Fsf-friends May 2006

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

27 participants
29 discussions

Re: KC and open source
by malovika roy 19 May '06

19 May '06

hi, we keep hearing about projects like mentioned by Kush below done by various organisations. But these are isolated cases. what is slowing down the impact of open source in e-governance especially, is the lack of coordination and sharing of knowledge. Its ironic actually. to some extent there is coordiantion, but then why arent successful projects shared or talked about in forums like this one? will someone from Pune LUG tell us what they have done for e-governance? Likewise will someone from Bangalore LUG share their knowledge with Delhi LUG? I am not implying that there is no sharing at all, there is, however, how many of them are working on e-governance projects? there is nothing to quantify this fact. Point is that vaious groups tend to go thru the same cycle of planning and working out an e-governance project which can be just cloned and enhanced or modified for customised use. While Indian developer community is being noticed and praised for its work, there is still a big void of contribution to the public sector. And this is not just my opinion, but the feeling of most leading companies who are continually encouraging student community, and asking for more public sector development. We would like to know why? Malovika. > I think we will have to take multiple different approaches with respect > to the govt adopting open source. The problem is not that conscientious > officers in govt don't understand that open source is better but they > are reluctant to act as they are frequently bypassed or interfered in > day to day working thru vested interests lobbying the political people. > Open source gives the organised civil society an opportunity and a > challenge to start becoming an alternative to organised government. Once > civil society makes alternative information systems and methods of > collaboration for the general populace, the existing govt structure will > be forced to start reducing the establishment costs by giving value for > money to citizens for govt services (as citizens will start demanding > them) thru adoption of cost control technologies such as open source. > This is something which has started to happen in Mumbai now specially > for the municipal govt. Organised civil society is now taking up the IT > component of the municipality (praja.org etc). Their system is not open > source fully but by bypassing the govt IT machinery (which is liable to > political interference) things have changed. Creation of new bureaucracy > has been stalled and existing bureaucracy is being forced to act. > > Praja is also working in Bangalore. They are bypassing the formation of > new govt structures such as NIC, CDAC etc which till now had a > stranglehold on every aspect of egovernance. > > Kush > > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > > ----------------------------------------------------------- > "Things work out best for the people who make the best out > of the way things work out."

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Re: open source or Free software (!!!)
by malovika roy 19 May '06

19 May '06

Krishna, Didnt know it was a big deal... here I intended to say Open Source and not merely Free Software. I maybe layperson but I think the crux of that mail was not to open a debate of whats appropriate sounding "Free" or "Open"... and thanks for the link Lakshmi. Malovika. Malovika, > Please use Free Software on this list, or atleast FOSS. > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Open > > Why ``Free Software'' is better than ``Open Source'' > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html > > -Krishna > > > > There have been attempts like the little league > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/little_league/ > > Laxminarayan Kamath Ammembal > (+91) 9342287956 > laxminarayan(a)deeproot.co.in > www.geocities.com/kamathln > > ----------------------------------------------------------- > "Things work out best for the people who make the best out > of the way things work out."

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Da Vinci Code of Microsoft
by doxa＠sancharnet.in 18 May '06

18 May '06

"...classified as "Other" in April are recognized as Apache sites running on Linux. Large blocks of Apache sites at Go Daddy have shifted back and forth between Apache and Other since January , due to changes in its bulk hosting service. It uses a front-end system that generates an HTTP redirect with no Server header when a site is first accessed � only once the redirect is followed, or if the site is accessed a second time, does it identify Apache as the server. The latest shift helps Apache regain 2% market share after a drop of 5.7% last month, when Go Daddy shifted more than 4 million hostnames from Apache to Windows Server 2003. Apache's improvement this month has no effect on Go Daddy's continued hosting of parked domains on Windows Server 2003, which gains 143K hostnames at Go Daddy this month...." Full story at http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html CK Raju, Thrissur

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Knowledge commission and open source
by malovika roy 17 May '06

17 May '06

Hi, this is to just share with you some news on open source in e-governance. Last week knowledge commision (KC) headed by Sam Pitroda was here in Banaglore to chalk out details of their proposal to government on e-governance. Now the electronic media largely concentrated on the commission's comments on Reservation issue... but there was more to it. I had attended the press briefing, and one of the slides in their presentation was on Open Source and open standards. Sam said that the KC was keenly pushing for open source in e-governance projects and is trying to convince the govt. of adopting open standards. Since the objective is to bring uniformity across nation w.r.t. e-governance projects, it is crucial to have open standards. and the KC didnt rule out re-looking at some existing projects and modifying them. Well, lets see how far the KC goes to keep the banner of open source flying high. Malovika. Bangalore. -- ----------------------------------------------------------- "Things work out best for the people who make the best out of the way things work out."

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India lays down 'open' challenge
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 15 May '06

15 May '06

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4764565.stm Last Updated: Friday, 12 May 2006, 11:32 GMT 12:32 UK India lays down 'open' challenge After his first trip to India, regular columnist Bill Thompson looks forward to the end of western domination of the free software community Indian computer programmer India's programmers are writing code to meet their own needs The five of us bounced out of the restaurant at around 10, after a great meal, some beers and the usual arguments about preferred programming languages, the future of free and open source software and the merits of Terry Pratchett's later works. It was a warm night so we crossed the street to get something to cool us down - not ice cream, but the best kulfi in the Defence Colony, one of the hippest areas in downtown New Delhi. It was my last night in India after four days making Digital Planet specials with the World Service. My new friends from the Delhi Linux User Group had dragged me out of my luxurious business hotel into the real city for a meal. The sizzling paneer and noodles were excellent. The beer was cold. And the kulfi was as good as Raj had promised. But even better was the chance to make a connection with a group of people outside the US and Europe who are working with the Linux operating system. Indian problems I'd come to India with the sense that, like Brazil and other countries outside the West that are taking free software seriously, India is moving into a new phase in its use of free and open source software. These guys - and it was a boy's night out, though there are women members of the group too - are using the freedom which the Linux distribution licence gives them to build tools and technologies for themselves. They don't have to wait for a far-distant company to decide whether their market is big enough or commercially viable. If they need code that meets their specific needs, they can just write it themselves. They are certainly going beyond the point where they take code from the US and Europe and spend their effort "localising" it by adding support for local languages. [Bill Thompson: Free software provides a bridge between the affluence of the West and the poverty of most of the world's population.] But according to Raj and Mary, both Linux experts, Indian coders are still isolated from each other, and although they contribute to many projects there is no real focus on solving Indian problems. The website of the Free Software Foundation of India lists a few dozen India-based projects, but there is apparently a long way to go before a real free software community emerges. And while Government support for free software is genuine, government computer departments do not contribute to other projects and do not make their work available for others to build on. The government just sees free software as a way to save on licenses. This is a shame, as there is a political dimension to the use of free software which will be very important for India and other developing countries. Liberal Origins Until now free and open source software has been one of the ways in which the US spread its values around the world, the soft guy approach that seems to oppose, but in fact is symbiotic with hard-edged capitalism on the Microsoft and Intel model. Both are firmly embedded in US cultural values, and the free market is as important to Linux as it is to Microsoft. Linus Torvalds Linus Torvalds: creator of Linux If we consider its origins within the post-hippy hacker culture of MIT then we can see that free software is as parasitic on the larger computer industry and its capitalist ethos as the early hippies were on their wealthy middle-class parents and their Protestant work ethic. All that nice code won't run unless Intel and AMD, neither of whom is particularly noted for being soft and cuddly, continue to make the processors and Dell and Sony continue to squeeze component suppliers and ship the systems. In 1999 Richard Stallman the originator of free software, wrote that he saw 'no social imperative for free hardware designs like the imperative for free software', so the situation clearly does not bother him. Yet, as often happens when the US tries to impose a particular point of view on the world, the results can be the opposite of what was intended. Just as the continued boycott of Cuba after the Soviet Union collapsed forced Castro into alliances with other Latin American countries and has helped promote new left-leaning governments across the continent, so the desire to spread US liberal values through free software may have unexpected consequences. Cultural shift Stallman, Linus Torvalds and Eric Raymond, the three big thinkers behind free/libre/open source software - and one should always be suspicious of any movement that so fails to reconcile its divisions that it needs three names - may have unleashed a monster that will consume them. Because until now the developed world could take the code provided so generously by Western developers but their ability to modify it was limited. There were too few skilled programmers and too few companies interested in supporting that sort of work. Now the programmers are out there. And while the Indian Linux community is currently fragmented, as Raj says, this could change very quickly. Much of the work on internationalisation, pushed by people like Gora Mohanty at Srijan Technologies, is complete, and new ideas are emerging. I visited one company, Om Logistics, who simply cannot pay what Microsoft want to charge for licences when one of their bureaux might make a few thousand rupees profit in a month. They use Linux on both servers and desktops, and the result is that they have an affordable and reliable system. Soon it wlll be even more suited to their needs, because Indian developers will be deciding how it should develop. These programmers will take today's Linux code and make it far more useful to the people of India and other developing countries than today's predominantly Western developer community ever could. And when that happens, the centre of free software development will soon begin to move from the US and Europe. Free software provides a bridge between the affluence of the West and the poverty of most of the world's population, and amounts to a massive flow of intellectual capital into the developing world. And as they reshape it to meet their needs it will stop being just another US import and become a resource that can be used in brand new ways. Once the people on the receiving end make it their own they will change the world. The fun is just beginning. Bill Thompson is a regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Digital Planet -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Frederick 'FN' Noronha | Yahoomessenger: fredericknoronha http://fn.goa-india.org | fred(a)bytesforall.org Independent Journalist | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9822122436 ----------------------------------------------------------

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The Code Breakers on BBC World
by doxa＠sancharnet.in 12 May '06

12 May '06

Message from Hiran, at Vidya Academy, Thrissur. Repeat telecast appearing at 2200h tonight in BBC World. "..Microsoft has dominated the world of computing for many years, with its heavily guarded �code� being beyond reach to many in the developing nations. In some of the poorest countries the cost of upgrading an operating system to keep up with the rest o fthe world amounts to a year's wages, and there are few legitimate options. In Thailand for example, 95 percent of software on computers is pirated. The poorest countries are now beginning to use free or open source software (FOSS), a software that parallels many of Microsoft's programmes but with the major difference being that they are distributed free of charge and can be altered by computer programmers who are allowed unfettered access to the 'source code'. In this two-part documentary, Code Breakers includes stories and interviews from around the world where FOSS is making an impact, from disaster management in Sri Lanka to tortoise breeding programmes in the Galapagos..." http://www.bbcworld.com/content/template_clickpage.asp?pageid=2783 CK Raju

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The Code Breakers on BBC World
by doxa＠sancharnet.in 12 May '06

12 May '06

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T-shirts
by Krishna Pagadala 12 May '06

12 May '06

Is FSFI selling T-Shirts? I would like to buy a few of them. Thanks Krishna ===================================== To Reflect, to Inspire and to Empower http://www.employees.org/~krishnap/ http://freeknowledge.dyndns.org/ The great moral question of the twenty-first century is: If all knowledge, all culture, all art, all useful information, can be costlessly given to everyone at the same price that it is given to anyone -- if everyone can have everything, everywhere, all the time, why is it ever moral to exclude anyone from anything? -Eben Moglen --------------------------------- Get amazing travel prices for air and hotel in one click on Yahoo! FareChase

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FOSS Documentary on BBC World
by प्रव ीण् ए (Praveen A) 09 May '06

09 May '06

Hey All , I think many of us would be intrusted in watching this Documentary on BBC world **The Code Breakers** Microsoft has dominated the world of computing for many years, with its heavily guarded 'code' being beyond reach to many in the developing nations. In some of the poorest countries the cost of upgrading an operating system to keep up with the rest o fthe world amounts to a year's wages, and there are few legitimate options. In Thailand for example, 95 percent of software on computers is pirated. The poorest countries are now beginning to use free or open source software (FOSS), a software that parallels many of Microsoft's programmes but with the major difference being that they are distributed free of charge and can be altered by computer programmers who are allowed unfettered access to the 'source code'. In this two-part documentary, Code Breakers includes stories and interviews from around the world where FOSS is making an impact, from disaster management in Sri Lanka to tortoise breeding programmes in the Galapagos. Thursday 11th May at 0100 Repeated: Thursday 11th May at 1500; Saturday 13th May at 0100^; Monday 15th May at 0700# & 1300 -- "Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history. `Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn." -- Richard Stallman Me scribbles at http://www.pravi.co.nr

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IT@School project
by Arun M 08 May '06

08 May '06

Dear friends, See the story on free software and IT@School in kerala. http://www.hindu.com/2006/05/08/stories/2006050811430400.htm IT@School will soon distribute Wikipedia to schools. regards arun

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Fsf-friends May 2006