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Sri Lanka Declares a National Free and Open Source Week
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 28 Aug '05

28 Aug '05

http://it.slashdot.org/it/05/08/28/1553234.shtml?tid=218&tid=106 Sri Lanka Declares an Open Source Week Posted by Zonk on Sunday August 28, @11:43AM from the tux-for-all dept. AnuradhaRatnaweera writes "Sri Lankan Government has declared (google cache) the week starting from the 5th of September as the National Free and Open Source Software Week. The FOSS Community, Government's ICTA and the industry are working together to organize the week's events including the FOSSSL Conference and Asia Open Source Symposium. The week has been selected to end (well, almost) with the Software Freedom Day."

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Need Free software in 11th Class
by Sarath Lakshman 26 Aug '05

26 Aug '05

Hello Friends, I am here to inform you about an issue in 11th Class. Now I am studying in 11th class - Computer Science. Our text book is following the proprietary C++ compiler (Turbo C++ Compiler) and there is nothing about Software freedom and importance of free software. We are forced to follow the proprietary environment. Even a few students don't know what the free software is? But some of them heard about 'Linux' but they don't know what is GNU. Last year, there were topics about GNU/Linux and M$ Windows in our 10th class IT@School text books. As a result of struggles done by FSF India, GNU/Linux gained prominence in IT syllabus from this year. LAst year, I Also Noticed the news which had come in newspapers - "Govt promised to give importance to free software in 10th class syllabus and Govt had announced that the coming 11th class Computer Sc syllabus will give importance to free software and GNU/Linux" Now Govt didn't follow their announcement. We are following same and old Com Sc syllabus with proprietary environment! we are the Ist batch who followed GNU/Linux and M$ Windows last year. Now we are forced to use proprietary software. g++, gcc is the best compiler and is a freesoftware, then why should we follow Turbo? which is a proprietary? There should be some topics to describe the importance of Free Software, and something should be done to make GNU/Linux as the default platform. I'm waiting for your comments. Thanking you, Sarath Lakshman __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com

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The Linux [TM] fracas
by Ramanraj K 26 Aug '05

26 Aug '05

"Linux fracas not the main game: RMS" By Sam Varghese August 25, 2005 - 3:05PM at http://www.theage.com.au/news/breaking/linux-fracas-not-the-main-game-rms/2… <quote> The fuss over the Linux trademark has diverted attention from the real issue - the freedom to change and redistribute software, the founder of the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation, Richard M. Stallman, says. ..... "In this particular case, though, the naming issue seems rather to distract attention from freedom, so I'd rather focus the attention back where it belongs," he said. Stallman said he would not seek payment to allow people to use the GNU name. "Anyone who makes a GNU/Linux distribution ought to call it such, but most of them don't. We won't ask people to pay to give us credit for our work," he said. ... </quote>

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Abatement of Vendor Nuisance
by Ramanraj K 23 Aug '05

23 Aug '05

The poor school teachers and students in TN are scheduled to get "help" from Microsoft: http://newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IE320050822083241&Page=3&Title=Feat… Education ought to be vendor neutral, focused on general principles and in any event, it should never become a marketing program for private entities. Governments and school authorities should avoid the traps and offers laid by private vendors whose main aim is merely to earn profits. Similar exercises are afoot at other places too: http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20050815/market04.shtml http://www.microsoft.com/resources/casestudies/casestudy.asp?CaseStudyID=17… We need to send in our concerns to the authorities involved here, and so please post any useful information/opinions connected with these issues. The vendor nuisance should abate for good. -Ramanraj

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Getting out useful FLOSS tools from Africa...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 22 Aug '05

22 Aug '05

-------- Forwarded Message -------- From: Bill Kagai <billkagai(a)gmail.com> To: idlelo(a)fossfa.net, council(a)fossfa.net Cc: incom-l(a)incommunicado.info Subject: <incom> FOSSFA & TUNIS WSIS MEETING Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 09:48:20 +0300 Dear all, This is to let you know that FOSSFA in collaboration with OSIWA is developing FOSS tools relevant for Africa that can be show-cased during the WSIS Meeting in Tunis. For more information and to participate please visit the FOSS+ Project Blog at http://www.fossfa.net/tiki-view_blog.php?blogId=5 Participation is open but you have to register to post comments on the blog. (Left side of the blog page) A consortium comprised of HIVOS, APC and Bellanet have indicated possibilities of hosting FOSSFA in their booth at the ICT4D hall during the conference where we will show case the applications. The specific tools being developed are as follows; - Development of a Quick Migration Kit Development of a Live CD (KNOPPIX/MORPHIX) with Ten most used apps in windows and their GNU/Linux equivalents and device drivers for ten (10) most used devices on GNU/Linux Team Leader - Edwin Okugbo (Nigeria) -Hospital Management System (Care2x Localisation) Currency Localisation, Localised Patient Registration Module (User Requirements Development, Documentation and Development) Team Leader - Nicholas Kimolo (Kenya) -Telemedicine (Open YaLim) Telemedicine (Open YaLim)(User Requirements Development, Documentation and Development) Team Leader - Dr. Romain-Roland - Tahouri (Mali) -Care2x Public Health Management System User Requirements Development, Documentation and Development Team Leader - Nicholas Kimolo (Kenya) -Care2x HIV/AIDS Monitoring System User Requirements Development, Documentation and Development Team Leader - Nicholas Kimolo (Kenya) -Open Digital Educational Content Polish Up User Requirements Development, Documentation and Development Team Leader - James Lunghabo (Uganda) -School Human Resource Management System User Requirements Development, Documentation and Development Team Leader - Guido Sohne (Ghana) -SMS Help desk User Requirements Development, Documentation and Development Team Leader - Edwin Okugbo (Nigeria) -National Registration Management System, Agricultural Information Management System, E-Government, Service and Application Frameworks and Immigration Management System User, System & Functional Requirements Team Leader - Ben Akoh (Senegal) & Consultant -Community Radio Localisation and Customisation for African Users (User Requirements, Development and Documentation) Team Leader - Akos Maroy (Hungary)

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Open Access to Maps and Public Geo-Data
by Shekhar Krishnan 22 Aug '05

22 Aug '05

Dear All: :: apologies for cross-posting :: In the wake of the massive floods since 26 July in Mumbai and Maharashtra, a crisis of civic infrastructure and public health has emerged in the city and state, in which the right of citizens to information about their environments is of crucial public importance. Very few citizens of India enjoy open access to maps, satellite imagery, and other geographic information. Collected and brokered by national mapping and space imaging agencies, this geo-data is an essential for understanding civic issues such as planning, housing, infrastructure. Open access to this information can provide a platform for public action, reducing costs and promoting innovation by facilitating citizens' engagement with their local environments and authorities. The Open Knowledge Foundation is hosting a forum at http://okfn.org/ geo/manifesto.php about Open Access to State-Collected Geo-Spatial Data. * All government-collected maps, geographic information and spatial data are public property, and should be open; that is, available for free distribution and re-use under a share-alike license. * Online mapping projects creating freely re-usable geo-data should offer a compatible open license. * Common, standard formats for describing and exchanging geo-data should be adopted internationally. * Ultimately, all state-collected information should be freely available in the public domain, in a structured machine-readable format and in an open standard. Please read the manifesto and, if you agree with the statements it contains, sign up to support it at http://okfn.org/geo/ manifesto.php#signup For more information on the changing policies on maps and geo-data in India, see the 19 May 2005 release of the Press Information Bureau of the Government of India on http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp? relid=9388 _____ CRIT (Collective Research Initiatives Trust) B-43, Shravasti Goregaon-Malad Link Road Malad (West), Mumbai 400064 India http://www.crit.org.in http://www.freemap.in http://www.mappinghacks.com

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Report from an engineering college in Goa
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 22 Aug '05

22 Aug '05

-------- Forwarded Message -------- From: George Easaw <geasaw(a)gmail.com> Reply-To: ilug-goa(a)yahoogroups.com To: ilug-goa(a)yahoogroups.com Subject: [ilug-goa] LUG GEC meting .. Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 12:01:14 +0530 The GEC LUG meeting went fine yesterday evening. Attended by about 20 members. There was a general intro to Gnu/Linux and the visit of Richard Stallman to GEC on Nov 6, 2002. The next meeting will have an install demo of linux. One of the students had a partition already of 10 GB for Linux and wanted to increase the partition size to about 15 GB. How can this be done ? They also showed how without using the grub pasword, anybody could loginto the GRUB and change the root password., as in LILO we used to type linux single at the prompt. nothing more, everything went fine. Let us see whether next meeting we can have tea too. george..

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Reference to Open Cola
by doxa＠sancharnet.in 21 Aug '05

21 Aug '05

Friends, This is a piece of info from Wikipedia site on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source"> Open Source. </a> "...Open Cola is another idea inspired by the open source movement. Soft drink giants like Coke and Pepsi hold their formulas closely guarded secrets. Now volunteers have posted the recipe for a similar soda drink on the internet. The taste is said to be comparable to that of the standard beverages..." Since Cola is notorious for ground-water exploitation, I think someone should drop all references to Coke or Pepsi and their proprietary recipe while explaining Free Software. The page though 'edit'-able, behind a proxy, its not. Someone has to do it. Rgds, CK Raju Thrissur ------------------ http://ernakulam.sancharnet.in/doxa

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Behind the mumbo jumbo of "Intellectual Property Rights"
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 18 Aug '05

18 Aug '05

Behind the mumbo-jumbo of "Intellectual Property Rights" Why should intellectual property rights matter to civil society? Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) has affected the public's access to knowledge in the public domain and to copyrighted work, and infiltrated into the domain of food and medicine, threatening the sustainability of indigenous knowledge and biodiversity. What can be done to protect the global commons, and culture and life forms in the public domain that are the heritage of humankind? What can civil society do locally to ensure that IPR legislations respond to social and cultural needs rather to the needs of international capital? - APC Africa ICT Policy Monitor More >> http://africa.rights.apc.org/?apc=he_1&x=288591

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Suggestions to the Draft Patent Practice and Procedure
by Ramanraj K 15 Aug '05

15 Aug '05

Friends, The Patent Office, India, has published the DRAFT MANUAL OF PATENT PRACTICE & PROCEDURE (2005) at http://www.patentoffice.nic.in/ipr/patent/manual-2052005.pdf calling for submission of suggestions and to point to errors in the Draft Manual. The following is a draft list of suggestions we may send to the Patent Office in this regard. We have to send in the representation before 17th August, 2005, and so please feel free to comment, and send in points that may have been missed, asap. Thanks, Ramanraj. [1] Computer programs are not patentable: ======================================== Under Article 10 of the TRIPs Treaty, <quote> Computer programs, whether in source or object code, shall be protected as literary works under the Berne Convention (1971). </quote> Accordingly, the Copyright Act, has substanital provisions dealing with the protection of computer programs as literary works, and the Patents Act, 1970, has explicitly excluded computer programs from the scope of patentability under Section 3 dealing with "Inventions not Patentable". All conclusions, findings, practices and procedures proposed in the Draft Manual of Patent Practice and Procedure [herein after referred to as Draft Manual] as if computer programs may be dealt with as inventions "in combination of hardware" are ultra vires the Patents Act, 1970, and against our International obligations under the TRIPs Treaty, and therefore need to be corrected and rectified to avoid serious ramifications in the software industry and our relationship with other law abiding nations. Suggestion: Please make it very clear in the Draft Manual that computer programs are not patentable. [2] Annexure II:EXAMINATION GUIDELINES FOR PATENTABILITY OF COMPUTER- RELATED INVENTIONS and all portions incidental thereto in the Draft Manual At page 156 of the Draft Manual, at the end of Annexure II, the following conclusion is found: <quote> 9.CONCLUSION The statute excludes from patentability the software per se. The inventions relating to the application of the computer program or software is held patentable under the Indian Patent Act, 1970 when claimed in combination of hardware and software components of a computer which provides a "technical advancement " over the prior art. It is necessary for the applicant to describe the "technical contribution" to the prior art when the invention involves software. The technical problem, which needs to be solved by the invention, should be sufficiently described as to how the hardware is controlled by the software to overcome the previously described problem. The "technical character" of the invention should be brought out clearly in the claims. </quote> The above conclusion is wrong for the following reasons: (1) Computer programs are excluded from patentability, under the Patents Act, 1970 in accordance with the TRIPs Treaty, as already discussed herein above under the heading "[1] Computer programs are not patentable". (2) The Draft Manual has placed reliance upon decisions of the US Supreme Court, which have not taken into consideration the provisions of the TRIPs Treaty, particularly with regard to computer programs. The US Supreme Court has not discussed the legal implications or the national obligations of the US Government in the light of the TRIPs Treaty, and those judgements cannot lend any support or reasons to conclude that computer programs are patentable. At best, the US judgements only help to conclude that the US has not kept up its international obligations under the TRIPs Treaty, and India, or other nations that trade with the US may raise this issue at the WTO to compel the US to conform to the TRIPs Treaty. (3) All computer programs effectively work only in combination with hardware. Computer programs, by their very nature, may be easily re-written without modifying hardware, to enhance usability. It is unscientific to assume that some computer programs can work without hardware, and some work in combination with hardware, and as though they deserve a special treatment not in accordance with the Patents Act, 1970. The illustrations included in the Draft make arbitrary distinctions between computer programs without any rational basis: <quote> 3(K) a mathematical or business method or a computer program perse or algorithms. computer program product is claimed as "A computer program product in computer readable medium", "A computer-readable storage medium having a program recorded thereon", etc. In such cases the claims are treated as relating to software perse, irrespective of the medium of its storage and are not held patentable. Examples in respect of other categories of subject matter are Scheme or method of bookkeeping. Business method in the field of accounting. Method of tax collection. A contents display method for displaying contents on a screen, A method for controlling an information processing apparatus, for communicating via the Internet with an external apparatus, A method for transmitting data across an open communication channel on a wireless device that selectively opens and closes a communication channel to a wireless network, and each wireless device including a computer platform and including a plurality of device resources that selectively utilizes a communication channel to communicate with other devices across the network All the above methods though utilise computer programs for its operation, are not computer programs as such and hence allowable On the other hand, A method of executing a computer program, in which at least part of the copy of the program available for execution is analysed to determine whether or not any change has been made thereto, and in the event that a change is detected, a further copy of the program is retrieved and caused to be executed instead of the first copy, A method for generating a new computer program using a software development tool, These are the programs solely intellectual in its context and hence not allowable. The Guidelines for examination of Computer-related inventions are given in Annexure 2 <\quote> "A scheme or method of bookkeeping" is a mere business method clearly not patentable. "Method of tax collection" is not at all patentable, because tax collection methods are a sovereign function of the state, and no individual could claim any monopoly against the State in exercise of sovereign functions. In any event, they fall within the category of "business methods" excluded from the scope of patentability. All the remaining illustrations, that include any claims over any computer program, algorithm, mathematical or business method are not patentable, as all computer programs could work only in combination with hardware, and more specifically, any computer program could be reduced into an algorithm. Both computer programs and algorithms are claims falling within the scope of Section 3 and therefore could not be treated as patentable inventions. (4) Under Section 3 of the Patents Act, mathematical or business methods, algorithms, a presentation of information, a mere scheme or rule or method of performing mental act or method of playing game are all not patentable. Any useful computer program could be reduced into an algorithm, and when Section 3 is read as a whole, it is abundantly clear that computer programs are not inventions and are not patentable. (5) Under Article 51 of the Constitution of India, the State shall "foster respect for international law and treaty obligations in the dealings of organised people with one another", and the Draft Manual ought not to dilute and water down well intended provisions in the Patents Act, to invite shame and ignomity to our country in the international arena. Suggestion: Scrap Annexure II and the incidental references to it from the Draft Manual. Computer related inventions may be treated and processed like any other claim that may not fall within the scope of Chapter II of the Patents Act, 1970. Conclusion: ========== India has contributed significantly to the science of computation, and has a responsibility to take the lead in the right direction. Number system originated from India, and many fundamental insights into computing have been achieved only because of the freedom and high standards ingrained in our traditions, that abjure trading or monopolisation of knowledge. India has been the clearest voice against monopolisation and has advocated for the greatest freedom in trading practices, in the light of our own history, before the WTO and other International organisations. The TRIPs Treaty itself is a great compromise against our own highest national aspirations and deepest desires, and the least the Patent Office may do is, therefore frame practices and procedures, within the scope and ambit of the Patent Act, 1970. For all the above reasons, we request the Patent Office to make changes in the light of the above suggestions, and to publish a fresh draft seeking fresh suggestions, before publishing and enforcing the practice the Draft Manual.

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