Gora Mohanty gora at sarai.net
Fri May 25 13:34:49 CEST 2007
Hello all,
Below is an invitation for proposals for the RGF-Sarai
CSDS programme for short-term FLOSS fellowships. Please feel
to circulate this far and wide. The deadline for submission
of proposals is the 25th of June. Please feel free to address
any queries with regards to this to floss at sarai.net.
Regards,
Gora
--------------------------------------------------------------
Call for proposals:
RGF-Sarai, CSDS, short-term FLOSS fellowships
1 Introduction
The Sarai programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing
Societies, Delhi (http://www.sarai. net) is pleased to
announce fellowships for projects related to Free/Libre and
Open Source Software (FLOSS) activities. This year, we have
partnered with the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation (RGF) who are
providing support for work in the specific area of computing,
and localisation in five Indian languages, namely, Assamese,
Hindi, Kashmiri, Oriya, and Urdu. We also invite proposals
from projects in other FLOSS areas, especially ones that are
relevant to educational, social, and community needs. Any
project that meets the criteria given below is eligible for
the fellowships, but we are particularly interested in:
o Indian language computing, including work on fonts,
rendering, locales, input methods, spell-checking,
etc., as well as in advanced technologies like OCR,
handwriting recognition, and speech-to-text.
o Localisation into Indian languages of user interfaces,
and translation of help documents for FLOSS
applications.
o In the interest of sustained development, we would
like to see the enhancement of, and extensions for
projects funded as part of past Sarai FLOSS
fellowships. In particular, we draw attention to
NewsRack (http://newsrack.in), Hindawi
(http://www.indicybers.com), and ApnaOpus
(http://apnaopus.var.cc).
o Documentation for users of FLOSS tools, particularly
in the area of Indian language computing. The
production of video tutorials would be welcome.
o Development of graphics, multimedia, and publishing
tools. This would include applications for audio/video
editing, animation, and desktop publishing.
Enhancement of existing FLOSS tools is especially
encouraged.
o Putting together, distributing, and supporting a
complete Indian language distribution, using FLOSS
operating systems, and tools.
o Collaboration software, and groupware solutions.
o Writing Linux device drivers, and front-ends for
common hardware, such as wireless cards, graphics
cards, scanners, and printers.
The other significant difference from past practice is that
we will be asking for more of a collaborative approach from
the fellows, both among one another, and with people at
Sarai. The collaboration need not be in the actual
development, but can consist of an ongoing conversation about
one's work, its direction, and current status. While this
has been an implicit expectation in the past, this time we
are making the requirement explicit. The exact details of
these will be worked out with the selected fellows, but will
include things like discussions over IRC, email, and postings
on the Sarai Project Resource Centre (PRC) mailing list.
Fellows will also be asked to prepare a timeline for the
projects, with intermediate milestones, and will be expected
to adhere to them.
2 Applying for the fellowships
We invite students, developers, researchers, and
practitioners interested in the FLOSS arena to apply for the
fellowships. While there is no prescribed format for the
applications, we expect them to be in sufficient detail for a
reviewer to sensibly evaluate them. Attention to details,
such as a plan of work that addresses what is possible to
accomplish within the limited project period, a projection of
how the work might be continued after that, and a discussion
of the possible impact of the project, is strongly
recommended. In particular, we will look favourably on
projects aimed at eventual deployment, rather than
development per se. Please mail your application, along with
a resume, to floss at sarai.net , with the subject line of
"RGF-Sarai FLOSS fellowships". As this information is
intended to be public, also subscribe to the PRC mailing list
at https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/prc, and post a
copy there, failing which your final proposal will be
forwarded there by one of us. Enquiries are invited at floss
at sarai.net , and on the PRC list, including questions on
how to frame proposals. The last date of submission is
midnight IST on Sun., June 25th, 2007. The projects will run
for a total of about six months, with a final workshop to be
held at Sarai, CSDS, Delhi, where the fellows will be
expected to present a summary of their work. Besides this, as
part of our engagement with the RGF, we will be holding
workshops in regional locations, and the FLOSS fellows will
be asked to be present at events local to them. The total
amount of the fellowship will be Rs. 70, 000.
3 Conditions
Applicants should have a valid bank account in any bank
operating in India. These are support grants, and the fellows
are free to pursue their primary occupations in parallel, as
long as they keep working on proposed projects. The fellows
must be willing to make a release of their final work under
any open-source licence approved by the Open Source
Initiative (OSI). Please see under
http://www.opensource.org/licenses for a complete list.
Proposals from teams, partnerships, collectives, and faculty
on the behalf of a group of students are welcome, so long as
the grant amount is administered by a single individual, and
the funds are deposited in a single bank account in the name
of an individual.
--
FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST)
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Email fred at bytesforall.org Res: 784 Saligao 403511 Goa India
Dear Friends,
Eben Moglen, Professor of Law in Columbia Law School and Founding
Director, Software Freedom Law Center will be speaking on Software
Patents at the IIC Annexe Conference Room 3 on 9th June 2007 at 10:30
am. Eben is a brilliant speaker and was recently chosen as one of the
100 most influential personalities in the world by eWeek magazine.
This meeting is open to all so feel free to forward this invite to your
friends who may be interested in this subject.
Eben's talk is organised by the Delhi Science Forum, Software Freedom
Law Center, India, Free Software Foundation India, Sarai (CSDS), Indian
Linux Users Group, Delhi, and others.
More info about Eben is at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Moglen
Regards,
Venky
Warm Regards
Mishi Choudhary
Dear All,
Eben Moglen, the architect of the GPLv3 is in Bangalore on the 3rd and he
will be speaking at St. Joseph's college at 4pm. For details on the speaker
please check out the links. Please forward this to all and definitely do
attend.
Mr. EBEN MOGLEN
emoglen.law.columbia.edu/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eben_Moglen
TOPIC: * "Freeing the Mind:*
*Free Software and the end of proprietary culture"*
Venue: Xavier's Auditorium, St. Joseph College, Lalbagh Road, Near Richmond
Circle, Bangalore – 1.
Time : 4.00 P.M on 03.06.2007, Sunday.
Contact: Mr. Viju Krishnan, M: 94496 12237, Mr. Jaykumar.H.S M: 94481 63453
--
Regards
Vikram Vincent
+919448810822
http://groups.google.com/group/bangalore_alive/http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Campaign_to_promote_free_software_in_karnataka
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Umashankar C <umashankarc(a)yahoo.com>
Date: May 27, 2007 11:17 PM
Subject: [eGovINDIA] One year of OSS implementation in ELCOT - the score
card
To: eGovINDIA(a)yahoogroups.com
Dear friends,
On the 26th May 2007, ELCOT completed one year of OSS implementation in its
day to day activities.
Currently the migration to OSS is close to 126 out of 130 desktop machines
(97%) and 25 out of 26 rack servers (96%).
Barring four desktops which use a popular windows based accounting software,
the entire ELCOT's head office moved into Suse linux. A lone user has been
using Fedora core.
We have asked for the linux version of the accounting software from the
vendor. He had agreed. ELCOT is also in the process of migrating to an open
source based ERP shortly and so the four desktops also would be migrated to
Suse linux shortly.
ELCOT had also rolled out a powerful application software for administering
family cards. Currently the contractors who do the data entry for the family
cards have been using it. Government have given approval for decentralising
the family card printing operations at the district level, thanks to the web
based software developed by ELCOT using OSS.
The family card software has a powerful local language interface which is
built on Java script technology. It is absolutely platform independent and
the user need not install any fonts.
So far so good.
ELCOT has been show casing its success in the migration to OSS to all
Government departments. A few of them were thoroughly impressed and have
decided to fully migrate to OSS. It is still too early.
Yet, the way in which the people accept OSS after a hands on experience in
ELCOT gives room for optimism. ELCOT's staff generously share their
experience when Government users visit ELCOT's office. They also get to see
the linux ATM and also ELCOT's 28 seater software development centre which
uses only OSS.
ELCOT has an 80 licence anti virus software which had become redundant. The
officer in charge of the licence had asked my permission to sell it
outside! Concurrence given.
Anti virus software has no role in ELCOT.
The latest success is the use of crossover and wine software to run
application software that had already been developed in Microsoft client -
server environment. ELCOT's team is shortly descending on Salem to provide
on site support to a large co-operative bank (150 desktops) to migrate to
Suse linux without any migration of the existing Ms application software
(using Wine/Cross over)
Regards.
Umashankar
C.Umashankar IAS., (TamilNadu Cadre)
e-governance expert.
& Managing Director, Electronics Corporation of TamilNadu Limited(ELCOT)
(A Government of TamilNadu Undertaking)
Co-Moderator:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eGovINDIA
Mankind deserves open standards and open source software. Only the chosen
ones get its taste. Others just hear the taste.
Chennai:
Ph: 91-44-42054443
------------------------------
Free Advice for the Litigious...
"All of which is to say - no amount of fear can stop the rise of free
media, or free software (they are the same, after all). The community
is vastly more innovative and powerful than a single company. And you
will never turn back the clock on elementary school students and
developing economies and aid agencies and fledgling universities - or
the Fortune 500 - that have found value in the wisdom of the open
source community. Open standards and open source software are
literally changing the face of the planet - creating opportunity
wherever the network can reach."
Jonathan Schwartz, CEO, Sun Microsystems
http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/what_we_did
Cheers
Praveen
--
പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്
Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now!
http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign
The Market Function of Piracy
By Jerry Kirkpatrick
"One study found that users of pirated software sufficiently
influenced — by word-of-mouth communication — eighty percent of the
software's prospects to buy the legal product and another described
several scenarios in which piracy can help increase the sales of legal
products. The pirated product functions as a free sample that the
innovator does not have to fund."
Full story http://mises.org/story/2590
--
പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്
Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now!
http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign
Dear AllSometime back i had seen a proposal about a meeting in bangalore in continuation to the lase session on GPLV3 , as Prof moglen shall be inindia in the first half of june this year , Mr Praveen A. however there has not been a follow up of the same.kindly direct me the person in charge of organising the same since time is running out.On fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in wrote Send Fsf-friends mailing list submissions to fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends or, via email, send a message with subject or body \'help\' to fsf-friends-request(a)mm.gnu.org.in You can reach the person managing the list at fsf-friends-owner(a)mm.gnu.org.in When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than \"Re: Contents of Fsf-friends digest...\" Today\'s Topics: 1. free software for film editing/subtitling, animation etc (Kussh Singh) 2. free software for better and cheaper diagnostics (Kussh Singh) 3. Re: free software for film editing/subtitling, animation etc (Ramanraj K) 4. Re: free software for film editing/subtitling, animation etc (Kussh Singh) 5. Re: free software for better and cheaper diagnostics (Raman.P) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Mon, 21 May 2007 02:11:54 +0530 From: \"Kussh Singh\" Subject: [Fsf-friends] free software for film editing/subtitling, animation etc To: \"Principal Support List of FSF-India\" Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Is there anybody in India working on free software for film editing/ film subtitling etc etc? There are a lot of ngos wanting to convey messages thru the medium of small documentary films but the studio costs are beyond their meagre capacities since all studios use imported/propreitary hardware/software which is very costly . Does anybody know of ways to reduce costs of film production --specially post production costs (studio, ad films, clips etc) Thanks and regards, Kussh ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Mon, 21 May 2007 02:15:46 +0530 From: \"Kussh Singh\" Subject: [Fsf-friends] free software for better and cheaper diagnostics To: \"Principal Support List of FSF-India\" Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Does anybody know of free software solutions in the field of MRI/cat/radiology scanning/diagnostics? Most of India\'s hospitals use imported hardware/software to do this medical diagnostic work and most of the time the machines and technologies used are really outdated and unnecessarily monopolised due to the licence raj of the govt which pushes up costs to the consumer. Thanks Kussh ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Mon, 21 May 2007 06:10:20 +0530 From: \"Ramanraj K\" Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] free software for film editing/subtitling, animation etc To: \"Principal Support List of FSF-India\" Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed On 5/21/07, Kussh Singh wrote: > Is there anybody in India working on free software for film editing/ film > subtitling etc etc? There are a lot of ngos wanting to convey messages thru > the medium of small documentary films but the studio costs are beyond their > meagre capacities since all studios use imported/propreitary > hardware/software which is very costly . Does anybody know of ways to reduce > costs of film production --specially post production costs (studio, ad > films, clips etc) http://ubuntustudio.org/ - I have not tried it though - do write if you give it a try. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio/PackageList gives the packages that go into it. ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Mon, 21 May 2007 07:17:18 +0530 From: \"Kussh Singh\" Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] free software for film editing/subtitling, animation etc To: \"Principal Support List of FSF-India\" Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Thanks for the info. Much obliged. Kussh On 5/21/07, Ramanraj K wrote: > > On 5/21/07, Kussh Singh wrote: > > > Is there anybody in India working on free software for film editing/ > film > > subtitling etc etc? There are a lot of ngos wanting to convey messages > thru > > the medium of small documentary films but the studio costs are beyond > their > > meagre capacities since all studios use imported/propreitary > > hardware/software which is very costly . Does anybody know of ways to > reduce > > costs of film production --specially post production costs (studio, ad > > films, clips etc) > > http://ubuntustudio.org/ - I have not tried it though - do write if > you give it a try. > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuStudio/PackageList gives the packages > that go into it. > > _______________________________________________ > Fsf-friends mailing list > Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in > http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends > -- Kussh 2639-9119 ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Mon, 21 May 2007 05:22:48 +0100 (BST) From: \"Raman.P\" Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] free software for better and cheaper diagnostics To: Principal Support List of FSF-India Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 --- Kussh Singh wrote: > Does anybody know of free software solutions in the field of > MRI/cat/radiology scanning/diagnostics? Most of India\'s hospitals > use > imported hardware/software to do this medical diagnostic work and > most of > the time the machines and technologies used are really outdated and > unnecessarily monopolised due to the licence raj of the govt which > pushes up Free Software requires a special thrust on medical informatics. We need lot of catching up todo. Surprisingly the most of the medical informatics revolves round two well documented standards dicom and hl7. Still free software presence is not much. Following links may through some light a.For dicom image viewers and related http://www.sph.sc.edu/comd/rorden/dicom.html#links b.debian med project at debian.org c.general link to medical related projects http://www.minoru-development.com/en/healthlinks.html There is huge potential in developing software which interface the medical equipments like auto-analysers used in clinical testing. On a related note one of the member of ILUG, Chennai has started a project called gmedcon at sourceforege(http://gmedcon.sf.net). This aims to improve existing dicom viewer xmedcon to gtk2 with features a cardiologist will require.He needs help in coding. Raman.P __________________________________________________________ Yahoo! India Answers: Share what you know. Learn something new http://in.answers.yahoo.com/ ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Fsf-friends mailing list Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends End of Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 49, Issue 17 *******************************************
Warm Regards
Mishi Choudhary
Crushed by the Wheels of Industry
By Jeremy Allison, Special to ZDNet
Being the geek in the family can get you in trouble. I was sat at a
social function with my wife's friends, all happily chattering away in
Mandarin. I can barely count to ten in the language so meaningful
conversation is a little difficult unless it's about arithmetic. I got
bored, which is always a dangerous thing.
"My daughter has a new computer, would you help set it up ?" asked one
of my wife's friends. "I'd love to," I replied. Finally, something to
do that I would enjoy!
Full Story http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6183476.html
Cheers
Praveen
--
പ്രവീണ് അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്
Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now!
http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign