Fsf-friends August 2006

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35 participants
38 discussions

Consilience 06 conference on FOSS at NLSIU
by Ramanraj K 03 Aug '06

03 Aug '06

A brief note on the Consilience 06 event on Free Software that took place last week at National Law School, Bangalore, is available at http://freeshell.in/~ramanraj/kr_nlsiu.txt -Ramanraj K __ Consilience 06 * Law and Technology Committee * el~ték * NLSIU A Conference on Free/Open Source Software SCHEDULE 26th July, 2006- Day One: ======================== 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM- Session on Intellectual Property and FOSS * Hon'ble Mr. Justice Yatindra Singh, Judge, Allahabad High Court * Mr. Sunil Abraham, Manager, International Open Source Network 11:30 AM to 11:45 AM- Refreshment Break 11:45 AM to 1:30 AM- Session on Using FOSS in Public Administration * Mr. Ramanraj K, Lawyer, Chennai 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM- Lunch 2:30 PM to 4:00 PM- Session on Licensing Matters * Mr. Neel Mason, Lawyer, Delhi 27th July, 2006- Day Two: ======================== 8:30 AM- Richard Stallman address via videoconference: Why software wants to be free, followed by discussion. 11:45 AM to 2:00 PM- Session of FOSS Business Models * Mr. Atul Chitnis, Sr. Vice President, Geodesic Information Systems Pvt. Ltd * Mr. Anand Babu, Member, FSF India & Software Developer 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM- Session on Protecting FOSS Assets * Mr. Kenneth Gonsalvez, NRC-FOSS, Chennai 11:30 AM to 11:45 AM- Refreshment Break 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM- Lunch 3:00 PM to 5:30 PM- Session on Policy Implications of FOSS - An Indian Perspective * Dr. Nagarjuna, Chariman, Free Software Foundation of India * Mr. Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Consultant, Planning Commission of India 5:30 PM to 6:00 PM- Open discussion and debate on conference points and follow-up 6:30 PM to 9:30 PM- Closing session at Hotel Central Park Plaza with accompanying dinner/mixer VENUE Primary conference sessions for the 26th and 27th will take place at the Training Centre in the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) campus at Nagarbhavi (Near Chandra Layout off Mysore road; 12km from city centre). Closing session and dinner will take place at Hotel Central Park Plaza (In Manipal Centre, near M.G. Road). The accomdation for the keynote speakers will be provided for at the Training Centre in the NLSIU campus. WEB SITE http://www.nls.ac.in/consilience2006/index.html

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Fwd: [PRC] BLAG
by Anivar Aravind 02 Aug '06

02 Aug '06

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Monica Narula <monica(a)sarai.net> Date: Aug 2, 2006 6:14 PM Subject: [PRC] BLAG To: Free/Libre and Open Source Software Project List <prc(a)sarai.net>, cm_translation(a)sarai.net Hi all was wondering what the word on the street was about Blag (http:// www.blagblagblag.org/), and if anyone had used, had experiences with it? As the site says: blag - le brixton linux action group works to overthrow corporate control of information and technology through community action and spreading Free Software. blag - blag linux and gnu blag is an operating system. blag has a suite of graphics, internet, audio, video, office, and peer to peer file sharing applications. you can replace a windoz installation with blag. if you would like to install and run blag, download and burn it to cd. best M Monica Narula Raqs Media Collective Sarai-CSDS 29 Rajpur Road Delhi 110054 www.raqsmediacollective.net www.sarai.net Knowlege is power... share it equitably! _______________________________________________ prc mailing list prc(a)sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/prc

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Geographical limitation.....For or against freedom??
by Hiran Venugopalan 02 Aug '06

02 Aug '06

There is some thing which has to be removed. 13.[8] Geographical Limitations. Which is there in the G P L v2,other open source licenses released by O S I and in all non-free software license like EULA....but in our case,the freedom which we all think,enjoys,inspires and fight for......is that good to have such a statement like geographical limitation?? Should we support that??While we support such a license phrase,how can we shout against the FREEDOM OF BLOG and such thing?While the freedom of usage,study,modification and the redistribution is not allowed to citizen of certain countries or geographical region,I think it as a matter of caging freedom.What we matter [as I think] is freedom;not just for me but for the whole community,there my enemies are too included [Or you say that Microsoft or Adobe or Autodesk guys are not allowed to use GNU]. I am not an expert in these and I am just a new one to the field on free software and this movement.Do help me to understand the real concept. |* Hiran Venugopalan |** http://hiran.movingrepublic.org |**# 09846951870 |*

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Fourth International Conference
by Arun M 02 Aug '06

02 Aug '06

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bangalore to Host the Fourth International Conference on GPLv3 India will host the Fourth International GPLv3 Conference in Bangalore, this August 23-24, 2006. A part of the world-wide drive to create awareness about the upcoming version three of the GNU General Public License (GPLv3), the two-day conference is expected to draw delegates from across the communities - legal, bureaucrat and academia. While the first day will see Richard M Stallman and Eben Moglen, the original architects of the GPLv3 license, communicating latest updates on the GPLv3 final draft, the second day holds panel discussions on localisation, awareness and adoption of GPLv3 and threat of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). The event to be held at the Indian Institute of Management - Bangalore is a sequence to the Third International GPLv3 Conference that took place in Barcelona, Spain. Similar events have already been held in the USA and Brazil. The international GPLv3 conferences are part of a year-long public consultation process to update the GNU General Public License (GPL). The version 3 of the GPL, essentially, takes into account changes in terms of legal and technical environment, in which software licenses operate, and the need to increase protection against new threats such as software patents and Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). The worldwide awareness drive for GPLv3, is to ensure that, all users of software distributed under its terms, have the freedom to examine, share, and modify that software. For registration kindly visit GPLv3 conference website http://gplv3.gnu.org.in For Details, kindly contact: Arun M (FSF-I) arun(a)gnu.org.in Prof Rahul De' (IIM-B) rahul(a)iimb.ernet.in Abhas Abhinav (FSUG-Bangalore) abhas(a)deeproot.co.in Venue: IIM-B Date: 23, 24 August, 2006 Contact numbers: Abhas Abhinav (FSUG-Bangalore) #080-41124785 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Hurd Update - correction -Debian update
by doxa＠sancharnet.in 01 Aug '06

01 Aug '06

Sorry, that was debian announcement. CK Raju

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Re: Re: Flame
by doxa＠sancharnet.in 01 Aug '06

01 Aug '06

Is Linus probably presupposing that the 'users' of free software may not transform into ethical beings ('sharks with lasers')? There are recent findings that 15 odd (even less) people, in most of the free software projects, do some 80% of the actual development work as 'core developers' - not strictly Eric Raymond's huge bazaar. What is not known is the real reason behind his 'fairness' concern? Philosophers like Nagarjuna are better equipped to analyse these issues... For us, how different are things going to be, if we continue to get free software in combination of GPL2 and GPL3? In any case if there are huge stumbling blocks - a fork can always be invoked - if we have the requisite talent of 15 odd core developers and the persuasive skill of the 1 or 2 'maintainers'? Despite knowing that RMS rejects religions - yet is not averse to accepting few from any of them - why does Linus raise 'crusader' and 'GOD' metaphor? CK Raju

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Hurd Update
by doxa＠sancharnet.in 01 Aug '06

01 Aug '06

============Hurd Announcement============= =======from Frans Pop <elendil(a)planet.nl>== A week since the planning was posted, time for an update. Thanks to James, the upload of d-i was processed very quickly. Since then various, mostly minor issues have been identified and resolved. We are now at the stage where final tests before the release can be done for all arches, so if you have some time, please run an installation on your favorite architecture(s). Please file an installation report with your results, or, if you are a d-i team member, update [0] directly. Beta 3 candidate images are available from the following locations: Full CD and DVD images: links "weekly snapshot" images on [1] Netinst and businesscard CD images: links to "daily built" images on [1] the "daily" images now point to the etch_d-i builds [2] Images for other installation methods: http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian/dists/sid/main/installer-/current/images/ Known issues: - S/390 Beta 3 candidate images are broken; will be fixed with next upload - Lowmem settings in Beta 3 images are not yet correct; see below On Monday 24 July 2006 11:52, Frans Pop wrote: > One important TODO item is updates to debian-cd, especially for > architectures that are dropping 2.4 support in d-i. If your > architecture needs such changes, please contact me. Joey and Steve can > probably help with the changes where needed. As far as we know all needed updates in debian-cd have been made and successful builds for all types of CD images are now available. A fair amount of changes were needed, so please test CD-based installs. > All this does mean that the current lowmem levels need serious review > for all architectures. The good news is that memory requirement for a > "bare" install (lowmem level 2) looks be hardly changed. An updated lowmem was uploaded today and will be included in the final upload for Beta 3. The "level 1" limits have been increased substantially for all arches. For a few arches "level 2" limits have been adjusted as well. We will need to get back to this before the RC releases. Release planning ================ We are mostly running according to schedule. > 29 Jul Last chance to upload udebs for inclusion in intrds Last expected uploads (localechooser and lowmem) now done. > 30 Jul Testbuild of weekly images (using d-i images from unstable) Images for all architectures are now available. > 1 Aug Final upload of d-i images There is one issue that will probably delay the final upload of d-i images. A new upstream version of directfb was uploaded recently which FTBFS on powerpc. This breaks builds of d-i on arches which support the graphical installer. Hopefully this will be resolved soon. > 2- 5 Aug Testing This can already start now. > 2 Aug Last chance to upload udebs not included in initrds > 4- 6 Aug Preparation of release notes, errata, etc. > 5 Aug Migration of d-i to testing > 6 Aug CD builds > 7 Aug Release Will slip too depending on when the issue mentioned above is resolved. Cheers, FJP [0] installer/doc/devel/release-checklist [1] http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/ [2] If you need to test sid_d-i images (using daily built d-i images), use http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/daily-builds/etch_d-i/arch-latest//iso-cd/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQBEzf4wgm/Kwh6ICoQRArSoAKC3aqd/TvZl1oLYh5UHySNy1CoBhQCfRiUy Jt1arH5y+P6wPiEUBXFj6Wk= =Arlv -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Comments on the GPLv3 Process
by Ramanraj K 01 Aug '06

01 Aug '06

It is reported at http://news.com.com/2061-10795_3-6099985.html that Linus Torvalds has sharply criticised GPLv3 draft terms as "inferior" to GPLv2. Several elements in the GPLv3 draft unfortunately make it plain that the shift is from "freedom" to "slavery", "hate" and "fear". If the GPLv3 ever comes into effect with such terms, it may even make non-free licenses look very respectable. I recently modified the licensing terms of the Calpp project that I am maintaining, so that modifications to the Calpp code base would be only under GPLv2 until further notice, to ensure a comfortable level of freedom for its developers and users. The most important reason why most people appreciate the GPL are the four freedoms: 0: freedom to run the program, for any purpose 1: freedom to study how the program works with source code and adapt it to your use 2: freedom to redistribute copies and 3: freedom to improve and release improvements to the public. The GPLv2 has implemented the freedoms as license conditions giving rights to licensees to enjoy the freedoms listed above, and has not only stood the test of time, but has created a good ecosystem of free software where developers, users, businesses and governments have benefited. GPLv3 should ideally be towards giving better rights to developers and licensees to make the freedoms more effectively usable and enjoyable. Many clauses in the draft GPLv3 are unintelligible and ambigious, giving open invitations for interpretations. Having provisions for "additional terms" would make the GPL a non-standard license, and even worse, they would only help to curtail rights and make the freedoms illusory. If the GPLv3 mission is alter the well known freedoms 0 to 3 substantially, then it is fairly important to discuss that in the first place, before the actual license terms are discussed. It is premature to discuss the GPLv3 draft, without arriving at a broad consensus on what fixes are required to the basic freedoms enjoyed by developers and licensees. I would request RMS and the FSF to first make a restatement of freedoms 0 to 3 before proceeding further with the GPLv3 process. In India, most of the criticism about the GPL has been about making the freedoms more practically available by making the GPL more enforceable. Many have asked if the GPL violates the "Rule against Perpetuity" Most GPLed software is freely available for download by the public from the Internet, and therefore, the terms in the GPLv2 that ensure perpetuity for public benefit, advancement of knowledge, commerce and other benefits to mankind make it valid and enforceable. This issue in fact holds the key to the future progress of the GPL. Focus and attention on the public nature of code contributions and examining ways and means to strengthen the distribution of computer programs and modifications on the Internet with better licensing conditions should help. If the GPLv3 draft process ignores real issues, and side-tracks into the private domain, it may just end up there, as a self-defeating meaningless exercise for all of us. Regards, Ramanraj K

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Fsf-friends August 2006