................................................................ FN's Eye on FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software ........ ................................................................
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MEET INDIAN FLOSS BLOGGERS: http://planet.foss.in/ ---------------------------------------------------- FOSS4US blog (NGOs and FLOSS) http://foss4us.org/blog
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NEWS FROM BANGALORE AND PLANS FOR FOSS.IN: Atul Chitnis mail@atulchitnis.net writes on the http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foss-in-announce/ list:
This is it, the last day of speaker and talks registration for FOSS.IN/2005.
By midnight tonight (October 8th), we will be closing registration for talks for the technical and community sessions of the event. Speakers who have registered but not submitted any talks will be removed from the speaker database tonight.
So if you are planning to submit any talks - you have till midnight tonight (GMT+0530!)
FOSS.IN seems to be generating massive amounts of enthusiasm in the Linux community, and *especially* in the BSD community (who have proposed several talks and workshops), the Gentoo community, the Debian community, etc.
The FOSS community rulez!
I will send in another mail giving you some top level stats about talks and speakers once we close registrations tonight.
Once registrations close, we will spend a couple of days sorting things out, checking which talks need work on, and will release the first shortlist (minus work-in-progress talks and "star" talks) on schedule in the evening of the 12th of October. (See the schedule at http://foss.in/2005/cfp/).
Once clashes and WIP talks are sorted out, we will release a second list with these added. "Star" speakers will be announced as soon as the remaining major sponsor confirmations come in.
Call for participation for business sessions and student talks will go out early next week. Stay tuned. Atul
----------------------------------------------------------- FOSS.IN/2005 India's Premiere Free & Open Source Software Event Nov 29 to Dec 2, 2005 Bangalore Palace. foss.in/2005 Speaker Registration open till Oct.08, 2005 ----------------------------------------------------------
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WANTED, CODERS FOR AN EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT-ORIENTED GAME: Sunil Abraham sunil@mahiti.org of Bangalore sent across this note from his friend Dev dev@thairuralnet.org who put forward a specific proposal.
Dev wrote: "I need your help to find young social technopreneurs (in your circle its probably Open source software engineers who might want to design a game like WFP Food Force or other software)."
Global Knowledge Partnership's Youth Social Enterprise Initiative (YSEI) fellowships are designed to help social entrepreneurs achieve their goals from the initial idea through to project implementation and impact creation.
They seek to support projects by young people who are creating impact with innovative solutions to social problems, especially those using information and communication technologies (ICTs) for development. YSEI will support fellows by providing mentorship and training programmes; networking; and seed grants.
If you are a young social entrepreneur (age <30) from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Philippines and Malaysia in search for support and opportunities. Please visit www.globalknowledge.org/ysei OR www.futureshifters.net to learn more and submit your proposal by 31st October 2005.
Youth Social Enterprise Initiative (YSEI) is a Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) Youth Program supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Its partners include MITRA, OrphanIT, TakingITGlobal, YoungAsiaTelevision, Philippines Resources for Sustainable Development (PRSD), Development Research Network (D.Net) with TRN as the intiative's lead.
Sunil Abraham sunil@mahiti.org also happens to be manager of the IOSN.net In addition, he's behind the Mahiti group in Bangalore. http://www.mahiti.org 314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA Ph/Fax: +91 80 51150580. Mob: (91) 9342201521 UK: (44) 02000000259
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YOUNG NETWORK IN GOA: Our friend 'DP' of the Goa Lug rediscovered this abandoned network and is trying to rebuild it. It's in the town of Ponda in central Goa. A place where a small but committed number of techies are deeply interested in GNU/Linux. Please offer your support: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-ponda
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AN INTERESTING LINK: Guru Prasath aprasadh@gmail.com posted to the SonaLUG sonalug@yahoogroups.com recently, a link that gives an interesting background, in all its graphic detail:
Unix history in graphic. http://www.levenez.com/unix/history.html
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ENGICOS TAKE TO FLOSS, AND THEIR COLLEGE DISTRO IS BORN: Prof George Easaw geasaw@gmail.com of the Goa Engineering College, the live-wire behind Free/Libre and Open Source Software in that part of Goa, reports:
The Goa Engicos linux iso, it is available for download from http://www.gec.ac.in/me , the temporary homepage of the mech engg dept.
There you can find the link to engicos.iso. Right click and click on 'save link target as' and save it to your pc. Cut it on a cd and you can start the pc afresh.
Contact: George Easaw Mech Engg. Dept., College of Engg. Ponda, Goa, 403 401. INDIA. ring : (0832) - 2319185
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WHY GNU/LINUX NEEDS A MENTOR PROGRAM: See this interesting essay at http://business.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=05/09/13/1816200&from=rss
Why Linux needs a mentor program By: Tarun Agnani: Imagine you're a new Linux user. You ordered an Ubuntu CD weeks ago and forgot about it. You're surprised it actually comes in the mail. You slap the shiny disc into your PC and cross your fingers. The installation is quite slick. You're impressed by the splash screen and attractive desktop. Wow, you think you're hot stuff -- a Linux user. But the euphoria fades as you realize there's a problem with your modem. Now what do you do? ...
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FLOSS FELLOWSHIPS FROM SARAI: V Vivek viyyer@sarai.net announces the Sarai/CSDS Short Term FLOSS Fellowship, 2005-2006.
The Sarai Programme, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi (www.sarai.net) invites applications for fellowship to projects in the area of Free Software, Open Source Software and Social Usage of Software.
Sarai invites developers, researchers and programmers (practitioners as well as students) to propose projects in the area of free and open source software applications relevant to educational, social and community needs. They are looking for original ideas, as well as proposals to localize and adapt existing software and applications to South Asian conditions. They are also looking for ideas around technical manuscripts, beginners' manuals, review manuscripts etc.
Some of the focus areas are:
- Indic Computing - Developing/Distributing/Supporting a standalone / addon localized Linux distribution - Printing support (i.e. ability to print in Indian Languages) - Multimedia / Publishing Tools Research - Developing / Enhancing Tools like GIMP, Scribus for publishing quality work - Enhancing current audio/video tools available under Linux - Fixing/Supporting Cinelerra, LiVES etc - P2P - Researching on feasibility and implementation of P2P news distribution network - Researching and developing - Collaboration Tools/Frameworks (Apnaopus, CreativeDot ) - Developing extensions for the project newsrack http://floss.sarai.net/newsrack - Low Resource Computing - Devising solutions for networked computing in Low Resource Spaces (Define the parameters of the "low resource space" and work on it) - Generic - Developing Linux drivers/software for easily available hardware (usually the cheapest hardware available on the market is not supported under Linux (scanners, webcams etc)) [This would include writing a howto on how to get it to work under popular distributions (redhat, pcqlinux etc) and all.] - Review papers on emerging technologies - Indic Computing - IPV6 - Wireless Networks - Manuscripts for beginners
For more information visit www.sarai.net. Sarai says it "is committed to promoting the free software and open source vision".
Conditions: Applicants should be resident in India, and should have a bank account in any bank operating in India. These are support grants and grantees will be free to pursue their primary occupations, if any. Mail your project proposal, workplan and CV to both the following addresses: floss at sarai.net https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/prc
Please mark your subject line 'FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software) Initiative'. Also point out what you see as the relevance of your work, and how you plan to share the resultant software once finalized.
Enquires: floss at sarai.net
Note: Proposals from teams, partnerships, collectives, faculty are welcome, so long as the grant amount is administered by a single individual, and the funds are deposited in a single bank account in the name of an individual. *** Knowlege is power... share it equitably!
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MAILING LIST FOR e-learning in FLOSS: ELEARN-OPENSOURCE@LST.IIEP-UNESCO.ORG
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Copyleft -- verbatim copying, with credits -- allowed/encouraged.