press] Press Release: GPL tested in US courts in Wallace Date: Wed, 22 Mar 2006 19:52:39 -0500 From: Peter Brown <peterb(a)fsf.org> To: info-press(a)gnu.org The GPL tested in US courts - Wallace Vs FSF. The GNU General Public License stands firm. On Monday March 20, 2006 US Federal Judge John Daniel Tinder, dismissed the Sherman Act antitrust claims brought against the Free Software Foundation. The claims made by Plaintiff Daniel Wallace included: that the General Public License (GPL) constituted a contract, combination or conspiracy; that it created an unreasonable restraint of trade; and that the FSF conspired with IBM, Red Hat Inc., Novell and other individuals to pool and cross-license their copyrighted intellectual property in a predatory price fixing scheme. Peter Brown, FSF Executive Director, responded to the news, "As the author of the GPL and copyright holder on the largest body of GPL'd covered free software, the FSF hears many theories of potential legal claims and challenges to the GPL. We hear the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) expressed, that the GPL has never been tested in court, and that somehow that is a sign of its weakness. Nothing could be further from the truth of course. Put quite simply, if you don't accept the terms of the GPL, then you have no rights to the copyrighted works it covers. What is there left to test? The GPL is a software license, it is not a contract. It gives permissions from the copyright holder. You don't want to accept those permissions? End of discussion." On Monday, a US Federal Court Judge dismissed Daniel Wallace's case saying "[The GPL] acts as a means by which certain software may be copied, modified and redistributed without violating the software's copyright protection. As such, the GPL encourages, rather than discourages, free competition and the distribution of computer operating systems, the benefits of which directly pass to consumers. These benefits include lower prices, better access and more innovation." Brown continued, "Let us all stop and consider the consequences of what this US Federal Judge has said. On being presented with the facts surrounding the GPL, he was able to define a range of benefits available to those that value the freedoms delivered by the GPL. The question we are all left with is, why would anyone put up with the inferred consequences of proprietary software?", and, "If you care about lower prices, better access to software, or more innovation, then GPL'd software is for you. Or as the Free Software would describe that, you value freedom". Having dismissed the case, and finding in favor of the FSF and against Wallace. The Judge also allowed FSF costs against Wallace. Wallace, now has thirty days to appeal the decision, but the FSF expects no relevant news on this matter. -- About the Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software - particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants - and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software. Their Web site, located at www.fsf.org , is an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support their work can be made at http://donate.fsf.org. Their headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA. _______________________________________________ FSF And GNU Press mailing list <info-press(a)gnu.org> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-press

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to Rabindranath's Lovers
by Sami Farid 20 Mar '06

20 Mar '06

Dear friends, Rabindra Sangeet Live is our endeavor from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.Here we have started a research community on Rabindranath Tagore. The purpose of the organization is doing research on Rabindra sangeet as well as Rabindranath Tagore. From Bangladesh we have a good response. The enlisted researcher of this organization are- Dr. Karunamaya Goshwamy Dr. Syeed Akram Hussain Dr. Anisujjaman Dr. Mridulkanti Chakraborty Dr. Sirajul Islam Dr. Manjurul Haque Rezwana Chowdhury Bannya Sadi Mohammad & a number of students of University of Dhaka & Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology We will have soon a oline forum of this organization. We will let you inform about the forum & interested people are most welcome to join to build this forum. The first project of this organization is to collect the background stories(i.e, the story behind, why written, in which particuar event the song is written) of the Rabindrasangeets. The sotries of each song will help the audience a lot for better understanding of the songs. WE NEED TO GATHER ALL THE RABINDRANATH'S LOVERS UNDER THIS COMMUNITY THROUGHOUT THE WORLD. INTERESTED PEOPLE ARE HEARTILY WELCOME HERE TO JOIN US. IF IT SOUNDS INTERESTING TO YOU PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO ALL OF THE GROUPS YOU BELONG TO. (for further information please mail me back at ex_josephite(a)yahoo.com) Thanks Sami Chowdhury Computer Science & Engineering University of Dhaka --------------------------------- Relax. Yahoo! Mail virus scanning helps detect nasty viruses!

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Fsf-friends March 2006