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Parody of Pablo Neruda's poem
by Manilal K M 20 Feb '06

20 Feb '06

I came across a parody of Pablo Neruda's poem. http://software.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=06/02/14/207248&from=rss regards manilal

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FSFI@LA2006 - Participation Report
by Amol Hatwar 18 Feb '06

18 Feb '06

Disclaimer: These are my opinions and doesn't reflect that of FSF in particular. Also, this was my first time at Linux Asia 2006, so I am not aware of tradition and expectations towards the event. Thanks to the good people at FSF, Kerala, we got handouts for SPACE and FSF in time (one day before the show). The SPACE handouts are all out, the FSF one's are still remaining. Sameer had gotten the posters and stickers printed well in advance. There were plans about T-shirts and CDs... but they remained plans. Well, next time. FSF India had 2mx2m space in the Org mela. The Org mela itself was unconveniently located at an unsheltered area; well away from where the main events were taking place. However, as early birds on Feb 8, we got ourselves a stall that was very visible from the entrance. This had its own benefits... Quite a few people, three to be precise, asked me whether the Org mela was a part of the main event. Besides that, our stall was an easy target for freebie mongers. There was a small card that was circulated with stall numbers on it. Get it signed/stamped at at least 15 stalls and get a freebie. Guess what? Stalls in the Org mela had no stall numbers at all! They weren't fetured on the stall directory or the stall map. General visitors to the stall included young students who wanted to do something on Linux but had no idea what; and middle-aged to old managers who knew that Linux runs somewhere in their organization but no idea of exactly where. I'd say 95% of people that came fell into these categories easily. People who knew about FSF was quite surprised to find an FSF stall. These guys got the GNU sticker. The rest 5% were uber-clever people from the Fedora stall... with the general opinion that FSF is all advocacy, and that we should do some projects for community benefit. They were right, but had no reason to cry about it. There is still quite a lot of confusion around. I'll clear it for one last time: FSF _IS_ advocacy. And yeah, we do projects... please head to http://gnu.org. Rahul Sundaram (Fedora) in particular gave a good suggestion of keeping a list of ongoing projects on a very visible URLs where people can get engaged. Someone (sorry I don't remember who) said that we should keep printed manuals for sale. I guess we were quite succesful in showing the 95% of the audience the differences between Open Source and Free Software. It was a good opportunity to tell how the GPL works, why there so few software companies for India's one billion+ population and how a few people got filthy rich. As far as fellowship and donations go, two people wanted to hand over cash... we asked them to go the URL at http://fsf.org.in/ instead. Cash corrupts! The FSF stall had quite a lot of people behind it: Sameer Ingole (_strike_), Vinod Ganjre, Bir Chandra Sanasam and Milind Paralkar. These guys stuck to stall even after being sponsored to attend the Tech Talks at the event. A special mention goes to Nikhil Prabhakar (nipra). He took a lot of effort to start the show early in the morning. However, there were a few times when the stall did get left unattended: lunch and private sessions with the Gurus (Knopper and Shuttleworth) with the rest of the guys from ILUG-Delhi. We were expecting Bhaisampayan to come and talk on Django. His last minute ditch wasn't going to go down well. Ramki and I made sure that Indranil Das Gupta utilized that space and gave a talk on the Free Software Philosophy. Unfortunately, I got stuck in traffic and couldn't attend the talk personally, but people spoke highly of it. Indranil and Ramki deserve kudos for being available at the last moment and saving the day. I was expecting to talk on Free Software in Education. Things turned bad at the last moment... made a presentation in distress and tight schedule... got no intimation of when and where the talk will be held... concluded no talk better than a bad talk... shelved the talk. Due to the event's extreme commerical nature I had a set kind of quality expectations in my mind. Many people (including me) felt it was a let down. It probably didn't get the audience for the hype. If there was any, only a few came down to the Org mela. Still, I'd say it was worth the effort as what the FSF and we had to say did change quite a few opinions. Also most of the 95% had a misconception of Free in Free Software equals Free Beer. Some had used GNU/Linux without knowing a thing about GNU or FSF for that matter. So our, handouts, discussions and talks did have a shattering effect. From my personal experience, this is a good thing. A paradigm-shift in one persons thinking goes on to affect at least 10 more people. With this, I'll repeat Dr Nagarjuna's words: "We'll go wherever we get a chance to tell people about our efforts". Our participation in the event wouldn't have been possible without his encouragement at the right time. Further, we should always keep events like FOSS.IN, GNUnify and Linux Asia 2006 in our radar and participate regularly with even better planning and preparation. Stall Pictures (thanks to Karunakar): 0. http://www.cartoonsoft.com/gallery/linuxasia06/271_7153 (Org Mela Area) 1. http://www.cartoonsoft.com/gallery/linuxasia06/271_7156 (FSF Stall - Bir and Vinod) 2. http://www.cartoonsoft.com/gallery/linuxasia06/272_7273 (Me, Sameer, Vinod and Milind) Warm regards, ah

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Leveraging with software
by Ramanraj K 18 Feb '06

18 Feb '06

A recent talk by Honb'le Mr.Justice Yatindra Singh on Leveraging Open Source Software was delivered at 9th e-Governance held from 2-4th February 2006 at Kochi Kerala and is available at http://www.allahabadhighcourt.in/event/Leveraging_OSS.odt I should invite attention to the Q & A session mentioned therein, between the President and the Author, which brings out the benefits of spontaneity that is free, open, natural and relaxed: <quote> 16. Last year I was at Bhopal attending a colloquium on 'Law, Science and ethics'. The President of India also addressed us through video conferencing. During the question session, I asked him, 'Computers and information technology have an important role in reducing the arrears in the court as well as in helping in other areas. Broadly there are two kinds of softwares to do that. Proprietary and Open Source. Which one is better? 17. He answered, 'First of all, I would like to clarify that the choice of proprietary vs. Open software is driven by the usage and requirements of the user at the operating system level. Since, proprietary software is predominantly used at the client level; many users are familiar and confor table with this. However, at the server level mature users choose the software as per their requirement. Open source operating system enables the development of language independent software's and also building one's own security algorithms to suit his requirement. Indian IT industry is capable of providing a solution for the justice delivery system and its eGovernance to the justice administration on top of any proprietary or open source systems. What is important here is justice delivery system should be interoperable system built on top of open standards such as web services.' 18. The challenges and difficulties in shifting over to OSS are apparent from the answer. The majority is used to proprietary software and is trained in it. The main challenge is, · in changing over; · getting used to the new environment; and · training the staff. 19. This is vicious a circle. If you don't shif t then you rely more on the proprietary sof tware and more you have to pay. Perhaps what is required is to change our perception regarding OSS and increse its awareness. We may consider the following points: (i) The awareness regarding OSS should start from the school level: Computer education is already in curriculum of the schools and colleges. There is hardly any representation of OSS in their curriculam. Most of the topics that are there belong to proprietary sof tware. The operating system of computers are in proprietary sof tware. Curriculum of schools and colleges should compulsory have topics on OSS and the computers should leave operating system in OSS. (ii) Utilisation of grant: The government gives grants for purchasing computers and for different projects. The government grant may be utilised for purchasing computers having OSS operating system. Apart from operating systems there are applications. Many applications are on OSS and run on all kinds of operating systems including the proprietary ones. Even if the operating system is the proprietary one, then at least it should have applications that are on OSS. (iii) Exclusive OSS cell: It is ture that we are leading IT community in the world but many IT exper ts in government organisation work exclusively with proprietary software. It will be good idea to create separate cell in government and semi government departments to develop applications exclusively in OSS. (iv) Solution in OSS first: A policy decision may be taken to find solutions of projects first in OSS and in case it is not possible only then it may be sought in the proprietary software. 20. The Allahabad High Court has taken a policy decision to work in Open Source Software and store documents in open document format. All new computers have linux as operating system. Apart from it, OpenOffice.org suite, Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird have been adopted as applications software. A chart mentioning others details and the projects under taken is appended as Appendix 1. </quote> If the observations are taken seriously by the policy makers here, it could ensure a certain victory for all. Regards, Ramanraj K __ A man to whom it has been given to bless the world with a great creative idea has no need for the praise of posterity. His very achievement has already conferred a higher boon upon him. -Albert Einstein at the Max Planck Memorial Services, 1948.

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Re: Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 34, Issue 10
by Mishi Choudhary 14 Feb '06

14 Feb '06

hello rajshekhar yes youre absolutely right in your view about lawyers but dont forget i am a lawyer too though very new to all this but isnt prof moglen and his team already an inspiration.but yes you re right it could be boring for the free software community to hear things like whats a source code and things of the same genre.thnx a ton for this positive response and i'll be greatful if you could suggest what kinda topics we should cover apart from a basic key note address telling them about what we re talking.it will be of tremendous help.april is when i plan to hold this conference and would look forward to all of you guiding me through this with ideas ,suggestions, orders and participation ,i really think this can work out Warm Regards Mishi Choudhary

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Re: Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 34, Issue 13
by Mishi Choudhary 13 Feb '06

13 Feb '06

hi B.G thnx for the recommendation,i havent read it so far but i shall grab a copy soon.can you tell me who these coveted free software hackers in india are? i'll be delighted to know them the only one i am aware is MR ramanraj as for now.since you expressed your interest about the onference,can i request you to sparetime and attend the same,i'll forward details once things re aa lil settled and finalized Warm Regards Mishi Choudhary

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Re: Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 34, Issue 13
by Mishi Choudhary 13 Feb '06

13 Feb '06

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The mint with a hole goes to court
by V. Sasi Kumar 13 Feb '06

13 Feb '06

People go to absurd limits to "protect" what they call their "intellectual property", though in reality the aim is only to eliminate competition. It seems Nestle had tried to register the shape of their "mint with a hole" in the UK Patent Office! Fortunately, and perhaps due to some oversight by the attorney who drafted the application, courts rejected it when challenged. See: http://www.jenkins-ip.com/mym/autumn2004/item_14.htm -- V. Sasi Kumar <sasi.fsf(a)gmail.com> Free Software Foundation of India

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Re: [Fsf-friends] conference!
by Raj shekhar 12 Feb '06

12 Feb '06

in infinite wisdom Mishi Choudhary spoke thus on 02/10/06 19:59: > > open mindedness as in ? Lawyers are usually very conservative and slow to change their point of view. > i'll go and give a preview and beforehand briefing to all of them > although computer literacy wont be very high however this could be an > introductory conference since this community cannot be ignored > considering prof moglen and his team of lawyers working for fsf That should prove useful - however, I still suggest you plan out what topics you want to touch upon. Things which will be extremely obvious to any free software programmer will seem like heresy to others. Cheers -- _.-, raj shekhar .--' '-._ http://rajshekhar.net _/`- _ '. http://rajshekhar.net/blog '----'._`.----. \ ` \; WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE ;_\ -- God's Last Message to his Creation

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conference!
by Mishi Choudhary 12 Feb '06

12 Feb '06

hello everyone some of you might remember me from the basic questions and queries i keep shooting your way.i am a lawyer practising at thedelhi high court and supreme court of india and wish to introduce the concept of free and open software to the legal community in northern india.i am aware that most of you learned ppl are based in the southern part of the country which is also the geek hub,the northern india especially the legal community is unaware ofthe same despite the kinda conferences being organised as linux asia which wound up today only.considering the growth of free software ,the day is not far when all developers would need legal advise to avoid any hassles in their creative work.in view of the same i as a member of the delhi bar association wish to organise a conference on the same and request your contribution in terms of ideas,participation anything and everything .kindly give it a thought and consider my proposal Warm Regards Mishi Choudhary

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Re: Fsf-friends Digest, Vol 34, Issue 10
by Mishi Choudhary 11 Feb '06

11 Feb '06

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