Fsf-friends February 2007

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

21 participants
20 discussions

Zotero for Firefox
by Shekhar Krishnan 28 Feb '07

28 Feb '07

Zotero [zoh-TAIR-oh] is a free, easy-to-use web browser extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It has been developed by the Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University http://chnm.gmu.edu and is now in use by thousands of historians, anthropologists, journalists, lawyers and other researchers. Zotero is an open source alternative to citation tools like Endnote, and lives inside of your browser, allowing you to automatically capture and manage sources and citations in online catalogues, archives, and other repositories, as well as taking notes, tagging these materials, and exporting bibliographies in various formats. For more information and to download and install Zotero, go to http://www.zotero.org Zotero requires use of Firefox 2.0, the latest version of the popular open source web browser from the Mozilla Corporation. If you don't already use Firefox or haven't yet upgraded to the new version 2.0, go to http://www.getfirefox.com to download it. Once you've installed it or upgraded your earlier version, go to the Zotero site to download and install the extension for Firefox 2.0. Best, S.K. -- Shekhar Krishnan 400, West 119th Street, Apt.10D New York, NY 10027 U.S.A. http://www.mit.edu/~shekhar http://www.heptanesia.net http://www.crit.org.in/members/shekhar

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Clarification by British PM's Office that "Software patents" are not enforceable in UK
by Ramanraj K 27 Feb '07

27 Feb '07

http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page11077.asp <quote> We [The Prime Minister's Office, UK] received a petition asking: "We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to make software patents clearly unenforcible." ... ... The Government remains committed to its policy that no patents should exist for inventions which make advances lying solely in the field of software. Although certain jurisdictions, such as the US, allow more liberal patenting of software-based inventions, these patents cannot be enforced in the UK. ... ... </quote>

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Re: 'F' for Fedora; 'F' for Free (Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay)
by Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray 27 Feb '07

27 Feb '07

> Which part is funny ? Michael being President of OSI or Michael as a Red > Hat Executive backing Fedora ? a. Nice to see a Red Hat (for that matter any company) executive talking and embracing 'Free Software' and not 'Open Source'. b. Funny to see the OSI president leaning towards the FSF's stance on software freedom and using the FSF backed terminology, and away from the OSI's. c. It is not about hatred. I could not help smiling at this at a time when the 'FSF is evil', 'RMS is a dictator', and 'non-free kernel modules make a good desktop distribution'. 'Funny' was the most decent word I could come up with at 04:30am. :-P Cheerio, Debarshi

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Re: Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 46, Issue 15
by Mishi Choudhary 27 Feb '07

27 Feb '07

hi i've been trying to get in touch with kiran in regard to the convention on 3rd and 4th . Warm Regards Mishi Choudhary

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'F' for Fedora; 'F' for Free
by Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray 27 Feb '07

27 Feb '07

http://rahulsundaram.livejournal.com/ Fedora is on the verge of becoming the first mainstream GNU/Linux distribution to meet the FSF's standards of a 'free operating system'. Here is the current status: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FreeSoftwareAnalysis https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-advisory-board/2006-April/msg00181.h… Funnily this move is backed by Michael Tiemann (Vice-President of Red Hat and President of OSI). Before signing off something to feed my pride: http://joey.ubuntu-rocks.org/blog/2006/12/28/q-what-should-end-user-graphic… Cheers, Debarshi -- husband v. use sparingly; conserve; save husbandry n. frugality; thrift; agriculture

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Hurd.in meetup during FOSS Meet @ NITC 07
by Praveen A 26 Feb '07

26 Feb '07

Hi, Hurd.in team will be meeting up during FOSS Meet @ NITC 07 to discuss future plans for Hurd.in community. Be there. More details. http://hurd.in/bin/view/Hurd/FOSS_Meet_At_NITC_07 Cheers Praveen -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Free Software Convention in Hydrabad
by Arun M 25 Feb '07

25 Feb '07

Dear friends, Free software activist in Andhra Pradesh is organising a convention on free software on 3rd and 4th of March. Event is supported by FSF India. We welcome all the Free Software activists to the event. For more information see the link below. http://nationalconvention.swecha.org/WordPress/ regards arun

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[Article Link] Coming up: a planetary web
by Praveen A 24 Feb '07

24 Feb '07

"People say information is power. I believe that sharing of information is power. Open access to the world's information is what one should look at," says Cerf who is the Vice-President & Chief Internet Evangelist of Google. Read the Deccan Herald article http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/feb212007/index158322007221.asp -- പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില് Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Fwd: When is a standard not a standard (sub-titled Microsoft and BIS)?
by Arun M 24 Feb '07

24 Feb '07

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Gora Mohanty <gora(a)sarai.net> Date: Feb 23, 2007 6:55 PM Subject: When is a standard not a standard (sub-titled Microsoft and BIS)? (This message is being sent primarily to the ILUG-Delhi and Sarai PRC mailing lists, but is also copied to people that Venkatesh Hariharan had sent the original message to. Please note that henceforth, I will only be following up on the ILUG-Delhi list. You have to join the list to post there (see <http://www.linux-delhi.org/cgi-bin/anCMS/mailingList.cgi?action=mailingLists> ), but the archives are available publicly at http://frodo.hserus.net/pipermail/ilugd/ and http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi/ ) Hello, I had the (mis-)fortune of attending a seminar on Information Technology Standardization [sic] organised for the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), by MAIT. The ostensible reason for the meeting was to identify requirements of the IT industry in order "to formulate effective, meaningful and implementable standards". The background for this is an effort by Microsoft to push through a 6000-page document on Office Open XML (OOXML), presumably as a counter-standard to Open Document Format (ODF). Details on this are available on Venky's blog at http://www.osindia.blogspot.com/ Due to other commitments, I had time to attend only the inaugural session, which had a keynote address by Craig Mundie, the chief research and strategy officer of Microsoft Corporation. Incidentally, Microsoft was the only company represented on the panel, and allowed to give a formal presentation, though representatives from open-source companies, and the community were also present. Questions on the talks were also not entertained. What was frankly disgusting was the attitude of BIS officers, even those of senior ones, towards Microsoft; going beyond courtesy, and even obsequiousness, to border on servility. The HP laptop being used for the presentation prominently displayed the Microsoft Vista logo. Mr. Mundie's presentation was, in my opinion, a masterpiece of double- speak, and fascinated me so much that I made sure to make a transcript of his slides. Apparently, having solved issues with security, privacy, and reliability, Microsoft has been focusing on inter-operability over the last 1.5 years. While this might seem like great news, Mr. Mundie was diligent in avoiding any specific commitments, such as the simple one of guaranteeing that any Microsoft application will be able to export to an openly-published, patent-unencumbered, standard format, without loss of information. While the presentation went ahead to extol the virtues of meta-data, and the use of XML data formats, Mr. Mundie somehow omitted to mention that XML does not automatically imply openness, or freedom from patent restrictions. Finally, it seems to be the opinion of Mr. Mundie that industry standards are needed to keep a check on "unconstrained innovation", which leaves me wondering how Microsoft knows about innovation, unconstrained or otherwise. Fun and games aside, I think that it is worthwhile for the open-source community in India at large to formulate a coherent position on the use of openly documented, and patent-free standards for any government data, and to publicise the same to both government organisations, and the media. It is our data, so we should have an absolute guarantee of freedom in using it. I believe that Venky is drafting such a document, that we can put up on a Wiki, and use as a basis for a formal policy paper. Regards, Gora

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New release of the deepOfix Mail Server (version 3.1) is available for download now...
by Abhas Abhinav 24 Feb '07

24 Feb '07

Dear Friends, DeepRoot Linux is pleased to announce a new release of the deepOfix Mail Server! Version 3.1 of the deepOfix Mail Server is a major release encompassing a large number of fixes, enhancements and additions. Please do give the new deepOfix Mail Server a try. We are confident that it can meet the server requirements of anyone wanting to use GNU/Linux and Free Software. About the deepOfix Mail Server ------------------------------ The deepOfix Mail Server makes it possible for organisations with minimal technical expertise to have robust server infrastructure. The mail server effortlessly delivers the freedom, reliability and excellence of GNU/Linux to you and is available as Free / Open Source Software itself. It offers unprecented ease of use, doesn't require prior GNU/Linux experience and is backed by a full-time development and support team. As always, we will eagerly await any feedback, criticism, bug reports, wisdom or advice that you might have for us. Cheers, Abhas. Links ----- * Download the deepOfix Mail Server Install CD (version 3.1) http://sourceforge.net/projects/deepofix * deepOfix Mail Server - Version 3.1 - What's new? http://deeproot.in/deepofix/version-3.1 * Development websites deepOfix Installer and OS - http://code.deeproot.in/deepofix EasyPush Server Manager - http://code.deeproot.in/easypush http://deepofix.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/deepofix/ * Subscribing to deepOfix-related mailing lists http://deeproot.in/deepofix/mailing-lists -- i-take-charge at DeepRoot Linux http://www.deeproot.in / +91 (80) 4112 4784 / 85 Getting GNU/Linux to work for you. Faster. Better. Today. Every way.

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Fsf-friends February 2007