No Software Patents
People's Democracy
(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist)
Vol. XXIX
No. 50
December 11, 2005
No Software Patents
Govt Assures FSF India
UNION minister of commerce and industries, Kamal Nath has assured that the
Indian government is committed to its stand of not allowing software
patenting for the time being and that it would reiterate this stand in the
forthcoming meeting of WTO ministerial at Hong Kong.
This was conveyed to a delegation of Free …
[View More]Software Foundation of India (FSF
India), which met the minister on December 6 in New Delhi and discussed with
him about the proposal for software patenting which came up early this year.
It comprised M Arun, secretary and Y Kiran Chandra, secretary FSF AP
Chapter. CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and MP, Sitaram Yechury and CPI(M)
central committee member and MP, P Madhu accompanied the delegation. A
memorandum was also submitted to the minister on this issue.
In a statement released to the press, the FSF India representatives termed
the discussion with the minister as fruitful. The minister informed the
delegation about his opinion that copyright provides reasonable protection
for the software industry. However, pointing out that there was a strong
demand from sections of the Indian IT industry to allow the patenting of
software in conjunction with hardware, the minister expressed the need to
find a via media between arguments of different groups.
The FSF India stated that in the coming days it will interact with
industries, particularly small and medium industries, to highlight the
harmful effects of generic software patenting and also in order to
understand the needs of the industry. "It would be working with the industry
to find a via media which will protect the larger social interests and at
the same time protecting economic interest of industries", the statement
assured. (INN)
[View Less]
---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
From: jchittoor(a)csdms.in
Date: Wed, February 1, 2006 8:04 pm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Asia Commons: Asian Conference on the Digital Commons
April 18-20, 2006
Bangkok, Thailand
http://www.asia-commons.net
During the last 20 years or so, the level, scope, territorial extent,
and role of copyrights and patents have expanded into new sectors. There
has been much …
[View More]discussion and debate on the impact of copyrights and
patents at a micro level of economic activity while at a macro level,
policy dialogue in several international fora, not least of which is
WIPO, has been addressing barriers posed by copyrights and patents.
Asia Commons: Asian Conference on the Digital Commons invites
researchers working in the area of copyrights and patents, promoters of
collaborative models, development practitioners engaged in collaborative
content creation and dissemination and custodians of public information
to go beyond the current dialogue and debate to explore key issues and
ideas related to access to knowledge and culture in Asia.
Participants are invited to explore key themes and questions related to
the Asian Commons:
* What is the relationship between infrastructure and copyrights on
access to culture and knowledge?
* How do software and business process patents affect innovation?
* What are the impacts of patents on software innovations in Asia?
* What are the emerging Open Business Models for content production in Asia?
* Given existing legal, cultural and infrastructural environments both
within and outside of Asia, how can we contribute to increasing access
to knowledge and culture through an Asia Commons?
While we will be inviting a number of speakers who are seen as
thought-leaders in the field of Access to Knowledge and Culture, we will
also look to innovative approaches to ensure a high degree of
interaction among participants in spaces and sessions which are designed
to maximize the exchange of experiences and ideas.
Conference Fees, Registration, and Scholarships:
There are no fees for participation in the conference which is supported
through funding made available by the International Development Research
Centre's (IDRC's) Pan Asia Program (http://www.idrc.ca/panasia).
If you are interested in participating, please register online at
http://www.asia-commons.net/conf_registration/add or email
registration(a)asia-commons.net to receive a registration form which can
be submitted through email. Please register before March 8, 2006.
Thanks to the generous support of IDRC's Pan Asia
(http://www.idrc.ca/panasia) and UNDP APDIP's IOSN (http://www.iosn.net)
there are also a number of scholarships available for participants in
need of financial support. Please visit
http://www.asia-commons.net/participate for more information.
Can't Join Us?
For those unable to join us physically during the event, we invite you
to participate through the participants discussion list and visit
http://www.asia-commons.net for outputs during the conference itself.
To subscribe to the participants discussion list, send an email to
participants-request(a)asia-commons.net with the word subscribe in the
subject.
A special issue of i4d Magazine (http://www.i4donline.net) will be
produced in June 2006 based on the conference and its themes.
We look forward to seeing you at Asia Commons.
Your Organising Committee:
- Shikha Shrestha, Bellanet Asia (in partnership with SAP International)
(http://www.sapint.org)
- Sarah Kerr, Bellanet International Secretariat (http://www.bellanet.org)
- Jaya Chittoor, Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies
(http://www.csdms.in)
- Sunil Abraham, UNDP APDIP's International Open Source Network
(http://www.iosn.net)
----------------------------------
[View Less]
"THIRUVANANTHAPURAM APRIL 13. The Information Kerala Mission (IKM), functioning under the Department of Information Technology of the Government of Kerala, has emerged as one of the three institutions in the race for the prestigious national awards instituted by the Computer Society of India..." The graceful-plot hatched by IKM in 2002 to hoodwink the UDF Government (after successfully convincing late Chief Minister EK Nayanar with the 'cat and mouse' story - that both M$ Windows and GNU were …
[View More]mere cats, and the need was 'just to catch the rat'). Full story appearing in The Hindu at http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/2002/04/14/stories/2002041405350400.htm
"KOCHI: Awards for exemplary initiatives in e-governance were given away at the national e-governance conference here on Thursday. Kerala Public Works Minister M.K.Muneer distributed the awards in various categories. There were Golden, Silver and Bronze icons in each category...." The disgraceful exit from national scene in 2006. Full story at
http://www.hindu.com/2006/02/03/stories/2006020304741700.htm
---------------
Compiled by
CK Raju,
Thrissur
[View Less]
http://openfreeworld.blogspot.com/
A Generation is waking up
Recently I came across the site http://freeculture.org/, an
international student movement for free culture. Their
manifesto says...
"The mission of the Free Culture movement is to build a
bottom-up, participatory structure to society and culture,
rather than a top-down, closed, proprietary structure.
Through the democratizing power of digital technology and the
Internet, we can place the tools of creation and
distribution, …
[View More]communication and collaboration, teaching and
learning into the hands of the common person -- and with a
truly active, connected, informed citizenry, injustice and
oppression will slowly but surely vanish from the earth.
We believe that culture should be a two-way affair, about
participation, not merely consumption. We will not be content
to sit passively at the end of a one-way media tube. With the
Internet and other advances, the technology exists for a new
paradigm of creation, one where anyone can be an artist, and
anyone can succeed, based not on their industry connections,
but on their merit."
After reading the manifesto one can easily figure out that
the founders of this movement are highly influenced by the
free software, open source movements. If one can spend some
time on the internet searching for sites similar to these...
he/she is bound to be overwhelmed. www.publicknowledge.org,
creativecommons.org, www.plos.org are some of them. If you
are a book worm never miss out www.gutenberg.org, there are
over 17,000 free eBooks in their repository.
And never be content to sit passively at the end of the
one-way media tube, bring out the
artist/journalist/writer/activist or whatever in you. Take
back the web, take back the world.
posted by suresh_balasubra @ 6:27 AM 0 comments
[View Less]
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2302/stories/20060210003909700.htm
Open and popular
A CORRESPONDENT
An open-source suite of Tamil applications for the Windows
operating system is the first of its kind for the platform.
PANACEA DREAMWEAVERS, a Chennai-based software company, has
released an open source suite of Tamil applications and tools
into the public domain. It includes an accounting package,
two dictionaries, a management software for self-help groups
(SHGs), a simple text editor and a feature-…
[View More]rich word
processor, and about 250 free fonts. Most of the products
ship with the source code.
It is claimed that this is the first such initiative by a
company or organisation in the area of public domain Tamil
software. A similar effort was sponsored by the Central
Government, in which a collection of tools was acquired from
private players and released for public consumption in a
compact-disk form by Minister for Communications Dayanidhi
Maran. However, none of the software included in the package
was in open source format.
Besides, the company claims that its efforts are a first in
the Microsoft Windows-based Tamil computing environment. Most
open-source Tamil applications are developed for the Linux
operating system.
Open-source software is software whose source code is made
available to the public, enabling anyone to copy, modify or
redistribute the source code without paying royalties or
fees. Open source is associated with collaborative
development, wherein developers who have access to the
product's code correct any problems or deficiencies in it or
add additional features, thereby helping the software to
evolve. Many such applications are backed by a large number
of developers from all over the world and have evolved into
robust systems.
Some well-known examples of open-source initiatives are the
Linux operating system, the Integrated Development
Environment Eclipse, the Apache web server and the Mozilla
suite, including the web browser Firefox, which recorded its
100 millionth download recently.
One of the most prominent advocates of free software is the
Free Software Movement started by Richard Stallman in 1983.
The movement is also active in India, but its adherents focus
all their energies on writing software for open-source
operating systems such as Linux and not for the commercial
Windows platform.
In the CD under review, the products are neatly divided into
sections: Panacea Apps (short for applications), Panacea
Desk, Panacea Valaiyodi, and Source.
Panacea Apps comprises Mugavari (Tamil-English address book),
Sangam Pro (SHG management package), Selvam (accounting
software), Valluvan (documentation software), and
Pulavan-Paalam (dictionaries).
The Panacea Desk folder comprises Pathippu-250 (collection of
250 fonts), R4U (English-Tamil word processor), Saarathy
(keyboard driver) and Tamil Olai (simple Tamil text editor).
The Source folder includes the source code of all the
products except R4U and Valaiyodi.
According to the company, Sangam Pro is meant for
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to assess and evaluate
the performance of SHGs. Some of the features are the ability
to enter and save details of loans, repayments, meeting
schedules, deposits and membership.
Selvam, the software for maintaining accounts in Tamil, is
aimed at small and medium enterprises and is also suited for
home users. R4U, a Tamil-English word processor, easily
creates Tamil and even multilingual documents. Users can
easily switch between English and Tamil typing.
The other products in the suite are also useful and easy to
navigate. The company's stated mission to develop the
Valaiyodi browser into one that can translate English Web
pages into Tamil is something to look forward to.
Th applications have a few bugs, but they are minor and
should not stand in the way of encouraging such attempts. The
country sorely needs free software and open-source
initiatives for the Information Technology revolution to
reach most segments of society. And it is widely accepted
that the best way to go about achieving this is to write
software in the language of the people and make it available
free of cost.
Nevertheless, a few points need to be made. The collection of
fonts in TAB and TAM formats is no doubt excellent but run
the risk of obsolescence in a world that is quickly adopting
Unicode as the standard for recognising non-English textual
characters.
In text processing, Unicode takes the role of providing a
unique a number for each character. In other words, Unicode
represents a character in an abstract way, and leaves the
visual rendering (size, shape, font or style) to other
software, such as a Web browser or a word processor.
Microsoft Windows NT/2000/XP make extensive use of Unicode as
an internal representation of text, while Unix-like operating
systems such as Linux, BSD and Mac OS X have adopted it as
the basis of representation of multilingual text.
Secondly, the dictionaries - both of which are
well-structured and simple to use - need to be updated. The
Tamil language has kept pace with the modern world and a
dictionary with contemporary words and phrases and their
usage will be most handy.
It is hoped that the budding entrepreneurs behind the venture
will do what is needed, for the collective good of the Tamil
computing world. Panacea Dreamweavers, which is hardly a year
old, is the brainchild of a group of entrepreneurs whose goal
is to develop solutions for the Tamil language computing
space, according to the founders. Their corporate philosophy
is that Tamil language software must not place any financial
compulsions on the end-user.
The software developer community in India and abroad would do
well to emulate this endeavour and come out with more such
products so that the divide between the digital haves and
have-nots is bridged.
[View Less]
http://www.redhat.com/magazine/015jan06/features/rhindia/
Localization as a movement in India
by Rajesh Ranjan
A few days back, a famous writer from Kannada, India, U R
Anantmurthy, mentioned in an interview that languages are the
repositories of culture. The importance of enabling this
culture of languages to not merely survive but flourish in
this digital age cannot be understated. If a language is not
becoming part of digital advancement then the language will
become outdated and …
[View More]endangered and in some cases might even
become a thing of the past. End of a language means end of a
culture. Thanks to the free software ideology and
contemporary open source development methods that have given
a new lease on life to many different languages, no matter
how small we are, we now have the potential to fix this
fundamental issue. Free and open source software, unlike
other bureaucratic processes, enable each individual,
including you, to contribute toward enabling local language
computing and thereby expediting the process of adoption of
technologies enabled by computers in rural India. We all can
cherish Mahatma Gandhi's quote "Whatever you do will be
insignificant but it's very important that you do it." That
is why the free software movement enabled by collaborative
peers in the community is of paramount importance here. It is
a fact that proprietary groups cannot afford to fulfill the
needs of the masses, especially in an economy with limited
purchasing power, but we in the community of open source
computing can rise to the occasion.
In India, so many groups are working to have their languages
enabled on computers. "Localizing free software for a free
country" is the slogan of IndLinux, a major and popular group
having enormous success with this work. IndLinux is a group
of people who believe, not so surprisingly, that the benefits
of information technology must be widely and freely available
to the Indian masses. They are a group of people who combine
skills in written scripts, free/open source technologies, and
technology journalism to make this happen.
This organization has inspired so many new groups to come
forward to work together. Punlinux is one of the most
successful examples. Within two years, this group has
localized an enormous amount of content in Punjabi, a vibrant
language and culture of India. Everything from Fedora® to
GNOME to KDE to OpenOffice and all! A great success story
from an organization based in rural India! None of the
Punlinux members has any urban base! Mix of love for language
and open source has produced unbelievable results like this
one example.
There are several other efforts being made to Indianize
Linux®. One major effort, the Ankur Bangla Project, is a
collaborative initiative aimed at bringing Bangla to the
FLOSS (Free Libre Open Source Software) desktop. The core
objective of the Ankur Bangla Project is to make available a
completely localized GNU/Linux OS and they have received
notable success in this field.
Open source contribution of Utkarsh in giving the power of
computers to the Gujarati speaking populace is also immense.
It is one of the most professionally managed organizations.
IndianOSS is another one committed to the cause of Gujarati
computing.
Tamil has several active communities.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/zha is one of the major
efforts. TAMIL-LINux is another group involved in the
development of Tamil on Linux/Unix. The BharateeyaOO project
is an initiative to bring OpenOffice to India in Indian
languages by the ICT Research and Training Centre (India). It
is being done as part of the activities of the Development
Gateway Foundation. Project Malayalam for the Malayalam
Package offers a set of macros and fonts for typesetting
Malayalam, which is the primary language of an estimated 33
million people in the South Indian state of Kerala. The Linux
in Oriya project is the initiative for making Linux available
in Oriya. The GNU/Linux Telugu Localization Effort aims at
localizing most common applications on GNU/Linux to Telugu
including GNOME, KDE, Mozilla, and OpenOffice. Swathantra
Malayalam Computing at present is focusing on
translating/localizing GNU/Linux GUI into Malayalam.
Swathantra Malayalam fonts is a sub-project of Swathantra
Malayalam Computing. Their aim is to make enough free
(Swathantra) Malayalam fonts. Indic Trans also works in the
field of Linux localization in Indian languages. The
Indic-Computing Project is providing technical documentation
for Indian language computing issues.
There are several more names: Kannada Localization Initiative
works for Kannada language and Thamiz Linux is yet another
effort from the Tamil language. Free software localization in
Assamese works for Assamese, MarathiOpenSource works for
Marathi language, Swecha is a GNU/Linux Telugu localization
effort for Telugu language, and http://thamizha.com
encompasses multiple projects such as localization of Firefox
and OpenOffice among others. A project has even started for
minority languages like Maithili, which is spoken in a
particular part of a state of India and was incorporated in
the schedule of the constitution of India in recent years. It
is a fact that in some projects, the pace of work may not be
as rapid, but the above examples show there is great
awareness and response towards transparent and collaborative
open source localization and its methodology.
If the subcontinent of India could be described in a single
keyword, diversity would be it. There are about 500 languages
in India in which 22 of them are considered official. It's
easy enough to imagine the situation merely by knowing that
in a small country like Nepal there are more than 50
languages. Sooner or later these smaller languages can hope
to go hand in hand with information technology but only
through the free software philosophy. The localization
movement in the neighboring countries of India has also
started. The language of the mountains of Gorkhali, a.k.a.
Nepali, has only 1.6 million speakers. A group working with
Madan Puraskar Pustakalay has shown a significant momentum in
the field of localization in Nepali language last year. This
group has completely localized the Gnome desktop. Dzongkha,
sometimes called Bhutanese, is the national language of the
Kingdom of Bhutan. The goal of Dzongkha Localization Project
is to incorporate Dzongkha script into Linux to enable
computing in Dzongkha to provide the benefit of information
and communication technology to the Bhutanese masses. This
project is implemented by the Royal Government of Bhutan and
is being funded by International Development Research Center
(IDRC), Canada, through its Pan Asia Networking (PAN).
The Sinhala Linux Project is another project to localize
Linux in Sinhala. This was started by Lanka Linux User Group
(LKLUG). The PAN Localization Project has a broader reach. It
is a regional initiative to develop local language capacity
in Asia. This organization is working for the following
languages: Bangla, Dzongkha, Khmer, Lao, Nepali, Pashto,
Sinhala, and Urdu. Generally, dominant languages suppress
minority languages. But in the case of Punjabi in Pakistan it
is different. In Pakistan, Punjabi is spoken by the majority
but the government there does not seem to support this
language. So Punlinux has planned to start the localization
of Punjabi in Shamukhi script and already filed an
enhancement request to create a separate locale for it. This
can only be possible in the world of open source! Just like a
democracy where every person is equal, in the eyes of open
source, every language can be made equal in computing!
Localization of open source software is a transparent and
community-driven process. That is why it is easier to
customize the software according to local needs. Sometimes,
due to cultural differences, people may not be comfortable
with western user interfaces. But the difficulty does not
stop there. Imagine the struggle of the typical rural Indian
to understand metaphors like folders and recycle bins! You
might as well as speak Greek, no offense to the friendly
folks from Greece. It is particularly true in the case of a
major language like Hindi and languages like Bengali and
Punjabi that are spoken in two different countries that the
whole language is basically split into different zones in two
neighboring countries. Hindi is spoken and understood by more
than half of the Indian population and has innumerable
dialects. In the open source environment, it is easier to
modify things according to specific needs irrespective of the
profit-loss theory so very typical of the proprietary world.
The open source model is not only helping to achieve the
local need but also maintains respect for the local emotions.
For example, Bengali is now divided into two separate locale
(bn_BD and bn_IN) in Fedora and Mozilla after the demand from
the community. Basically, localization in open source alone
has the power to represent futuristic language computing.
The contribution of Red Hat making the localization effort
successful and lively is enormous. By selecting five Indian
languages (Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Punjabi and Gujarati), Red
Hat has given great impetus to l10n and i18n works related to
Indian needs. Working on a computer with local languages was
never so easy. Red Hat launched Red Hat Enterprise Linux and
Fedora in those five Indian languages and localized them at
not only the application level but at the operating system
level also. Red Hat is going to launch similar efforts in
eight more languages: Assamese (as), Kannada (kn), Malayalam
(ml), Marathi (mr), Oriya (or), Sinhala (si), Telugu (te),
and Urdu (ur). This is enough to demonstrate Red Hat's
compassion and commitment to India and its local language
computing industry.
The President of India, Abdul Kalam once said, "In India,
open source code software will have to come and stay in a big
way for the benefit of our billion people." In a poor country
like India where per capita income is much lower than the
average, words of our president and visionary Mr. Kalam
should be an important bottom line. These localized computers
will be very useful in the field of rural computing. The
people of real India only speak their native languages. For
them, English represents the language and culture of British
domination and exploitations. In analyzing why radio and
television has a deep-rooted impact in India, especially in
the rural areas, we can understand that the main reason is
the availability of television programs produced in local
languages. The localization movement in India has made
'alien' computer 'desi' one--hamara computer, tumhara
computer. The Local Language IT market is in a development
stage and it is rising with exponential growth. E-governance
is one major field where localization of software is a must.
The cost of hardware is going down very fast and in this
context, the future of localized open source software is
great.
Last year the government started a program to launch
localized CDs in all 22 official languages. Hindi, Tamil, and
Telugu language CDs have already launched. Many of the
applications available on the CD were released under the GNU
General Public License (GPL). This is a success story of the
localization movement in India. The initiative has been
funded by the Indian government. It has planned to distribute
3.5 million copies of the Hindi Language CDs after the
popularity. IndiX is a project funded by TDIL working on
Indian language support for Linux. CDAC, a government
organization, has also done important work for supporting
open source software localization.
There are many people and several organizations in India that
support the open source ideology. A strikingly unique example
of this is the establishment of Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya
Hindi Vishwavidyalaya (Mahatma Gandhi International Hindi
University) in 1997. An eminent Hindi poet and former
Secretary in the Ministry of Culture of India, Mr. Ashok
Vajpeyi was the first vice chancellor of the university and
he made the decision to run the university completely on open
source. During his tenure, two books (in Hindi) and a
bilingual magazine (in Hindi and English) were published
completely on open source technology. Having open source
computer based technology which works in a native language,
particularly in Hindi, was the main target of the university.
(On the website it is still the same!!) It is unfortunate
that the situation hasn't been so positive after the
completion of his term!
The Delhi-based non-profit organization Sarai is fully
committed to the use, propagation, and development of free
software. Sarai has played a key role in the localization of
some of the Indian languages. According to Sarai, free
software emerged as a democratic alternative to proprietary
control over code. Sarai has encouraged so many people to
engage and enlarge this domain by giving fellowships and
having several workshops.
The work of localization started long before and now it has
taken the form of movement. Internet availability, lack of
resources, and illiteracy are some hindrances in the path of
local language computing. The major hurdle is the mentality
of the English speaking elite who sneer at the local language
computing efforts. The elite have not had any grass-root
experience, but they are still controlling the major
positions within administration and finance. But ultimately
they have to stumble down against the force of the local
language computing market. Two decades ago, the condition of
the television industry was similar to the present computer
industry in India. Positive changes are inevitable and also
not very far off in the field of computers.
Poet Mr. Ashok Vajpeyi once wrote that the Indian tradition
of selfless distribution of knowledge is very old and
universal. We can say that the free software movement is the
western version of the old Indian tradition. Mr. Vajpeyi's
statement is very right and so, in the long term, Indian soil
will prove itself very fertile for open source software.
"Where knowledge is free" was the dream of Nobel laureate
Rabindranath Tagore for his nation and now the time is moving
ahead toward his dreamland
About the author: Rajesh Ranjan is Language Maintainer, Hindi
at Red Hat. He is working with several localization projects
including Fedora, GNOME, Openoffice.org, and Mozilla. He is
the Indic Language Co-ordinator for the Native Language
Confederation of Openoffice.org. Before joining Red Hat, he
worked with The Indian Express Group and Literate World, Inc.
[View Less]