FSUG-Bangalore June 2004

fsug-bangalore@mm.gnu.org.in

11 participants
25 discussions

Knock knock.
by Sajith T S 11 Jun '04

11 Jun '04

Hello, Was the list really silent or was it my mailbox bouncing? We've to overcome the silence and inaction somehow if that is the case. Well, there was a plan for launching a website and wiki/CMS. What about a workshop or something similar one of these weekends? That could serve as a socialising/PR occasion as well. By the way, any idea how many people are on board as of now? Sajith. -- Your friends will know you better in the first moment you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a lifetime. -- Richard Bach, "Illusions"

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FSF Europe newsletter
by Abhas Abhinav 09 Jun '04

09 Jun '04

We can have something on these lines for Bangalore! -abhas. ---------- 1. Introducing the FSFE newsletter 2. EU Council decision on software patents directive 3. AGNULA 4. Welcoming FSFE press speaker Joachim Jakobs 5. Georg Greve in South America 6. Protecting Free Software from over regulation 7. Other important public appearances 1. Introducing the FSFE newsletter Around the official general assembly of the Free Software Foundation Europe on May 15, the core members took the chance to discuss several ideas on how to improve public information about the activities of the FSFE. One of the results was the decision to periodically publish a newsletter, and this is the first one. 2. EU Council decision on software patents directive The most widely regarded event in May was probably the decision of the Council of the European Union about the Software Patent Directive. After the European Parliament made its clear vote against unlimited patentability of software algorithms, the Irish Presidency proposed a version of the directive that undoes virtually all of the Parliament's changes. Even though some countries did not approve it, this version got the necessary qualified majority in the Council. The fact that the Council's opposition against software patent was still stronger than expected can well be regarded as a result of the successful cooperation of FSFE, FFII and many other organizations in informing citizens and politicians about the danger of the Presidency's proposal. As the decision process is still not finished, the FSFE will continue to work on the software patent issue together with these organizations. 3. AGNULA While AGNULA (A GNU/Linux Audio Distribution) is already regarded a big success by all participants (and also by the European Union, who funded the project), work is not over with the final release. The FSFE still supports the project by helping with things like the AGNULA trademark license. 4. Welcoming FSFE press speaker Joachim Jakobs To relieve the core members from the increasingly time-consuming press work, the FSFE hired Joachim Jakobs on a part-time basis as a press speaker. 5. Georg Greve in South America Georg Greve is currently visiting several locations in South America, getting in contact with local Free Software Activists there and supporting them in building up a Free Software network there like the FSFE is here. His public activities in South America included an interview for Argentinas most important newspaper, a speech at the University of Cordoba about Free Software in Education, an interview for TV as well as for the largest national radio station in Uruguay and the keynote at USUARIA, a South American congress on Free Software topics. We expect these activities to help building up a global network of Free Software organizations, of which the FSFE will be an essential part. 6. Protecting Free Software from over regulation The Italian Chapter has been very busy trying to amend a new Italian law that could harm Free Software. To limit the supposed damages that the Italian motion picture and record industry claims to come from peer-to-peer file sharing, the government proposed a law that makes it illegal to publish any digital content on the web without "declaring to the SIAE that the publisher has a license to do so". The law also introduces more restrictions, making a criminal offense punishable with up to four years of jail sharing without consent of the author any file on the web, even if it is not "for profit". The law is so absurd that FSF Europe has been asked by BSA (Business Software Alliance) to cooperate to prevent its approval. Unfortunately, though, the law passed despite the fact that in the end both the government and the opposition agreed that "it is a very bad law". The government promised to correct it soon and already announced a revision: FSFE will continue its strong pressure on the whole Parliament. 7. Other important public appearances Stefano Maffulli participated at a forum about "Intellectual property" at the Istituto Bruno Leoni (IBL) in Italy to point out some problems regarding software patents. At the end of the month he participated to a "summit of Italian free software organizations" in Avellino where there was the chance to discuss a better coordination between them.

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Technologies for e-gov
by Rakesh 'arky' Ambati 09 Jun '04

09 Jun '04

Hi Friends, Here is some material about using free software for e-gov initiative.I think senthil was telling us about e-gov.org in last Gnu(s) Grazing. Linux In Government: Interoperability[http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7611] -- Tom Adelstein begins a new Web column for us covering the use of Linux and open source in government agencies. His first column discusses developing standards and cooperation among state and local governments. Read OSS as F\LOSS. <snip> Since August 2003, we have seen significant Linux adoption taking place within many sectors of the US federal government. Major accomplishments include deployment of a large interoperable database project using LAMP, Justice Department XML standards, establishment of a Government Open Source Community sponsored by the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA), and organization of the Government Open Code Collaborative. </snip> cheers --arky __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger. http://messenger.yahoo.com/

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Fwd:Latest news on European Softwarepatents
by Rakesh 'arky' Ambati 09 Jun '04

09 Jun '04

FYI --arky --- contributors-request(a)osnews.com wrote: > Date: Tue, 08 Jun 2004 12:00:00 +0000 > From: contributors-request(a)osnews.com > Subject: Contributors digest, Vol 1 #62 - 1 msg > To: contributors(a)osnews.com > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Latest news on European Softwarepatents (Arend > Lammertink) > > --__--__-- > > Message: 1 > Date: Tue, 08 Jun 2004 13:27:13 +0200 > From: Arend Lammertink <alam(a)home.nl> > To: contributors(a)osnews.com > Subject: [OSNews Contrib] Latest news on European > Softwarepatents > > This is a multi-part message in MIME format. > --------------090001040703070402060103 > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-2; > format=flowed > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > Hi there, > > I was part of a delegation that handed over a > petition to the Dutch > government on behalf of the FFII, against > softwarepatents. > > As a result of this, the decision taken by the > Counsil of Ministers is > once again under discussion and might even be > overturned! > > I have typed about half the story and would like to > know if this would > have any chance of being published. > > Of course, I'm open to any suggestions and > improvements (English is not > my native language) and I still need to write the > other half, which I > think is quite interesting. > > For example, the only company that was present at > the emergency debate > were our friends from Redmond. Since they also > sponsor the Irish > presidency, it is obvious they had something to gain > here. > > What do you think? > Should I write the other half? > > Kindest regards, > > Arend Lammertink. > > > > --------------090001040703070402060103 > Content-Type: text/plain; > name="swpat.txt" > Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Content-Disposition: inline; > filename="swpat.txt" > > The latest news on European Software Patents. > > > The battle about Software Patents in Europe seemed > all but lost. The council of ministers voted for a > directive that basically slapped the European > Parliament in the face because they shamelessly put > aside a democratic decision taken by said > Parliament. And even though the Parliament still has > a second reading where it has to go to a lot of > trouble to repair the damage done by the Council, it > is a serious matter that the Council of Ministers > have shown they have no idea of the devastating > consequences of their directive for the European > SME's. What's more, they have shown twice in one > week that they have no respect for the democratic > opinion of the European Parliament, which in itself > is absolutely unacceptable. > > It turned out that the Dutch Eurocommisionar had > played a big role in convincing our German > neighbours to vote in favor of a "compromise" that > basically puts the European Software industry on > sell-off, since of 30.000 softwarepatents the EPO > already gave out against the letter and spirit of > the existing law, 75% belong to non-European > multinationals and it is unclear what happens to the > legal status of these patents. > If he reads this, I want him to know that I am going > to vote for the Parliament coming Thursday as I did > last time and I, as a European citizen, want my vote > to be respected. > > > _Seemed_ all but lost. But it ain't over yet. We've > played our cards (and luck!) quite nicely here in > The Netherlands (if I may say so myself) and at this > moment the Dutch Parliament is seriously considering > to revoke the vote Minister Brinkhorst gave at the > Council. This has never happened before in the > history of the European Union! > > > So, what's going on out there? Did we miss > something? > > > Well, the ball started rolling because I knew a > member of the Dutch Parliament, Annie Schrijer ( > http://www.tweede-kamer.nl/leden_commissies_fracties/griffie_lfc/kamerdet63… > ), who turned out to be vice-chairman of the > Committee for Economic affairs in the Dutch > Parliament. > After the demonstration on friday the 14th of May at > the Dutch ministry of Economic Affairs, I talked to > some of the representatives of the FFII and > vrijschrift.org and I told them I knew Mrs. Schrijer > and could be able to contact her. Since we thought > it might help, I decided to call her. > > Since she lives just a few kilometers from where I > live, it could happen that I went over to her place > the next saturday and was able to tell her the whole > story. Fortunately she had had patent issues in her > dossier before, so it didn't took long for her to > understand exactly what was going on. > > Even though she could not do much herself directly, > she could tell me how I could try to hand over an > urgent petition to the Dutch Parliament on tuesday > May 18th, the day the Ministers were to vote in the > Council. That always seems to "shake the bed" as she > put it. > > Well, I could not have imagened how right she was. > First of all, we offered the petition to the right > persons this time. Previously, we had offered it to > the civil servants who wrote the letters on behalf > of the Minister that later turned out to contain > critical errors... > Of course, these guys were not very interested in > "shaking the bed". They were more interested in > getting this over as quickly and quietly as > possible. > > But, there we were. > > Tuesday, the 18th of May. Just 5 geeks disguised as > businessmen standing eye to eye with the Commision > for Economic Affairs of the Dutch Parliament : > http://www.harmwal.nl/img/20040518denhaagmaastricht/pict0007.jpg > What happens in such a case is that you are allowed > to say your thing for about 5 minutes. After that, > it's usually "thanks" and off you go. > > This time, there was just a little tiny extra > detail. Apparantly Annie had done her homework and > she had noticed that there was an error in the > letter the Minister (or better: his civil servants) > had sent to the Parliament prior to the vote in the > Council, explaining that there was "agreement" > between the European Parliament and the Council, > which had been understood by the Dutch Parliament as > saying "dont't worry, everything is arranged and in > order". By that time, it was already clear that the > Dutch members of the European Parliament were not > exactly speaking about an "agreement". Oops. > > So, we had our hands on a classical case of > "onjuiste informatie" ("incorrect information") to > the Parliament by a responsible politician, not > seldom resulting in the forced resignation of such a > politician. > Clearly this is something the opposition is always > interested in. In the Netherlands, they have an > important task in being the guarding dog of the > Parliament. It just had to be wakened.... > > So, Annie whispered something into their ears that I > was unable to hear. However, we would soon find out > the guarding dog had been wakened. What happened was > that a letter was sent to the Minister where he was > asked to explain the situation. Unfortunately, we > don't have a copy of this letter, but the answer of > the Minister is available on the official website of > the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affars (in Dutch): > > http://www.ez.nl/upload/docs/Kamerbrieven/PDF-Documenten/4033973-vtk.pdf > (Exercise for the reader: Who actually wrote it?) > > Of course, we had some remarks (in Dutch), > co-authored by mr.ir. R.B.Bakels [1]: > > http://www.vrijschrift.nl/Members/arend/Brief_AO_EZ/becommentarieerde_brief… > > > > For those of you that don't understand Dutch, the > letter, prepared in the Minister's name by his civil > servants, contains just the standard arguments > copycatted from the European Commission, but no > answer to the question "was there or was there not > an agreement between the European Parliament and the > Council?". > > What might be interesting at this point is to take a > look at the transcriptions of the debate at the > Council of Ministers: > > http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/V002.ogg > http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/V003.ogg > > Especially the last part of the second transcription > shows an interesting insight into democracy as > practiced by the Council of Ministers. > > (Note: even though the extension suggests they're > ogg files, they're not. > They are transcriptions of ogg files and in > html format. The audio > recordings are also available: > http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/Transcription ) > > > Anyway, the answer of the Minister was unsatisfying > and therefore the Dutch Commission for Economic > Affairs ordered a "spoed-debat" ("emergency debate") > on the matter. They wanted to know if an error was > made and also if they would be able to revoke the > vote of the Minister, should they want to. > > > > :-:-: > > Short answer for now: > > * Yes, there was an error > * Yes, all European countries can revoke their vote > if they want to > > The Dutch Parliament will debate on the subject > before the end of this month. > > To be continued before publication ... > > > ======= > > [1] Mr.ir. R.B. Bakels. Connected to the Centre for > Intellectual Propertyright of the University of > Utrecht. Author of the "JURI 107" report about > Softwarepatents for the European Parliament > (together with prof. Hugenholtz). He is considered > as one of the leading experts on the subject of > Softwarepatents. > > > > --------------090001040703070402060103-- > > > > --__--__-- > > _______________________________________________ > Contributors mailing list > Contributors(a)osnews.com > http://lists.osnews.com/mailman/listinfo/contributors > > > End of Contributors Digest __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Friends. Fun. Try the all-new Yahoo! Messenger. http://messenger.yahoo.com/

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[Fwd: [Indlinux-news] Localization Newsletter Issue 3 Vol 1 (June 1, 2004)]
by Sajith T S 09 Jun '04

09 Jun '04

Hi, Though I hate to be forwards Maharaja and most of you might have seen this... apologies to everyone subscribed to indlinux lists, but what happens around is terribly interesting. I'm frustrated that I'm missing all the action :( Regards, Sajith. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Indlinux-news] Localization Newsletter Issue 3 Vol 1 (June 1, 2004) Date: Tue, 8 Jun 2004 22:39:00 +0530 From: Guntupalli Karunakar <karunakar(a)indlinux.org> Organization: IndLinux.org To: indlinux-news(a)lists.sourceforge.net ******************************************************** * Localization Newsletter Issue 3 Vol 1 (June 1, 2004) * ******************************************************** ------------ Editor speak ------------ For the 'Team watch' section in this issue, we have the Punjabi Localization team. It is the youngest team, a group of final year college students, worked the fastest and completed Punjabi translations for Gnome 2.6 in record time of one month. This is our third issue and we already seem to be running out of news items themed around Indic L10n. It could be either that localization activities are going on very slowly or many not well known. We would like to believe that the latter case is a representative picture of the true state of things. Indic L10n has so many common issues that need to be addressed and discussed. So if you know of any localization activity esp. in free software/open source domain, You are welcome to write to us at <feedback AT indlinux dot org> . Please do keep it short and to the point, and links/URLs for further reference. Any feedback/comments/suggestions on how to improve the newsletter can be sent to <feedback AT indlinux dot org>. --------- Headlines --------- * Utkarsh - Gujarati localized GNU/Linux was launched on 27th May 2004. Check out www.utkarsh.org for a sneak preview. Currently it features Gnome 2.4 in Gujarati, with OpenOffice in Gujarati also coming up soon. * Oriya group takes off - A group of active enthusiasts in Bhubaneshwar and on Orissa-IT list are starting work on Oriya Linux Localization. For current activities see http://www.indlinux.org/wiki/index.php/OriyaActivities . Also see http://www.indlinux.org/oriya/ * The Assamese GNU/Linux Localization Project has created a portal at http://luit.sourceforge.net to facilitate interaction with the community and other L10n groups * The Native-Language Project for Bengali OpenOffice.org (http://www.openoffice.org) is at http://bn.openoffice.org --------- News Bits --------- * First build of OpenOffice.org in Kannada for Windows and Linux is released at http://kannada.sourceforge.net . Kannada is only the third Indian language after Hindi and Tamil to have OpenOffice translations. * Rangoli (alpha) A multilingual Indic live CD is released. At present it has KDE 3.2.1 with Bengali, Hindi and Tamil interfaces. Rangoli is live CD project from IndLinux.org. This is an unofficial release, a more functional beta release will be out by June end. CD ISO image (470MB) can be downloaded from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=11495. * The Developer's Guide (Initial version) from the Ankur Bangla Project http://www.bengalinux.org is at http://www.bengalinux.org/devel_guide/ * Red Hat India Pvt Ltd http://www.in.redhat.com held a meeting in Mumbai on the 28th of May 2004 to initiate talks about issues related to Indic L10n. A short blog entry from Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay can be found at http://blogs.randomink.org/node/view/21 * Another Phonetic keyboard layout - Devrom, Ravikant from Sarai <ravikant AT sarai.net> informs us about availability of Devrom xkb keyboard layout developed by Noah Levitt. Its available at http://www.indlinux.org/downloads/devrom-xkb.tar.gz ---------- Team Watch ---------- The group of volunteers engaged in the Indic Localization effort in the Punjabi language attained the unique distinction of being the fastest to obtain GNOME 2.6 fully supported status. In an e-mail interview with Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay (sankarshan at bengalinux dot org), Amanpreet Singh Alam (amanlinux at netscape dot net) talks about the Project and other things. SM: Let's begin with the URL of the project ASA: The project website is over here : http://www.geocities.com/punlinux, but we are planning to change it soon. The name 'PunLinux' is just a play on words derived from IndLinux (Ed. PunLinux is now hosted on SourceForge - http://punlinux.sourceforge.net/ SM: Why did this L10n start ? What was the motivation ? ASA: At the initial stages, it formed a major project of the final year of studies. However, we want to continue working with it for another one year at least. The motivation was perhaps the eternal 'personal itch of the developer' and also the fact that we wanted a Punjabi GNU/Linux Desktop. SM: What are the vision & objective of the project ? ASA: The primary objective is to ensure that GNU/Linux is made available to the common populace in the local language instead of English. This would also facilitate work at Government offices in the local language ie Punjabi. We also want to ensure that Punjabi as a language keeps up the changing paradigm imposed by Computer Science. SM: What is the current status of the project ? ASA: Gnome2.6 is fully supported, Package for Fedora 1.0 core is created and works well (at least to our satisfaction). For Fedora core 2.0, we will initiate the translation. The status could be found over here: http://elvis.redhat.com/cgi-bin/i18n-status SM: Milestones & targets achieved ? ASA: Our main target is to provide GNU/Linux is Punjabi. A LiveCD for for demonstration purposes 'GNU/Linux Desktop in Punjabi',will be created soon. SM: Who volunteer for the project ? What is the desired profile ? Is the project looking for more volunteers ? ASA: Currently the team is comprised of five persons - Amanpreet Singh Alam <amanlinux at netscape dot net> - Gursharn Singh Khalsa <gursharnsinghkhalsa at yahoo dot com> - Jaswinder Singh Phullewala <jaswinderlinux at netscape dot net> - Narinderpal Singh <nps39 at rediffmail dot com> - Sushil Kumar<badyalsk at rediffmail dot com> My personal belief is that we could translate GNOME and Fedora on our own and keep working at it for another 1 year without much problem. But handling KDE, Mozilla etc would mean that we'd require to increase the number of members so as to keep within a reasonable time schedule. SM: What do you plan to do in future with this L10n ? ASA: Like I mentioned earlier, we will support GNOME 2.6A and Fedora for a minimum of 1 year. After that we will require a source of revenue in order to continue to support and work for the project. Myself and Jas work for the PunLinux Project. SM: Are screen shots available ? URL pls ASA: Project screenshots are available here: http://www.geocities.com/punlinux (Ed. now its also hosted on http://punlinux.sourceforge.net ) SM: How is the funding being managed ? ASA: Till now we have no financial support to work, but still we'll work for minimum one year without any problem, after that we need to review it. SM: What are the problems faced by the L10n project ? (Both technical and otherwise eg. Pango, OOo etc) ASA: The locale definition pa_IN was required to be corrected, also we did not at first have fonts SM: Indic L10n suffer from common technical problems - are you in touch with other groups that are doing L10n ? ASA: Yes, we work with the major groups like IndLinux (www.indlinux.org). We want to continue with our work with the support of the people in terms of volunteers and resources. -------- Help..F1 -------- * Have your say, Join Unicode Indic list. Abhijit Dutta <dabhijit AT in dot ibm dot com> from IBM http://www.ibm.com says we need more Indians on Indic Unicode http://www.unicode.org list to discuss Indic issues with respect to Unicode. To join the list send a mail to ecartis AT unicode.org, with subject line as subscribe indic and a blank body. If you are a language expert, linguist or involved in Indian language development work its the right forum to get Indic Unicode issues resolved. * The Assamese GNU/Linux L10n Project at http://luit.sourceforge.net is on the lookout for volunteers. Do check the project homepage. --------- To recieve a copy of newsletter regularly you can subscribe to it by sending a blank mail to indlinux-news-request(a)lists.sourceforge.net , with subscribe in subject line. For older issues of newsletter check http://www.indlinux.org/nl/ --------- This document can be copied, redistributed verbatim only (c) IndLinux.org 2004. ===================================================================== ========== ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: GNOME Foundation Hackers Unite! GUADEC: The world's #1 Open Source Desktop Event. GNOME Users and Developers European Conference, 28-30th June in Norway http://2004/guadec.org _______________________________________________ Indlinux-news mailing list Indlinux-news(a)lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/indlinux-news -- Your friends will know you better in the first moment you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a lifetime. -- Richard Bach, "Illusions"

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FSUG-Bangalore June 2004