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Indian language computing
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 21 May '05

21 May '05

This is the text of an advert from the Indian Express, May 21, 2005: Partner the nation on the road to IT empowerment. The Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India's mission is to proliferate the use of Indian languages on computers, to overcome language barriers that restrict the nation's path to knowledge and development. To give an impetus to the movement, the DIT invites individuals, public, private agencies and academic institutions to participate in a national initiative in public-private partnership to launch and distribute applications, tools, utilities and products developed for Indian language computing through a campaign spearheaded by the DIT with the Centre for the Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC). We invite you to join us for a discussion about the tools, technologies or resources you can offer for any of the 22 official Indian languages. ----------------------------------------------------- * Fonts-True Type Fonts and Open Type Fonts * Keyboard Drivers * Font Encoding Converters * Storage Code Converters * Open Office (Word Processor) * Presentation Tool * Drawing Tool * Spreadsheet * Browser * E-mail client * OCRs Optical Character REcognition * Spell Checker * Dictionary * Thesaurus * Keyboard Typing Tutor * Language Learning Tool * TTS- Text To Speech System * ASR Automatic Speech Recognition * Corpora -- Suitable for the developer community * Machine Assisted Translation System * Braile utilities and others. The tools and fonts will be consolidated in a CD for free distribution in a public release function, starting with Hindi, in the next few weeks. A response by May 30, 2005 will therefore be appreciated. Unveil a new chapter of knowledge-sharing across language and cultural barriers. Please respond to us at indianlanguages(a)cdac.in and register with details soon at http://www.ildc.in or http://www.ildc.gov.in Centre for the Development of Advanced Computing A Scientific Society of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Govt of India Pune University Campus, Ganeshkhind, Pune 411007 http://www.cdac.in Tel +91-20-2569 4000 01/02/03 Fax +91-20-2560 4059 CIRCULATED IN PUBLIC INTEREST by http://www.bytesforall.net Join the network http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_readers .......................................................................... Frederick (FN) Noronha | Freelance Journalist | Mobile +91 9822 122436 Tel +91.832.2409490 | http://fn.swiki.net | http://www.bytesforall.net ..........................................................................

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BBC Creative Archive
by Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati 21 May '05

21 May '05

Hi List The Creative Archive is an attempt to digitize all the programming the BBC has commissioned, clear the copyrights and post it online with a Creative Commons-like license. This will allow Britons to download the BBC's content, distribute it and non commercially remix it into their own films, music, gags, projects and school reports. http://creativearchive.bbc.co.uk/ Another off shoot of these BBC initiatives is Backstage Project covered in this post http://arky.in/node/23 It wonderful that when entertainment and entertainment establisments are looking at Net as a threat, BBC is talking bold step ahead of everyone. --arky Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati <rakesh_ambati(a)yahoo.com>

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an invite to FLOSSblog
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 21 May '05

21 May '05

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Hi Fred, Hope you are doing fine. You are aware that Planet FLOSS India (http://planet-india.randomink.org) is an effort to provide a window into the world, work and lives of developers and contributors from India who are working on Free/Open Source Software. Do go through this URL when you can - this is an invitation to all who blog and are part of FLOSS in India to provide their blog feeds. http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/2005/03/28/a-call-to-writers/ ... Regards Sankarshan -- http://www.gutenberg.net - Fine literature digitally re-published http://www.plos.org - Public Library of Science http://www.creativecommons.org - Flexible copyright for creative work

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Free Software, Free Society
by Arun M 19 May '05

19 May '05

Hi Friends, Antonio Albuquerque and Elaine of GESAC project Brazil will be here in Kerala for FSFS conference. GESAC is community telecenter project in Brazil based on free software. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=reutersEdge&storyID=8516497 regards, arun.

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ILDC invites Localizations proposals
by Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati 19 May '05

19 May '05

Hello List, TDIL (Technology Development for Indian Languages) Programme of DIT, Government of India has invited Individuals/ public/ private agencies and academic institutions to participate in a national initiative in public-private partnership to launch and distribute applications/tools/utilies and products developed for Indian Language computing. The tools and fonts will be consolidated in a CD for free distribution in a public release function, starting with Hindi in the next few weeks.A response by May 30, 2005 will therefore be appreciated. Please contact the program at indianlanguages(at)cdac.in or visit these websites www.ildc.in www.ildc.gov.in Blogged at http://arky.in/node/20 FYI --arky Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati <rakesh_ambati(a)yahoo.com>

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Mediawiki in telugu
by Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati 19 May '05

19 May '05

Morning Friends, I have a request from a friend who wants to setup mediawiki software in telugu language(like http://te.wikipedia.org), anyone who has knowledge about this can kindly provide me pointers for this. TIA --arky Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati <rakesh_ambati(a)yahoo.com>

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Can I get a list of Banking and financial institutions using GNU/Linux platform
by Praveen A 18 May '05

18 May '05

Hi all, I got a chance to know more about Sanghamitra, a software developed by OSS Ernamkulam for Co-operaive banking instituions. Anyone know of other banks using softwares on GNU/Linux platform ? bye Praveen A -- "GNU is the system, and Linux is the kernel." A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org My Weblog at http://www.pravi.co.nr Rediscover the web ! Get firefox at http://www.getfirefox.com Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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The Controversy on Smart City
by doxa＠sancharnet.in 18 May '05

18 May '05

Arun, The Smart City controversy in Kerala is taking turns after turns, for the worse. Should we analyse/modify this draft and go public, with a press release. Let us show that FSF-India is there. 1. Information technology (or to be more precise, its productive market) is like a picture that needs a wall to be painted. The wall in most cases represents the traditional industry, where IT co-exists, adding value to the existing services offered by such industry. Very rarely do we see the same IT industry consuming itself, though there are instances. Hence for IT to survive and excel, the traditional industries should be in a position to consume the value-added services. This traditional industry, if situated in a foreign land, brings in foreign exchange. Hence if Government is really concerned about promoting information technology, it should revive the local traditional industries (or liaise with foreign governments to revive their traditional industries, and insist them to buy solutions from us). 2. The wall can also assume the form of Government, where it consumes information technology aided services. Presently our Government is leasing services from monopoly developers like Microsoft Inc, where it is shying away from owning such services. This is a long-term liability for the Government. The Government can rejuvenate this intake, thereby creating a demand for such services, provided it redefines its position and declares on *how* such services are to be provided. By insisting on solutions that are totally indigenous, devoid of elements that allow control from outside (insisting that every component of software be traded under the GNU General Public Licence, for instance). The solutions should also not be monopolistic in outlook (i.e., if for amending a solution, one has to necessarily refer back to the original provider, then the provider is a monopoly). 3. The Business Process Outsourcing segment of the "conventional" Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) that includes transcription services and call-centres is another area that consumes services from information technology. To promote such an environment, and create new opportunities, the Government has to necessarily influence the foreign nations or foreign industries who consume these services. This is usually a difficult task for any Government. If this is not adhered to, the creation of jobs actually are those which are transferred from one location to another - and not new opportunities. As a caution, one should always recall that transcription service will decrease as and when appropriate speech recognition or pattern recognition software are developed. Moreover these opportunities do not need any "engineering skills". 4. Most of the "big" software development companies in India, who keep their average age of employees in 20s, are those who mainly help commission solutions with other traditional industries in the service or productive sectors, in India or abroad. The phenomenal profits, some of these companies earn are heavily dependant on the favourable monopolistic conditions under which they lease their services. New international intellectual property rules are increasingly in favour of these companies, those that prevent similar smaller companies from emerging. Hence the main service that these companies are providing to the domestic market, is the help which it extends to train (a kind of apprenticeship) their employees for short duration (reflected through their average age figures, and attrition rates). There are also studies that indicate that by energising foreign traditional industry, empowering them with information technology at subsidised rates, the local counterpart is pushed to a disadvantageous position. This shift in balance determines the winner when the corresponding service sector is "liberalised", activating GATS provisions. 5. The remaining sector visible in the information technology field is the one which is co-located at its site-of-need. Industries operating in the sectors of finance, telecommunication, distribution, transportation, health, tourism, consultancy, construction etc. for instance, are examples. The information technology segment cannot be detached from these sectors so easily, and relocated outside its area of operation. Hence any suggestion for exclusive geographical area for such operation of this industry sector incorporating information technology would appear meaningless. By far, this is the largest sector that houses information technologists and sees them through the rest of their life, or as long as they wish. 6. All these points are suggestive of the wrong steps that the incumbent Government in Kerala is indulging at present, making the controversies that are following in public view, a non-affair. It appears as if the Government is keen in to place the cart before the horse. CK Raju, Thrissur

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IT@School
by Arun M 17 May '05

17 May '05

Dear Friends, Teachers from Palakkadu district in Kerala are organising a meeting on 14-15th of this month. If any of you can go for that meeting please let me know. Teachers training for 4th batch has started today at Ernakulam. Now 7 districts have completed district level meetings. Sub district level meeting started in Kozhikkodu district. State level review happened on 27th of last month. Representatives from 6 districts which had conducted district level meetings participated in the meeting. KSTA, teachers union, is planning to print and distribute a FAQ on free software. Draft of the same has been completed. regards, arun. -- Free Software, Free Society http://fsfs.hipatia.net

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Looking for volunteers to mainain a non-non-free Java OpenOffice
by Anivar Aravind 17 May '05

17 May '05

GNUs Flashes * http://www.gnu.org The FSF is looking for volunteers to maintain a version of OpenOffice that doesn't require a non-free Java platform. If you want to volunteer to be one of the leaders of this effort, please write to rms(a)gnu.org There is a vital need to draw the Free Software community's attention to the ongoing development work on Free Flash and Free Java platforms. These projects <http://www.fsf.org/news/free-java-and-flash.html> are important because computer users are continually being seduced into using non-free software, because there is no adequate free replacement. For other news, as well as for items that used to be in this GNUs Flashes section, see What's New <http://www.gnu.org/server/whatsnew.html> in and about the GNU Project. Knowlege is power... share it equitably! -- Anivar Aravind

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