Fsf-friends June 2006

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

27 participants
33 discussions

educational software for children--townplanning
by Kush 28 Jul '06

28 Jul '06

Hi all, Nowadays a lot of kids of middle class, upper middle class and rich sections of society play video/computer games which have a lot of violence etc in them. These games are generally expensive and very addictive plus they make children self centered and unable to think of working in a team or group. (sense of getting inputs from the community is not there as collaboration is not a part of the game) Lincity (or similar games) could be a way to motivate a child to the profession of town planning which is a very specialised job right now and in the hands of an elite few leading to a lot of lost inputs from the general populace. The mess in urban areas is a result of too few fossilised thinkers at the top who have a lot of power but paucity of ideas. Once children are introduced to such games which call for inputs from others (maybe at a later stage) and once such games become commonplace, more and more people will start participating in town and country planning processes far more easily than at present. I hope ngos and software developers can both think of such better ways to educate the newer generation and take away the dread of a specialised occupation by building even better games and user interfaces. Such games taken at a young stage could easily launch a child into a career and give them a headstart. Parents would also like to see children doing something constructive even while playing computer games. Besides several offshoots of such games can take place such as easily designing a place of residence etc (profession of architect, civil engineer, structural engineer, interior designer, landscape artist, GIS planners etc etc) There is a lot of scope in this idea for people in the game/educational software business. Kush -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Fsf-friends] city planning--application software Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 16:34:14 -0400 From: Kush <be_a_sport(a)rogers.com> Reply-To: Principal Support List of FSF-India <fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in> To: Principal Support List of FSF-India <fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in> CC: Anil Laul <anillaul(a)vsnl.com>, karmayog <karmayog(a)yahoogroups.com> Hi all, Is there any site which rates open source application softwares in various categories? e.g. I was trying to find applications under town planning etc and I found only one working application software which has not been improved after 2004 or so.(looks like the development has stopped) The application is known as http://lincity.sourceforge.net/ and after playing it in ubuntu one can see it is entry level and not like the commercial simcity game. Still town planning is a very specialised occupation and it will become increasingly relevant as more and more parts of India get urbanised. Allowing such FREE tools in the hands of youngsters and the youth will only lead to better plans, debates, creativity and decision making as town planning impacts so many areas for a better quality of life. Its time we start thinking strategically on key applications such as these to make India and the world a better place. Maybe then such imaginative scenarios can be added to real gis maps etc. http://www.freemap.in/ is an effort in that direction (for the city of mumbai) but it leaves much to be desired as the data used is faulty or outdated. Kush _______________________________________________ Fsf-friends mailing list Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends

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fsf must rate and talk about application softwares too
by Kush 19 Jul '06

19 Jul '06

Hi all, Right now it is easy to always go to sites which provide certain kinds of application softwares but in the real world people need collaborative softwares. I think the business world is using propreitary applications for distributed work and we don't have sites which give any ratings for such softwares from the open source world. I am talking of the virtual private network applications or CRM or CMS or wiki type softwares where lay people can really collaborate in an office or group setting. We have no rating mechanisms to judge which features are better among a group of softwares. Typically people are interested in knowing 1 whether moin moin is better than (and in what ways) mediawiki or zwiki etc etc in the field of wiki softwares. (I came across Moin moin accidentally thru the dapper ubuntu cd which features it in the opencd.org project.) or whether egroupware is better than other softwares in the same line? (groupware substitutes for lotus notes etc) or whether joomla is comparable to drupal or mambo etc etc in features" (cms applications) or whether openoffice's base application (database) is any good and if there are alternatives available in the open source world at present which can take on msaccess? (or a workaround with a mysql application for ms access) or how does freegis compare with postgis and maxdb etc gis application softwares ? (in the gis world of open source software) or whether ruby on rails will soon outpace python, perl and php in web based application development? (though perl, php, python each have a HUGe body of historical strength) Or whether eclipse is better than kdevelop(c++) or anjuta or bluefish or boa constructor(python or delphi/pascal) or other IDEs? (when newbies have to develop open source softwares) or the merits/demerits of IDE tools which are linked to version control system tools like cvs or subversion etc etc--which are the best tools in version control according to various features/parameters or whether there are better tools than argo UML (poseidon is propreitary) in the field of application development software in terms of high level requirements specifications software and automatic generation of software tools or what are the strengths vs weaknesses in short form and dispassionately analysed etc without advertising jargon. I don't know any place where such information can be easily read and found. and these are the things which really matter for laymen to come to speed in the adoption of open source software in India. Sourceforge.net earlier used to give a maturity rating (development status) for an application but it does not do so now. Even earlier the application software results could never be ordered by the development status (except for paid customers of sourceforge) It would be great if fsfindia or somebody could enhance the work of sourceforge by having some ratings and categorisation of key application development tools/catalysts. Thanks Kush

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GPL conference in Bangalore
by Krishna Pagadala 14 Jul '06

14 Jul '06

All, I have not seen any more news about gpl conference in Bangalore. How are the preparations proceeding? Krishna ===================================== Misinterpreting Copyright by Richard Stallman "Die Gedanken Sind Frei": Free Software and the Struggle for Free Thought by Eben Moglen mp3 ogg Free Knowledge blog . --------------------------------- New Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. Call regular phones from your PC and save big.

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Fwd: Summer Drupal training program in India
by Arun M 30 Jun '06

30 Jun '06

-- snip -- With 75,000+ Drupal power websites and an emerging industry supporting over 150 professionals, the open-source Drupal project and community is exploding. At the heart of this community is an incredibly active and productive group of contributors. Creating contributed modules, themes, bug fixes, and core enhancement, these individuals define the course of the Drupal project and the ecosystem of users, tinkerers, and professionals around it. Through this internship program we will attempt to train students from India the ins and outs of Drupal and help them established themselves as long term contributors to the Drupal project. Over two months the selected students will work closely with project mentors on real world Drupal projects; contributed modules, and core patches. They will learn the Drupal development process and gain extremely valuable experience interacting with a live open-source project. Students will be paid a stipend of 4,600 INR to 8,000 INR a month depending on the level of their contributions to the Drupal project. More Information: http://drupal.in/training -- snip --

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thoughts about increasing the spread of computing
by Kush 28 Jun '06

28 Jun '06

Hi all, If we look at the pc revolution and how it spread after the IC and microprocessors came into being, we would see that the following had a great effect on the PC phenomena. 1 --IBM came into the picture and its methods of mass producing or handling the distribution of quality items helped thru proper procedures and quality control processes 2 --a media which worked complementarily to the PC revolution (and helped advertise the social phenomenon) 3 --spread of software and hardware which met needs of small businesses which could then feel the prestige of owning a machine which was equivalent to the large corporation's multi million dollar machines. This led to much needed money/capital coming in. In the area of software for the common man and particularly software for small businesses which fueled the growth of the pc revolution by bringing in much needed money and absurd profits were the financial softwares. If open source or free software has to go beyond the researchers level and not be milked by existing corporations like microsoft, sun, IBM, Oracle etc (who just copy the code at no cost) there has to be accurate and good knowledge of application softwares particularly for the rapidly automating small businessmen of India in the tier 2 cities etc.. We need open rating systems (and impartial websites which are not market driven) for existing softwares in the field of point of sale systems and financial software. I came across these sites for rating such softwares (from the Toronto LUG mailing list) and maybe we could find others much better or complementary to them and have them put up on a wiki based website such as that of this group. http://linuxfinances.info/info/miscpersonalfinance.html http://www.linas.org ++ also another suggestion-- our fsf website URL needs to be put/added to each email from this list automatically in addition to the existing footer as below Kush _______________________________________________ Fsf-friends mailing list Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends

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this may be off topic but ..
by Kush 28 Jun '06

28 Jun '06

Hi all, I was wondering if the computing movement in India has some sort of plan for putting information on the web about computer pioneers and leaders etc in India or from India, who have done some amazing things or are doing amazing things in the field of computers or technology.(examples could be pioneers of the cdot rural exchange etc when cdot was formed) This would really help increase the number of people attracted to computers and open source computing (or free software ) by giving pride and recognition to the best in the field and also help bring some sort of community culture. We should build this as part of our folklore on the lines of the hacker culture in the elite US universities in the 70s etc. There is a site for amazing stories about India called www.goodnewsindia.com but it is too generalised and not technology related. I know atleast 3 stories of great work done by people of Canadian origin(RIm-- blackberry phenomena, QNX real time OS from waterloo univ, APL or J by Ken Iverson) but very little about Indian achievements (except Vinod Khosla's being one of the 4 who started Sun microsystems and Sabeer Bhatia who started hotmail). The germans, italians, french, chinese and the japanese and now even the south Americans, Korean etc take so much pride in being leaders in specialised areas of the open source movement whereas we don't hear much of our pioneers. Kush

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brand recognition for our computing pioneers--2
by Kush 28 Jun '06

28 Jun '06

Its so interesting to read history and hear folklore. Maybe you have come across the name below but it was news to me and quite a surprise to know about the India connection of this person. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Osborne We can only get more young and old people into technology related areas when history becomes a part of our daily life. Kush

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Any possibility of using Nokia 3120 as gprs modem?
by sandeep Kumar 28 Jun '06

28 Jun '06

Hi, Unfortunately I invested in Nokia 3120 for accessing internet via PC(I was/am looking for a non-camera and non-song phone for the purpose). Is there any way I can get it working as modem on Linux atleast? I have tried gnokii 0.6.12 on Linux kernel 2.6.16.2 and though slow, gnokii identifies 3120 successfully, though xgnokii seems to take ages to get contact details and often I have to kill the app. I am trying with (non-nokia) CA-42 cable to connect to phone, and have been successful in using Nokia PC-Suite to view contacts etc. on windows, but again no success in using it as modem. I don't know about the possibility of it, but is it possible that a software modem simulation module (if open source community or nokia themselves provides) can be developed that once downloaded and integrated with existing phone software allows nokia 3120 to be used as gprs modem? Regards Sandeep ---------------------------------------------------- Want to know more about me? Check out http://www.geocities.com/shimple0 -- ______________________________________________ IndiaInfo Mail - the free e-mail service with a difference! www.indiainfo.com Check out our value-added Premium features, such as an extra 20MB for mail storage, POP3, e-mail forwarding, and ads-free mailboxes!

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India picks up support for ODF
by Frederick Noronha 27 Jun '06

27 Jun '06

http://www.openmalaysiablog.com/2006/06/india_picks_up_.html India picks up support for ODF IndiaflagLast Friday, 23 June 2006 the India chapter of the ODF Alliance conducted a National Seminar on ODF in New Delhi. Quoting an article on the event: Welcoming this initiative and highlighting its importance in Indian IT Scenario, Chandershekhar, secretary, Ministry of Information & Technology, Government of India said, "We are glad to note that with formation of a National ODF alliance, India too would be playing a pivotal role in spearheading the ODF revolution. Further, considering the huge potential of eGovernance in the nation as well as the need to adopt open standards to make our data systems more inter-operable and independent of any limiting proprietary tools, we feel that ODF is a great technological leap and a big boon to further propel IT right to India's grass root levels. I congratulate this initiative of leading private & public organisations and wish them all the best in this endeavor." In another article in conjunction with the event, it was reported that several government departments in New Delhi have decided to switch over to ODF. Note that the India chapter of the ODF Alliance includes CDAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing) and IIT (Indian Institute of Technology). I have encouraged before that Malaysian organizations and companies join the ODF Alliance and I should say now that these include Malaysian institutions of higher learning. We already have a Malaysian ODF SIG (special interest group) of individuals, but when sufficient number of local Malaysian organizations group together as ODF Alliance members, a different kind of ODF grouping and support will surely emerge in Malaysia. Posted by Hasan on Tuesday, 27 June 2006 at 03:10 AM in Events, ODF, z Posts by Hasan | Permalink -- ---------------------------------------------------------- Frederick 'FN' Noronha | Yahoomessenger: fredericknoronha http://fn.goa-india.org | fred(a)bytesforall.org Independent Journalist | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9822122436 ---------------------------------------------------------- AsiaCommons' blog http://www.asia-commons.net/blog/39

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(no subject)
by sandeep Kumar 27 Jun '06

27 Jun '06

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Fsf-friends June 2006