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Re: Re: [Fsf-friends] Happy New Year
by Vijairaj R 05 Jan '05

05 Jan '05

>Still Redhat is the leader, Isn't it ? And it is redaht who made Linux >reach this far. There was a time in India when Linux meant readhat for >most. It still is, I was shocked when i saw that a CD contained modem drivers for "Linux 9.0". That really disturbed me. -- Regards, R. Vijairaj

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[Fsf-friends] [Fwd: [Ilugc] Swatantra- Symposium on FOSS- RMS in Vellore!!]
by Ramanraj K 05 Jan '05

05 Jan '05

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Ilugc] Swatantra- Symposium on FOSS- RMS in Vellore!! Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2005 07:05:45 -0500 From: contact(a)swatantra.info <contact(a)swatantra.info> Reply-To: contact(a)swatantra.info To: ilugc(a)ae.iitm.ac.in Played around with gzip, gcc. Wana meet the person who created these software gizmos? This is event is for you then. Vellore Institute of Technology is organsing a symposium on Free and Open SOurce software technologies titled Swatantra(6th - 7th Feb, 05). Founder of GNu and the man responsible for coining the term Free SOftware, Richard M Stallman will be there to deliver the keynote address of the symposium and to answer all the questions that you have always wanted to ask about these amazingly simply yet inherently complex programs. The event will also feature various competitions to kindle your nack for Linux tweaking and tuning such as:- LINSTALL-- The Linux installation challenge. Anaconda !! YaSt !! familiar with all these name? Have been installing on your system for a long time and you find it fun?? making the X server run?? configuring the boot loader?? ..YES??..One event where apply all your skills which you developed over the years by trying to install GNU/Linux on your system. WEBMINISTER-- The Apache web server Challenge Love Apache because of the customizability it offers while deploying your website? Love fiddling with httpd.conf and think you are best at it? This is one event to prove yourself! Come and demonstrate that your are the best at the best webserver that there is and ever was..... CORE WARS-- Challenge the memory This event will feature an old game called core wars which involves destroying your opponents programs by overwriting the memory in which this program is stored. It will kindle the nerves of memory geeks with pointers and direct memory references expertise being the norm. Watch out for cool demonstartions on MONO, Linux Cluster, Linux from scratch and much more.... For further details log on to: http://www.swatantra.info or mail us at: contact(a)swatantra.info -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, email ilugc-request(a)ae.iitm.ac.in with "unsubscribe " in the subject or body of the message. http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc

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[Fsf-friends] [Fwd: [Ilugc] [OT] RMS to Speak in Vellore Institute of Technology]
by Ramanraj K 05 Jan '05

05 Jan '05

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Ilugc] [OT] RMS to Speak in Vellore Institute of Technology Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2005 09:50:20 +0530 (IST) From: Muthu <ilugc(a)muthu.cotse.net> To: ilugc(a)ae.iitm.ac.in Hello All: Richard M Stallman is speaking via video conference on the 11th of January in Vellore Institute of Technology from 09:30 AM to 12:00 PM. More details are given in the following URL. http://agia.fsf.org/associate/folder.2004-06-25.5757092436/event.2004-12-22… RMS may also come to Vellore Institute of Technology during the month of February, 2005. This is yet to be confirmed. FYI. Muthu Join FSF as an Associate Member at: _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, email ilugc-request(a)ae.iitm.ac.in with "unsubscribe " in the subject or body of the message. http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc

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Happy New Year
by Praveen A 04 Jan '05

04 Jan '05

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2005 * May the year 2005 give you - * Independence of GNU * Power of Hurd * Popularity of Apache * Extensibility of Firefox * Luxury of .GNU * Efficiency of Python * Ease of Gambas * Robustness of SQL * Vision of OpenOffice * Simplicity of HTML * Style of Linspire * Dexterity of Gimp * Enormity of Blender * Vastness of Internet * Compactness of JPG * Richness of PNG * Coverage as Novell * Reach of Redhat * Choice of Gentoo -- A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org http://www.edathanattukara.com Visit me at http://www.pravi.tk 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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Sharing code, thoughts ...
by Ramanraj K 04 Jan '05

04 Jan '05

Sharing code is a fundamental fact of life: <quote> Bacteria have developed a second avenue of evolutionary creativity that is vastly more effective than random mutation. They freely pass hereditary traits from one to another in a global exchange network of incredible power and efficiency. The discovery of this global trading of genes, technically known as DNA recombination, must rank as one of the most astonishing discoveries of modern biology. Margulis describes it vividly: `Horizontal genetic transfer among bacteria is as if you jumped into a pool with brown eyes and came out with blue eyes.' This gene transfer takes place continually, with many bacteria changing up to 15 per cent of their genetic material on a daily basis. As Margulis explains, `When you threaten a bacterium, it will spill its DNA into the environment, and everyone around picks it up; and in a few months it will go all the way around the world.' Since all bacterial strains can potentially share hereditary traits this way, some microbiologists argue that bacteria, strictly speaking, should not be classified into species. In other words, all bacteria are part of a single microscopic web of life. In evolution, then, bacteria are able rapidly to accumulate random mutations, as well as big chunks of DNA, through gene trading. Consequently, they have an astonishing ability to adapt to environmental changes. The speed with which drug resistance spreads among bacterial communities is dramatic proof of the efficiency of their communication networks. Microbiology teaches us the sobering lesson that technologies like genetic engineering and global communications network, which are often considered to be advanced achievements of our modern civilization, have been used by the planetary web of bacteria for billions of years. ... ... Bacteria, again, have played a major role in this evolution through symbiosis. When certain small bacteria merged symbiotically with larger cells and continued to live inside them as organelles, the result was a giant step in evolution - the creating of plant and animal cells . ... ... Evidence has been accumulating that the microtubules, which are essential to the architecture of the brain, were originally contributed by the `corkscrew' bacteria known as spirochetes. ... ... </quote from "the hidden connections" by fritjof capra> Even bacteria seem to "understand" the value of free sharing of code. Mud, dust, rocks and other lifeless things alone don't seem to do any useful code sharing. Free code sharing seems to be a very important fact of life, at the very core of our evolutionary progress, and modern science may reveal more and more of the code sharing that occurs naturally all the time, as narrated by Fritjof Capra. Sharing code is such a fundamental element of our very being, and its importance is most visible again from the spectacular success of the free software movement. Rapid progress in science and arts, is easier by adopting and sharing innovations. The very definition of life revolves around the ability to copy, share and improve the stock of code. We ourselves are the ultimate products of code sharing and symbiosis. Any restrictions on free sharing of code would only result in sterile still born products that soon degenerate into lifeless mud. Through free code sharing alone, rapid progress, growth and better utilisation of resources is possible. Happy Hacking :)

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Patent - Automated detection of pornographic images
by Rakesh 'arky' Ambati 04 Jan '05

04 Jan '05

FYI --arky --- Akash <akashmahajan(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Warning: > Some persons may find this offensive or in bad taste > but this patent > has been granted > > http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/patog/week24/OG/html/1283-3/US06751348-200… > > or tinyurl > > http://tinyurl.com/4h8zn > > Can this be used as an example of the absurdities > patents can go upto? > __________________ ===== ____________________________________ /\ \ \_| Rakesh 'arky' Ambati | | Bangalore (INDIA) | | Homepage: http://arky.port5.com/ | | _______________________________|_ \_/_________________________________/ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250

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any one working on common lisp?
by ISAAC PRAVEEN 04 Jan '05

04 Jan '05

Hi friends, anyone working on common lisp? or rather, the GNU common lisp comiler (GCL) ? (or) could someone give me some leads? Regards, Isaac Praveen 9886709301 -- ______________________________________________ Check out the latest SMS services @ http://www.linuxmail.org This allows you to send and receive SMS through your mailbox. Powered by Outblaze

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[Announce] New year alert
by list-admin＠gnu.org.in 03 Jan '05

03 Jan '05

Announce: Please dont post messages to this list which contain only New Year wishes and nothing else. You may carry your wishes in your signatures. -List Admin

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Re: [A10_KKD] HAPPYNEW YEAR TO U ALL-
by Sriharsha 03 Jan '05

03 Jan '05

Wish EVERYONE a VERY HAPPY SAFE PROSPEROUS EXCITING & BENIFICIAL NEW YEAR and may this be the beginning of your success stories in all the forthcoming years. Warm Regards, Sriharsha -- ***************************** * Sriharsha Vedurmudi * Software Engineer * * Redpine Signals Inc. * Gate #395, Plot 87,88 * Sagar Society, Road #2, * Banjara Hills, * Hyderabad - 500 034 * www.redpinesignals.com * * +91-40-23559911 (Office) * +91-98851-37338 (Mobile) *****************************

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Happy New Year
by ISAAC PRAVEEN 03 Jan '05

03 Jan '05

Hi FSF friends, HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL regards, Isaac Praveen -- ______________________________________________ Check out the latest SMS services @ http://www.linuxmail.org This allows you to send and receive SMS through your mailbox. Powered by Outblaze

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Sharing code, thoughts ...
by Ramanraj K 03 Jan '05

03 Jan '05

Krishna Pagadala wrote: >Interesting one Ramanraj... The idea of recombinant >DNA is not new, rudiments of the idea dates atleast to >Antoine Bechamp (1816-1908), more than a hundred years >ago. > >For more read "The Medical Racket" >http://ahealedplanet.net/medicine.htm > Thanks for pointing to the "Medical Racket" link. I could read it from http://home1.gte.net/res0k62m/medicine.htm It also links to the article "Lies I was told" at http://home1.gte.net/res0k62m/lies.htm The information at http://home1.gte.net/res0k62m/lies.htm#bengal is also particularly useful for the present times. Looks like we have not learned much from history. (Someone aptly observed: "Men make mistakes, fools repeat them" ;) The same old story seems to be repeating now, with different characters and themes, but essentially the same plot. The author says: "Today’s global capitalist system <http://home1.gte.net/res0k62m/other.htm#capitalism> is little more than colonialism with new rhetoric, techniques and technology. ". We should take these seriously: http://home1.gte.net/res0k62m/energy.htm http://home1.gte.net/res0k62m/energy1.htm To very briefly sum up: >>> Use Free Software; Use Free Energy <<< Regards, Ramanraj.

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[Fsf-friends] IITians Develop [GNU]Linux-Based Cell Phone Tracking Software
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 02 Jan '05

02 Jan '05

http://www.cxotoday.com/cxo/jsp/article.jsp?article_id=2538&cat_id=911#comm… IITians Develop Linux-Based Cell Phone Tracking Software By Julia Fernandes <mailto:juliafernandes at cxotoday.com> Mumbai, Dec 31, 2004 Did you ever wish that you could track the location of a mobile user? Well, this could very well be a reality largely thanks to the efforts of three young Mumbai-based IITians, who have developed a Linux-based software application that tracks the location of mobile phones. Speaking to CXOtoday Nitin Seth, director of Mobiance Technologies, said, "This software is an enhanced version of cell display info. A customer can track a user by sending an SMS. The service provider will then ask the tracked user permission via SMS. If the tracked user consents, the customer is then flashed with the location details of the tracked user. The accuracy can be within 10 to 100 metres" "The software works on other network parameters such as orientation of the sector antenna, broadcast signals of various stations. We are in the process of procuring a GIS-based database," added Seth. The tracked mobile user has three options and may give permission for one-time usage or unlimited access. Though the third option allows the tracked mobile user to deny access it will not be a permanent one. The same service can also be accessed through the Internet. Apart from parents who want to track the movements of their children, the software also helps corporates to track their on-field employees. Sharing the technical details, Nikhilesh Ghushe, CTO of Mobiance Technologies said, "Developed on Fedora Core 2 approximately 10K lines of codes were written. The entire development took around five months. The SMS interface as well as the Web interface has been developed." Revealing the inspiration behind the development, Ghushe recalled, "Around a year back while working on a project campus, we wanted to develop a GPS-based solution. But the cost factor proved a deterrent. It was then that we decided to develop a cost-effective solution." "Why is a mobile called a cell phone?" asked Ghushe. "Its because each antenna has a cell. Cellid is a technology, which identifies which antenna is seeing your mobile. We have named our technology enhanced Cellid, because this technology has been optimized," asserted Ghushe. Service provider Airtel provided a platform for the IIT trio to test their software, which was demonstrated at the recently concluded Mood Indigo festival on a sample crowd of 300 cell phone subscribers. According to an Airtel spokesperson, "Depending on regulatory conditions of the country we are ready to offer this service." Mobiance Technologies that develops location-based services (LBS) products for corporate and mobile network operators was launched three months back by Seth, Ghushe and Mandeep Singh - CEO of Mobiance. All three had passed out of IIT Bombay last year. Home <http://www.cxotoday.com/cxo/jsp/home.jsp> | Software <http://www.cxotoday.com/cxo/jsp/home.jsp?cat=911>

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Efforts on Standardizing Unicode Tamil Sort Order
by gok gok 31 Dec '04

31 Dec '04

Dear Friend, Please go thru the following web page that contains the issues and problems with the original unicode tamil sort order. Also this page deals with the standardization of a sort order for tamil with respect to unicode positions. Dont hurry in examining this. Take as much time to conclude your suggestions. Since the future of tamil depends upon such valuable decisions made now. http://www.angelfire.com/empire/thamizh/2/ please let me know your suggestions and corrections.. Regards R.Padmakumar __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Get it on your mobile phone. http://mobile.yahoo.com/maildemo

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Patents amendment bill
by Vijay Kumar Bagavath Singh 30 Dec '04

30 Dec '04

> Even if there is no patent for software in the ordinance way the govt is > handling the patent amendment is really bad. They seems to be more > accountable to WTO rather than people of India. > > We need to watch the situation closely. We will have to work closely > with other groups fighting patent amendments. It would be nice if people > in Delhi can work on getting more informations and networking with other > groups fighting the new patent amendment. How about creating a petition in http://www.PetitionOnline.com ? We can use http://www.petitiononline.com/pasp01/petition.html as a template. Vijay -- ______________________________________________ Check out the latest SMS services @ http://www.linuxmail.org This allows you to send and receive SMS through your mailbox. Powered by Outblaze

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FLOSS networks in Sri Lanka
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 29 Dec '04

29 Dec '04

Thanks to Anuradha Ratnaweera <gnu.slash.linux at gmail.com> for filling us in with details about FLOSS in Sri Lanka, as follows: Lanka Linux User Group (http://www.linux.lk , http://www.lug.lk ) have been advocating GNU/Linux and Free / Open Source Software since 1998. Recently, we have started working closely with the tux group of Narada Center (http://foss.metta.lk ). Check http://mail.linux.lk/lurker/ to see what we have been doing. Lanka Software Foundation (http://www.opensource.lk ) is another organization who is also promoting FOSS development in Sri Lanka. Anuradha -- http://www.linux.lk/~anuradha/ http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html ENDQUOTE Thank you very much Anuradha! FN

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Free software in Goa... Dec 27, 2004
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 29 Dec '04

29 Dec '04

Present for the meeting: * Bijon "Multi Distro" Shaha * Mario "PHP" Alvares * Sylvester "Hardware" GeekBox * DP (Hiding Behind The Alphabets) * FN reporting on some points that came up * We handed over copies of GeekBox and Ubuntu to Mr Joshi of Goa Sc Centre * Bijon Shaha gave us an update of LB-2004, the Bangalore FOSS event * The talk veered around to pendrives, Ubuntu * Can we do something to re-start meetings in South Goa, at the useful D-Link venue? Another offer is to hold meetings at a cybercafe in Vasco... * Debian Weekly News is a great model for an e-letter sharing information about what's happening in the FLOSS world. * Mario mentioned his experiences on a Mac, with OSX * Woes of Fedora Core 3 users and the security hassles outlined. * Is Fedora Core 3 just "too secure"? * Sylvester offered information about SLAX, the Slackware distro. Slackware is more customisable. Syl@Comtech has a copy. * Mario is keen to create a live distro with Postgres on it. * This was followed with a demo of Ubuntu, the live version For free copies of this distro, just log on to http://shipit.ubuntulinux.org and ask for it. They even offer you free postage, and encourage you to ask for multiple copies (postage is costlier anyway than the medium!) * Later, a pen drive -- UMAX Apus 208 -- was easily got working on Mandrake 9.1. Did the same on EgovOS (based on Red Hat). Had some difficulty in getting with going with Debian Woody. Any clues? * Some useful tips for newbies or challenged-learners (like myself) Use this command to download an entire site wbet -m http://www.sitename.com To compress a folder tar cjf newfile /home/user/directory and to uncompress a folder tar xjf To unzip a filme unzip filename MC, or Midnight Commander is a good tool for this. * DP mentioned that Open Office 2.0 preview is out, which offers OOBase, a tool similar to DBase or Access in utility. * Later, the session continued with informal networking. We shifted to Cafe Prakash, the usual haunt, and shared some moments with friends there. Please point out any errors or mistakes above. Next meeting: January 22, 2005 (fourth Saturday). Miramar Science Centre. Our websites and URLs: http://ilug-goa.swiki.net (website on Swiki.net) http://www.ilug-margao.org (Margao site: Andrew, Arvind, Clinton...) http://ilug-goa.notlong.com (website on IOSN.net * free space for LUGs) http://iluggoa.iosn.net (Wiki on IOSN.net * free space for all LUGs) http://iluggoalist.notlong.com (short link to this list) http://ilug-goa-announce.notlong.com (low volume announce) http://tyl.notlong.com (for newbies) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linuxgoahelp (specifically help list) PS: OFFTOPIC -- Derek Cordeiro pointed out to me this useful tool for bookmarking and sharing sites. Please visit http://stumbleupon.com and also my tiny attempt below... works great! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) Nr Convent Saligao 403511 GoaIndia Freelance Journalist P: 832-2409490 M: 9822122436 http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks http://fn.swiki.net http://fredericknoronha.stumbleupon.com http://fn-floss.notlong.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Avoid Word/PowerPoint: http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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Can someone reach Ramanraj
by Anand Babu 28 Dec '04

28 Dec '04

I just realized Ramanraj's house is near the beach. I tried calling him a couple of times and got no response. Can someone reach him and confirm us if he safe and needed any help? -- Anand Babu Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org>

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Re: [FSF India Board] New Patent changes
by Anand Babu 28 Dec '04

28 Dec '04

It is not yet clear if the new amendments to patent act includes computer software. Media news is not precise and most if it is speculation. Software patents are terrible. I think it will become too difficult and too late to fight software patents after the Govt approves such amendments. Let us take a take pro-active action early at this stage. Publishing articles on dangers of software patents can be a good start. Nagarjuna, Arun and Frederick Noronha has enough contacts in the press and can effectively propagate the message. Amendments related to drugs, food and chemicals poses even more direct threat to the community, than software. (Like increase in drug prices, inadequate or non-availability of patented drugs). Reverse engineering drugs to produce cheaper or better alternatives will become impossible. Patents give absolute monopoly to the owner. With this exclusive right, even if some one else comes up with the same idea independently, he still cannot use it. This means Indian drug research will have serious consequences and we are the ones to suffer at the end. It may make sense to club with the medical community and jointly oppose the new patent amendment. -------------------------------------------------------------------- The only reference to computer software in "The Patents (Amendment) Ordinance 2004 promulgated on 26/12/2004" (url http://lawmin.nic.in/Patents%20Amendment%20Ordinance%202004.pdf) is amendment to Section 3 referring as >>>Quoted----------------------------------------------------------- (b) for clause (k), the following clauses shall be substituted, namely: "(k) a computer programme per se other than its technical application to industry or a combination with hardware; (ka) a mathematical method or a business method or algorithms;". <<<Quoted----------------------------------------------------------- My understanding is, Section 3 is all about non-patentable inventions. I am referring to the Patent Act document (url http://ipindia.nic.in/ipr/patent/mop2.pdf). I could not find any clause (k) under Section 3 in this document. Can some one point me to the correct document to which these amendments can be applied cleanly? -- Anand Babu Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org>

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Patents amendment bill
by Vijay Kumar Bagavath Singh 28 Dec '04

28 Dec '04

The following news articles suggest that the patents amendment bill, could possibly introduce software patents in India. If this is so, why aren't we(FSF-India) fighting it? Quoting from http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?hpFlag=Y&chklogin=N&a… The Cabinet is expected to clear the promulgation of an Ordinance for the introduction of a product patents regime, which will also cover embedded software and hardware, next Wednesday. Quoting from http://athens-olympics-2004.newkerala.com/?action=fullnews&id=44168 "Fair use provisions in the copyright law that permits reverse engineering is not permitted under the patent law," said G. Devarajan, general secretary of the All India Forward Bloc. ... "This highly retrograde step would kill the fledgling open source movement in our country, particularly in our universities and institutions like Indian Institutes of Technology," a Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader said. Vijay -- ______________________________________________ Check out the latest SMS services @ http://www.linuxmail.org This allows you to send and receive SMS through your mailbox. Powered by Outblaze

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Re: Re: [Fsf-friends] Patents amendment bill
by Kanti Jadia 28 Dec '04

28 Dec '04

This is what caught my attention on slashdot http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/27/1323237&from=rss " It was the same in Europe... (Score:1) by Rauchbier (745414) on Monday December 27, @11:55AM (#11192112) The patent lobby tried to introduce software patents in Europe silently as well. Thanks to the FFII [ffii.org] there was enough noise to wake up politicians. Now we have additional support from sites like No Software Patents [nosoftwarepatents.com], but it took a lot of time to get this support. Hopefully there is a chance to postpone the decision so the indian people and politicians can catch up on software patents. [ Reply to This ] " On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 Arun M wrote : >Also please note the worser situation with Medicine patent. >(read it together with recent natural disaster) > > >From personal level i will request free software activists not to >restrict ourself to software patent. Software freedom is just one >freedom an individual need. > > >_______________________________________________ >Fsf-friends mailing list >Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in >http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends ----------------------------------------- Enjoy your Freedom,use GNU/Linux. http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html -----------------------------------------

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Fwd: indian software patents
by Rakesh 'arky' Ambati 28 Dec '04

28 Dec '04

--- aad!tya sood <aadis(a)aadis.de> wrote: > I was not able to post to the FSUG-banglist, for > some messed up reasons. > > Could you forward this link? > 59 > http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/12/27/1323237&from=rss ===== ____________________________________ /\ \ \_| Rakesh 'arky' Ambati | | Bangalore (INDIA) | | Homepage: http://arky.port5.com/ | | _______________________________|_ \_/_________________________________/ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - now with 250MB free storage. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250

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Please Help
by Krishna Pagadala 28 Dec '04

28 Dec '04

Hi All, Can somebody help Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) http://www.freedominfo.org/case/mkss/mkss.htm and National Campaign for People's Right to Information (NCPRI) http://www.righttoinformation.info/, and maybe even Right to Food Campaign http://righttofoodindia.org/ make a transition to GNU/Linux. I think (but am not sure) that most of their computer work is done in Delhi, so can somebody from Delhi please volunteer to help. I am thinking that we should first transition them over to using free software applications running on Window$, and then once they are comfortable and trained on GNU/Linux applications switch them over to Free Software. Excerpt from Aruna Roy's email to me "Much as we all want to use Linux, we have to be trained to us it and understand the use of such software. There has to be a team that comes to educate us!" Thanks Krishna ===== Books for Disadvantaged Children - $10 Health Care for a Tribal Village - $100 Electricity for a remote community - $1000 Satisfaction of making a difference - Priceless Visit: http://www.oneforindia.org/?r=krishnaact To Reflect, to Inspire and to Empower http://www.employees.org/~krishnap/ Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the next step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to self-reliance for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? -Mahatma Gandhi __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Please Help
by Kanti Jadia 28 Dec '04

28 Dec '04

Hi, It depends on the way people look at it . The Transition to GNU/Linux is gradual and cannot be achieved by a team visiting each of these Organization's. The way i think it would work is these Organizations putting a team which works with the local GLUG ( Do they have volunteers ).This way they can get their issues clarified. But if you look at it the other way.IS everybody in these organizations proficient in using computers ? Are they still at the curve of learning ( Learning computers is a lifelong process). So they need to be able to get GNU/Linux work for them in order to make them productive. Starting on Windows and then transition them with the same set of applications should be an absolute NO.Let them identify people who are inclined to take the activity up in the organizations.Rest all will follow. For the initial push. 1. Attend the latest GLUG meet in the nearest city. my 2 cents Kanti On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 Krishna Pagadala wrote : >Hi All, > Can somebody help Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan >(MKSS) http://www.freedominfo.org/case/mkss/mkss.htm >and National Campaign for People's Right to >Information (NCPRI) >http://www.righttoinformation.info/, and maybe even >Right to Food Campaign http://righttofoodindia.org/ >make a transition to GNU/Linux. > I think (but am not sure) that most of their >computer work is done in Delhi, so can somebody from >Delhi please volunteer to help. I am thinking that we >should first transition them over to using free >software applications running on Window$, and then >once they are comfortable and trained on GNU/Linux >applications switch them over to Free Software. > > >Excerpt from Aruna Roy's email to me > "Much as we all want to use Linux, we have to be >trained to us it and understand the use of such >software. There has to be a team that comes to educate >us!" > > >Thanks >Krishna > >===== >Books for Disadvantaged Children - $10 >Health Care for a Tribal Village - $100 >Electricity for a remote community - $1000 >Satisfaction of making a difference - Priceless > >Visit: http://www.oneforindia.org/?r=krishnaact > >To Reflect, to Inspire and to Empower >http://www.employees.org/~krishnap/ > >Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the next step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to self-reliance for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? >-Mahatma Gandhi > > > >__________________________________ >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Mail - Easier than ever with enhanced search. Learn more. >http://info.mail.yahoo.com/mail_250 > >_______________________________________________ >Fsf-friends mailing list >Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in >http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends ----------------------------------------- Enjoy your Freedom,use GNU/Linux. http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html -----------------------------------------

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Fwd: [glugc] Andrew Tanenbaum-Linus Torvalds Debate
by Praveen A 27 Dec '04

27 Dec '04

What follows in this appendix are what are known in the community as the Tanenbaum/Linus "Linux is obsolete" debates. Andrew Tanenbaum is a well-respected researcher who has made a very good living thinking about operating systems and OS design. In early 1992, noticing the way that the Linux discussion had taken over the discussion in comp.os.minix, he decided it was time to comment on Linux. Although Andrew Tanenbaum has been derided for his heavy hand and misjudgements of the Linux kernel, such a reaction to Tanenbaum is unfair. When Linus himself heard that we were including this, he wanted to make sure that the world understood that he holds no animus towards Tanenbaum and in fact would not have sanctioned its inclusion if we had not been able to convince him that it would show the way the world was thinking about OS design at the time. We felt the inclusion of this appendix would give a good perspective on how things were when Linus was under pressure because he abandoned the idea of microkernels in academia. The first third of Linus' essay discusses this further. Electronic copies of this debate are available on the Web and are easily found through any search service. It's fun to read this and note who joined into the discussion; you see user-hacker Ken Thompson (one of the founders of Unix) and David Miller (who is a major Linux kernel hacker now), as well as many others. To put this discussion into perspective, when it occurred in 1992, the 386 was the dominating chip and the 486 had not come out on the market. Microsoft was still a small company selling DOS and Word for DOS. Lotus 123 ruled the spreadsheet space and WordPerfect the word processing market. DBASE was the dominant database vendor and many companies that are household names today--Netscape, Yahoo, Excite--simply did not exist. What follows in this appendix are what are known in the community as the Tanenbaum/Linus "Linux is obsolete" debates. Andrew Tanenbaum is a well-respected researcher who has made a very good living thinking about operating systems and OS design. In early 1992, noticing the way that the Linux discussion had taken over the discussion in comp.os.minix, he decided it was time to comment on Linux. Although Andrew Tanenbaum has been derided for his heavy hand and misjudgements of the Linux kernel, such a reaction to Tanenbaum is unfair. When Linus himself heard that we were including this, he wanted to make sure that the world understood that he holds no animus towards Tanenbaum and in fact would not have sanctioned its inclusion if we had not been able to convince him that it would show the way the world was thinking about OS design at the time. We felt the inclusion of this appendix would give a good perspective on how things were when Linus was under pressure because he abandoned the idea of microkernels in academia. The first third of Linus' essay discusses this further. Electronic copies of this debate are available on the Web and are easily found through any search service. It's fun to read this and note who joined into the discussion; you see user-hacker Ken Thompson (one of the founders of Unix) and David Miller (who is a major Linux kernel hacker now), as well as many others. To put this discussion into perspective, when it occurred in 1992, the 386 was the dominating chip and the 486 had not come out on the market. Microsoft was still a small company selling DOS and Word for DOS. Lotus 123 ruled the spreadsheet space and WordPerfect the word processing market. DBASE was the dominant database vendor and many companies that are household names today--Netscape, Yahoo, Excite--simply did not exist. From: ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: LINUX is obsolete Date: 29 Jan 92 12:12:50 GMT I was in the U.S. for a couple of weeks, so I haven't commented much on LINUX (not that I would have said much had I been around), but for what it is worth, I have a couple of comments now. As most of you know, for me MINIX is a hobby, something that I do in the evening when I get bored writing books and there are no major wars, revolutions, or senate hearings being televised live on CNN. My real job is a professor and researcher in the area of operating systems. As a result of my occupation, I think I know a bit about where operating are going in the next decade or so. Two aspects stand out: 1. MICROKERNEL VS MONOLITHIC SYSTEM Most older operating systems are monolithic, that is, the whole operating system is a single a.out file that runs in 'kernel mode.' This binary contains the process management, memory management, file system and the rest. Examples of such systems are UNIX, MS-DOS, VMS, MVS, OS/360, MULTICS, and many more. The alternative is a microkernel-based system, in which most of the OS runs as separate processes, mostly outside the kernel. They communicate by message passing. The kernel's job is to handle the message passing, interrupt handling, low-level process management, and possibly the I/O. Examples of this design are the RC4000, Amoeba, Chorus, Mach, and the not-yet-released Windows/NT. While I could go into a long story here about the relative merits of the two designs, suffice it to say that among the people who actually design operating systems, the debate is essentially over. Microkernels have won. The only real argument for monolithic systems was performance, and there is now enough evidence showing that microkernel systems can be just as fast as monolithic systems (e.g., Rick Rashid has published papers comparing Mach 3.0 to monolithic systems) that it is now all over but the shoutin'. MINIX is a microkernel-based system. The file system and memory management are separate processes, running outside the kernel. The I/O drivers are also separate processes (in the kernel, but only because the brain-dead nature of the Intel CPUs makes that difficult to do otherwise). LINUX is a monolithic style system. This is a giant step back into the 1970s. That is like taking an existing, working C program and rewriting it in BASIC. To me, writing a monolithic system in 1991 is a truly poor idea. 2. PORTABILITY Once upon a time there was the 4004 CPU. When it grew up it became an 8008. Then it underwent plastic surgery and became the 8080. It begat the 8086, which begat the 8088, which begat the 80286, which begat the 80386, which begat the 80486, and so on unto the N-th generation. In the meantime, RISC chips happened, and some of them are running at over 100 MIPS. Speeds of 200 MIPS and more are likely in the coming years. These things are not going to suddenly vanish. What is going to happen is that they will gradually take over from the 80x86 line. They will run old MS-DOS programs by interpreting the 80386 in software. (I even wrote my own IBM PC simulator in C, which you can get by FTP from ftp.cs.vu.nl = 192.31.231.42 in dir minix/simulator.) I think it is a gross error to design an OS for any specific architecture, since that is not going to be around all that long. MINIX was designed to be reasonably portable, and has been ported from the Intel line to the 680x0 (Atari, Amiga, Macintosh), SPARC, and NS32016. LINUX is tied fairly closely to the 80x86. Not the way to go. Don't get me wrong, I am not unhappy with LINUX. It will get all the people who want to turn MINIX in BSD UNIX off my back. But in all honesty, I would suggest that people who want a **MODERN** "free" OS look around for a microkernel-based, portable OS, like maybe GNU or something like that. Andy Tanenbaum (ast(a)cs.vu.nl) P.S. Just as a random aside, Amoeba has a UNIX emulator (running in user space), but it is far from complete. If there are any people who would like to work on that, please let me know. To run Amoeba you need a few 386s, one of which needs 16M, and all of which need the WD Ethernet card. From: torvalds(a)klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 29 Jan 92 23:14:26 GMT Organization: University of Helsinki Well, with a subject like this, I'm afraid I'll have to reply. Apologies to minix-users who have heard enough about linux anyway. I'd like to be able to just "ignore the bait", but ... Time for some serious flamefesting! In article <12595(a)star.cs.vu.nl> ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: > >I was in the U.S. for a couple of weeks, so I haven't commented much on >LINUX (not that I would have said much had I been around), but for what >it is worth, I have a couple of comments now. > >As most of you know, for me MINIX is a hobby, something that I do in the >evening when I get bored writing books and there are no major wars, >revolutions, or senate hearings being televised live on CNN. My real >job is a professor and researcher in the area of operating systems. You use this as an excuse for the limitations of minix? Sorry, but you loose: I've got more excuses than you have, and linux still beats the pants of minix in almost all areas. Not to mention the fact that most of the good code for PC minix seems to have been written by Bruce Evans. Re 1: you doing minix as a hobby - look at who makes money off minix, and who gives linux out for free. Then talk about hobbies. Make minix freely available, and one of my biggest gripes with it will disappear. Linux has very much been a hobby (but a serious one: the best type) for me: I get no money for it, and it's not even part of any of my studies in the university. I've done it all on my own time, and on my own machine. Re 2: your job is being a professor and researcher: That's one hell of a good excuse for some of the brain-damages of minix. I can only hope (and assume) that Amoeba doesn't suck like minix does. >1. MICROKERNEL VS MONOLITHIC SYSTEM True, linux is monolithic, and I agree that microkernels are nicer. With a less argumentative subject, I'd probably have agreed with most of what you said. From a theoretical (and aesthetical) standpoint linux looses. If the GNU kernel had been ready last spring, I'd not have bothered to even start my project: the fact is that it wasn't and still isn't. Linux wins heavily on points of being available now. > MINIX is a microkernel-based system. [deleted, but not so that you > miss the point ] LINUX is a monolithic style system. If this was the only criterion for the "goodness" of a kernel, you'd be right. What you don't mention is that minix doesn't do the micro-kernel thing very well, and has problems with real multitasking (in the kernel). If I had made an OS that had problems with a multithreading filesystem, I wouldn't be so fast to condemn others: in fact, I'd do my damndest to make others forget about the fiasco. [ yes, I know there are multithreading hacks for minix, but they are hacks, and bruce evans tells me there are lots of race conditions ] >2. PORTABILITY "Portability is for people who cannot write new programs" -me, right now (with tongue in cheek) The fact is that linux is more portable than minix. What? I hear you say. It's true - but not in the sense that ast means: I made linux as conformant to standards as I knew how (without having any POSIX standard in front of me). Porting things to linux is generally /much/ easier than porting them to minix. I agree that portability is a good thing: but only where it actually has some meaning. There is no idea in trying to make an operating system overly portable: adhering to a portable API is good enough. The very /idea/ of an operating system is to use the hardware features, and hide them behind a layer of high-level calls. That is exactly what linux does: it just uses a bigger subset of the 386 features than other kernels seem to do. Of course this makes the kernel proper unportable, but it also makes for a /much/ simpler design. An acceptable trade-off, and one that made linux possible in the first place. I also agree that linux takes the non-portability to an extreme: I got my 386 last January, and linux was partly a project to teach me about it. Many things should have been done more portably if it would have been a real project. I'm not making overly many excuses about it though: it was a design decision, and last april when I started the thing, I didn't think anybody would actually want to use it. I'm happy to report I was wrong, and as my source is freely available, anybody is free to try to port it, even though it won't be easy. Linus PS. I apologise for sometimes sounding too harsh: minix is nice enough if you have nothing else. Amoeba might be nice if you have 5-10 spare 386's lying around, but I certainly don't. I don't usually get into flames, but I'm touchy when it comes to linux :) From: ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 30 Jan 92 13:44:34 GMT In article <1992Jan29.231426.20469(a)klaava.Helsinki.FI> torvalds(a)klaava.Helsinki. FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds) writes: >You use this [being a professor] as an excuse for the limitations of minix? The limitations of MINIX relate at least partly to my being a professor: An explicit design goal was to make it run on cheap hardware so students could afford it. In particular, for years it ran on a regular 4.77 MHZ PC with no hard disk. You could do everything here including modify and recompile the system. Just for the record, as of about 1 year ago, there were two versions, one for the PC (360K diskettes) and one for the 286/386 (1.2M). The PC version was outselling the 286/386 version by 2 to 1. I don't have figures, but my guess is that the fraction of the 60 million existing PCs that are 386/486 machines as opposed to 8088/286/680x0 etc is small. Among students it is even smaller. Making software free, but only for folks with enough money to buy first class hardware is an interesting concept. Of course 5 years from now that will be different, but 5 years from now everyone will be running free GNU on their 200 MIPS, 64M SPARCstation-5. >Re 2: your job is being a professor and researcher: That's one hell of a >good excuse for some of the brain-damages of minix. I can only hope (and >assume) that Amoeba doesn't suck like minix does. Amoeba was not designed to run on an 8088 with no hard disk. >If this was the only criterion for the "goodness" of a kernel, you'd be >right. What you don't mention is that minix doesn't do the micro-kernel >thing very well, and has problems with real multitasking (in the >kernel). If I had made an OS that had problems with a multithreading >filesystem, I wouldn't be so fast to condemn others: in fact, I'd do my >damndest to make others forget about the fiasco. A multithreaded file system is only a performance hack. When there is only one job active, the normal case on a small PC, it buys you nothing and adds complexity to the code. On machines fast enough to support multiple users, you probably have enough buffer cache to insure a hit cache hit rate, in which case multithreading also buys you nothing. It is only a win when there are multiple processes actually doing real disk I/O. Whether it is worth making the system more complicated for this case is at least debatable. I still maintain the point that designing a monolithic kernel in 1991 is a fundamental error. Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a high grade for such a design :-) >The fact is that linux is more portable than minix. What? I hear you >say. It's true - but not in the sense that ast means: I made linux as >conformant to standards as I knew how (without having any POSIX standard >in front of me). Porting things to linux is generally /much/ easier >than porting them to minix. MINIX was designed before POSIX, and is now being (slowly) POSIXized as everyone who follows this newsgroup knows. Everyone agrees that user-level standards are a good idea. As an aside, I congratulate you for being able to write a POSIX-conformant system without having the POSIX standard in front of you. I find it difficult enough after studying the standard at great length. My point is that writing a new operating system that is closely tied to any particular piece of hardware, especially a weird one like the Intel line, is basically wrong. An OS itself should be easily portable to new hardware platforms. When OS/360 was written in assembler for the IBM 360 25 years ago, they probably could be excused. When MS-DOS was written specifically for the 8088 ten years ago, this was less than brilliant, as IBM and Microsoft now only too painfully realize. Writing a new OS only for the 386 in 1991 gets you your second 'F' for this term. But if you do real well on the final exam, you can still pass the course. Prof. Andrew S. Tanenbaum (ast(a)cs.vu.nl) From: feustel(a)netcom.COM (David Feustel) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 30 Jan 92 18:57:28 GMT Organization: DAFCO - An OS/2 Oasis ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: >I still maintain the point that designing a monolithic kernel in 1991 is >a fundamental error. Be thankful you are not my student. You would not >get a high grade for such a design :-) That's ok. Einstein got lousy grades in math and physics. From: pete(a)ohm.york.ac.uk (-Pete French.) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 31 Jan 92 09:49:37 GMT Organization: Electronics Department, University of York, UK in article <1992Jan30.195850.7023(a)epas.toronto.edu>, meggin(a)epas.utoronto.ca (David Megginson) says: > > In article <1992Jan30.185728.26477feustel(a)netcom.COM> feustel(a)netcom.COM (David > Feustel) writes: >> >>That's ok. Einstein got lousy grades in math and physics. > > And Dan Quayle got low grades in political science. I think that there > are more Dan Quayles than Einsteins out there... ;-) What a horrible thought ! But on the points about microkernel v monolithic, isnt this partly an artifact of the language being used ? MINIX may well be designed as a microkernel system, but in the end you still end up with a large monolithic chunk of binary data that gets loaded in as "the OS". Isnt it written as separate programs simply because C does not support the idea of multiple processes within a single piece of monolithic code. Is there any real difference between a microkernel written as several pieces of C and a monolithic kernel written in something like OCCAM ? I would have thought that in this case the monolithic design would be a better one than the micorkernel style since with the advantage of inbuilt language concurrency the kernel could be made even more modular than the MINIX one is. Anyone for MINOX :-) -bat. From: kt4(a)prism.gatech.EDU (Ken Thompson) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 3 Feb 92 23:07:54 GMT Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology viewpoint may be largely unrelated to its usefulness. Many if not most of the software we use is probably obsolete according to the latest design criteria. Most users could probably care less if the internals of the operating system they use is obsolete. They are rightly more interested in its performance and capabilities at the user level. I would generally agree that microkernels are probably the wave of the future. However, it is in my opinion easier to implement a monolithic kernel. It is also easier for it to turn into a mess in a hurry as it is modified. Regards, Ken From: kevin(a)taronga.taronga.com (Kevin Brown) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 4 Feb 92 08:08:42 GMT Organization: University of Houston In article <47607(a)hydra.gatech.EDU> kt4(a)prism.gatech.EDU (Ken Thompson) writes: >viewpoint may be largely unrelated to its usefulness. Many if not >most of the software we use is probably obsolete according to the >latest design criteria. Most users could probably care less if the >internals of the operating system they use is obsolete. They are >rightly more interested in its performance and capabilities at the >user level. > >I would generally agree that microkernels are probably the wave of >the future. However, it is in my opinion easier to implement a >monolithic kernel. It is also easier for it to turn into a mess in >a hurry as it is modified. How difficult is it to structure the source tree of a monolithic kernel such that most modifications don't have a large negative impact on the source? What sorts of pitfalls do you run into in this sort of endeavor, and what suggestions do you have for dealing with them? I guess what I'm asking is: how difficult is it to organize the source such that most changes to the kernel remain localized in scope, even though the kernel itself is monolithic? I figure you've got years of experience with monolithic kernels :-), so I'd think you'd have the best shot at answering questions like these. Kevin Brown From: rburns(a)finess.Corp.Sun.COM (Randy Burns) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 30 Jan 92 20:33:07 GMT Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca. In article <12615(a)star.cs.vu.nl> ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: >In article <1992Jan29.231426.20469(a)klaava.Helsinki.FI> torvalds(a)klaava.Helsinki. >FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds) writes: >Of course 5 years from now that will be different, but 5 years from now >everyone will be running free GNU on their 200 MIPS, 64M SPARCstation-5. Well, I for one would _love_ to see this happen. >>The fact is that linux is more portable than minix. What? I hear you >>say. It's true - but not in the sense that ast means: I made linux as >>conformant to standards as I knew how (without having any POSIX standard >>in front of me). Porting things to linux is generally /much/ easier >>than porting them to minix. ......... >My point is that writing a new operating system that is closely tied to any >particular piece of hardware, especially a weird one like the Intel line, >is basically wrong. First off, the parts of Linux tuned most finely to the 80x86 are the Kernel and the devices. My own sense is that even if Linux is simply a stopgap measure to let us all run GNU software, it is still worthwhile to have a a finely tuned kernel for the most numerous architecture presently in existance. > An OS itself should be easily portable to new hardware >platforms. Well, the only part of Linux that isn't portable is the kernel and drivers. Compare to the compilers, utilities, windowing system etc. this is really a small part of the effort. Since Linux has a large degree of call compatibility with portable OS's I wouldn't complain. I'm personally very grateful to have an OS that makes it more likely that some of us will be able to take advantage of the software that has come out of Berkeley, FSF, CMU etc. It may well be that in 2-3 years when ultra cheap BSD variants and Hurd proliferate, that Linux will be obsolete. Still, right now Linux greatly reduces the cost of using tools like gcc, bison, bash which are useful in the development of such an OS. From: torvalds(a)klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 31 Jan 92 10:33:23 GMT Organization: University of Helsinki In article <12615(a)star.cs.vu.nl> ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: >The limitations of MINIX relate at least partly to my being a professor: >An explicit design goal was to make it run on cheap hardware so students >could afford it. All right: a real technical point, and one that made some of my comments inexcusable. But at the same time you shoot yourself in the foot a bit: now you admit that some of the errors of minix were that it was too portable: including machines that weren't really designed to run unix. That assumption lead to the fact that minix now cannot easily be extended to have things like paging, even for machines that would support it. Yes, minix is portable, but you can rewrite that as "doesn't use any features", and still be right. >A multithreaded file system is only a performance hack. Not true. It's a performance hack /on a microkernel/, but it's an automatic feature when you write a monolithic kernel - one area where microkernels don't work too well (as I pointed out in my personal mail to ast). When writing a unix the "obsolete" way, you automatically get a multithreaded kernel: every process does it's own job, and you don't have to make ugly things like message queues to make it work efficiently. Besides, there are people who would consider "only a performance hack" vital: unless you have a cray-3, I'd guess everybody gets tired of waiting on the computer all the time. I know I did with minix (and yes, I do with linux too, but it's /much/ better). >I still maintain the point that designing a monolithic kernel in 1991 is >a fundamental error. Be thankful you are not my student. You would not >get a high grade for such a design :-) Well, I probably won't get too good grades even without you: I had an argument (completely unrelated - not even pertaining to OS's) with the person here at the university that teaches OS design. I wonder when I'll learn :) >My point is that writing a new operating system that is closely tied to any >particular piece of hardware, especially a weird one like the Intel line, >is basically wrong. But /my/ point is that the operating system /isn't/ tied to any processor line: UNIX runs on most real processors in existence. Yes, the /implementation/ is hardware-specific, but there's a HUGE difference. You mention OS/360 and MS-DOG as examples of bad designs as they were hardware-dependent, and I agree. But there's a big difference between these and linux: linux API is portable (not due to my clever design, but due to the fact that I decided to go for a fairly- well-thought-out and tested OS: unix.) If you write programs for linux today, you shouldn't have too many surprises when you just recompile them for Hurd in the 21st century. As has been noted (not only by me), the linux kernel is a miniscule part of a complete system: Full sources for linux currently runs to about 200kB compressed - full sources to a somewhat complete developement system is at least 10MB compressed (and easily much, much more). And all of that source is portable, except for this tiny kernel that you can (provably: I did it) re-write totally from scratch in less than a year without having /any/ prior knowledge. In fact the /whole/ linux kernel is much smaller than the 386-dependent things in mach: i386.tar.Z for the current version of mach is well over 800kB compressed (823391 bytes according to nic.funet.fi). Admittedly, mach is "somewhat" bigger and has more features, but that should still tell you something. Linus From: kaufman(a)eecs.nwu.edu (Michael L. Kaufman) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 3 Feb 92 22:27:48 GMT Organization: EECS Department, Northwestern University I tried to send these two posts from work, but I think they got eaten. If you have seen them already, sorry. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Andy Tanenbaum writes an interesting article (also interesting was finding out that he actually reads this group) but I think he is missing an important point. He Wrote: >As most of you know, for me MINIX is a hobby, ... Which is also probably true of most, if not all, of the people who are involved in Linux. We are not developing a system to take over the OS market, we are just having a good time. > What is going to happen > is that they will gradually take over from the 80x86 line. They will > run old MS-DOS programs by interpreting the 80386 in software. Well when this happens, if I still want to play with Linux, I can just run it on my 386 simulator. > MINIX was designed to be reasonably portable, and has been ported from the > Intel line to the 680x0 (Atari, Amiga, Macintosh), SPARC, and NS32016. > LINUX is tied fairly closely to the 80x86. Not the way to go. That's fine for the people who have those machines, but it wasn't a free lunch. That portibility was gained at the cost of some performance and some features on the 386. Before you decide that LINUX is not the way to go, you should think about what it is going to be used for. I am going to use it for running memory and computation intensive graphics programs on my 486. For me, speed and memory were more important then future state-of-the-artness and portability. >But in all honesty, I would >suggest that people who want a **MODERN** "free" OS look around for a >microkernel-based, portable OS, like maybe GNU or something like that. I don't know of any free microkernel-based, portable OSes. GNU is still vaporware, and likely to remain that way for the forseeable future. Do you actually have one to recomend, or are you just toying with me? ;-) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ In article <12615(a)star.cs.vu.nl> ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: >My point is that writing a new operating system that is closely tied to any >particular piece of hardware, especially a weird one like the Intel line, >is basically wrong. An OS itself should be easily portable to new hardware >platforms. I think I see where I disagree with you now. You are looking at OS design as an end in itself. Minix is good because it is portable/Micro-Kernal/etc. Linux is not good because it is monolithic/tightly tied to Intel/etc. That is not a strange attitude for someone in the acedemic world, but it is not something you should expect to be universally shared. Linux is not being written as a teaching tool, or as an abstract exercise. It is being written to allow people to run GNU-type software _today_. The fact that it may not be in use in five years is less important then the fact that today (well, by April probably) I can run all sorts of software on it that I want to run. You keep saying that Minix is better, but if it will not run the software that I want to run, it really isn't that good (for me) at all. > When OS/360 was written in assembler for the IBM 360 >25 years ago, they probably could be excused. When MS-DOS was written >specifically for the 8088 ten years ago, this was less than brilliant, as >IBM and Microsoft now only too painfully realize. Same point. MSoft did not come out with Dos to "explore the frontiers of os research". They did it to make a buck. And considering the fact that MS-DOS probably still outsells everyone else put together, I don't think that you say that they have failed _in their goals_. Not that MS-Dos is the best OS in terms of anything else, only that it has served their needs. Michael From: julien(a)incal.inria.fr (Julien Maisonneuve) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 3 Feb 92 17:10:14 GMT I would like to second Kevin brown in most of his remarks. I'll add a few user points : - When ast states that FS multithreading is useless, it reminds me of the many times I tried to let a job run in the background (like when reading an archive on a floppy), it is just unusable, the & shell operator could even have been left out. - Most interesting utilities are not even compilable under Minix because of the ATK compiler's incredible limits. Those were hardly understandable on a basic PC, but become absurd on a 386. Every stupid DOS compiler has a large model (more expensive, OK). I hate the 13 bit compress ! - The lack of Virtual Memory support prevents people studying this area to experiment, and prevents users to use large programs. The strange design of the MM also makes it hard to modify. The problem is that even doing exploratory work under minix is painful. If you want to get any work done (or even fun), even DOS is becoming a better alternative (with things like DJ GPP). In its basic form, it is really no more than OS course example, a good toy, but a toy. Obtaining and applying patches is a pain, and precludes further upgrades. Too bad when not so much is missing to make it really good. Thanks for the work andy, but Linux didn't deserve your answer. For the common people, it does many things better than Minix. Julien Maisonneuve. This is not a flame, just my experience. From: richard(a)aiai.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 4 Feb 92 14:46:49 GMT Reply-To: richard(a)aiai.UUCP (Richard Tobin) Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland In article <12615(a)star.cs.vu.nl> ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: >A multithreaded file system is only a performance hack. When there is only >one job active, the normal case on a small PC, it buys you nothing I find the single-threaded file system a serious pain when using Minix. I often want to do something else while reading files from the (excruciatingly slow) floppy disk. I rather like to play rogue while waiting for large C or Lisp compilations. I look to look at files in one editor buffer while compiling in another. (The problem would be somewhat less if the file system stuck to serving files and didn't interact with terminal i/o.) Of course, in basic Minix with no virtual consoles and no chance of running emacs, this isn't much of a problem. But to most people that's a failure, not an advantage. It just isn't the case that on single-user machines there's no use for more than one active process; the idea only has any plausibility because so many people are used to poor machines with poor operating systems. As to portability, Minix only wins because of its limited ambitions. If you wanted a full-featured Unix with paging, job-control, a window system and so on, would it be quicker to start from basic Minix and add the features, or to start from Linux and fix the 386-specific bits? I don't think it's fair to criticise Linux when its aims are so different from Minix's. If you want a system for pedagogical use, Minix is the answer. But if what you want is an environment as much like (say) a Sun as possible on your home computer, it has some deficiencies. -- Richard From: ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 5 Feb 92 14:48:48 GMT Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam In article <6121(a)skye.ed.ac.uk> richard(a)aiai.UUCP (Richard Tobin) writes: >If you wanted a full-featured Unix with paging, job-control, a window >system and so on, would it be quicker to start from basic Minix and >add the features, or to start from Linux and fix the 386-specific >bits? Another option that seems to be totally forgotten here is buy UNIX or a clone. If you just want to USE the system, instead of hacking on its internals, you don't need source code. Coherent is only $99, and there are various true UNIX systems with more features for more money. For the true hacker, not having source code is fatal, but for people who just want a UNIX system, there are many alternatives (albeit not free). Andy Tanenbaum (ast(a)cs.vul.nl) From: ajt(a)doc.ic.ac.uk (Tony Travis) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 6 Feb 92 02:17:13 GMT Organization: Department of Computing, Imperial College, University of London, UK. ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: > Another option that seems to be totally forgotten here is buy UNIX or a > clone. If you just want to USE the system, instead of hacking on its > internals, you don't need source code. Coherent is only $99, and there > are various true UNIX systems with more features for more money. For the > true hacker, not having source code is fatal, but for people who just > want a UNIX system, there are many alternatives (albeit not free). Andy, I have followed the development of Minix since the first messages were posted to this group and I am now running 1.5.10 with Bruce Evans's patches for the 386. I 'just' want a Unix on my PC and I am not interested in hacking on its internals, but I *do* want the source code! An important principle underlying the success and popularity of Unix is the philosophy of building on the work of others. This philosophy relies upon the availability of the source code in order that it can be examined, modified and re-used in new software. Many years ago, I was in the happy position of being an AT&T Seventh Edition Unix source licencee but, even then, I saw your decision to make the source of Minix available as liberation from the shackles of AT&T copyright!! I think you may sometimes forget that your 'hobby' has had a profound effect on the availability of 'personal' Unix (ie. affordable Unix) and that the 8086 PC I ran Minix 1.2 on actually cost me considerably more than my present 386/SX clone. Clearly, Minix _cannot_ be all things to all men, but I see the progress to 386 versions in much the same way that I see 68000 or other linear address space architectures: it is a good thing for people like me who use Minix and feel constrained by the segmented architecture of the PC version for applications. NOTHING you can say would convince me that I should use Coherent ... Tony From: richard(a)aiai.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 7 Feb 92 14:58:22 GMT Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland In article <12696(a)star.cs.vu.nl> ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: >If you just want to USE the system, instead of hacking on its >internals, you don't need source code. Unfortunately hacking on the internals is just what many of us want the system for... You'll be rid of most of us when BSD-detox or GNU comes out, which should happen in the next few months (yeah, right). -- Richard From: comm121(a)unixg.ubc.ca (Louie) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 30 Jan 92 02:55:22 GMT Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada In <12595(a)star.cs.vu.nl> ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: >But in all honesty, I would >suggest that people who want a **MODERN** "free" OS look around for a >microkernel-based, portable OS, like maybe GNU or something like that. There are really no other alternatives other than Linux for people like me who want a "free" OS. Considering that the majority of people who would use a "free" OS use the 386, portability is really not all that big of a concern. If I had a Sparc I would use Solaris. As it stands, I installed Linux with gcc, emacs 18.57, kermit and all of the GNU utilities without any trouble at all. No need to apply patches. I just followed the installation instructions. I can't get an OS like this *anywhere* for the price to do my Computer Science homework. And it seems like network support and then X-Windows will be ported to Linux well before Minix. This is something that would be really useful. In my opinion, portability of standard Unix software is important also. I know that the design using a monolithic system is not as good as the microkernel. But for the short term future (And I know I won't/can't be uprading from my 386), Linux suits me perfectly. Philip Wu pwu(a)unixg.ubc.ca From: dgraham(a)bmers30.bnr.ca (Douglas Graham) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 1 Feb 92 00:26:30 GMT Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada In article <12595(a)star.cs.vu.nl> ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: > While I could go into a long story here about the relative merits of the > two designs, suffice it to say that among the people who actually design > operating systems, the debate is essentially over. Microkernels have won. Can you recommend any (unbiased) literature that points out the strengths and weaknesses of the two approaches? I'm sure that there is something to be said for the microkernel approach, but I wonder how closely Minix resembles the other systems that use it. Sure, Minix uses lots of tasks and messages, but there must be more to a microkernel architecture than that. I suspect that the Minix code is not split optimally into tasks. > The only real argument for monolithic systems was performance, and there > is now enough evidence showing that microkernel systems can be just as > fast as monolithic systems (e.g., Rick Rashid has published papers comparing > Mach 3.0 to monolithic systems) that it is now all over but the shoutin`. My main complaint with Minix is not it's performance. It is that adding features is a royal pain -- something that I presume a microkernel architecure is supposed to alleviate. > MINIX is a microkernel-based system. Is there a consensus on this? > LINUX is > a monolithic style system. This is a giant step back into the 1970s. > That is like taking an existing, working C program and rewriting it in > BASIC. To me, writing a monolithic system in 1991 is a truly poor idea. This is a fine assertion, but I've yet to see any rationale for it. Linux is only about 12000 lines of code I think. I don't see how splitting that into tasks and blasting messages around would improve it. >Don't get me wrong, I am not unhappy with LINUX. It will get all the people >who want to turn MINIX in BSD UNIX off my back. But in all honesty, I would >suggest that people who want a **MODERN** "free" OS look around for a >microkernel-based, portable OS, like maybe GNU or something like that. Well, there are no other choices that I'm aware of at the moment. But when GNU OS comes out, I'll very likely jump ship again. I sense that you *are* somewhat unhappy about Linux (and that surprises me somewhat). I would guess that the reason so many people embraced it, is because it offers more features. Your approach to people requesting features in Minix, has generally been to tell them that they didn't really want that feature anyway. I submit that the exodus in the direction of Linux proves you wrong. Disclaimer: I had nothing to do with Linux development. I just find it an easier system to understand than Minix. -- Doug Graham dgraham(a)bnr.ca My opinions are my own. From: hedrick(a)klinzhai.rutgers.edu (Charles Hedrick) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 1 Feb 92 00:27:04 GMT Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. The history of software shows that availability wins out over technical quality every time. That's Linux' major advantage. It's a small 386-based system that's fairly compatible with generic Unix, and is freely available. I dropped out of the Minix community a couple of years ago when it became clear that (1) Minix was not going to take advantage of anything beyond the 8086 anytime in the near future, and (2) the licensing -- while amazingly friendly -- still made it hard for people who were interested in producing a 386 version. Several people apparently did nice work for the 386. But all they could distribute were diffs. This made bringing up a 386 system a job that isn't practical for a new user, and in fact I wasn't sure I wanted to do it. I apologize if things have changed in the last couple of years. If it's now possible to get a 386 version in a form that's ready to run, the community has developed a way to share Minix source, and bringing up normal Unix programs has become easier in the interim, then I'm willing to reconsider Minix. I do like its design. It's possible that Linux will be overtaken by Gnu or a free BSD. However, if the Gnu OS follows the example of all other Gnu software, it will require a system with 128MB of memory and a 1GB disk to use. There will still be room for a small system. My ideal OS would be 4.4 BSD. But 4.4's release date has a history of extreme slippage. With most of their staff moving to BSDI, it's hard to believe that this situation is going to be improved. For my own personal use, the BSDI system will probably be great. But even their very attractive pricing is likely to be too much for most of our students, and even though users can get source from them, the fact that some of it is proprietary will again mean that you can't just put altered code out for public FTP. At any rate, Linux exists, and the rest of these alternatives are vapor. From: tytso(a)athena.mit.edu (Theodore Y. Ts'o) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 31 Jan 92 21:40:23 GMT Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology In-Reply-To: ast(a)cs.vu.nl's message of 29 Jan 92 12: 12:50 GMT >From: ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) >ftp.cs.vu.nl = 192.31.231.42 in dir minix/simulator.) I think it is a >gross error to design an OS for any specific architecture, since that is >not going to be around all that long. It's not your fault for believing that Linux is tied to the 80386 architecture, since many Linux supporters (including Linus himself) have made the this statement. However, the amount of 80386-specific code is probably not much more than what is in a Minix implementation, and there is certainly a lot less 80386 specific code in Linux than here is Vax-specific code in BSD 4.3. Granted, the port to other architectures hasn't been done yet. But if I were going to bring up a Unix-like system on a new architecture, I'd probably start with Linux rather than Minix, simply because I want to have some control over what I can do with the resulting system when I'm done with it. Yes, I'd have to rewrite large portions of the VM and device driver layers --- but I'd have to do that with any other OS. Maybe it would be a little bit harder than it would to port Minix to the new architecture; but this would probably be only true for the first architecture that we ported Linux to. >While I could go into a long story here about the relative merits of the >two designs, suffice it to say that among the people who actually design >operating systems, the debate is essentially over. Microkernels have won. >The only real argument for monolithic systems was performance, and there >is now enough evidence showing that microkernel systems can be just as >fast as monolithic systems (e.g., Rick Rashid has published papers comparing >Mach 3.0 to monolithic systems) that it is now all over but the shoutin'. This is not necessarily the case; I think you're painting a much more black and white view of the universe than necessarily exists. I refer you to such papers as Brent Welsh's (welch(a)parc.xerox.com) "The Filsystem Belongs in the Kernel" paper, where in he argues that the filesystem is a mature enough abstraction that it should live in the kernel, not outside of it as it would in a strict microkernel design. There also several people who have been concerned about the speed of OSF/1 Mach when compared with monolithic systems; in particular, the nubmer of context switches required to handle network traffic, and networked filesystems in particular. I am aware of the benefits of a micro kernel approach. However, the fact remains that Linux is here, and GNU isn't --- and people have been working on Hurd for a lot longer than Linus has been working on Linux. Minix doesn't count because it's not free. :-) I suspect that the balance of micro kernels versus monolithic kernels depend on what you're doing. If you're interested in doing research, it is obviously much easier to rip out and replace modules in a micro kernel, and since only researchers write papers about operating systems, ipso facto micro kernels must be the right approach. However, I do know a lot of people who are not researchers, but who are rather practical kernel programmers, who have a lot of concerns over the cost of copying and the cost of context switches which are incurred in a micro kernel. By the way, I don't buy your arguments that you don't need a multi-threaded filesystem on a single user system. Once you bring up a windowing system, and have a compile going in one window, a news reader in another window, and UUCP/C News going in the background, you want good filesystem performance, even on a single-user system. Maybe to a theorist it's an unnecessary optimization and a (to use your words) "performance hack", but I'm interested in a Real operating system --- not a research toy. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Theodore Ts'o bloom-beacon!mit-athena!tytso 308 High St., Medford, MA 02155 tytso(a)athena.mit.edu Everybody's playing the game, but nobody's rules are the same! From: joe(a)jshark.rn.com Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 31 Jan 92 13:21:44 GMT Organization: a blip of entropy In article <12595(a)star.cs.vu.nl> ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: > > MINIX was designed to be reasonably portable, and has been ported from the > Intel line to the 680x0 (Atari, Amiga, Macintosh), SPARC, and NS32016. > LINUX is tied fairly closely to the 80x86. Not the way to go. If you looked at the source instead of believing the author, you'd realise this is not true! He's replaced 'fubyte' by a routine which explicitly uses a segment register - but that could be easily changed. Similarly, apart from a couple of places which assume the '386 MMU, a couple of macros to hide the exact page sizes etc would make porting trivial. Using '386 TSS's makes the code simpler, but the VAX and WE32000 have similar structures. As he's already admitted, a bit of planning would have the the system neater, but merely putting '386 assembler around isn't a crime! And with all due respect: - the Book didn't make an issue of portability (apart from a few "#ifdef M8088"s) - by the time it was released, Minix had come to depend on several 8086 "features" that caused uproar from the 68000 users. >Andy Tanenbaum (ast(a)cs.vu.nl) joe. From: entropy(a)wintermute.WPI.EDU (Lawrence C. Foard) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 5 Feb 92 14:56:30 GMT Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute In article <12595(a)star.cs.vu.nl> ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: >Don`t get me wrong, I am not unhappy with LINUX. It will get all the people >who want to turn MINIX in BSD UNIX off my back. But in all honesty, I would >suggest that people who want a **MODERN** "free" OS look around for a >microkernel-based, portable OS, like maybe GNU or something like that. I believe you have some valid points, although I am not sure that a microkernel is necessarily better. It might make more sense to allow some combination of the two. As part of the IPC code I'm writting for Linux I am going to include code that will allow device drivers and file systems to run as user processes. These will be significantly slower though, and I believe it would be a mistake to move everything outside the kernel (TCP/IP will be internal). Actually my main problem with OS theorists is that they have never tested there ideas! None of these ideas (with a partial exception for MACH) has ever seen the light of day. 32 bit home computers have been available for almost a decade and Linus was the first person to ever write a working OS for them that can be used without paying AT&T $100,000. A piece of software in hand is worth ten pieces of vaporware, OS theorists are quick to jump all over an OS but they are unwilling to ever provide an alternative. The general consensus that Micro kernels is the way to go means nothing when a real application has never even run on one. The release of Linux is allowing me to try some ideas I've been wanting to experment with for years, but I have never had the opportunity to work with source code for a functioning OS. From: ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 5 Feb 92 23:33:23 GMT Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam In article <1992Feb5.145630.759(a)wpi.WPI.EDU> entropy(a)wintermute.WPI.EDU (Lawrence C. Foard) writes: >Actually my main problem with OS theorists is that they have never tested >there ideas! I'm mortally insulted. I AM NOT A THEORIST. Ask anybody who was at our department meeting yesterday (in joke). Actually, these ideas have been very well tested in practice. OSF is betting its whole business on a microkernel (Mach 3.0). USL is betting its business on another one (Chorus). Both of these run lots of software, and both have been extensively compared to monolithic systems. Amoeba has been fully implemented and tested for a number of applications. QNX is a microkernel based system, and someone just told me the installed base is 200,000 systems. Microkernels are not a pipe dream. They represent proven technology. The Mach guys wrote a paper called "UNIX as an application program." It was by Golub et al., in the Summer 1990 USENIX conference. The Chorus people also have a technical report on microkernel performance, and I coauthored another paper on the subject, which I mentioned yesterday (Dec. 1991 Computing Systems). Check them out. Andy Tanenbaum (ast(a)cs.vu.nl) From: peter(a)ferranti.com (peter da silva) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1992 16:02:47 GMT In article <12747(a)star.cs.vu.nl> ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: > QNX is a microkernel > based system, and someone just told me the installed base is 200,000 systems. Oh yes, while I'm on the subject... there are over 3 million Amigas out there, which means that there are more of them than any UNIX vendor has shipped, and probably more than all UNIX systems combined. From: peter(a)ferranti.com (peter da silva) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1992 16:00:22 GMT In article <1992Feb5.145630.759(a)wpi.WPI.EDU> entropy(a)wintermute.WPI.EDU (Lawrence C. Foard) writes: > Actually my main problem with OS theorists is that they have never tested > there ideas! I beg to differ... there are many microkernel operating systems out there for everything from an 8088 (QNX) up to large research systems. > None of these ideas (with a partial exception for MACH) has ever > seen the light of day. 32 bit home computers have been available for almost a > decade and Linus was the first person to ever write a working OS for them > that can be used without paying AT&T $100,000. I must have been imagining AmigaOS, then. I've been using a figment of my imagination for the past 6 years. AmigaOS is a microkernel message-passing design, with better response time and performance than any other readily available PC operating system: including MINIX, OS/2, Windows, MacOS, Linux, UNIX, and *certainly* MS-DOS. The microkernel design has proven invaluable. Things like new file systems that are normally available only from the vendor are hobbyist products on the Amiga. Device drivers are simply shared libraries and tasks with specific entry points and message ports. So are file systems, the window system, and so on. It's a WONDERFUL design, and validates everything that people have been saying about microkernels. Yes, it takes more work to get them off the ground than a coroutine based macrokernel like UNIX, but the versatility pays you back many times over. I really wish Andy would do a new MINIX based on what has been learned since the first release. The factoring of responsibilities in MINIX is fairly poor, but the basic concept is good. > The general consensus that Micro kernels is the way to go means nothing when > a real application has never even run on one. I'm dreaming again. I sure throught Deluxe Paint, Sculpt 3d, Photon Paint, Manx C, Manx SDB, Perfect Sound, Videoscape 3d, and the other programs I bought for my Amiga were "real". I'll have to send the damn things back now, I guess. The availability of Linux is great. I'm delighted it exists. I'm sure that the macrokernel design is one reason it has been implemented so fast, and this is a valid reason to use macrokernels. BUT... this doesn't mean that microkernels are inherently slow, or simply research toys. From: dsmythe(a)netcom.COM (Dave Smythe) Subject: Re: LINUX is obsolete Date: 10 Feb 92 07:08:22 GMT Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest) In article <1992Feb5.145630.759(a)wpi.WPI.EDU> entropy(a)wintermute.WPI.EDU (Lawrence C. Foard) writes: >Actually my main problem with OS theorists is that they have never tested >there ideas! None of these ideas (with a partial exception for MACH) has ever >seen the light of day. David Cheriton (Prof. at Stanford, and author of the V system) said something similar to this in a class in distributed systems. Paraphrased: "There are two kinds of researchers: those that have implemented something and those that have not. The latter will tell you that there are 142 ways of doing things and that there isn't consensus on which is best. The former will simply tell you that 141 of them don't work." He really rips on the OSI-philes as well, for a similar reason. The Internet protocols are adapted only after having been in use for a period of time, preventing things from getting standardized that will never be implementable in a reasonable fashion. OSI adherents, on the other hand, seem intent on standardizing everything possible, including "escapes" from the standard, before a reasonable reference implementation exists. Consequently, you see obsolete ideas immortalized, such as sub-byte-level data field packing, which makes good performance difficult when your computer is drinking from a 10+ Gbs fire-hose :-). Just my $.02 D From: torvalds(a)klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds) Subject: Apologies (was Re: LINUX is obsolete) Date: 30 Jan 92 15:38:16 GMT Organization: University of Helsinki In article <1992Jan29.231426.20469(a)klaava.Helsinki.FI> I wrote: >Well, with a subject like this, I'm afraid I'll have to reply. And reply I did, with complete abandon, and no thought for good taste and netiquette. Apologies to ast, and thanks to John Nall for a friendy "that's not how it's done"-letter. I over-reacted, and am now composing a (much less acerbic) personal letter to ast. Hope nobody was turned away from linux due to it being (a) possibly obsolete (I still think that's not the case, although some of the criticisms are valid) and (b) written by a hothead :-) Linus "my first, and hopefully last flamefest" Torvalds From: pmacdona@sanjuan (Peter MacDonald) Subject: re: Linux is obsolete Date: 1 Feb 92 02:10:06 GMT Organization: University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, CANADA Since I think I posted one of the earliest messages in all this discussion of Minix vs Linux, I feel compelled to comment on my reasons for switching from Minix to Linux. In order of importance they are: 1) Linux is free 2) Linux is evolving at a satisfactory clip (because new features are accepted into the distribution by Linus). The first requires some explanation, because if I have already purchased Minix, what posssible concern could price have for me? Simple. If the OS is free, many more people will use/support/enhance it. This is also the same reasoning I used when I bought my 386 instead of a sparc (which I could have got for just 30% more). Since PCs are cheap and generally available, more people will buy/use them and thus good, cheap/free software will be abundant. The second should be pretty obvious to anyone who has been using Minix for for any period of time. AST generally does not accept enhancements to Minix. This is not meant as a challenge, but merely a statement of fact. AST has good and legitimate reasons for this, and I do not dispute them. But Minix has some limitations which I just could no longer live with, and due to this policy, the prospect of seeing them resolved in reasonable time was unsatisfactory. These limitations include: no 386 support no virtual consoles no soft links no select call no ptys no demand paging/swapping/shared-text/shared-libs... (efficient mm) chmem (inflexible mm) no X-Windows (advocated for the same reasons as Linux and the 386). no TCP/IP no GNU/SysV integration (portability) Some of these could be fixed by patches (and if you have done this yourself, I don't have to tell you how satisfactory that is), but at least the last 5 items were/are beyond any reasonable expectation. Finally, my comment (crack?) about Minix's segmented kernel, or micro-kernel architecture was more an expression of my frustration/ bewilderment at attempting to use the Minix PTY patches as a guide of how to do it under Linux. That particular instance was one where message passing greatly complicated the implementation of a feature. I do have an opinion about Monlithic vs Message Passing, but won't express it now, and did not mean to expresss it then. My goals are totally short term (maximum functionality in the minimum amount of time/cost/hassle), and so my views on this are irrelevant, and should not be misconstrued. If you are non-plussed by the lack of the above features, then you should consider Minix, as long as you don't mind paying of course :) From: olaf(a)oski.toppoint.de (Olaf Schlueter) Subject: Re: Linux is obsolete Date: 7 Feb 92 11:41:44 GMT Organization: Toppoint Mailbox e.V. Just a few comments to the discussion of Linux vs Minix, which evolved partly to a discussion of monolithic vs micro-kernel. I think there will be no aggreement between the two parties advocating either concept, if they forget, that Linux and Minix have been designed for different applications. If you want a cheap, powerful and enhancable Unix system running on a single machine, with the possibility to adapt standard Unix software without pain, then Linux is for you. If you are interested in modern operating system concepts, and want to learn how a microkernel based system works, then Minix is the better choice. It is not an argument against microkernel system, that for the time being monolithic implemenations of Unix on PCs have a better performance. This means only, that Unix is maybe better implemented as a monolithic OS, at least as long as it runs on a single machine. From the users point of view, the internal design of the OS doesn't matter at all. Until it comes to networks. On the monolithic approach, a file server will become a user process based on some hardware facility like ethernet. Programs which want to use this facility will have to use special libraries which offer the calls for communication with this server. In a microkernel system it is possible to incorporate the server into the OS without the need for new "system" calls. From the users point of view this has the advantage, that nothing changes, he just gets better performance (in terms of more disk space for example). >From the implementors point of view, the microkernel system is faster adaptable to changes in hardware design. It has been critized, that AST rejects any improvements to Minix. As he is interested in the educational value of Minix, I understand his argument, that he wants to keep the code simple, and don't want to overload it with features. As an educational tool, Minix is written as a microkernel system, although it is running on hardware platforms, who will probably better perform with a monolithic OS. But the area of network applications is growing and modern OS like Amoeba or Plan 9 cannot be written as monolithic systems. So Minix has been written with the intention to give students a practical example of a microkernel OS, to let them play with tasks and messages. It was not the idea to give a lot of people a cheap, powerful OS for a tenth of the price of SYSV or BSD implementations. Resumee: Linux is not better than Minix, or the other way round. They are different for good reasons. From: meggin(a)epas.utoronto.ca (David Megginson) Subject: Mach/Minix/Linux/Gnu etc. Date: 1 Feb 92 17:11:03 GMT Organization: University of Toronto - EPAS Well, this has been a fun discussion. I am absolutely convinced by Prof. Tanenbaum that a micro-kernel _is_ the way to go, but the more I look at the Minix source, the less I believe that it is a micro-kernel. I would probably not bother porting Linux to the M68000, but I want more services than Minix can offer. What about a micro-kernel which is message/syscall compatible with MACH? It doesn't actually have to do everything that MACH does, like virtual memory paging -- it just has to _look_ like MACH from the outside, to fool programs like the future Gnu Unix-emulator, BSD, etc. This would extend the useful lives of our M68000- or 80286-based machines for a little longer. In the meantime, I will probably stay with Minix for my ST rather than switching back to MiNT -- after all, Minix at least looks like Unix, while MiNT looks like TOS trying to look like Unix (it has to, to be TOS compatible). David From: peter(a)ferranti.com (peter da silva) Newsgroups: comp.os.minix Subject: What good does this war do? (Re: LINUX is obsolete) Date: 3 Feb 92 16:37:24 GMT Organization: Xenix Support, FICC Will you quit flaming each other? I mean, linux is designed to provide a reasonably high performance environment on a hardware platform crippled by years of backwards-compatible kludges. Minix is designed as a teaching tool. Neither is that good at doing the other's job, and why should they? The fact that Minix runs out of steam quickly (and it does) isn't a problem in its chosen mileau. It's sure better than the TOY operating system. The fact that Linux isn't transportable beyond the 386/AT platform isn't a problem when there are millions of them out there (and quite cheap: you can get a 386/SX for well under $1000). A monolithic kernel is easy enough to build that it's worth doing it if it gets a system out the door early. Think of it as a performance hack for programmer time. The API is portable. You can replace the kernel with a microkernel design (and MINIX isn't the be-all and end-all of microkernel designs either: even for low end PCs... look at AmigaOS) without disturbing the applications. That's the whole point of a portable API in the first place. Microkernels are definitely a better design for many tasks. I takes more work to make them efficient, so a simpler design that doesn't take advantage of the microkernel in any real way is worth doing for pedagogical reasons. Think of it as a performance hack for student time. The design is still good and when you can get an API to the microkernel interface you can get VERY impressive performance (thousands of context switches per second on an 8 MHz 68000). From: ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) Subject: Unhappy campers Date: 3 Feb 92 22:46:40 GMT Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam I've been getting a bit of mail lately from unhappy campers. (Actually 10 messages from the 43,000 readers may seem like a lot, but it is not really.) There seem to be three sticking points: 1. Monolithic kernels are just as good as microkernels 2. Portability isn't so important 3. Software ought to be free If people want to have a serious discussion of microkernels vs. monolithic kernels, fine. We can do that in comp.os.research. But please don't sound off if you have no idea of what you are talking about. I have helped design and implement 3 operating systems, one monolithic and two micro, and have studied many others in detail. Many of the arguments offered are nonstarters (e.g., microkernels are no good because you can't do paging in user space-- except that Mach DOES do paging in user space). If you don't know much about microkernels vs. monolithic kernels, there is some useful information in a paper I coauthored with Fred Douglis, Frans Kaashoek and John Ousterhout in the Dec. 1991 issue of COMPUTING SYSTEMS, the USENIX journal). If you don't have that journal, you can FTP the paper from ftp.cs.vu.nl (192.31.231.42) in directory amoeba/papers as comp_sys.tex.Z (compressed TeX source) or comp_sys.ps.Z (compressed PostScript). The paper gives actual performance measurements and supports Rick Rashid's conclusion that microkernel based systems are just as efficient as monolithic kernels. As to portability, there is hardly any serious discussion possible any more. UNIX has been ported to everything from PCs to Crays. Writing a portable OS is not much harder than a nonportable one, and all systems should be written with portability in mind these days. Surely Linus' OS professor pointed this out. Making OS code portable is not something I invented in 1987. While most people can talk rationally about kernel design and portability, the issue of free-ness is 100% emotional. You wouldn't believe how much [expletive deleted] I have gotten lately about MINIX not being free. MINIX costs $169, but the license allows making two backup copies, so the effective price can be under $60. Furthermore, professors may make UNLIMITED copies for their students. Coherent is $99. FSF charges >$100 for the tape its "free" software comes on if you don't have Internet access, and I have never heard anyone complain. 4.4 BSD is $800. I don't really believe money is the issue. Besides, probably most of the people reading this group already have it. A point which I don't think everyone appreciates is that making something available by FTP is not necessarily the way to provide the widest distribution. The Internet is still a highly elite group. Most computer users are NOT on it. It is my understanding from PH that the country where MINIX is most widely used is Germany, not the U.S., mostly because one of the (commercial) German computer magazines has been actively pushing it. MINIX is also widely used in Eastern Europe, Japan, Israel, South America, etc. Most of these people would never have gotten it if there hadn't been a company selling it. Getting back to what "free" means, what about free source code? Coherent is binary only, but MINIX has source code, just as LINUX does. You can change it any way you want, and post the changes here. People have been doing that for 5 years without problems. I have been giving free updates for years, too. I think the real issue is something else. I've been repeatedly offered virtual memory, paging, symbolic links, window systems, and all manner of features. I have usually declined because I am still trying to keep the system simple enough for students to understand. You can put all this stuff in your version, but I won't put it in mine. I think it is this point which irks the people who say "MINIX is not free," not the $60. An interesting question is whether Linus is willing to let LINUX become "free" of his control. May people modify it (ruin it?) and sell it? Remember the hundreds of messages with subject "Re: Your software sold for money" when it was discovered the MINIX Centre in England was selling diskettes with news postings, more or less at cost? Suppose Fred van Kempen returns from the dead and wants to take over, creating Fred's LINUX and Linus' LINUX, both useful but different. Is that ok? The test comes when a sizable group of people want to evolve LINUX in a way Linus does not want. Until that actually happens the point is moot, however. If you like Linus' philosophy rather than mine, by all means, follow him, but please don't claim that you're doing this because LINUX is "free." Just say that you want a system with lots of bells and whistles. Fine. Your choice. I have no argument with that. Just tell the truth. As an aside, for those folks who don't read news headers, Linus is in Finland and I am in The Netherlands. Are we reaching a situation where another critical industry, free software, that had been totally dominated by the U.S. is being taken over by the foreign competition? Will we soon see President Bush coming to Europe with Richard Stallman and Rick Rashid in tow, demanding that Europe import more American free software? Andy Tanenbaum (ast(a)cs.vu.nl) From: ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) Subject: Re: Unhappy campers Date: 5 Feb 92 23:23:26 GMT Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam In article <205(a)fishpond.uucp> fnf(a)fishpond.uucp (Fred Fish) writes: >If PH was not granted a monopoly on distribution, it would have been possible >for all of the interested minix hackers to organize and set up a group that >was dedicated to producing enhanced-minix. This aim of this group could have >been to produce a single, supported version of minix with all of the commonly >requested enhancements. This would have allowed minix to evolve in much the >same way that gcc has evolved over the last few years. This IS possible. If a group of people wants to do this, that is fine. I think co-ordinating 1000 prima donnas living all over the world will be as easy as herding cats, but there is no legal problem. When a new release is ready, just make a diff listing against 1.5 and post it or make it FTPable. While this will require some work on the part of the users to install it, it isn't that much work. Besides, I have shell scripts to make the diffs and install them. This is what Fred van Kempen was doing. What he did wrong was insist on the right to publish the new version, rather than diffs against the PH baseline. That cuts PH out of the loop, which, not surprisingly, they weren't wild about. If people still want to do this, go ahead. Of course, I am not necessarily going to put any of these changes in my version, so there is some work keeping the official and enhanced ones in sync, but I am willing to co-operate to minimize work. I did this for a long time with Bruce Evans and Frans Meulenbroeks. If Linus wants to keep control of the official version, and a group of eager beavers want to go off in a different direction, the same problem arises. I don't think the copyright issue is really the problem. The problem is co-ordinating things. Projects like GNU, MINIX, or LINUX only hold together if one person is in charge. During the 1970s, when structured programming was introduced, Harlan Mills pointed out that the programming team should be organized like a surgical team--one surgeon and his or her assistants, not like a hog butchering team--give everybody an axe and let them chop away. Anyone who says you can have a lot of widely dispersed people hack away on a complicated piece of code and avoid total anarchy has never managed a software project. >Where is the sizeable group of people that want to evolve gcc in a way that >rms/FSF does not approve of? A compiler is not something people have much emotional attachment to. If the language to be compiled is a given (e.g., an ANSI standard), there isn't much room for people to invent new features. An operating system has unlimited opportunity for people to implement their own favorite features. Andy Tanenbaum (ast(a)cs.vu.nl) From: torvalds(a)klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds) Subject: Re: Unhappy campers Date: 6 Feb 92 10:33:31 GMT Organization: University of Helsinki In article <12746(a)star.cs.vu.nl> ast(a)cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes: > >If Linus wants to keep control of the official version, and a group of eager >beavers want to go off in a different direction, the same problem arises. This is the second time I've seen this "accusation" from ast, who feels pretty good about commenting on a kernel he probably haven't even seen. Or at least he hasn't asked me, or even read alt.os.linux about this. Just so that nobody takes his guess for the full thruth, here's my standing on "keeping control", in 2 words (three?): I won't. The only control I've effectively been keeping on linux is that I know it better than anybody else, and I've made my changes available to ftp-sites etc. Those have become effectively official releases, and I don't expect this to change for some time: not because I feel I have some moral right to it, but because I haven't heard too many complaints, and it will be a couple of months before I expect to find people who have the same "feel" for what happens in the kernel. (Well, maybe people are getting there: tytso certainly made some heavy changes even to 0.10, and others have hacked it as well) In fact I have sent out feelers about some "linux-kernel" mailing list which would make the decisions about releases, as I expect I cannot fully support all the features that will /have/ to be added: SCSI etc, that I don't have the hardware for. The response has been non-existant: people don't seem to be that eager to change yet. (well, one person felt I should ask around for donations so that I could support it - and if anybody has interesting hardware lying around, I'd be happy to accept it :) The only thing the copyright forbids (and I feel this is eminently reasonable) is that other people start making money off it, and don't make source available etc... This may not be a question of logic, but I'd feel very bad if someone could just sell my work for money, when I made it available expressly so that people could play around with a personal project. I think most people see my point. That aside, if Fred van Kempen wanted to make a super-linux, he's quite wellcome. He won't be able to make much money on it (distribution fee only), and I don't think it's that good an idea to split linux up, but I wouldn't want to stop him even if the copyright let me. >I don't think the copyright issue is really the problem. The problem is >co-ordinating things. Projects like GNU, MINIX, or LINUX only hold together >if one person is in charge. Yes, coordination is a big problem, and I don't think linux will move away from me as "head surgeon" for some time, partly because most people understand about these problems. But copyright /is/ an issue: if people feel I do a bad job, they can do it themselves. Likewise with gcc. The minix copyright, however, means that if someone feels he could make a better minix, he either has to make patches (which aren't that great whatever you say about them) or start off from scratch (and be attacked because you have other ideals). Patches aren't much fun to distribute: I haven't made cdiffs for a single version of linux yet (I expect this to change: soon the patches will be so much smaller than the kernel that making both patches and a complete version available is a good idea - note that I'd still make the whole version available too). Patches upon patches are simply impractical, especially for people that may do changes themselves. >>Where is the sizeable group of people that want to evolve gcc in a way that >>rms/FSF does not approve of? >A compiler is not something people have much emotional attachment to. If >the language to be compiled is a given (e.g., an ANSI standard), there isn't >much room for people to invent new features. An operating system has unlimited >opportunity for people to implement their own favorite features. Well, there's GNU emacs... Don't tell us people haven't got emotional attachment to editors :) Linus From: dmiller(a)acg.uucp (David Miller) Subject: Linux is Obsolete and follow up postings Date: 3 Feb 92 01:03:46 GMT Organization: AppliedComputerGroup As an observer interested in operating system design, I couldn't resist this thread. Please realize that I am not really experienced with minux or linux: I have been into unix for many years. First, a few observations: Minix was written to be an educational tool for ASTs' classes, not a commercial operating system. It was never a design parameter to have it run freely available source code for unix systems. I think it was also a statement of how operating systems should be designed, with a micro kernel and seperate processes covering as much of the required functionality as possible. Linux was written mostly as a learning exercise on Linus part - how to program the 386 family. Designing the ultimate operating system was not an objective. Providing a usable, free platform that would run all sorts of widely available free software was a consideration, and one that appears to have been well met. Criticism from anyone that either of these systems isn't what *they* would like it to be is misplaced. After all, anybody that has a computer that will run either system is free to do what Linus and Andrew did: write your own! I, for one, applaud Linus for his considerable effort in developing Linux and his decision to make it free to everybody. I applaud AST for his effort to make minix affordable - I have real trouble relating to complaints that minix isn't free. If you can afford the time to explore minix, and a basic computer system, $150 is not much more - and you do get a book to go with it. Next, a few questions for the professor: Is minix supposed to be a "real operating system" or an educational tool ? As an educational tool it is an excellent work. As a real operating system it presents some terribly rough edges (why no malloc() ?, just for starters) My feeling from reading The Book and listening to postings here is that you wanted a tool to teach your classes, and a lot of others wanted to play with an affordable operating system. These others have been trying to bolt on enough features to make it a "real operating system", with less than outstanding success. Why split fundemental os functions, such as memory management, into user processes? As all good *nix gurus know, the means to success is to divide and conquer, with the goal being to *simplify* the problem into managable, well defined components. If splitting basic parts of the operating system into user space processes complicates the function by introducing additional mechanisms (message passing, complicated signals), have we met the objective of simplifying the design and implementation? I agree that *nix has suffered a bad case of feature-itis - especially sysVr4. Perhaps the features that people want for either functionality or compatibility could be offered by run-time loadable modules/libraries that offer these features. The micro-kernel would still be a base-level resource manager that also routes function requests to the appropriate module/library. The modules could be threads or user processes. (I think - os hackers please correct me :-) ) Just my $.04 worth - please feel free to post or email responses. I have no formal progressive training in computer science, so I am really asking these questions in ignorance. I suspect a lot of others on the net have similar questions in their own minds, but I've been wrong before. -- David From: michael(a)gandalf.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Michael Haardt) Subject: 1.6.17 summary and why I think AST is right. Date: 6 Feb 92 20:07:25 GMT Reply-To: u31b3hs(a)messua.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Michael Haardt) Organization: Gandalf - a 386-20 machine I will first give a summary of what you can expect from MINIX in *near* future, and then explain why I think AST is right. Some time ago, I asked for details about the next MINIX release (1.6.17). I got some response, but only from people running 1.6.16. The following informations are not official and may be wrong, but they are all I know at the moment. Correct me if something is wrong: - The 1.6.17 patches will be relative to 1.5 as shipped by PH. - The header files are clean. - The two types of filesystems can be used together. - The signal handling is rewritten for POSIX. The old bug is removed. - The ANSI compiler (available from Transmediar, I guess) comes with compiler binaries and new libraries. - There don't seem to be support for the Amoeba network protocol. - times(2) returns a correct value. termios(2) is implemented, but it's more a hack. I don't know if "implemented" means in the kernel, or the current emulation. - There is no documentation about the new filesystem. There is a new fsck and a new mkfs, don't know about de. - With the ANSI compiler, there is better floating point support. - The scheduler is improved, but not as good as written by Kai-Uwe Bloem. I asked these things to get facts for the decision if I should upgrade to MINIX 1.6.17 or to Linux after the examens are over. Well, the decision is made: I will upgrade to Linux at the end of the month and remove MINIX from my winchester, when Linux runs all the software I need and which currently runs under MINIX 1.5 with heavy patches. I guess this may take up to two months. These are the main reasons for my decision: - There is no "current" MINIX release, which can be used as basis for patches and nobody knows, when 1.6.17 will appear. - The library contains several bugs and from what I have heard, there is no work done at them. There will not be a new compiler, and the 16 bit users still have to use buggy ACK. - 1.6.17 should offer more POSIX, but a complete termios is still missing. - I doubt that there is still much development for 16 bit users. I think I will stop maintaining the MINIX software list in a few months. Anyone out there, who would like to continue it? Until Linux runs *perfect* on my machine, each update of Origami will still run on 16-bit MINIX. I will announce when the last of these versions appears. In my opinion, AST is right in his decision about MINIX. I read the flame war and can't resist to say that I like MINIX the way it is, now where there is Linux. MINIX has some advantages: - You can start playing with it without a winchester, you can even compile programs. I did this a few years ago. - It is so small, you don't need to know much to get a small system which runs ok. - There is the book. Ok, only for version 1.3, but most of it is still valid. - MINIX is an example of a non-monolithic kernel. Call it a microkernel or a hack to overcome braindamaged hardware: It demonstrates a concept, with its pros and cons -- a documented concept. In my eyes, it is a nice system for first steps in UNIX and systems programming. I learned most of what I know about UNIX with MINIX, in all areas, from programming in C under UNIX to system administration (and security holes:) MINIX grew with me: 1.5.xx upgrades, virtual consoles, mail & news, text processing, crosscompiling etc. Now it is too small for me. I don't need a teaching system anymore, I would like to get a more complicated and featureful UNIX, and there is one: Linux. Back in the old days, v7 was state of the art. There was MINIX which offered most of it. In one or two years, POSIX is what you are used to see. Hopefully, there will be MINIX, offering most of it, with a new book, for people who want to run a small system to play and experiment with. Stop flaming, MINIX and Linux are two different systems with different purposes. One is a teaching tool (and a good one I think), the other is real UNIX for real hackers. Michael From: dingbat(a)diku.dk (Niels Skov Olsen) Subject: Re: 1.6.17 summary and why I think AST is right. Date: 10 Feb 92 17:33:39 GMT Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen michael(a)gandalf.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Michael Haardt) writes: >Stop flaming, MINIX and Linux are two different systems with different >purposes. One is a teaching tool (and a good one I think), the other is >real UNIX for real hackers. Hear, hear! And now Linux articles in alt.os.linux (or comp.os.misc if your site don't receive alt.*) and Minix articles here. eoff (end of flame fest :-) Niels __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The all-new My Yahoo! - Get yours free! http://my.yahoo.com ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $4.98 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Q7_YsB/neXJAA/yQLSAA/dpFolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/glugc/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: glugc-unsubscribe(a)yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ -- A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org http://www.edathanattukara.com Visit me at http://www.pravi.tk 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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Freedom of Knowledge and Development
by Krishna Pagadala 27 Dec '04

27 Dec '04

Hi All, I have been deeply influenced by the Free(dom) Software Movement, and I wanted to share my thoughts on the relationship between Freedom and Knowledge (as I see it). I welcome all feedback positive and negative. Thanks Krishna Freedom of Knowledge and Development Free(dom) Software: A case study Free Software ------------- Free software is software distributed under licenses that can be thought of as code in the software commons. It is also software that represents a set of values and philosophy. What is it? ----------- It is software that guarantees the user a few freedoms. More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the software: * The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0) * The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2). * The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits (freedom 3). Access to the source code is a precondition for this. A brief history of Free(dom) Software ------------------------------------- The software developed in the 1970's when Computer Science was a new field was almost always Free Software. However as the monetary importance of Software grew, most of the software came to be distributed with the above mentioned Freedoms stripped and in machine understandable form only. Richard M. Stallman valued those four freedoms, and started the GNU project as an alternative to Freedom stripped software. Later (in 1985) he started the Free Software Foundation to 1) Promote development and use of Free(dom) software, free (as in freedom) documentation. 2) Spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software. Since then Free(dom) Software has come a long way, with contributions from GNU project, academia, individuals and businesses. The distance Free(dom) Software has traveled -------------------------------------------- Today GNU/Linux operating system is used 67% of web servers, 28% of all servers, and on the desktop it has overtaken Apple with 3% market share in 2003. GNU/Linux runs on cell phones to mainframes, in the social context, almost all of the Non Governmental Organizations websites are running on Free(dom) software. Commons ------- The importance of various commons is not well recognised, and is all too easy to ignore. Such an ignorance of the utility of the commons leads to a weak defense and to the aggressive exploitation of commons by the few. The "Tragedy of the Commons" being the classic example. There are two types of software commons. They are (for lack of better words). 1) Copyleft'ed commons Copyleft is a way to defend and increase the commons. Copyleft is a general method for making a program free software and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free software as well. Software in copylefted commons cannot be made into proprietary software. I will call this type of commons "CLcommons" 2) Plain vanilla commons Software in the commons that can be used by anybody to do anything including taking it proprietary. Public domain software falls into this category. I will call this type of commons just "commons" Law --- There are three distinct concepts that form the underlying legal basis for all software. 1) Trade secrets Will ignore this, as it has nothing to with free software. Most proprietary software is a trade secret. 2) Patents Read "hindrance". The original idea of patents was to give exclusive rights to an inventor of a non-obvious idea. Nowadays it is a more a pain than gain for society. Has nothing to do with free software, except insofar as free software can act as prior art, or making some algorithms unimplementable as free software. The current term of patents is 20 years minimum. 3) Copyrights For the issues involved and background read http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.html The underlying basis and reason for the existence of copyright law is the following article in US constitution. "[Congress shall have the power] to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." The current term of copyrights is 95 years for corporations and for real people it is life + 70 years. After the copyright term expires all the software goes into the public domain. In general copyright is about hoarding, while FSF encourages a growth in the commons using copyleft licenses. Patents and Copyrights were originally supposed to protect a species called "the lone inventor" from businesses. However this species has long since gone extinct, sadly having been digested by corporations. Economics --------- GCC, Apache, Tcl/Tk and various other free software tools and software have come to dominate the software scene. They have been found to be good tools for the job at hand. What can explain the quality and the cost (zero) of free software? 1) Quality Knowledge grows when widely shared, and the more people possessing knowledge the faster the innovations come. Software development is charecterized by the low cost of equipment and absence of physical limits, thus keeping transaction costs low. Free software due to its nature, tends to have a large user base who run the software, some of them give feedback in the form of bug reports/patches/feature requests. The user community plays an important role in the development of the given software, in some cases interested parties pay to have software improved for their particular purpose. These ad-hoc improvements improve the quality of free software to such an extent that few business selling proprietary software can survive such competition. 2) Cost Since there are no restrictions on distributing the source code, the cost of accquiring a program is the cost of a CD, or the cost of a free download etc. I must add that although the software is free, if you want to adapt the program for your own needs or want some guarantees that it will work then you pay. Philosophy ---------- Software is not property in the ordinary sense of the term. You can have the cake (software) and eat it too (use the software). Somebody else eating the cake (using the software) does not diminish your enjoyment of the cake (software), as it would with a real world object. That is why thinking about software as property is starting in the wrong direction. "If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)) Restrictions on Software is a restriction on the freedoms of people. The restrictions are legitimate only if a greater public interest is served by those restrictions. Misinterpreting Copyright by Richard Stallman is an important essay on freedoms in the knowledge domain. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.html Motivations for developing free software ---------------------------------------- One of the best essays I came across on free software and motivations for developing free software is "Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of Copyright" by Eben Moglen, he is legal counsel to the FSF, the essay can be found at http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/anarchism.html An excerpt: So I offer you Moglen's Corollary to Faraday's Law: "If you wrap the Internet around every brain on the planet, knowledge flows in the network." That's induction, and the only question is, what is the resistance of the wire? Resistance, according to Moglen's Corollary to Ohm's Law, is directly proportional to the field strength of the intellectual property system. Neither of these corollaries is my property, and you may copy them freely and without credit. I say, "resist the resistance." The reasons for developing free software are 1) Humanistic reasons People who think about the direction of their lives, chose to contribute to humanity, and have fun doing it. "Free software" developers including FSF/RMS fall in this category. 2) Fun "Just for fun", as a book by Linus Torvalds goes. People who don't generally think in terms of their work helping others, but "Because we can" as Moglen says, because humans have the urge for creativity. "Open Source" developers fall into this category. 3) Money People for whom this is a job. Of course there are no straight line distinctions between the three groups, most of the developers are motivated by all three reasons above. With each of the above reasons motivating people to various degrees of action. Interested Parties ------------------ There are three distinct interested parties. 1) Corporations Corporations are in the business of making money, they don't have a stance on free software except in so far as it affects them. They are very happy using it when it decreases their costs or say increases their revenues. Corporations completely reject the underlying philosophy of sharing/caring for you neighbour. They will never be caught dead saying "free software" they only say "open source". 2) Open source community By and large a group of people who understand the that freedom of software leads to development, and support it. However they do not beleive in the ethics of the Free(dom) Software Movement. 3) Free software foundation/free software community FSF created the initial free software tools, and works on developing free software, helps with legal issues and enforcing the GNU licenses. As well as bringing the various issues regarding digital works onto the public agenda. 4) Finally there are "the people", among them nobody has heard of FSF/RMS, let alone being at a point of understanding the underlying ethical, moral, economical and political issues. Current political battles ------------------------- The battles that are being fought are. What the corporations would like to have 1) Software patents in the rest of the world 2) Digital Rights Management 3) Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) What the free software community likes. 1) General population adopting free software and being aware of the various issues involved. 2) Shorter Copyrights with really "limited times" determined on a per industry basis. 5 years for software would be good. 3) Governments adopting free software. Broader Implications -------------------- Of course the above arguments apply not only to software but also to all knowledge. All of science and culture have been enriched by the free flow of knowledge, and by every individual having the freedom to use the knowledge for any purpose whatsoever. I am happy that I do not have to pay Newton every time I use "Laws of motions" that he formulated. Taking it a step further copyrights, patents, trade secrets must be limited to sensible timeframes, of say a few years. After which all of the works in the above mentioned categories must be released into the public domain. Finally all ideas must enter the commons, whether they be in terms of manufacturing specs, software code, design docs etc. Threads ------- There are various underlying threads in this essay, the basic paradigm is the "Partnership paradigm" wherein which it is better to cooperate than to dominate. I also borrow happily from Amartya Sen, whose works amply demonstrate that illiteracy is the cause of poverty and not vice versa, likewise the bigger the intellectual commons the better off we all are. A third thread is "Small is beautiful", free software fits the philosophy of empowerment. Attribution ----------- I have freely copied ideas from FSF and RMS, many thanks to them. An early draft has been reviewed by Ciaran O'Riordan, thank you Ciaran. Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen's works have played an important role in helping me to understand the world, many thanks to them. Resources --------- Misinterpreting Copyright by Richard Stallman http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.html "Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard Stallman" http://www.fsf.org Philosophy of free software http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/ A debate in the British parliament on Copyrights. http://www.baen.com/library/palaver4.htm ===== Books for Disadvantaged Children - $10 Health Care for a Tribal Village - $100 Electricity for a remote community - $1000 Satisfaction of making a difference - Priceless Visit: http://www.oneforindia.org/?r=krishnaact To Reflect, to Inspire and to Empower http://www.employees.org/~krishnap/ Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the next step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him. Will he gain anything by it? Will it restore him to a control over his own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to self-reliance for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? -Mahatma Gandhi __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Send a seasonal email greeting and help others. Do good. http://celebrity.mail.yahoo.com

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India issues decree on patent law reform - Kamal Nath
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 26 Dec '04

26 Dec '04

Noticed this? What are its implications to software? FN India issues decree on patent law reform - Kamal Nath By Surojit Gupta NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The government issued a presidential decree on Sunday to bring its patent laws into compliance with commitments under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) agreement, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath told Reuters. Although details of the decree were not available, it signals a breakthrough in patent reform, which had been stalled by political concerns that reforms would result in higher drug prices. The ruling Congress-led coalition has been under pressure from its powerful communist allies, who want adequate safeguards in the amended patent laws to ensure that prices of medicines would remain stable. India's communist parties and other political parties fear that firms holding product patents for life-saving drugs will increase prices once the new laws come into force. The government had been scheduled to introduce legislation on changing patent laws in the just-concluded winter session of parliament but could not do so due to differences with its communist allies. Commerce and Industry Minister Nath, a businessman turned politician, did not elaborate but told Reuters that he would hold a news conference on Monday to announce the details. India currently has patents for processes but not for products. It must implement them by Jan. 1, 2005, under WTO commitments. The change in India's patent laws is aimed at spurring innovative drug companies to switch away from making copycat generic drugs. New options include making generic drugs for booming export markets, contract research and manufacturing, and new drug research.

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Re: [Fsf-friends] Patents amendment bill
by Vijay Kumar Bagavath Singh 26 Dec '04

26 Dec '04

> We are concerned about this issue,AFAIK the cabinet > has decided that they are yet undecided on this > issue.We will fight out any Anti-freedom laws.But > don't you think we should listen to what the legal > experts have to say first. A few more links to the documents of the TRIPS agreement(patents section) to aid our legal wing http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/27-trips_04c_e.htm http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/ursum_e.htm#nAgreement A quick quote from article 27.1 Article 27 Patentable Subject Matter 1. Subject to the provisions of paragraphs 2 and 3, patents shall be available for any inventions, whether products or processes, in all fields of technology, provided that they are new, involve an inventive step and are capable of industrial application. ... Vijay -- ______________________________________________ Check out the latest SMS services @ http://www.linuxmail.org This allows you to send and receive SMS through your mailbox. Powered by Outblaze

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[Fsf-friends] Freedom, Innovation, and Convenience: The RMS Interview
by Vimal Joseph 24 Dec '04

24 Dec '04

http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html -- Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org>

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OFFTOPIC: Call for 'paradigm shift' in WIPO
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 23 Dec '04

23 Dec '04

CALL FOR 'PARADIGM SHIFT' IN W.I.P.O. When the history of intellectual creativity and technological innovation is written, it may cite recent events as significant. For a shift of paradigm took place in the way the public and the governments of developing countries view the role of intellectual property rights. By Martin Khor Third World Network Features A declaration on intellectual property was launched in Geneva by 500 people and groups on 29 September, whilst a debate also took place at the world's premier intellectual property organisation on whether to set up a 'development agenda'. The declaration called for a change in direction and priorities in the way intellectual property rights (IPRs) are treated. Among the signatories were Sir John Sulston (2002 Nobel prize winner for Physiology), Burton Richter (1976 Nobel Laureate for Physics), Medecins Sans Frontieres (Nobel Peace Prize winner), several other scientists, law and economics professors and public citizen groups. With too many monopolistic privileges of owners of patents, copyright and other IPRs, there is a global crisis in the governance of knowledge, technology and culture, says the Declaration on the Future of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). The crisis caused by excessive granting of IPRs is manifested in many ways: Millions die without access to medicines; there is unequal access to education, knowledge and technology; anti-competitive practices impose enormous costs to consumers and retard innovation; authors, artists and inventors face barriers to follow-on innovation; and IPRs in digital environments threaten the exceptions in copyright laws for disabled persons, libraries, educators and consumers. The declaration says there are astoundingly promising innovations in information, medical and other essential technologies, as well as in social movements and business models. These include campaigns for access to medicines, scientific journals and databases, and hundreds of innovative collaborative efforts including the Internet, Wikipedia, GNU Linux and other free and open software projects and distance education tools. Alternative compensation systems, other than IPRs, have been proposed to expand access and interest in cultural works, while providing artists and consumers with fair systems of compensation. The declaration pinpoints WIPO as part of the problem, for having created and expanded monopoly rights through excessive IPRs. It calls for a change in WIPO's approach and programmes, by striking a proper balance between IPR rights holders on one hand, and the public and competition on the other hand. It also called for WIPO to broaden its mission from solely promoting IPRs to also include promoting creative intellectual activity and facilitating technology transfer to developing countries in order to accelerate development. These larger goals are in an agreement that WIPO signed when it became part of the United Nations system in 1974. Detailing other changes in WIPO, the declaration asked the governments and the WIPO Secretariat to choose a future with a change of direction, new priorities and better outcomes for humanity. 'We cannot wait for another generation.' Parallel to the declaration launching, the government delegations in WIPO's General Assembly debated a landmark proposal by a group of developing countries, calling for WIPO to embark on a 'development agenda'. The proposal was signed by 12 countries, led by Brazil and Argentina, and supported from the floor by the Asian and African Groups. Thus, almost all the developing countries put their weight behind this initiative that calls for a reform in WIPO's approach to its work. The proposal said that the role of intellectual property has been debated for years. IPRs are intended as an instrument to promote technological innovation and are not an end in itself. It can produce benefits as well as costs and action is needed to ensure the costs do not outweigh the benefits. The proposal calls for integrating the 'development dimension' into WIPO's activities, including in negotiations taking place on new treaties, and for WIPO to set up a programme for technology transfer. There was palpable excitement at the WIPO General Assembly hall when Brazil, Argentina and other co-sponsors (including Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Bolivia, Iran and Venezuela) introduced their proposal on 30 September and 1 October. Among the actions they demanded were for WIPO to set up a working group to come up with recommendations to integrate the development dimension in WIPO activities and to organise an international conference on intellectual property and development. The proposal was supported from the floor by most developing countries, including Egypt (on behalf of the Africa Group) and Sri Lanka (on behalf of the Asia Group). Other countries that spoke in support of the proposal were India, Pakistan, the Philippines, China, Oman, Senegal, Ethiopia, Benin, Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica. While the proposals had the support of developing countries, they were implicitly opposed by many developed countries which suggested instead that an assessment be carried out on the effects of WIPO's activities on development. Introducing the main proposal on 30 September, the Brazilian delegate said intellectual property is not an end in itself and cannot be seen as such by WIPO. If development is the overriding principle, then WIPO should act in support of that goal. The time had come for WIPO to fully integrate the development dimension in all its work, said Brazil. As part of the agenda, WIPO should also act on issues such as technology transfer and anti-competitive practices. Egypt, on behalf of the Africa Group, said development was Africa's highest priority and it was only natural for Africa to welcome the proposal to put development at the forefront of WIPO's activities. It was only natural for WIPO to build on its existing work for developing countries by integrating development in all its activities so as to ensure that development is addressed in a holistic way. South Africa, speaking in support, said that the development must be mainstreamed in WIPO. No new WIPO instruments should proceed without being informed by the development dimension. Sri Lanka, on behalf of the Asia Group, said that the proposal was timely, and a working group on the development agenda was a good idea. India said that the damage caused by the World Trade Organisation's intellectual property (TRIPS) agreement has raised public consciousness worldwide as to the problems associated with intellectual property. As developing countries moved to comply with the TRIPS agreement, they faced major challenges and realised that they need the flexibility and space to choose appropriate policies. However, the process of harmonising patent laws has the danger of promoting the interests of rent seekers. Remarking that TRIPS is a tribute to the logic of power, not economics or fairness, India stated that a WIPO development agenda would help steer the organisation away from the same course. No longer would developing countries agree that intellectual property will nurture innovation everywhere. At present, it exists to serve patent holders, who are mainly in the North, at the expense of public interest. Each country needs flexibility in IP policy so that it can ensure the costs outweigh the benefits. India said it fully supported the objective of the Brazil-Argentina proposal which should be translated into action. Major developed countries were not as supportive of action on a development agenda in WIPO. They indicated that WIPO had been doing enough for developing countries. Instead of establishing a working group on a development agenda, they proposed that an assessment be made of WIPO's work as it relates to development. - Third World Network Features. -ends- About the writer: Martin Khor is Director of the Third World Network. When reproducing this feature, please credit Third World Network Features and (if applicable) the cooperating magazine or agency involved in the article, and give the byline. Please send us cuttings.

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Ubuntu, anyone?
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 23 Dec '04

23 Dec '04

ubuntu -- gnu/linux for human beings ubuntu live cd: This 'live CD' contains a full Ubuntu desktop installation that you can safely try on your Windows-based computer without installing anything to your hard disk. To try the Live CD, place the CD in your CD-ROM drive and reboot your computer. If Ubuntu does not load, check that your computer is configured to boot from the CD-ROM drive. You should have at least 128MB of RAM to use the Live CD. This CD also contains Windows versions for several of the applications included in Ubuntu. To install the open source software for Windows, place this Live CD into your CD-ROM drive while in Windows and follow the instructions that will appear on your screen. ubuntu install cd: This CD contains the installable version of Ubuntu for Intel x86 computers. You can use this CD to install Ubuntu to your computer's hard drive. To use this CD, place it in your computer's CD-ROM drive and reboot your computer. Then follow the instructions on the screen.... Ubuntu: is a community-based project to build an operating system using only free and open source software. Ubuntu provides a free desktop operating system with a full suite of applications and documentation. The Ubuntu project is sponsored by Canonical Ltd. Ubuntu is an ancient African word that means 'humanity towards others'. It embodies the spirit of [free/libre and] open source software, which is built by the best software practitioners for the benefit of all humanity. F r e e a n d O p e n S o u r c e S o f t w a r e : Free and open source software is software that users have the ability to run, copy, distribute, study, change, share and improve for any purpose. Open source software is an ideal platform for business and education, in the home or at the office. More information online: Ubuntu: http://www.ubuntulinux.org Canonical Ltd: http://www.canonical.com If you would like to request more CDs, you can do so online at http://shipit.ubuntulinux.org Price US$ 000.00 YOU ARE LEGALLY entitled and encouraged to copy, share and redistribute this CD, for yourself and your friends. Share the spirit of Ubuntu. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) Nr Convent Saligao 403511 GoaIndia Freelance Journalist P: 832-2409490 M: 9822122436 http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks http://fn.swiki.net http://www.ryze.com/go/fredericknoronha http://fn-floss.notlong.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Difficulties to send email across? Write to fredericknoronha at vsnl.net ============================================================================ Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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[Fsf-friends] Fwd: reminder: Open Source Software - participants survey
by Nagarjuna G. 22 Dec '04

22 Dec '04

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Exams
by Vivek Varghese Cherian 20 Dec '04

20 Dec '04

I'll be afk till Dec 31st because of exams. Wishing you all a Merry Xmas and Happy New Year -- +---------------------------------------------------------------+ + ,= ,-_-. =. Vivek Varghese Cherian + + ((_/)o o(\_)) GNU/FSF Webmaster + + `-'(. .)`-' cherry(a)asianetindia.com + + \_/ + +---------------------------------------------------------------+

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Tere Vaden: Information wants to be free (long)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 17 Dec '04

17 Dec '04

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Tere Vad�n Professor, Hypermedialab University of Tampere The possibilities that Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) offers for development in information and communications technology (ICT), in general, and for the developing countries, in particular, have recently gained increasing attention and importance. The following report provides encouraging examples of the role FLOSS has already had or can have in the developing countries and developmental co-operation. The reason for the increased attention is simple: the philosophy, economy and software development model of FLOSS have in the past 20 years or so made an ineradicable impact on how information technology is conceptualised, used and developed. Since FLOSS does not rely on concepts like intellectual property or copyright but rather on concepts of voluntary co-operation and copyleft ("copyright turned around"), it has been seen as an ideal tool for bridging the so-called digital divides. What has made an even stronger impression on some researchers has been the fact that in the case of FLOSS fun and ethics seem to travel hand in hand, at least part of the way. The developers of FLOSS, the hackers, often "scratch their own itch", that is, do what is fun. It appears that in most cases this fun can be had only if the software the hackers are interested in having fun with is free and open. The background motivations that the hackers have for engaging in FLOSS development can, indeed, be quite varied, and still the result contributes to a freely distributable, modifiable and usable pool of good quality software. For instance, the philosophical and social motivations of the Free Software movement and the Open Source movement are quite different, even antithetical at places, but the movements can still share-and-share-alike when it comes to creating software that excels in its technical qualities. It seems that this kind of co-operation is precisely what bridging the digital divides on the software side needs. The question of whether ICT development is necessary or whether it should be prioritised when it comes to countries that have severe problems with providing for the basic needs of their citizens may be debated. It seems clear, however, that if and when ICT development is, for instance, a part of developmental co-operation, the basic concepts and day-to-day practises of using and developing FLOSS offer a footing that may be used with benefit. Because the background motivations for creating and using FLOSS are varied, the arguments for FLOSS are also diverse. They range from the purely technical (e.g. speed of development, security and privacy, technological independence, ease of use) to the deeply economic, social, political and philosophical (e.g. price, co-operation, equality, commitment to the right to know). This spectrum of arguments can be stratified by thinking about the different levels on which digital information has an impact. Underlying all the discussions on ICT and its effect on the emerging information societies is the fact that by its nature information is different from material things. Information is abstract in the sense that giving or sharing information does not diminish the amount of information that the giver or sharer has. Furthermore, the reproduction and copying of information can be done with much less cost than the reproduction and copying of material goods. These characterisations of the nature of information can be captured in the phrase "Information can be free". As a means of production and exchange, information is different from material things in that it can be free; as a resource, information is non-rivalrous. The different kind of "being" that information has compared to the "being" of material things means that the sharing of information is in its ontological nature unlike the sharing of material goods: this is the sense in which information "can" be free. The next level of argumentation is crystallised in the rallying-cry of hackerdom: "Information wants to be free". Information wants to be free in the sense that information, e.g. computer software, as a tool is made better if it is free. This is the level of argument that the Open Source movement emphasises. The development of good quality software is faster and more efficient if the source code of the software is open and if everyone potentially interested in the code is free to contribute to the development. As a means to an end, software is best developed if it is free. The so-called Linus' Law, after the Linux-hacker Linus Torvalds, is often cited in this context: "Given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow". The global society of hackers has through the internet harnessed its pool of skills and interests in a distributed working model that has produced software at a pace that has defied all economic theory and continues to baffle computer scientists. Software as a tool makes best progress when it is free. Therefore it wants to be free; its goal as a tool is to be free. Information technology as a means is, of course, used towards some ends. The use and development of technology is embedded in practises and cultures. It is obvious that technology in general and information technology in particular are not culturally neutral: a given type of technology use and development always favours or disfavours different types of social arrangements. In the case of FLOSS, the position of the Free Software movement is formulated through considering the ends to which software contributes. From this viewpoint, the question to be asked about different models of using and developing software is what kind of society does this or that model promote. Like Richard M. Stallman, the founder of the Free Software movement, has emphasised, the goal of the Free Software movement is to create a society based on co-operation, equality and sharing, therefore software is instrumental only if it is free. Software can be a means to the end of a co-operative and ethically sound society only if it is free in the sense of free speech; even openness of the source code is not enough. This third level of viewing software through its social and political goals can be expressed in the slogan "Information ought to be free". The social commitment to supporting and creating a society that is not a jungle but a co-operative whole implies an ethical commitment to the freedom of information. This third level of argument can be augmented. Following Aristotle, we may see the goals towards which we are striving as finalities, as goals-in-themselves that do not require any further motivation. Finalities do not require motivation, they are the motivation that give shape to the tools, practises and social arrangements that embody the finalities. It is this level of commitment that often means taking extra effort. In this sense the (ethical) commitment to certain finalities can also be quite different from having fun, or from the technical considerations that have to do with the properties of software seen purely as a tool. For instance, democracy is often seen as a finality. Even though democracy might be inefficient and costly, the extra effort is worth taking, because of the ethical and social goods that democracy includes. Democracy is worth it for its own sake. This level of motivation applies also to FLOSS, even though it can not be easily captured in a phrase. Maybe the verb "x" describing this fourth level of finalities in the phrase "Information 'x' be free" would have to combine the senses of the verbs "can", "wants to", "ought to" and "will". It is also through this fourth level of argumentation that we reach one of the crucial questions that the so-called developed countries face when it comes to the use of FLOSS in developmental co-operation. The global trend towards an "information society" gives an increasing role to information, knowledge and other immaterial assets in production. Therefore the economy is also seeking ways of controlling, identifying and using immaterial assets. This happens largely through the concept of intellectual property. In economic terms, the notion of intellectual property and the connected immaterial property rights are a way of regulating free markets, setting up limited monopolies in the name of economic incentive for innovation and creativity. This mega-company-driven trend towards an increasingly tight "intellectual property" regime conflicts squarely with all the above verbs. If information is made into property, it can not, will not and should not be free. Taken to its extreme, the notion that information or knowledge is owned and that its use should be controlled by the "owners" becomes absurd. An infant either has to be taught that information is owned or otherwise remains ignorant of the fact. In both cases information freely shared is the basis on which the ownership of information can be based. The absurdity can be seen in the following scenario: if all information is proprietary, then the information that information is proprietary is proprietary, too, and I can choose to stay ignorant of that information. As with material property, intellectual property relies on the goodwill of non-proprietary social functions and arrangements. Therefore its beneficiality is not a given. Through this perspective it is obvious that a very strict regime of intellectual property will lead to increased fragmentation and the unbalanced division of wealth in the world. It would not be too extreme to claim that certain forms and applications of so-called intellectual property rights are a way of protecting the "firstness" of the "first" world against the interests of the other worlds. At its worst, the concept of intellectual property works in ways that are analogous to the colonialising effects that the concept of material property has had in the previous centuries. It has always been known that "intellectual property laws" can be a hindrance to economic development. This was the reason why the United States decided not to recognise European copyrights and patents in the 19th century. It is very likely that following a tight regime of intellectual property rights will be an obstacle to the economic development of the developing countries today, too. Therefore it is essential that the legislative system and the policies of the "first" world will allow for intellectual and software freedom. When it comes to information technology, the task is to create a balanced environment for innovation, both social and technological. It is a well-known fact that things like software patents and the idea of "trusted computing" seriously threaten the possibility of FLOSS development. Therefore it is extremely troubling to see how a strong big-industry lobby is pushing the legislation and its interpretation in the "first" world towards an increasingly biased and restrictive direction. Software patents have already become a burden on FLOSS development and the innovation of small and medium-sized software companies in the US, and currently the EU is thinking about having a software patent legislation of its own. Software patents are a good example of "intellectual property rights" that are not only harmful to FLOSS in the "first" world but also to the use of FLOSS in developmental co-operation. A healthy global information society needs a political and legal environment that gives possibilities to both independent FLOSS type development and proprietary software development. Shutting one or the other out will only aggravate the existing digital divides. From the point of view of finalities the question is: "What is information technology for?" Answering this "why" question can give sustainable form to the "how" questions. For instance, economic and cultural "whys" may give different weights to different factors. Globalisation as a narrowly defined economic trend and the creation of a particular type of information society push towards a strict intellectual property regime. This, however, does not mean that intellectual property as a concept or as a practice systematically favours equality, democracy or development - quite the contrary. Intellectual property rights might, in principle, protect the livelihood of indigenous populations and local cultural endeavours, but in practice they next to never do. This is because established organisations, institutions and companies have an upper hand when it comes to interpreting the concept and enforcing the laws that codify it. "First" world countries like Finland can therefore advance the creation of a global sustainable information society by giving enough weight to social and ethical issues in the legislative framework that partly creates the international information environment. Especially so because there are also strong economic arguments that speak in favour of free markets and against the restrictions in terms of "intellectual property". The use of FLOSS is motivated through concepts like freedom, independence and swantantra. These concepts have at the same time their economic, technical and cultural meanings. Freedom and independence in all of these senses are finalities, goals in themselves and in that sense very well in line with the ideals of a global sustainable information society. Making grand ideals like this happen is, of course, always a complicated thing. However, to be fair, FLOSS is not a dream, but a rapidly growing reality that has several success stories in its track record. As noted above, FLOSS is no one thing, either. There are different sets of philosophical underpinnings, different models of development, different technological options and so on. There is no reason to downplay the internal variation of FLOSS or the different options in building an information society. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the proof of the bridge is in the crossing. Let us attend to the details. Introduction During the last couple of years the use of Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) has gathered momentum, which has surprised its proponents and opponents alike. Looking at the figures, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the Internet is powered by FLOSS.1 (See. David Wheeler - Why OSS/FS?) Given such a huge spread in the use of FLOSS and its very significant economic impact, the questions arising from the perspective of development aid and sustainable development are: Does FLOSS offer developing countries any significant alternative in addressing crucial problems, such as the alleviation of poverty, the democratization of society, the reduction of illiteracy, conflict reduction, access to knowledge, dealing with natural calamities and other emergencies, etc.? Does FLOSS have the potential to help bridge the digital divide? In our view, the answers to most of the above questions is a definite YES, but without attributing some magic wand status to any technology, especially Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), including FLOSS. The solutions to the problems facing developing countries are very complex, and ICT and FLOSS can at best provide a helping hand to humans determined to solve those problems. Lacking the political will and social forces necessary to solve problems, any technology is just another tool which may throw us into *techno-optimism*, that is, the belief that *future economic prosperity is dependent upon the rapid development of national electronic infrastructures* without actually meaningfully solving the burning problems facing the developing world. Commenting on the role and impact of Bangalore, capital of the Indian state of Karnataka, and that country's foremost hi-tech centre, noted economist and Nobel laureate Dr. Amartya Sen2 said: *New centres of excellence such as Bangalore can prosper and flourish. Yet even 100 Bangalores would not solve India*s poverty and deep-seated inequality. For this to happen, many more people must participate in growth. This will be difficult to achieve across the barriers of illiteracy, ill health and inequalities in social and economic opportunities.* (from The Oxfam Education Report Chapter 1)3 Already at this stage, we should note that the present study is not an economics-based one. The team responsible for it lack expertise in economics, and is not making any significant claims regarding the impact of ICT on economies. Having said that, we can still refer to a number of studies and views which actually show that there is no direct link between computers and productivity. For instance, World Bank economist Charles Kenny, in his well argumented paper at a WIDER conference on New Economy in May 2002,4 believes that the **Solow paradox*5 * widespread evidence of computer use, little evidence of (widespread) productivity growth * continues, at least in modified form.* Warning against techno-optimism and pinning too many hopes on the Internet and ICT, Kenny notes: *The Internet is a powerful technology that will have a long-term impact on the quality of life in developing countries* and *Having said that, our record in predicting the dynamic impact of technologies on development in the past has been very weak. To take three communications-related examples, the railway was predicted to spark the dictatorship of the proletariat, the telegraph was predicted to engender world peace and the television to revolutionize education. Broadly, it appears that even while the role of technology in economic growth cannot be questioned, the dynamic impact of a particular, invented technology is never very large. It looks increasingly as if the impact of the computer on US productivity will be a good example of this. The impact has been limited so far, and might not increase in the future.* (Charles Kenny: The Internet and Economic Growth in Least Developed Countries. A Case of Managing Expectations?)6. At the same time, however, we can note that ICT, or rather thelack of it, does significantly impede access to information and knowledge for a vast majority of developing countries, especially their academic and educational institutions, students, government officials, economic and financial institutions, businesses, etc. The main objective of this report has been to analyse the significance and relevance of FLOSS for developing countries.i In doing so, we have tried to take a brief look at the the overall use of ICT and FLOSS, especially at some of its most significant and popular software, such as GNU/Linux, Apache, Mozilla, Open Office etc, as well as its possible impact on the societies, lives, and economies of the people of those countries. As noted earlier, our focus in this study is more on the wider impact of ICT and FLOSS on societies than on economics. That is why we have tried to look at a number of issues which hinder a more widespread use of ICT in general and FLOSS in particular in most of the developing world. Keeping in mind a host of social, political and economic factors, especially the overall huge cost of employing ICT (compounded in most cases by hard currency shortages), we contend that FLOSS offers an affordable and useful alternative to proprietary software for all the concerned parties in those countries: governments, public institutions, education, NGOs and the private sector. Another objective has been to evaluate projects which utilise FLOSS technologies and to see whether they have any significant impact on the democratization of countries, increased access to knowledge, enhancing the quality of education, andaiding sustainable development. We have tried to achieve that objective by going beyond the purely technical merits and use of FLOSS and look instead at the very nature of FLOSS (its philosophy of freedom, openness, community activation and collaborative nature) as well as make a link between FLOSS and any developmental effort dependant upon humans determined to solve problems. We let the reader determine if we have succeeded in achieving those objectives. We can only reiterate that FLOSS and developing countries make a great partnership. Helsinki, 28th February 2003

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hi
by Kenny Chamber 17 Dec '04

17 Dec '04

Hi Was out on a trip. could not contribute much to the amazing world of fsf. A short note to say hi to all my friends who believe in the spirit of free software. ----------------------- Kenny Chamber http://gem-hs.org/contact.html

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[Fwd: [Ilugc] [OT] GNU/Linux Vidyashram]
by Ramanraj K 16 Dec '04

16 Dec '04

Shakthi Kannan, ILUGC, has proposed to start GNU/Linux Vidyashram at Chennai, to organize/provide free lectures on GNU/Linux. Feedback/contribution from the outcome of the lecture could also be contributing to sourceforge projects or GNU/Linux projects, in general. -Ramanraj. -------- Forwarded Original Message -------- Subject: [Ilugc] [OT] GNU/Linux Vidyashram Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 23:38:53 -0800 (PST) From: Shakthi Kannan <cyborg4k(a)yahoo.com> To: ilugc(a)ae.iitm.ac.in Greetings! This is a proposal to form the GNU/Linux Educational Society, or call it, "GNU/Linux Vidyashram". The aim is to organize/provide free lectures (atleast once a fortnight, with lectures repeated if needed). Due to rapid developments in GNU/Linux it is essential that we meet often and share/discuss our knowledge. Saturday/Sunday afternoon is good. We can start different lecture series for different time periods like, 2-weeks, 1-month, 2-months etc. Leaving commercial training institutes apart (which are more industry-oriented, like system and network administration), the objective of GNU/Linux Vidyashram is to constantly provide free-training to GNU/Linux enthusiasts. I believe the commerical institutes don't teach kernel programming, application development etc. The free-teaching can also be useful for students who are interested in doing projects. I am on the lookout for lecture halls/institutions who can provide the facilites at a minimal cost (for free would be great!). Having a projector will help as one can see and learn from the observation, rather than deal with monotonous classroom-board teaching. I remember, some of the IIT-M Electrical Engineering Deparment students asking for some sessions like these. Maybe we can organize the same with them? The lectures _must_ be open to the public though. I would like to initiate the above under ilugc-GNU projects. We need to first cover shell scripting before we can go into kernel programming. I would like to volunteer for: - BASH shell scripting - KDevelop/Qt designer - device driver programming - Linux assembly Similarily, if more people are interested we can start sessions for perl/python/gtk/qt/c++/java/php/ etc. on GNU/Linux etc. Your thoughts? Regards, K Shakthi ===== -------------------------------------------------------------------------- K Shakthi Specsoft (Hexaware Technologies), ASIC Design Center http://www.geocities.com/shakthimaan --------------------------------------------------------------------------

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[Fsf-friends] IOSN.net ... FLOSS primers, localisation toolket, project workspace
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 15 Dec '04

15 Dec '04

>From IOSN.net The IOSN is producing a series of primers on Free/Open Source Software (FOSS). The primers serve as introductory documents to FOSS in general, as well as covering particular topic areas in greater detail. Their purpose is to raise FOSS awareness, particularly among policy-makers, practitioners and educators. * FOSS General Introduction Primer * FOSS in Education Primer * FOSS Government and Policy Primer * FOSS Licensing Primer Draft for public review and feedback. Localization Toolkit IOSN is in the process of developing localization toolkits that will aid localization of FOSS software. Project workspace For localization projects that require an online presence and workspace, contact us so that you can host and manage your project on IOSN. If you already have a project, let us know so that localization projects in different countries can collaborate on localization efforts. * Localization resources Resources Training Materials IOSN also produces free training materials for Free/Open Software. Training materials for end users are currently in development. * User Guide to Using the Linux Desktop This user guide is meant as an introductory guide for a user to use a modern personal computer (PC) running the Linux operating system. The main aim is to provide a self-learning guide on how to use a modern Linux desktop system. It assumes that the user has no prior knowledge of Linux or PC usage. * Other Linux and Free/Open Source Software training resources iosn-general Mailing List The goals of the mailing list is to help foster more regional communication and co-operation. Especially to provide a channel in which users from countries where FOSS is relatively unknown can get help from the international FOSS community, as well as help each other. If you would still like to be part of this community, you can subscribe via the link given below. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) Nr Convent Saligao 403511 GoaIndia Freelance Journalist P: 832-2409490 M: 9822122436 http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks http://fn.swiki.net http://www.ryze.com/go/fredericknoronha http://fn-floss.notlong.com ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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[Fsf-friends] "Marxist-Lessigism" by Dan Hunter in legalaffairs.org (long)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 13 Dec '04

13 Dec '04

(picked up from the incommunicado list; apologies for crossposting) ==================================================== Marxist-Lessigism Computer users of the world have united behind Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig-and what they're doing is much more important than his critics realize. By Dan Hunter Legal Affairs (Nov-Dec 2004) <http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/November-December-2004/feature_hunter_no vdec04.html> AT SWARTHMORE COLLEGE, the crowd is mostly students, and maybe a few professors and interested outsiders. It's a typical turnout for a public lecture by a well-known law professor. But there is something different and a little odd about this group. Swarthmore doesn't have a law school, so the audience includes no young men in suits that still have the label attached, and no young women with high-heeled shoes so new the soles aren't scuffed. And there is something else, something funny about the T-shirts. Everywhere you look, there are T-shirts with slogans, not logos. No "Tommy Hilfiger" and "Ralph Lauren" here. Just shirts with references too obscure to parse. What is "Downhill Battle"? Or "Grey Tuesday"? One kid has a shirt with the picture of a skull and crossbones on it, and written boldly across it are the words "Home Taping is Killing the Music Industry." Look closer, and you'll see, in tiny type, "(And it's fun)." A couple of students get up to introduce the speaker. They're nervous, disorganized, and rambling. Now you notice the handmade signs: "Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons" is taped to the lectern, and "Free Culture" is written on the wall. It starts to become clear. This isn't just a lecture; it's a political rally. People start to shuffle; the students are losing their audience as the garbled introductions continue. But when the speaker gets up to start, the shuffling ends and there is a ripple of excitement. He is Lawrence Lessig, the Stanford law professor, known to this crowd as Larry. Dressed in black and wearing a pair of spectacles that could have been handed down by Ben Franklin, he waits until the crowd settles. And finally, you get it. Outside, lightning is cracking, but the smell in the air is not the ozone from the thunderstorm. It's the smell of revolution. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY-"I.P.," AS IT'S CALLED-revolves around three basic property interests granted by federal statute: copyrights, patents, and trademarks. Copyrights cover expression by authors of various sorts, including books, plays, music, and so on. Patents protect underlying ideas of useful inventions and processes, such as a chemical reaction or an inventive mechanical device. And trademarks cover business brands. For much of the 20th century, these I.P. interests (and other close cousins such as trade secrets, unfair competition, and celebrities' publicity rights) were narrow and uncontroversial. Businesses in the industrial era cared about the factory, the production line, and the land needed for them. But as the modern era rolled on, the importance of industrial production waned. No longer were heavy machinery and physical plants the predominant means of production; no longer was physical inventory central to industry. In the developed world, control over intangibles came to dominate the business agenda, and so too the political agenda. First introduced in the United States in 1790, copyright was limited in its infancy to protecting musical, dramatic, literary, and artistic works for 28 years, and it was later broadened to encompass photography, video, and software for a period often in excess of 100 years. Patent scope was widened, first to include computer algorithms and then business methods-including those such as Amazon.com's patent for one-click online purchases-and then life itself. In 2000, companies including Celera Genomics and Incyte started receiving patents on sequences of the human genome. Trademarks too were set loose from their historical moorings. Not only was the trademark term extended, but the prototypical application of a physical brand to a physical product was no longer the limit of trademark. The sound of the Harley-Davidson exhaust for motorcycles or a distinctive color of dry cleaning pads was equally protected. Though I.P. rights are private property there has long been some sense that the public also has interests here. The concept of the public domain was first advanced in 1896, when the Supreme Court noted that upon the expiration of a patent the invention "fell into the public domain" and was free for anyone to use. But over the decades that I.P. rose in importance, the concept of the public domain was ignored, or defined at best in negative terms. It was the carcass left over after the I.P. system had eaten its fill. Still, the seeds of the movement that Larry Lessig now leads blossomed. In the late '70s, prompted by cases examining whether the heirs of Bela Lugosi and Rudolph Valentino could control the current and future representations of these dead actors, a young Duke University law professor named David Lange attended an entertainment law symposium to present a paper on celebrities' rights to their public image. Lange was surprised at the distress of the screenwriters who attended his talk and who argued that expanded publicity rights would reduce their ability to adapt, use, or reimagine these characters and their histories. As Lange described it, "the law of publicity was dispossessing individual creators in order to benefit the interests of celebrities." From this epiphany, Lange recast the public domain. Rather than the negative leftovers, he wrote in an influential article 25 years ago, the public domain was a vital, affirmative entity, the publicly accessible collection of knowledge, ideas, history, and expression on which creators draw in order to make new works. The movement in defense of the public domain soon started to grow. Academic works in the '80s and '90s by law professors Jessica Litman at Wayne State University, Wendy Gordon at Boston University, Pamela Samuelson at the University of California at Berkeley, and James Boyle at Duke University explored the public domain's importance. Then, with the 1998 introduction of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (or DMCA), the public woke up. These statutes extended copyright terms, renewed copyrights on some works that had already fallen into the public domain, and forbade cracking digital locks on copyrighted material like DVDs. But they also motivated public interest groups as never before. Before then, corporate interests lobbied for I.P. expansion without much public comment. This changed overnight as the acts were widely seen as driven entirely by corporate interests, particularly Disney's fear that the first film featuring Mickey Mouse would soon fall into the hands of the public. Unanticipated uses of the DMCA also drew widespread attention. The first incident occurred when a Princeton computer science professor was threatened with prosecution if he disclosed research that he and his lab had performed in breaking a music encryption system. Then a Russian student was arrested while presenting a conference paper that demonstrated how he had cracked digitally encrypted electronic books. By the time students at Swarthmore College were threatened in 2003 with a DMCA injunction against posting details of a potential e-voting election scandal, the message was clear. The restrictions on speech, the threat to research and inquiry, the quashing of dissent, the jailing of researchers-all of Lange's worst fears and then some-were now being realized. The consequent backlash came at a bad time for I.P. owners. The rise of file-sharing systems threatened severe damage to the music and movie industries, and perhaps television networks. And social reformers were beginning to question other parts of I.P. For example, the patent system came under attack for the damage it inflicted on developing countries that had been strong-armed by the United States into adopting U.S.-style I.P. laws. This led to an increase in I.P. enforcement around the world, but it also demonstrated the clear injustices in forcing the poor to dance to the I.P. tune of the rich. American pharmaceutical manufacturers were vilified because they refused to provide drug therapies for HIV/AIDS in Africa for less than their patent-monopoly-controlled price. All the claims that drug manufacturers needed this monopoly to produce other important drugs rang hollow with the millions of people in the developing world dying from AIDS and their sympathizers. Thus was the culture war joined. This is not a war between cultures, but a war over culture-who owns it, who can use it in the future, and how much it will cost. On one side are the I.P. owners, with the money and the ear of government. Against them stand research and advocacy institutes, with names like Creative Commons or the Center for the Public Domain, and political action groups such as the Electronic Freedom Foundation and the ACLU. RECRUITING AND LEADING A BATTALION FOR THIS WAR is what Larry Lessig is doing at Swarthmore on a wet night in April. He's talking about his new book, Free Culture, in which he argues for scaling back the copyright system. Lessig is a prodigy of the legal academy: Now 43, he earned a B.A. in economics and a B.S. in management from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. in philosophy from Cambridge, and a J.D. from Yale Law School. He clerked for Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals and for Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court, and he was a professor at the University of Chicago and Harvard Law Schools before Stanford lured him in a competition with Yale and Harvard. His rZsumZ lists four books and 61 law review articles produced in his 15-year career as a legal academic. But not everything he has touched has turned to gold. While he has written about aspects of the Constitution dealing with subjects other than intellectual property, the constitutionalists in the academy greet some of that work with derision and even his admirers often consider him an extravagant self-promoter. With his dazzling academic record, fiery rhetoric, and prolific writing, however, Lessig has become the most recognizable voice to articulate why it was a bad idea to privatize the open environment of the Internet, and how the expansion of I.P. threatens future innovation. Tonight he's lending support to a student protest group, one formed by the students threatened when they exposed the electronic voting scandal. Like other student groups, this one is renouncing private I.P. interests, has the word "commons" in its name, identifies with the I.P. have-nots, and invokes a class struggle. Means of production, communal ownership, class struggle, students with slogans on their shirts. Sounds like a Marxist revolution. LIKE MANY OTHER I.P. REFORMERS, Lessig is routinely denounced as a communist. The most recent such attack was by a high-profile technology columnist named Stephen Manes. In several vitriolic attacks prompted by Lessig's Free Culture, Manes described Lessig as "blustering" and "bloviating," a "buffoon" and an "idiot," whose ideas ("droppings") were "nuts" and "laughable." Manes contrasted Lessig's "radicalism" on copyright policy with the stance of "responsible creators" like Walt Disney, and made it clear that the sort of reform Lessig advocates is ideologically suspect because it involves stealing property from copyright owners. Manes proposed renaming Lessig's book, Freeloader Culture: A Manifesto for Stealing Intellectual Property. The allusion to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels's Communist Manifesto is hard to miss. Manes's attacks, though startling in their bile, are hardly surprising. He is a columnist at Forbes, a magazine that urbanely styles itself as the "Capitalist Tool." If any organ is going to spy Marxist leanings in the intellectual property reform movement, it is this one. Manes is not the first to sniff Marxism in I.P. reform proposals. A senior writer at the Ayn Rand Institute accused Lessig of Marxism a number of years before, suggesting that his efforts in the case of Eldred v. Ashcroft, in which Lessig argued for overturning one of Congress's many recent copyright extensions, were shameful and would lead to "cannibalism" of property interests. Mouthpieces for high-profile I.P. owners such as Paramount Pictures also smell "whiffs of Marxism" in the reformer's distaste for corporate control of culture. The Marxist slur is a simple rhetorical device that paints I.P. reformers as both dangerous and willfully ignorant. Not only do they desire a Bolshevik revolution, and probably a Stalinist purge, but these reformers don't realize that the communists lost the Cold War. Yet this use of the "Marxist" tag is shallow and empty. When people such as Manes or those at the Ayn Rand Institute charge Lessig with Marxism, they refer to two features of Marxist-Leninism: the rejection of private property, and the civil uprising that Mikhail Bakunin and V.I. Lenin said was necessary to move from capitalism to communism. The kind of social reform of intellectual property proposed by Lessig doesn't involve either of these elements. Lessig isn't some modern-day Pierre-Joseph Proudhon claiming that "intellectual property is theft." His reform agenda is the I.P. analog of the New Deal social welfarism that ameliorated the worst excesses of capitalism, and rescued it from social disaster. It's the recognition that private property systems function better if some limits are placed upon the market. Even many of the most ardent capitalists have learned the Marxian lesson that unrestrained free market capitalism creates a permanent underclass that is much more likely to revolt and overthrow the system. It's a better idea for the wealthy to provide a safety net for the lumpenproletariat than to be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes. ON THE OTHER HAND, WHILE LESSIG'S PROPOSED I.P. REFORM stops well short of the destruction of private property, it stirs a Marxian debate in a much more interesting and crucial sense. For starters, it is clear that I.P. reform is a conflict involving a significant class struggle. There are I.P. haves and I.P. have-nots. And in a world where the means of production are increasingly controlled by intellectual property, the dynamics exist for significant conflict. But the majority of the I.P. have-nots are in the developing world, which is why the globalization debate often involves intellectual property. Any Marxist-Lessigist revolution therefore is likely to be mediated through the cordon sanitaire of international trade, and through the World Trade Organization. The prospect of I.P.-induced violence, at least in the United States, is unlikely. But more than this, I.P. reform arises out of a genuine Marxism, that of the open source movement. Open source, or "copyleft," as the movement is often called, involves the transfer of the means of cultural and creative production from capital to the worker. It is usually thought to be limited to computer software. The Linux operating system was created by thousands of programmers and has been freely distributed on the understanding that others might amend, fix, improve, and extend it. But while software might be the paradigmatic example of open source, the revolution it promises reaches much further. The widest-read and most influential newspaper in South Korea is Ohmynews, whose motto is "Every Citizen is a Reporter." Ohmynews hires no reporters, and relies wholly on individual contributions of news stories by its readers. Another example is the Wikipedia, an open source, online encyclopedia that is entirely written, edited, and rewritten by anyone who cares to contribute to it. Even though there is no control structure-there are no editors, nor is there a publisher-it rivals commercial encyclopedias in scope and quality of coverage. Or consider the Distributed Proofreader's Project, a group of people who volunteer to proofread and edit vast reams of scanned documents for inclusion in Project Gutenberg, another open source initiative that puts out-of-copyright books online. Though Bill Gates recognizes Linux as a threat to Windows, it is easy to miss the truly revolutionary nature of this type of cultural production. If you give people the opportunity to create, they will do so, even without economic incentives. The core justification for intellectual property protection is that, without it, no one would have any reason to produce cultural, creative content. They would undertake a rational calculus and go off to become tax attorneys. But the dynamism of the open source movement shows that this fundamental justification doesn't hold. Many people will produce creative content even outside what we can think of as the capitalist underpinnings of I.P. It's a small step to go from this to a Marxist revolution: The open source movement promises to put the means of creative production back in the hands of the people, not in the hands of those with capital. It is not an accident that open source and Marxist-Lessigist I.P. reform have occurred at the same time, or that Lessig is a prominent advocate of Linux. Open source software demonstrated that the "incentive justification" for I.P. wasn't supported once you put the means of creative endeavor and the means of dissemination in the hands of individuals, as the Internet has done for many fields. So, when the DMCA and other corporate-controlled I.P. expansions came about, programmers weaned on open source code no longer bought the corporations' arguments that these new laws were necessary for innovation and progress to continue. The I.P. reform movement began with software, but it is moving into all types of cultural material: newspapers, magazines, commentary, music, even movies. Given the experience we now have with open source, this is not strange. A Marxist might suggest that it is inevitable. What is unusual is how, in their rush to vilify Marxist-Lessigism, I.P. owners and copyright apologists like Stephen Manes miss the importance of open source, which, as the true creative workers' revolution, threatens the core of their industries. While copyright and patent reform might be the most visible aspect of the Marxist-Lessigist revolution, it is the least significant. IT'S STILL RAINING AT SWARTHMORE. Larry Lessig is explaining the importance of the public domain as a source for future creativity, when a series of thunderclaps shakes the auditorium. For a moment everybody stops. Lessig jokes about the "black helicopters" of the I.P. owners, and people relax. At the end of his presentation, student activists swamp him with requests for guidance about what they should do next. They plot how to reverse the enclosure of the public domain. If nothing else, these students are engaged with the political process of intellectual property in a way that has never been seen before. The expansion of I.P. has led to the creation of a movement that is fascinating in two ways: It guarantees that the public will have a voice in future I.P. policy making, and it has created a new kind of student movement that is one of the more active political movements on college campuses. There are no riots, but this movement promises a more socially conscious intellectual property system, one achievable without bloodshed. But away from the zeal of the student activists, the real revolution is taking place. None of the revolutionaries recognize themselves as such-they're just open source programmers or "citizen journalists." But they promise to upend the intellectual property system because they are creating things for the sake of curiosity, or for the approbation of their peers, or because it's fun. This revolution will just happen, as people take up the means of production for themselves-and even if it won't be televised, it will surely be reported in Ohmynews. Dan Hunter teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. ======================================= CIRCULATED EARLIER VIA: APC Forum is a meeting place for the APC community -- people and institutions who are or have been involved in collaboration with APC, and share the APC vision - a world in which all people have easy, equal and affordable access to the creative potential of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to improve their lives and create more democratic and egalitarian societies. http://lists.apc.org/mailman/listinfo/apc.forum

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IOSN: Request for Authors, FOSS: Open Standards (fwd)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 11 Dec '04

11 Dec '04

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Dear Friends, Please see the Terms of Reference below. If you would like to apply please send me your updated Curriculum Vitae and 2-3 samples of your writings on FOSS and Open Standards. Thanks, Sunil --------------------------------------------------------------------------- International Open Source Network: Terms of Reference for Author for Primer: Free/Open Source Software - Open Standards Duration: 6 months --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Background --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The International Open Source Network (IOSN - http://www.iosn.net) is a Centre of Excellence for Free / Open Source Software in the Asia-Pacific Region. IOSN is an initiative of the UNDP's Asia-Pacific Information Development Programme (APDIP - http://www.apdip.net) and is supported by International Development Research Centre (IDRC - http://www.idrc.ca]. Via a small secretariat, the IOSN is tasked specifically to facilitate and network Free / Open Source Software advocates and human resources in the region. Open standards are publicly available specifications for achieving a specific task. By allowing anyone to use the standard, they increase compatibility between various hardware and software components since anyone with the technical know-how and the necessary equipment to implement solutions can build something that works together with those of other vendors[1]. Vendors of proprietary software use proprietary standards or formats to lock-in their customer. Once the customer has legal applications that adhere to proprietary standards and legal data in proprietary formats there is great inertia to shift to a new vendor. It does not matter whether the new vendor promotes proprietary or Free/ Open Source Software [FOSS]. Therefore it could be said that proprietary standards breed unfair and monopolistic business practices and are incongruous with the Free Market. FOSS advocates believe that popular Open Standards are an important stepping stone towards the accelerated adoption of Free/Open Source Software in developing countries. Vendors of proprietary software have realised this and have adopted the strategy of “embrace, extend and extinguish[2]” in an attempt to halt the march of FOSS. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Title: Free and Open Source Software - Open Standards --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bruce Perens has identified the following 5 principles for Open Standards. Open Standards are available for all to read and implement. Open Standards maximize end-user choice and they do not lock the customer in to a particular vendor or group. Open Standards are free for all to implement, with no royalty or fee. Open Standards and the organizations that administer them do not favor one implementor over another for any reason other than the technical standards compliance of a vendor's implementation. Implementations of Open Standards may be extended, or offered in subset form[3]. Many public institutions like government agencies and civil society organisations are obliged by new legislation to place information in the public domain. Unfortunately, many of them are using proprietary standards and formats that require members of the public to purchase or pirate expensive proprietary software. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Objectives --------------------------------------------------------------------------- To produce a primer on Open Standards that will: 1. Introduce Free/Open Source Software and Open Standards and explain the connection between the two. 2. Provide a rationale for the use of Open Standards in Government/Development funded ICT interventions 3. Profile open standards and formats such as HTML, XML, CSS, PNG, SVG RDF, SOAP, UNICODE, SQL, RSS etc. 4. Compare open standards to proprietary equivalents and explain benefits and disadvantages. 5. Give an overview of standards setting bodies such as W3C and Unicode Consortium; enumerate membership requirements for these bodies; describe the process of negotiating, setting and adopting standards. 6. Profile FOSS software and tools that can be used to create new content or migrate existing content. 7. Provide case studies where the use of standards have increased interoperability, scaling up of projects and process efficiency. 8. Provide sample tenders for ICT projects; review existing policies endorsing open standards from this region. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Duties and Responsibilities of the Author --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Author will be required to carry out the following: 1. Conduct background research on Open Standards and Formats and particularly in the Asia-Pacific context. 2. Review and analyse all existing Open Standards and Formats. 3. Produce a first draft of the primer according to objectives as described above. 4. Provide drafts of the primer taking into account the feedback provided by APDIP-IOSN according to the time-line below. 5. Consolidate and compile feedback based on a select list of peer reviewers approved by APDIP, and make the necessary revisions. 6. Ensure that the publication material conforms to the UNDP Style Manual, December 2002 version as provided. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Time Frame --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The project will be undertaken based on the following timetable: Time Output/ Deliverable Responsibility 0th Week Contract signed – project kick off IOSN 2rd Week Annotated outline of the primer Author 3th Week Feedback on primer outline IOSN 8th Week First draft of primer Author 9th Week Internal feedback on the first draft IOSN 12th Week Second draft of primer + response to Author the internal feedback 15th Week Peer and public feedback on the primer IOSN 18th Week Third draft Author 19th Week Feedback on the third draft IOSN 22th Week Final draft Author --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rights --------------------------------------------------------------------------- All the copyright of research papers, materials, documents, publications, and on-line resources collected and worked upon by the Author belong UNDP-IOSN. UNDP-IOSN will license this body of work to the general public under the Creative Commons Attribution license. Therefore, the Author has full rights to use the content and findings for any work of similar nature that s/he wishes to perform in the future. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Qualifications and Experience --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Substantial knowledge of Free and Open Source Software movement particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. 2. Prior experience in research and publishing of papers on FOSS and Open Standards and Open Formats 3. Good command of English-language communication and writing skills. 4. Good communication and interpersonal skills and experience in working effectively in a multicultural environment. 5. A team-player and self-starter, able to work with minimum supervision, with sound judgement. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Terms of Payments --------------------------------------------------------------------------- A lump sum amount of US$3,000 will be paid upon submission and acceptance by APDIP, of the final pre-publication version of the Primer. No further claims will be considered. UNDP-APDIP, Kuala Lumpur, 10th Dec 2004 [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_standard [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish [3]http://perens.com/OpenStandards/Definition.html Thanks, ಸುನೀಲ್ Thanks, ಸುನೀಲ್ -- Sunil Abraham, sunil(a)mahiti.org http://www.mahiti.org 314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA Ph/Fax: +91 80 51150580. Mob: (60) 1-2205-3895 Currently on sabbatical with APDIP/UNDP Manager - International Open Source Network Wisma UN, Block C Komplex Pejabat Damansara. Jalan Dungun, Damansara Heights. 50490 Kuala Lumpur. P. O. Box 12544, 50782, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Tel: (60) 3-2091-5167, Fax: (60) 3-2095-2087 sunil(a)apdip.net http://www.iosn.net http://www.apdip.net "A world opened up by communications cannot remain closed up in a feudal vision of property" - Gilberto Gil, Minister of Culture, Brazil Dgroups is a joint initiative of Bellanet, DFID, Hivos, ICA, IICD, OneWorld, UNAIDS --- You are currently subscribed to oneworldsa as: fred(a)bytesforall.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-oneworldsa-48530R(a)dgroups.org

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INDIA: Media Lab Asia: Empanelment of consultants and organisations...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 10 Dec '04

10 Dec '04

MEDIA LAB ASIA. Empanelment of consultants and organisations for design, development, prototyping, system integration and test deployment of ICT systems in rural areas. Media Lab Asia has been set up by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India to research, develop and deploy ICT and other technologies for the benefit of commonman. To successfully implement this programme, Media Lab Asia intends to enter into project-based collaborations with different solution providers in their areas of expertise. For this purpose, Media Lab Asia invites applications for empanelment of consultants and organisations who have interest, ideas, skills and experience to participate by way of identification, research, design, development, prototyping, system integration and field deployment of ICT systems in rural areas. ILLUSTRATIVE AREAS OF WORK * Broadband wireless communication technologies and products. * Low cost access devices * ICT for healthcare - Low cost & ICT integrated/enabled medical equipment for primary healthcare. - Healthcare information and management systems. - Telemedicine tools and devices - Field data collection devices, tools and software. * ICT in education - Multimedia educational content development tools in local languages and English - Educational content in local languages and English - Virtual laboratory experiments, etc * ICT tools to enhance livelihood - Rural e-commerce tools - Tools for rural interaction and information exchange * Advanced multi-nodal interfaces and local languages * Assistive devices and technologies for disabled. For details and empanelment information, long on to http://www.medialabasia.org.in Apply within 15 days to: Officer on Special Duty (OSD), Media Lab Asia, 4th Floor, Samruddhi Venture Park, Central MIDC Road, Andheri (East), Mumbai 400093 Tel +22-2831 2930 or 2831 2931 Fax +22 283 79158 >From an advert in Herald, Goa, December 9, 2004 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Frederick Noronha (FN) Nr Convent Saligao 403511 GoaIndia Freelance Journalist P: 832-2409490 M: 9822122436 http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks http://fn.swiki.net http://www.ryze.com/go/fredericknoronha http://fn-floss.notlong.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Difficulties to send email across? Write to fredericknoronha at vsnl.net ============================================================================ Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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dot matrix Printer on linux
by afsar hussain 09 Dec '04

09 Dec '04

hi, I want to use dot matrix ptinter on my linux machine. I am using Wipro HQ1040+ printer. I am facing problem on configuring cups and want to know that the linux support this printer or not, and which driver will be better for that. Any help or suggestions are welcom every time. Afsar Hussain(Hyderabad) --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - You care about security. So do we.

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GoI assurance on GNU/Linux "fully implemented"?
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 07 Dec '04

07 Dec '04

http://164.100.24.167:8080/members/website/assu.asp?qref=198270 Government Assurance Details As On: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 SESSION/ASSURANCE NUMBER: 198/270 DATE: 13-03-2003 MINISTRY : COMMUNICATIONS & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MEMBER : FALEIRO EDUARDO MARTINHO SOURCE: QUESTION CLICK TO SEE QUESTIONS QUESTION NO: 2331 QUESTION TYPE: UNSTARRED SUBJECT : Free/open source software EXTENT OF ASSURANCE: Based on the deliberations had during the meeting held at New Delhi during December, 2002 on understanding the potential of free/open sources software in making IT affordable to the citizens ,Linux India Initiative has been identified as an effort to be included in 2003-04 plan of Department of Information Technology and has been included. Other follow up actions are being taken. STATUS: FULLY IMPLEMENTED EXTENSION NO: 2 EXTENDED UPTO: 30-11-2003 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Frederick Noronha 784 Near Convent, Sonarbhat SALIGAO GOA India Freelance Journalist TEL: +91-832-2409490 MOBILE: 9822122436 http://fn.swiki.net http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks fred at bytesforall.org http://www.bytesforall.org

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[Fsf-friends] NSS COLLEGE OF ENGG Free Software Fwd:NSS COLLEGE OF ENGG Free SoftwareUsers group
by Praveen A 07 Dec '04

07 Dec '04

hello, can any one help NSS COLLEGE OF ENGG Free Software Users group to conduct a workshop or awareness program on Free Software philosophy and GNU/linux? -----Forwarded Message----- From: Dileep M. Kumar <dileep(a)symonds.net> To: FSUG-Kochi-Discuss(a)symonds.net Subject: [fsug-kochi-discuss] [Fwd: NSS COLLEGE OF ENGG Free Software Users group] Date: 27 Nov 2004 19:25:30 +0530 Any takers ? Regards -- Dileep -------- Original Message -------- Subject: NSS COLLEGE OF ENGG Free Software Users group Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 05:30:03 +0000 (GMT) From: santhosh thottingal <santhoshthottingal(a)yahoo.co.in> To: dileep(a)kumarayil.net Sir, We have a Free Software users group in our NSS College of Engineering,Plakkad, named as FOX-Free software and Open systems eXtended. We understood that most of the students not aware of the Free software movement and GNU or they are misunderstanding the meaning and the mission. In this scenario we would like to conduct an awareness programme in the form of a seminar or workshop. We think that you are used to conduct these type of programmes and you can help us. If you are interested please reply us in email. Santhosh T R, Coordinator-Fox club, Dept of Computer Science and Engg. NSS college of Engineering, Palakkad-678595. Email: santhoshthottingal(a)yahoo.co.in desert_orion(a)yahoo.com -- ~vimal -- --- A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org http://www.edathanattukara.com Visit me at http://www.pravi.tk

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Indian Linux users cant see constitution in Hindi
by Sandip Bhattacharya 03 Dec '04

03 Dec '04

[Apologies for cross posting. Please take care while replying] Did you know that you can only see the official online version of the constitution of India in our national language - Hindi, if you use Internet Explorer? That is right. Take a look at the following link. http://indiacode.nic.in/coiweb/welcome.html I have been hunting down other GoI offenders and listing them at http://www.lug-delhi.org/HallOfShame/Websites Now dont go ahead and moan about difficulties of showing Indian languages on the web.The PTI hindi website (http://www.ptinews.com/bhasha/ptisite.nsf) shows that a standard based alternative already exists. We need more help from every body concerned to list the GoI and private financial institution offenders who discriminate against users of alternative and Free Operating systems from accessing information from our very own government! After all what is the point of evangelising Linux/BSD or whatever as an alternative to newbies if they see that every other web site in India openly discriminate against them? - Sandip -- Sandip Bhattacharya * Puroga Technologies * sandip(a)puroga.com Work: http://www.puroga.com * Home: http://www.sandipb.net PGP/GPG Signature: 51A4 6C57 4BC6 8C82 6A65 AE78 B1A1 2280 A129 0FF3 printk("NULL POINTER IDIOT\n"); linux-2.6.6/drivers/media/dvb/dvb-core/dvb_filter.c

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FSF and GNU, and other talks on Free Software
by Ramanraj K 01 Dec '04

01 Dec '04

Recently, the ILUGC organised a demo day for IEEE [pronounced as I-triple-E] at the Central Lecture Theatre, IIT Madras. Brief minutes about the meet is available at: http://www.chennailug.org/meeting/minutes/yr2004/ilugc-112004.html My talk was on on "FSF and GNU", and the slides I used for the talk is available at: http://personal.vsnl.com/ramanraj/FSF_and_GNU.tar.gz [99K] The purpose of the talk was to briefly introduce FSF and GNU to an audience totally new to free software. I should thank Bharathi for organising the event, giving the opportunity and for choosing a nice topic to talk about :) Though I used OO Impress for the talk, I have converted the file for use with MagicPoint, a X11 based presentation tool. The presentation file (FSF_and_GNU.mgp) is just a text file which may be easily modified or improved. MagicPoint allows presentation files to be created quickly with a text editor, building with tag directives for embedding graphics, grabbing command outputs into foils for live displays during presentations etc. After installing MagicPoint, to start the presentation give the command: # mgp <file_name> Official home page of MagicPoint is at: http://www.Mew.org/mgp/ Shakthi Kannan, gave a presentation on "GNU/Linux Software Applications for Engineers and Tech Support" and is available for download from http://www.geocities.com/cyborg4k/ieee1104.tar.gz [1MB] released under the Creative Commons-Attribution/Non-commercial/ Shared-Alike Version 2.0 License:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/ Sivasankar Chander also introduced Gnu/Linux to the audience, but I do not have the link to his slides. In all, about 30 IEEE members, 70 IIT-M Students, and few others attended the demo day workshop. __

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to anand babu. guile project
by ISAAC PRAVEEN 30 Nov '04

30 Nov '04

Anand, Guile is pretty ineresting for sure. Are there anyoone working on it from India? isaac praveen ----- Original Message ----- From: "Anand Babu" <ab(a)gnu.org.in> To: "Principal Support List of FSF-India" <fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in> Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] any lisp programmers? Date: Sat, 27 Nov 2004 04:24:19 -0800 > > > http://www.gnu.org.in/mailinglists.html > Fsf-prog (FSF India Programmers List) is more appropriate list to > discuss this topic. > > ,----[ "ISAAC PRAVEEN" <satriani(a)linuxmail.org> ] > | Would like to know if there are any Lisp programmers, not essentially > | AI programming. I work on common Lisp and Scheme (the future exn > | language for GNU)! > `---- > Yes, I use GNU Guile for Scheme programming. I found Scheme much more > powerful and easer than Python. Some of my own projects (like GNU > FreeIPMI, Freehoo) uses Scheme. My desktop environment (GNU Emacs, > Gnus, Sawfish...) is mostly Lisp extensible. > > > ,----[ "ISAAC PRAVEEN" <satriani(a)linuxmail.org> ] > | Currently, writing an extension language called ACE-lisp for > | algebraic(symbolic) computing. Not a replica of maxima though! Just > | for fun. > `---- > I would very much recommend you to contribute it to GNU Guile project. > > -- > Anand Babu > Free as in Freedom <www.gnu.org> > > _______________________________________________ > Fsf-friends mailing list > Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in > http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends > Ph: 9886120247 Computing and Cognitive Neuroscience div. THE GAMMA MATRIX PROJECT Turing Lab Bangalore, India -- ______________________________________________ Check out the latest SMS services @ http://www.linuxmail.org This allows you to send and receive SMS through your mailbox. Powered by Outblaze

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Learning to *use* free software
by Ramanraj K 29 Nov '04

29 Nov '04

>Rakesh 'arky' Ambati wrote: >--- Sriharsha Vedurmudi ><sriharsha.v(a)redpinesignals.com> wrote: >Is this "Project Shiksha" (Shiksha -> Teachin) or >'Project Siksha' (Siksha -> Punishment)? >http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2004/nov/25ms.htm >So, M$ is now kicking off with a colourful Trojan >Horse..... Generally, we cannot go by such unofficial reports which may be false or incorrect based on rumours. We would need to go by information from more authoritative sources. If the MOU is true, it is a very serious issue calling for swift action. Regardless of whether the MOU is true or false, we need to apprise the concerned officials with a few facts. It has taken a great deal of effort, enthusiasm and energy, of FSF, RMS, Eric Raymond, Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox and thousands of other developers, to create a totally free operating system, that is robust, secure and open. After more than two decades of hard work, we just have to take what is being served on a plate and eat it. The advocacy these days is more on merely *using* free software, that is much, much easier than *developing* free software. A government that cares for the welfare of its people would never ignore free software. Probably a memorandum could be addressed to the Govt of WB to take note of the free software movement, pointing to very fine examples from around the world, particularly Brazil, the whole of Africa, and Europe. The following report is particularly interesting: http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/Africa-Becoming-Vast-Frontier-for-Free-an… I am sure mere representations to the Govt. of WB should bring in desired changes, and PIL or other action would only come last of all, if necessary at all. Regards, Ramanraj.

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by Praveen A 28 Nov '04

28 Nov '04

Wikipedia now feature Firefox in its main page ! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page -- A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org http://www.edathanattukara.com Visit me at http://www.pravi.tk Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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[Fsf-friends] Linux and windows face to face : Linux overtakes Mac on desktops
by Praveen A 28 Nov '04

28 Nov '04

There is a good discussion going on in spymac.com discussion forum in a thread started by me. It would be nice if you just go through it. Many arguments for an aginst free software and linux adoption is there. Also if you want to get an audience who don't know what linux is and who want to know what it is. It is ideal place to discuss. One important difference there is that majority on the forum use Mac OS X, very difficult to convert than Windows. they say it is secure ( It is Unix -- a BSD variant). They say it is powerful and userfriendly. It is worth signing up and join the discussions. All Free software evangelists come out and join me in this effort. http://www.spymac.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=107392 Praveen A -- A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org http://www.edathanattukara.com Visit me at http://www.pravi.tk Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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Firefox on Wikipedia main page as Featured article
by Praveen A 28 Nov '04

28 Nov '04

See the Wikipedia Page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page -- --- A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org http://www.edathanattukara.com Visit me at http://www.pravi.tk

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STORY:- Security Report: Windows vs Linux
by Praveen A 28 Nov '04

28 Nov '04

Biting the hand that feeds IT This is a story published on The Register, the UK's leading IT news web site. You can find the original at: http://www.theregister.co.uk/security/security_report_windows_vs_linux/ I saw this on The Register and thought of you. Enjoy! Security Report: Windows vs Linux An independent assessment By Nicholas Petreley Friday 22nd October 2004 07:26 GMT * Executive Summary * Busting The Myths + Myth: There's Safety In Small Numbers + Myth: Open Source is Inherently Dangerous + Myths: Conclusions Based on Single Metrics * Windows vs. Linux Design + Windows Design o Windows has only recently evolved from a single-user design to a multi-user model o Windows is Monolithic by Design, not Modular o Windows Depends Too Heavily on the RPC model o Windows focuses on its familiar graphical desktop interface + Linux Design o Linux is based on a long history of well fleshed-out multi-user design o Linux is Modular by Design, not Monolithic o Linux is Not Constrained by an RPC Model o Linux servers are ideal for headless non-local administration * Realistic Security and Severity Metrics + Elements of an Overall Severity Metric o Overall Severity Metric and Interaction Between the Three Key Metrics o The Exception To The Rule o Applying The Overall Severity Metric + Means Of Evaluating Metrics o Exposure Potential o Exploitation Potential o Damage Potential o Overall Severity Risk + Additional Considerations o Application Imbalance o Setup and Administration * A Comparison of 40 Recent Security Patches + Patches and Vulnerabilities Affecting Microsoft Windows Server 2003 + Patches and Vulnerabilities Affecting Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS v.3 * CERT Vulnerability Notes Database Results * References * Footnotes Executive Summary Much ado has been made about whether or not Linux is truly more secure than Windows. We compared Windows vs. Linux by examining the following metrics in the 40 most recent patches/vulnerabilities listed for Microsoft Windows Server 2003 vs. Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS v.3: ... Keep yourself fully informed by signing up to receive The Register's daily or weekly newsletters http://go.theregister.com/k/newslettermf To read the rest of this story, find the original at http://www.theregister.co.uk/security/security_report_windows_vs_linux/. --- A proud GNU user http://www.gnu.org http://www.edathanattukara.com Visit me at http://www.pravi.tk

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