Fsf-friends September 2008

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

26 participants
58 discussions

Microsoft wants to liberate Panchayati Raj System
by CK Raju 19 Sep '08

19 Sep '08

A document that explains position of Microsoft vis-a-vis Panchayati Raj in India where it wants to liberate the system. For a fine print reading, download http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/b/c/3bc064b6-4dcc-476b-8ee9-e6ca9c… "SWARAJ to liberate Panchayati Raj System" List of Microsoft e-Governance Awardees 2007 Name of the Project Cate gory of Awa rd 1 Meghdoot, Department IT for Service Delivery of Posts 2 DGS&D's e-Tender IT for Efficiency Management System 3 SMS Based Farmer Facilitation Innovation with IT System – Haryana (Directorate of Agriculture) 4 Control Office Automation IT for Functions of National –CRIS Importance 5 Information Kerala Mission IT for Local Self Governance – Kerala 6 Nemmadi–Karnataka IT for Rural Development ===================== Should we have an IKM entry at the International Conference on Free Software at Thiruvananthapuram ? The project is so alive and kicking... CK Raju

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Fwd: Participate in ODF Olympiad for schools
by Anivar Aravind 19 Sep '08

19 Sep '08

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Jaijit Bhattacharya <Jaijit.Bhattacharya(a)sun.com> Date: Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 2:57 PM Dear All, ODF Olympiad 2008 is open for submissions from Sep 20, 2008 (Software Freedom Day). Your children and their schools can win many prizes and also contribute to reducing the digital divide. For more information, visit www.odfolympiad.org. Please forward this mail to all relevant people and organizations. Thanks and regards Jaijit -- Jaijit Bhattacharya, PhD Director, Government Strategy India and Asia South Sun Microsystems India Pvt. Ltd. The Capital Court, Olof Palme Marg, 5th Floor, R Wing, Munirka New Delhi - 110 067 Direct: (91) 11 4219 1089 Board Number: (91) 11 4219 1100 Fax: (91) 11 2616 0928 Email: jaijit.bhattacharya(a)sun.com Open Document Format is an important standard for ensuring computer literacy and is fundamental to enabling computer education globally. ODF is easy to learn and anyone who has used any presentation software can immediately start using ODF software such as OpenOffice.org, StarOffice, IBM Symphony etc. We, along with IIT Delhi, Knowledge Commons, IOTA (Government of West Bengal), MAMPU (Government of Malaysia), JNU, IIM Ahmedabad and other organizations are conducting the ODF Olympiad 2008. ODF Olympiad tests the proficiency of school students in their usage of basic computers. The students are required to submit presentations using ISO complaint ODF format on specific topics which will be evaluated by an eminent jury based on specific parameters. Participate in the ODF Olympiad' 2008- an open standard inter-city contest to win : Participation Certificate for All Attractive prizes for 3 winners in each category Silver Plaque for school of the winner in each Category Prestigious ODF Olympiad Trophy for the winning School Software Freedom Trophy for inter-country winning School ODF Olympiad is open to students from all countries. Submissions for ODF Olympiad will be open from September 20th which is the Software Freedom Day. I would request you to encourage your children and their schools to participate in ODF Olympiad 2008 For details & submissions log on to: www.odfolympiad.org

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Fwd: A CPIM Hijack of Free Software Foundation?
by Anivar Aravind 19 Sep '08

19 Sep '08

My mail is not appearing in the list archive Posting it again ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Anivar Aravind <anivar.aravind(a)gmail.com> Date: Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 12:02 PM Subject: A CPIM Hijack of Free Software Foundation? To: Principal Support List of FSF-India <fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in> Cc: rms(a)gnu.org, "Nagarjuna G." <nagarjun(a)gnowledge.org>, "Nagarjuna G." <nagarjunag(a)gmail.com> Today I came to know about an event called freedom and software happening in Chennai on 21st September through a blog. The event website is a google site http://sites.google.com/site/freedomandsoftware/ Most of the friends participating are our friends. But this mail is for some clarifications The invitation text says following <quote> M. Subramanian - The Mayor, N. Ram - Editor, The Hindu, Debesh Das - Minister of Information Technology, West Bengal, Kiran Chandra - Director, Free Software Foundation India & Prabir Purkayastha - Secretary, Delhi Science Forum, have been confirmed to be the panel of speakers. The objective of the event will be the launch of the project for the development of a Tamil Version of the GNU/ Linux operating system. The launch will be made by the Mayor, M.Subramanian. The project will be developed by engineering students with able technical support from the IT professionals & professors, and infrastructural support by the entrepreneurs. The logo and caption for the Free Software Foundation, Tamil Nadu will be launched by Mr. N. Ram. The event will be attended by the IT professionals, Entrepreneurs, Researchers and professors of reputed colleges, from all over the country and the registration will be open to all, so you can bring all your friends as well. There will be no entry fee for the same. </quote> My questions are Following 1.Is this event anyway related with Free Software Foundation? 2. This news is not announced in any Free Software Mailing lists, like FSF-Friends, FSF-Tn(http://mm.gnu.org.in//pipermail/fsf-tn/) ILUG Chennai etc . It is not announced yet in gnu.org.in also. Why This much secrecy around this? 3.. The above invitation text says "logo and caption for the Free Software Foundation, Tamil Nadu will be launched" in the function. Is FSF India decided to start regional FSFs? If yes why this is organising in a a secret maner? 3. The Invitation text says "The objective of the event will be the launch of the project for the development of a Tamil Version of the GNU/ Linux operating system", why there is a need of another distribution when tamil is well supported in most of the upstream distributions? . Let it be the work of Tamil Localisation groups. 4. The contacts provided in the website contact page is not at all familiar in Free Software Community. And There is no information on who is organising this event. On a quick checkup with friends in Chennai, they says it is an event Organised by Communist Party of India (Marxist) . Thats why the secrecy. I don't have a problem in a political party supporting free software cause. But If it is the case i am very suspicious on following points 1. The exclusion of the Free Software Movement in Chennai in Organising it, 2. Creating a body with power structure before Contributing anything . I dont think a free software Foundation is not needed for releasing a Localised GNU/Linux Distribution 3. Secrecy in whole process of a Public event I am expecting a reply from FSF India on this Anivar

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Fwd: A CPIM Hijack of Free Software Foundation?
by Anivar Aravind 19 Sep '08

19 Sep '08

Posting this reply to list . mailman seems to be behaving strangely. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Nagarjuna G. <nagarjun(a)gnowledge.org> Date: Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 12:44 PM Subject: Re: A CPIM Hijack of Free Software Foundation? To: Anivar Aravind <anivar.aravind(a)gmail.com> Cc: Principal Support List of FSF-India <fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in>, rms(a)gnu.org we have asked for a clarification from the organizers. FSF India is not informed by the organizers themselves. Nagarjuna On Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 12:02 PM, Anivar Aravind <anivar.aravind(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Today I came to know about an event called freedom and software > happening in Chennai on 21st September through a blog. > The event website is a google site > http://sites.google.com/site/freedomandsoftware/ Most of the friends > participating are our friends. But this mail is for some > clarifications > > The invitation text says following > > <quote> > M. Subramanian - The Mayor, N. Ram - Editor, The Hindu, Debesh Das - > Minister of Information Technology, West Bengal, Kiran Chandra - > Director, Free Software Foundation India & Prabir Purkayastha - > Secretary, Delhi Science Forum, have been confirmed to be the panel of > speakers. > > The objective of the event will be the launch of the project for the > development of a Tamil Version of the GNU/ Linux operating system. The > launch will be made by the Mayor, M.Subramanian. The project will be > developed by engineering students with able technical support from the > IT professionals & professors, and infrastructural support by the > entrepreneurs. > > The logo and caption for the Free Software Foundation, Tamil Nadu will > be launched by Mr. N. Ram. > > The event will be attended by the IT professionals, Entrepreneurs, > Researchers and professors of reputed colleges, from all over the > country and the registration will be open to all, so you can bring all > your friends as well. There will be no entry fee for the same. > </quote> > > My questions are Following > > 1.Is this event anyway related with Free Software Foundation? > > 2. This news is not announced in any Free Software Mailing lists, > like FSF-Friends, FSF-Tn(http://mm.gnu.org.in//pipermail/fsf-tn/) ILUG > Chennai etc . It is not announced yet in gnu.org.in also. Why This > much secrecy around this? > > 3.. The above invitation text says "logo and caption for the Free > Software Foundation, Tamil Nadu will be launched" in the function. Is > FSF India decided to start regional FSFs? If yes why this is > organising in a a secret maner? > > 3. The Invitation text says "The objective of the event will be the > launch of the project for the development of a Tamil Version of the > GNU/ Linux operating system", why there is a need of another > distribution when tamil is well supported in most of the upstream > distributions? . Let it be the work of Tamil Localisation groups. > > 4. The contacts provided in the website contact page is not at all > familiar in Free Software Community. And There is no information on > who is organising this event. > > On a quick checkup with friends in Chennai, they says it is an event > Organised by Communist Party of India (Marxist) . Thats why the > secrecy. I don't have a problem in a political party supporting free > software cause. But If it is the case i am very suspicious on > following points > 1. The exclusion of the Free Software Movement in Chennai in Organising it, > 2. Creating a body with power structure before Contributing anything . > I dont think a free software Foundation is not needed for releasing a > Localised GNU/Linux Distribution > 3. Secrecy in whole process of a Public event > > I am expecting a reply from FSF India on this > > Anivar > -- Nagarjuna G. http://www.gnowledge.org/

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Fwd: 3 days left: 10 languages in danger in D-I (D-I string freeze status)
by Praveen A 18 Sep '08

18 Sep '08

Can anyone help complete Bengali translations. About 50 strings only need to be completed for it to be available of lenny installer. Thanks Praveen ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Christian Perrier <bubulle(a)debian.org> Date: 2008/9/18 Subject: 3 days left: 10 languages in danger in D-I (D-I string freeze status) To: debian-i18n(a)lists.debian.org, debian-boot(a)lists.debian.org 3 days left before the end of the string freeze NEW for today: Slovenian completed for sublevels 1-3 Ukrainian completed for sublevels 1-3 Catalan back to full 100% Big progress for Macedonian Languages meeting the release criteria: 50 ------------------------------------------ Already activated and complete for level 1: 44 Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Czech, German, Dzongkha, Greek, Esperanto, Spanish, Basque, Finnish, French, Galician, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Croatian, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Georgian, Khmer, Korean, Lithuanian, Malayalam, Marathi, Norwegian Bokmål, Nepali, Dutch, Norwegian Nynorsk, Polish, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Swedish, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese Already activated and complete for sublevels 1 and 2: 6 Belarusian, Irish, Kurdish, Punjabi, Slovenian, Ukrainian, Wolof Not yet activated languages complete for sublevels 1 and 2: 0 Languages failing to meet the release criteria: 23 -------------------------------------------------- Activated languages: 10 Amharic, Bengali, Bosnian, Danish, Estonian, Latvian, Macedonian, Northern Sami, Albanian, Tagalog Not yet activated languages: 13 Afrikaans, Welsh, Persian, Armenian, Icelandic, Kazakh, Kannada, Malagasy, Malay, Serbian, Telugu, Urdu, Xhosa (chances to get these in lenny are quite low) If your language is listed in "failing to meet the release criteria", please do not scream out. For many of these languages, only very few translated strings are missing and the needed update is very small. But, still, do your best for this to happen. The D-I i18n documentation is available at http://d-i.alioth.debian.org/doc/i18n/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkjR5cUACgkQ1OXtrMAUPS1ybgCfWzZIp98ADco0/VKLOTx0qkhb xL8An0XCCihyVKK2RaEe/YZu0omfVVUc =rHJW -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ <GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call! <DRM> What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak? (as seen on /.) Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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Festival for Free and Open Source Software
by Omshivaprakash H L 17 Sep '08

17 Sep '08

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Gnu/Linux Habba @ Mysore - Register today
by Omshivaprakash H L 17 Sep '08

17 Sep '08

GNU/Linux has long been branded as an operating system used by geeks. The freedom the free software comes with is also arguably more apparent to geeky users than the normal computer users. But on Sunday, 21st September, 2008, geeks, non-geeks, users and fans of GNU/Linux are getting together at the auditorium of Physics Department, Mysore University to share with you information on this wonderful world of Free Software (Free as in Freedom) and GNU/Linux. They will explain you what the freedom in software is about and will introduce you to GNU/Linux. We invite computer users to take part in the festivities celebrating GNU/Linux and free software (free as in freedom) where volunteers would not only show you the applications you could use to do your day to day computing on GNU/Linux, but also help you install GNU/Linux on your laptop if you bring one. Free software is not essentially free as in "Free Beer", but gives you the freedom to change the software that you received or paid for. If you are frustrated with Viruses on your computer running a proprietary software, here's your chance to break free from it. GNU/Linux Habba was started in Bangalore with its first edition in April this year by volunteers of Sampada Community (http://sampada.net) to not only spread the word about free software, but also to introduce GNU/Linux to the non-technical computer users. The first edition organized at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore received tremendous response with more than 377 registrations running up to the event. Many participants installed GNU/Linux on their Desktops/Laptops and learnt how to use Kannada on it. From NGOs to Public sector officials keen to learn more about GNU/Linux - many people participated in the event. Following the success of the first edition, the group of volunteers behind the event decided to extend the festival to other cities in Karnataka, starting with Mysore. The second edition of GNU/Linux Habba (http://habba.in) will be on 21st September, 2008 at Physics Department, University of Mysore. *GNU/Linux* - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux *Free Software* - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software *GNU/Linux Habba* – http://habba.in *Sampada Community* – http://sampada.net -- -- "A well-directed imagination is the source of great deeds" -- With Best Regards, Omshivaprakash.H.L | ಓಂ ಶಿವಪ್ರಕಾಶ್ ಎಚ್. ಎಲ್ | ॐ शिवप्रकाश् एच्. एल् Website : http://www.techfiz.info Blog : http://platonic.techfiz.info Phone: 91- 9902026518 AIM : fizworks ICQ : 265216744 IRC : #techfiz server: irc.freenode.net channel: #linux-india #ubuntu-in #gnu-india #kannada

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To hell with Yechury's opinion on Free Software, CPI-M (W Bengal) is with Microsoft.
by CK Raju 17 Sep '08

17 Sep '08

Part I ==== "With the support of MORD and MIT , Govt of India, the P&RD Dept, Govt of West Bengal computerised 18 ZPs,92 Panchayat Samities and 382 Gram Panchayats as on 30/04/2007 With the support from UNDP under ICTD project the WBSRDA in P&RD Dept has a plan to cover 20 Panchayat Samities and 50 Gram Panchayats of Burdwan district by 2005-06 where Integrated Fund Monitoring and Accounting Systems will be installed at PS and Gram Panchayat Management System will be installed. Moreover 34GPs in 4 Panchayat Samities( AusgramI, Galsi I, Galsi II and BurdwanII) of Burdwan dist will generate their GIS maps for decision support system in plnning and monitoring of various development programmes. So far in Burdwan district 106GPs and 31 Panchayat Samitis could be computerised. The DRISTI pilot project has been awarded the Microsoft e-Governance Award 2006 on 28th September for the Excellent activities in promotion of Local Self Government..." Details at http://wbprd.gov.in/html/asp/news_show.asp?newsnum=001 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part II ==== "...The project involved expansion of existing PC infrastructure to ensure that software such as the Gram Panchayat Management System (GPMS), Integrated Fund Monitoring and Accounting System (IFMAS) and Rural Household Survey (RHS) could be installed and accessed quickly and efficiently by all Panchayati Raj institutions. A key mandate for this undertaking was to ensure that the planned infrastructure should not be impacted by rural environment conditions such as dust and power irregularities..." Details at http://www.infoworld.com/news/feeds/08/09/15/West-Bengal-govt-and-AMD-compl… ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This should be the era of a neo-liberal Buddha. Cheers, CK Raju Kharagpur

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Recognition for Madhu's work (Fwd: Bits from the Debian GNU/Hurd porters)
by Praveen A 16 Sep '08

16 Sep '08

Great Work Madhu !!! We are proud of you for the hard work you have done !!! It was such an important task and you have stood up to the challenge and delivered. And you truly deserve this special mention. I'm sure this would be a great motivations to many students. Keep up the good work. Happy Hacking Praveen PS: We should plan to give a special gift to Madhu on SFD to celebrate this. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Michael Banck <mbanck(a)debian.org> Date: 2008/9/15 Subject: Bits from the Debian GNU/Hurd porters To: debian-devel-announce(a)lists.debian.org Hello, it has been more than three years since the last "Bits from the Debian GNU/Hurd porters"[1], high time for an update on the port. * Snapshot releases Three new snapshot releases have been done by Philip Charles, K14, K15 (which was only done as an updated mini CD-ISO, not a full snapshot), and K16. K16 has been released[2] on December 18th, 2007 featuring four CDs or two DVDs. Additionally, it also features a ready-to-go qemu-image[3] for the first time. K16 was also the first snapshot which included TLS (Thread Local Storage), a requirement for modern glibcs. New ported packages include Qt3, Qt4, SDL and Emacs22. * Base and toolchain status Currently, most base packages are current, with the notable exception of util-linux, which has been a big problem over the last years. However, Samuel Thibault got all outstanding issues of util-linux applied upstream so the version in experimental is mostly working. The toolchain is in pretty good shape as well since TLS support got implemented; we are using the current glibc, binutils and gcc Debian packages unmodified. * Xen support Besides qemu, which can be very slow to run, a Xen DomU port for GNU Mach has been made available by Samuel Thibault. It requires a non-PAE hypervisor and some minor manual tweaking, but is otherwise quite functional and stable already, see its wiki page[4] for further information. This will make people running the Hurd less dependent on specific hardware, as a lot of newer computers do not work with the underlying GNU Mach kernel anymore. * Autobuilder availability and archive coverage improved The percentage of packages built for Debian GNU/Hurd has improved from 40% to now nearly 60%[5] since the last Bits from the porters. Further, the backlog of outdated packages has been greatly reduced. This is due to the addition of two[6][7] Xen autobuilders earlier this year, which made the hurd-i386 autobuilders far more robust and fault-tolerant as they not need local admin attention anymore in case of problems with the GNU/Hurd guests. The remaining 40% of packages are either waiting for other packages to become available (see [8] for a (big) graph of those relationships) or are failing for some reason[9]; a complete list of build failures can be found at [10]. * Developer machine We are currently working on getting a general DD-accessible porter box setup. In the meantime, interested people can contact hurd-shell-account(a)gnu.org to get an account on one of the publically accessible (Debian) GNU/Hurd developer machines. For further details, see [11]. * Summer of Code 2008 This year, the GNU Hurd participated as its own organization at Google's Summer of Code, thanks to the coordination done by Olaf Buddenhagen[12]. All of the 5 projects were carried out quite successfully. The most practically relevant project for Debian GNU/Hurd was the implementation of a procfs translator[13] by Madhusudan C.S., which provides a traditional Unix-style /proc file system and the subsequent porting of the procps package, so utilities like pgrep etc. will be available after lenny, and procps Build-Depends no longer need to be special-cased on hurd-i386. Other GSoC projects were lisp bindings by Flavio Cruz, better system debugging and tracing by Andrei Barbu, namespace-based translator selection by Sergiu Ivanov and network virtualization by Zheng Da. More information on the details and outcome of those projects can be found on the wiki[14]. * Still no debian-installer Unfortunately, the Debian GNU/Hurd port still lacks d-i support. On the other hand, debootstrap now mostly works, even to cross-debootstrap a hurd-i386 installation from GNU/Linux, if one works around bug #498731. A relatively easy solution could be to use the GNU/Linux d-i to cross-install and setup a Debian GNU/Hurd system. People who have experience in d-i and possibly Debian GNU/Hurd are more than welcome to contact us at debian-hurd(a)lists.debian.org. for the Debian GNU/Hurd porters, Michael Banck [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2005/07/msg00006.html [2] http://kerneltrap.org/node/15770 [3] http://ftp.debian-ports.org/debian-cd/K16/debian-hurd-k16-qemu.img.tar.gz [4] http://www.bddebian.com/~wiki/microkernel/mach/gnumach/ports/xen/ [5] http://buildd.debian-ports.org/stats/ [6] http://buildd.net/cgi/hostpackages.cgi?unstable_arch=hurd-i386&searchtype=b… [7] http://buildd.net/cgi/hostpackages.cgi?unstable_arch=hurd-i386&searchtype=m… [8] http://dept-info.labri.fr/~thibault/tmp/graph-radial.pdf [9] http://www.bddebian.com/~wiki/unsorted/PortingIssues/ [10] http://unstable.buildd.net/buildd/hurd-i386_Failed.html [11] http://www.bddebian.com/~wiki/public_hurd_boxen/ [12] http://code.google.com/soc/2008/hurd/about.html [13] http://packages.qa.debian.org/h/hurd/news/20080903T160206Z.html [14] http://www.bddebian.com/~wiki/community/gsoc/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFIzjPUmHaJYZ7RAb8RAkmCAKCxBLS844Q8WvyXENlNFnVuZhOExACfXO4z BrH1xPVGGY57jXEMfWXn8Sg= =2F16 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- പ്രവീണ്‍ അരിമ്പ്രത്തൊടിയില്‍ <GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call! <DRM> What use is a phone call, if you are unable to speak? (as seen on /.) Join The DRM Elimination Crew Now! http://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-DRM-Campaign

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SFD at Christ University
by Vikram Vincent 14 Sep '08

14 Sep '08

Hi, The Dept. of Comp. Science at Christ University is observing Software Freedom day on the 20th of September with the following events: 1. Install fest for those interested in all the Depts. of the University. 2. Creation of 3 minute videos on socially relevant issues and the best of which will be used in various global campaigns. 3. There will also be class-to-class campaigns as well which will be lead by the students of Computer Science. Plus, MC Vineeth Vincent will be the event MC. "All the fat children and one malnourished child" and other music teams will be entertaining the participants of SFD. We welcome students from other colleges and activists of the Free Software Movement to be a part of our celebrations and perhaps make this a joint event too. Perhaps if anyone can create and distribute laptop stickers, banners, etc.. on "Free Software, Free Society" or "SFD" or anything relevant that will be really cool. -- Vikram Vincent +919448810822 http://swatantra.org/

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Fsf-friends September 2008