FSUG-Bangalore June 2005

fsug-bangalore@mm.gnu.org.in

9 participants
26 discussions

Graphic Artists
by Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati 14 Jun '05

14 Jun '05

Morning Friends, Wonder if there are any Graphic Artists here in this list, may be you can produce great works for use on our latest wiki ? Any takers ? -- arky Rakesh 'arky' Ambati GPG Key ID: 0x92BCF7D4 Blog [ http://arky.in ] Member FSUG-Bangalore [ http://bangalore.gnu.org.in ] Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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Any MediaWiki Hackers ?
by Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati 14 Jun '05

14 Jun '05

Morning Friends, We are planning to move our FSUG Wiki to MediaWiki, but as you all know that all MediaWiki site look the same.But I know it need not be like that. If there is anyone reading this post have already hacked the MediaWiki 1.4 Monobook layout,you are most welcome to work on FSUG installation. Any takers ? Have a great day ;o) -- arky Rakesh 'arky' Ambati GPG Key ID: 0x92BCF7D4 Blog [ http://arky.in ] Member FSUG-Bangalore [ http://bangalore.gnu.org.in ] Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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Internet Content Filtering in India
by Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati 13 Jun '05

13 Jun '05

Dear Friends, The OpenNet Initiative is a collaborative partnership between three leading academic institutions: the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, and the Advanced Network Research Group at the Cambridge Security Programme, University of Cambridge. http://www.opennetinitiative.net/ An very important study on the present status on Internet content filtering. Internet Content Filtering in India: Variations in Compliance and Accuracy In response to a Rediff.com report indicating that the Mumbai Police Commissioner's Office had ordered ISPs in India to block the website HinduUnity.org (because of inflammatory anti-Islamic material contained on the website) we connected to the web site in controversy through remote computers hosted by three ISPs in India to ascertain compliance with the latest order and found that website is indeed inaccessible. http://www.opennetinitiative.net/bulletins/003/ FYI -- arky Rakesh 'arky' Ambati GPG Key ID: 0x92BCF7D4 Blog [ http://arky.in ] Member FSUG-Bangalore [ http://bangalore.gnu.org.in ] Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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System.Map Demystified
by Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati 13 Jun '05

13 Jun '05

Morning Friends, Few years ago while conducting training programs in GNU/Linux Administration, I found 'system.map' to be one of those mystery files on GNU/Linux. Not being pretentious about my GNU/Linux skills, I was searching for a good explanation ever since. Yesterday I stumbled upon this fine article by Peter. http://www.dirac.org/linux/system.map/ Perhaps you will find it interesting. ###### Article Start ######### System.map There seems to be a dearth of information about the System.map file. It's really nothing mysterious, and in the scheme of things, it's really not that important. But a lack of documentation makes it shady. It's like an earlobe; we all have one, but nobody really knows why. This is a little web page I cooked up that explains the why. Note, I'm not out to be 100% correct. For instance, it's possible for a system to not have /proc filesystem support, but most systems do. I'm going to assume you "go with the flow" and have a fairly typical system. Some of the stuff on oopses comes from Alessandro Rubini's "Linux Device Drivers" which is where I learned most of what I know about kernel programming. What Are Symbols? In the context of programming, a symbol is the building block of a program: it is a variable name or a function name. It should be of no surprise that the kernel has symbols, just like the programs you write. The difference is, of course, that the kernel is a very complicated piece of coding and has many, many global symbols. What Is The Kernel Symbol Table? The kernel doesn't use symbol names. It's much happier knowing a variable or function name by the variable or function's address. Rather than using size_t BytesRead(), the kernel prefers to refer to this variable as (for example) c0343f20. Humans, on the other hand, do not appreciate addresses like c0343f20. We prefer to use something like size_t BytesRead(). Normally, this doesn't present much of a problem. The kernel is mainly written in C, so the compiler/linker allows us to use symbol names when we code and allows the kernel to use addresses when it runs. Everyone is happy. There are situations, however, where we need to know the address of a symbol (or the symbol for an address). This is done by a symbol table, and is very similar to how gdb can give you the function name from an address (or an address from a function name). A symbol table is a listing of all symbols along with their address. Here is an example of a symbol table: c03441a0 B dmi_broken c03441a4 B is_sony_vaio_laptop c03441c0 b dmi_ident c0344200 b pci_bios_present c0344204 b pirq_table c0344208 b pirq_router c034420c b pirq_router_dev c0344220 b ascii_buffer c0344224 b ascii_buf_bytes You can see that the variable named dmi_broken is at the kernel address c03441a0. What Is The System.map File? There are 2 files that are used as a symbol table: 1. /proc/ksyms 2. System.map There. You now know what the System.map file is. Every time you compile a new kernel, the addresses of various symbol names are bound to change. /proc/ksyms is a "proc file" and is created on the fly when a kernel boots up. Actually, it's not really a file; it's simply a representation of kernel data which is given the illusion of being a disk file. If you don't believe me, try finding the filesize of /proc/ksyms. Therefore, it will always be correct for the kernel that is currently running. However, System.map is an actual file on your filesystem. When you compile a new kernel, your old System.map has wrong symbol information. A new System.map is generated with each kernel compile and you need to replace the old copy with your new copy. What Is An Oops? What is the most common bug in your homebrewed programs? The segfault. Good ol' signal 11. What is the most common bug in the Linux kernel? The segfault. Except here, the notion of a segfault is much more complicated and can be, as you can imagine, much more serious. When the kernel dereferences an invalid pointer, it's not called a segfault -- it's called an "oops". An oops indicates a kernel bug and should always be reported and fixed. Note that an oops is not the same thing as a segfault. Your program cannot recover from a segfault. The kernel doesn't necessarily have to be in an unstable state when an oops occurs. The Linux kernel is very robust; the oops may just kill the current process and leave the rest of the kernel in a good, solid state. An oops is not a kernel panic. In a panic, the kernel cannot continue; the system grinds to a halt and must be restarted. An oops may cause a panic if a vital part of the system is destroyed. An oops in a device driver, for example, will almost never cause a panic. When an oops occurs, the system will print out information that is relevent to debugging the problem, like the contents of all the CPU registers, and the location of page descriptor tables. In particular, the contents of the EIP (instruction pointer) is printed. Like this: EIP: 0010:[<00000000>] Call Trace: [<c010b860>] What Does An Oops Have To Do With System.map? You can agree that the information given in EIP and Call Trace is not very informative. But more importantly, it's really not informative to a kernel developer either. Since a symbol doesn't have a fixed address, c010b860 can point anywhere. To help us understand cryptic oops output, Linux uses a daemon called klogd, the kernel logging daemon. klogd intercepts kernel oopses and logs them with syslogd, changing some of the useless information like c010b860 with information that humans can use. In other words, klogd is a kernel message logger which can perform name-address resolution. Once klogd tranforms the kernel message, it uses whatever logger is in place to log system wide messages, usually syslogd. To perform name-address resolution, klogd uses System.map. Now you know what an oops has to do with System.map. There's other software besides the kernel logger daemon that uses System.map. I'll get into that shortly. Fine print: There are actually two types of address resolutions performed by klogd. * Static translation, which uses the System.map file. * Dynamic translation, which is used with loadable modules. These translations don't use System.map and is therefore not relevant to this discussion, but I'll describe it briefly anyhow: Klogd Dynamic Translation Suppose you load a kernel module which generates an oops. An oops message is generated, and klogd intercepts it. It is found that the oops occured at d00cf810. Since this address belongs to a dynamically loaded module, it has no entry in the System.map file. klogd will search for it, find nothing, and conclude that a loadable module must have generated the oops. klogd then queries the kernel for symbols that were exported by loadable modules. Even if the module author didn't export his symbols, at the very least, klogd will know what module generated the oops, which is better than knowing nothing about the oops at all. Where Should System.map Be Located? System.map should be located wherever the software that uses it looks for it. That being said, let me talk about where klogd looks for it. Upon bootup, if klogd isn't given the location of System.map as an argument, it will look for System.map in three places, in the following order: 1. /boot/System.map 2. /System.map 3. /usr/src/linux/System.map System.map also has versioning information, and klogd intelligently searches for the correct map file. For instance, suppose you're running kernel 2.4.18 and the associated map file is /boot/System.map. You now compile a new kernel 2.5.1 in the tree /usr/src/linux. During the compiling process, the file /usr/src/linux/System.map is created. When you boot your new kernel, klogd will first look at /boot/System.map, determine it's not the correct map file for the booting kernel, then look at /usr/src/linux/System.map, determine that it is the correct map file for the booting kernel and start reading the symbols. A few nota bene's: * Somewhere during the 2.5.x series, the Linux kernel started to untar into linux-version, rather than just linux (show of hands -- how many people have been waiting for this to happen?). I don't know if klogd has been modified to search in /usr/src/linux-version/System.map yet. TODO: Look at the klogd source. If someone beats me to it, please email me and let me know if klogd has been modified to look in the new directory name for the linux source code. * The man page doesn't tell the whole the story. Look at this: # strace -f /sbin/klogd | grep 'System.map' 31208 open("/boot/System.map-2.4.18", O_RDONLY|O_LARGEFILE) = 2 Apparently, not only does klogd look for the correct version of the map in the 3 klogd search directories, but klogd also knows to look for the name "System.map" followed by "-kernelversion", like System.map-2.4.18. This is undocumented feature of klogd. A few drivers need System.map to resolve symbols since they're linked against kernel headers instead of glibc). They won't work correctly without the System.map for the particular kernel currently running. This is NOT the same thing as a module not loading because of a kernel version mismatch. That has to do with the kernel version, not the kernel symbol table which changes between kernels of the same version! What else uses the System.map System.map isn't just useful for debugging kernel oopses. Other programs like lsof: satan# strace lsof 2>&1 1> /dev/null | grep System readlink("/proc/22711/fd/4", "/boot/System.map-2.4.18", 4095) = 23 and ps: satan# strace ps 2>&1 1> /dev/null | grep System open("/boot/System.map-2.4.18", O_RDONLY|O_NONBLOCK|O_NOCTTY) = 6 and dosemu require a correct System.map. What Happens If I Don't Have A Healthy System.map? Suppose you have multiple kernels on the same machine. You need a separate System.map file for each kernel! If you run a kernel with no (or an incorrect) System.map, you'll periodically see a message like: System.map does not match actual kernel Not a fatal error, but can be annoying to see everytime you use ps. Some software, like dosemu, may not work correctly. Lastly, your klogd or ksymoops output will not be reliable in case of a kernel oops. How Do I Remedy The Above Situation? The solution is to keep all your System.map files in /boot and rename them with the kernel version. Suppose you have multiple kernels like: * /boot/vmlinuz-2.2.14 * /boot/vmlinuz-2.2.13 Then just rename your map files according to the kernel version and put them in /boot, like: * /boot/System.map-2.2.14 * /boot/System.map-2.2.13 Now what if you have two copies of the same kernel? Suppose you have two copies of 2.2.14. One compiled with sound, and the other without sound: * /boot/vmlinuz-2.2.14 * /boot/vmlinuz-2.2.14.nosound The best answer would be if all software looked for the following files: * /boot/System.map-2.2.14 * /boot/System.map-2.2.14.nosound But to be honest, I don't know if this is the best situation. Everything I've seen searches for "System.map-version" but what about "System.map-version.extraversion"? I have no idea (TODO). ########Article Ends ######## -- arky Rakesh 'arky' Ambati GPG Key ID: 0x92BCF7D4 Blog [ http://arky.in ] Member FSUG-Bangalore [ http://bangalore.gnu.org.in ] Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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Ubuntu Sources.list
by Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati 13 Jun '05

13 Jun '05

Hi, If anyone using Ubuntu, can you share customised sources.list please. TIA -- arky Rakesh 'arky' Ambati GPG Key ID: 0x92BCF7D4 Blog [ http://arky.in ] Member FSUG-Bangalore [ http://bangalore.gnu.org.in ] Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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PDF 1.6 with xpdf
by Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati 13 Jun '05

13 Jun '05

Hi List, With using xpdf to read certain PDF version 1.6 files, it gives the following warning. Error: PDF version 1.6 -- xpdf supports version 1.5 (continuing anyway) Am using xpdf version 3.00-13 on debian unstable, doesn't anyone know how to get PDF 1.6 working with xpdf.I don't want to use Acroread, so that's not a solution. Can anybody help ? -- arky Rakesh 'arky' Ambati GPG Key ID: 0x92BCF7D4 Blog [ http://arky.in ] Member FSUG-Bangalore [ http://bangalore.gnu.org.in ] Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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Mplayer: Faac Error
by Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati 12 Jun '05

12 Jun '05

Morning Friends, This morning after regular package update suddenly the mplayer started complaining with this error. mplayer: relocation error: /usr/lib/libavcodec-cvs.so: undefined symbol: faacDecOpen This is seems to be a very debian specific mplayer problem, did any one face this error before, can help me solve this problem. $ apt-cache policy mplayer-k6 mplayer-k6: Installed: 1:1.0-pre7-0.0 Candidate: 1:1.0-pre7-0.0 Version Table: *** 1:1.0-pre7-0.0 0 600 ftp://ftp.nerim.net unstable/main Packages 990 ftp://ftp.nerim.net testing/main Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status $ apt-cache policy faac faac: Installed: 1.24.1+cvs20050206.22-0.3 Candidate: 1.24.1+cvs20050206.22-0.3 Version Table: *** 1.24.1+cvs20050206.22-0.3 0 920 http://www.rarewares.org ./ Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status 1.24-0.3 0 600 ftp://ftp.nerim.net unstable/main Packages 990 ftp://ftp.nerim.net testing/main Packages $ apt-cache policy faad2 faad2: Installed: 2.1.beta+cvs20050130.05-0.2 Candidate: 2.1.beta+cvs20050130.05-0.2 Version Table: *** 2.1.beta+cvs20050130.05-0.2 0 920 http://www.rarewares.org ./ Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status TIA -- arky Rakesh 'arky' Ambati GPG Key ID: 0x92BCF7D4 Blog [ http://arky.in ] Member FSUG-Bangalore [ http://bangalore.gnu.org.in ] Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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GNU/Linux Gamers
by Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati 10 Jun '05

10 Jun '05

Morning Friends, Perhaps you are looking forward for a relaxed weekend, warming up to the weekend mood I pose you are rather odd question. 'What does GNU/Linux Gamers Like'? Most of the time I get answers like 'I don't have time for game's or 'Hey, you dork people have work to do unlike you'. But really let look into the mind of a GNU/Linux. Do let me what you like. Here are some of I like to play now as am still using K6-2 455MHz I don't have much fuel of hot games ;o). 1) All the games on Emacs, esp those I don't need to play like zone or Hanoi(Hanoi-UNIX. ;o)) 2) Most lasted and old variants of nethack including the latest Falcon-eye. 3) Most of the games of old bsd-games package and those old DO$ ID games. What do you like. Recently shrave on Blore-linux yahoo group posted this list of games ported to GNU/Linux Recent triple-A titles with native Linux ports... http://www.doom3.com/ http://www.unreal.com/ http://games.activision.com/games/wolfenstein/ http://www.americasarmy.com/ http://nwn.bioware.com/ (RPG) http://www.atitd.com/ (MMORPG) Independently developed, commercial, multi-platform games: http://www.garagegames.com/pg/ Poker! http://www.pokerroom.com/ Marquee open source games: http://www.flightgear.org/ (flight sim) http://www.freeciv.org/index.php/Freeciv (Civilization clone) http://tuxracer.sourceforge.net/ (sledding/racing sim) Classics! http://www.nethack.org/ http://www.thangorodrim.net/ (Angband) http://www.gnu.org/software/chess/chess.html http://www.netrek.org/ Windows and arcade games through emulation or translation: http://www.transgaming.com/ http://www.mame.net/ Other useful Linux gaming resources -- ports-in-development, news, FAQ's: http://www.icculus.org/ http://www.linuxgames.com/ -- arky Rakesh 'arky' Ambati GPG Key ID: 0x92BCF7D4 Blog [ http://arky.in ] Member FSUG-Bangalore [ http://bangalore.gnu.org.in ] Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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GPL Version 3: Background to Adoption
by Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati 10 Jun '05

10 Jun '05

Forwarded message ---------- From: John Sullivan <johns(a)fsf.org> Date: Jun 10, 2005 2:06 AM Subject: [GNU/FSF Press] GPL Version 3: Background to Adoption To: info-press(a)gnu.org Boston, MA, USA - Thursday, June 9, 2005 - The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today released the following article by Richard M. Stallman and Eben Moglen discussing the forthcoming GPL Version 3. GPL Version 3: Background to Adoption by Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen The GNU General Public License (``the GPL'') has remained unmodified, at version level 2, since 1991. This is extraordinary longevity for any widely-employed legal instrument. The durability of the GPL is even more surprising when one takes into account the differences between the free software movement at the time of version 2's release and the situation prevailing in 2005. Richard M. Stallman, founder of the free software movement and author of the GNU GPL, released version 2 in 1991 after taking legal advice and collecting developer opinion concerning version 1 of the license, which had been in use since 1985. There was no formal public comment process and no significant interim transition period. The Free Software Foundation immediately relicensed the components of the GNU Project, which comprised the largest then-existing collection of copyleft software assets. In Finland, Linus Torvalds adopted GPL Version 2 for his operating system kernel, called Linux. That was then, and this is now. The GPL is employed by tens of thousands of software projects around the world, of which the Free Software Foundation's GNU system is a tiny fraction. The GNU system, when combined with Linus Torvalds' Linux---which has evolved into a flexible, highly-portable, industry-leading operating system kernel---along with Samba, MySQL, and other GPL'd programs, offers superior reliability and adaptability to Microsoft's operating systems, at nominal cost. GPL'd software runs on or is embedded in devices ranging from cellphones, PDAs and home networking appliances to mainframes and supercomputing clusters. Independent software developers around the world, as well as every large corporate IT buyer and seller, and a surprisingly large proportion of individual users, interact with the GPL. During the period since 1991, of course, there has developed a profusion of free software licenses. But not in the area covered by the GPL. The ``share and share alike'' or ``copyleft'' aspect of the GPL is its most important functional characteristic, and those who want to use a copyleft license for software overwhelmingly use the GPL rather than inventing their own. Updating the GPL is therefore a very different task in 2005 than it was in 1991. The substantive reasons for revision, and the likely nature of those changes, are subject matter for another essay. At present we would like to concentrate on the institutional, procedural aspects of changing the license. Those are complicated by the fact that the GPL serves four distinct purposes. * The GPL is a Worldwide Copyright License As a legal document, the GPL serves a purpose that most legal drafters would do anything possible to avoid: it licenses copyrighted material for modification and redistribution in every one of the world's systems of copyright law. In general, publishers don't use worldwide copyright licenses; for each system in which their works are distributed, licensing arrangements tailored to local legal requirements are used. Publishers rarely license redistribution of modified or derivative works; when they do so, those licenses are tailored to the specific setting, factual and legal. But free software requires legal arrangements that permit copyrighted works to follow arbitrary trajectories, in both geographic and genetic terms. Modified versions of free software works are distributed from hand to hand across borders in a pattern that no copyright holder could possibly trace. GPL version 2 performed the task of globalization relatively well, because its design was elegantly limited to a minimum set of copyright principles that signatories to the Berne Convention must offer, in one form or another, in their national legislation. But GPL2 was a license constructed by one US layman and his lawyers, largely concerned with US law. To the extent possible, and without any fundamental changes, GPL3 should ease internationalization difficulties, more fully approximating the otherwise unsought ideal of the global copyright license. * The GPL is the Code of Conduct for Free Software Distributors Beyond the legal permission that the GPL extends to those who wish to copy, modify, and share free software, the GPL also embodies a code of industry conduct with respect to the practices by which free software is distributed. Section 3, which explains how to make source code available as required under the license, affects product packaging decisions for those who embed free software in appliances, as well as those who distribute software collections that include both free and unfree software. Section 7, which concerns the effect of licenses, judgments, and other compulsory legal interventions incompatible with the GPL on the behavior of software distributors, affects patent licensing arrangements in connection with industry standards. And so on, through a range of interactions between the requirements of the license and evolving practices in the vending of both hardware and software. The Free Software Foundation, through its maintenance and enforcement of the GPL, has contributed to the evolution of industry behavior patterns beyond its influence as a maker of software. In revising the GPL, the Foundation is inevitably engaged in altering the rules of the road for enterprises and market participants of many different kinds, with different fundamental interests and radically different levels of market power. The process of drafting and adopting changes to the license must thus approximate standard-setting, or ``best practices'' definition, as well as copyright license drafting. * The GPL is the Constitution of the Free Software Movement The Free Software Foundation has never been reluctant to point out that its goals are primarily social and political, not technical or economic. The Foundation believes that free software---that is, software that can be freely studied, copied, modified, reused, redistributed and shared by its users---is the only ethically satisfactory form of software development, as free and open scientific research is the only ethically satisfactory context for the conduct of mathematics, physics, or biology. The Foundation, and those who support its broader work, regard free software as an essential step in a social movement for freer access to knowledge, freer access to facilities of communication, and a more deeply participatory culture, open to human beings with less regard to existing distributions of wealth and social power. The free software movement has taken advantage of the social conditions of its time to found its program on the creation of vast new wealth, through new systems of cooperation, which can in turn be shared in order to further the creation of new wealth, in a positive feedback loop. This program is not, of course, universally shared by all the parties who benefit from the exploitation of the new wealth created by free software. The free software movement has never objected to the indirect benefits accruing to those who differ from the movement's goals: one of the powerful lessons the movement has learned from previous aspects of the long-duration Western movement for freedom of expression is the value of working with, rather than against, conventional economic interests and concerns. But the movement's own goals cannot be subordinated to the economic interests of our friends and allies in industry, let alone those who occasionally contribute solely for reasons of their own. Changes to the GPL, for whatever reason they are undertaken, must not undermine the underlying movement for freer exchange of knowledge. To the extent that the movement has identified technological or legal measures likely to be harmful to freedom, such as ``trusted computing'' or a broadening of the scope of patent law, the GPL needs to address those issues from a perspective of political principle and the needs of the movement, not from primary regard for the industrial or commercial consequences. * The GPL is the Literary Work of Richard M. Stallman Some copyright licenses are no doubt known, in the restricted circle of one firm or law office, as the achievement of a single author's acumen or insight. But it is safe to say that there is no other copyright license in the world that is so strongly identified with the achievements, and the philosophy, of a single public figure. Mr. Stallman remains the GPL's author, with as much right to preserve its integrity as a work representative of his intentions as any other author or creator. Under his guidance, the Free Software Foundation, which holds the copyright of the GPL, will coordinate and direct the process of its modification. * Conclusion The GPL serves, and must continue to serve, multiple purposes. Those purposes are fundamentally diverse, and they inevitably conflict. Development of GPL version 3 has been an ongoing process within the Free Software Foundation; we, along with our colleagues, have never stopped considering possible modifications. We have consulted, formally and informally, a very broad array of participants in the free software community, from industry, the academy, and the garage. Those conversations have occurred in many countries and several languages, over almost two decades, as the technology of software development and distribution changed around us. When a GPLv3 discussion draft is released, the pace of that conversation will change, as a particular proposal becomes the centerpiece. The Foundation will, before it emits a first discussion draft, publicize the process by which it intends to gather opinion and suggestions. The Free Software Foundation recognizes that the reversioning of the GPL is a crucial moment in the evolution of the free software community, and the Foundation intends to meet its responsibilities to the makers, distributors and users of free software. In doing so, we hope to hear all relevant points of view, and to make decisions that reflect the many disparate purposes that the license must serve. Our primary concern remains, as it has been from the beginning, the creation and protection of freedom. We recognize that the best protection of freedom is a growing and vital community of the free. We will use the process of public discussion of GPL3 drafts to support and nurture the community of the free. Proprietary culture imposes both technology and license terms; free software means allowing people to understand, experiment and modify software, as well as getting involved in the discussion of license terms, so that everyone's ideas can contribute to the common good, and the development of each contributes to the development of all. Copyright Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen, 2005. Verbatim copying of this article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. -- About the Free Software Foundation: The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software - particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants - and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software. Their Web site, located at www.fsf.org, is an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support their work can be made at <http://donate.fsf.org>. They are headquartered in Boston, MA, USA. -- John Sullivan Program Administrator | Phone: (617)542-5942 x23 51 Franklin Street, 5th Fl. | Fax: (617)542-2652 Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA | GPG: AE8600B6 _______________________________________________ FSF And GNU Press mailing list <info-press(a)gnu.org> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-press _______________________________________________ Fsf-friends mailing list Fsf-friends(a)mm.gnu.org.in http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends -- arky Rakesh 'arky' Ambati GPG Key ID: 0x92BCF7D4 Blog [ http://arky.in ] Member FSUG-Bangalore [ http://bangalore.gnu.org.in ] Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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World Bank e-Government Webcast
by Rakesh 'Arky' Ambati 09 Jun '05

09 Jun '05

WORLD BANK'S E-DEVELOPMENT THEMATIC GROUP invites you to a Global Dialogue via live webcast on e-Government Experience in the US and Canada: How Relevant is it to Developing Countries? As part of e-Development Dialogues Seminar Series Participating Countries (via videoconference):Azerbaijan, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Uganda Wednesday, June 15, 2005, 9:30 am ? 12:00 pm (EST) Room I1-200, 1850 I Street NW Washington DC USA PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: The United States and Canada have been at the forefront of the e-government revolution. According to the latest Accenture annual e-government maturity report issued on 6 April 2005, for the fifth consecutive year Canada ranked first out of the 22 surveyed countries, followed by the United States, Denmark, Singapore and Australia. Many World Bank client countries are looking at the US and Canadian experience as the source of inspiration, good practices and lessons learned when designing and implementing national e-government strategies, interoperability and governance frameworks, and integrated architectures. There is a growing demand to learn from early implementers in order to avoid common pitfalls and to maximize returns on investment. However, there are many factors to be considered, such as population size; cultural, socio-economic and political differences; Internet penetration; and sources and availability of funding. This seminar will highlight a number of lessons learned in the US and Canada that might or might not be applicable to developing and transition countries. Featuring: Rakesh Asthana, Director, ISGCI, World Bank (Welcome and Opening Remarks) Mark Forman, former Administrator, E-Government and Information Technology, United States (keynote presentation) Shauneen Furlong, former Executive Director, Government On-Line, Canada Lalith Weeratunga, Secretary to the Prime Minister, Sri Lanka Godfrey Kibuuka, Commissioner for Communications, Ministry of Works, Housing and Communications (TBC) Javier Perez-Mazatan, General Coordinator, e-Mexico National System Patricia Pessi, e-Government Coordinator, Ministry of Planning, Brazil (TBC) Jani Makraduli, President, Committee for Information Technology, Macedonia (TBC) Ilyas Naibov-Aylisli, e-Government Coordinator, Ministry of ICT, Azerbaijan Robert Schware, Lead Informatics Specialist, Global ICT Department, World Bank Deepak Bhatia, ISG e-Government Practice Manager, World Bank Moderator: Robert Valantin, Manager, Development Information, ISG & Co-Chair,e-Development Thematic Group, World Bank Live Webcast will start on June 15 at 9.30 am EST at: http://webcast-ext.worldbank.org/streaming/live.ram To watch the live webcast click here: Tip: The live stream is only to be viewed with Real Player (RealOne or the latest RealPlayer10 that can be downloaded for free at http://www.real.com). We will encode at both 56K for low bandwidth connections and at 150K for higher bandwidth connections. You can send us your questions to speakers and short comments in advance of the seminar. For detailed program and further information on the seminar, please write to edevelopment(a)worldbank.org, or contact Sally Song at 202-473-9078. All materials of this seminar will be posted to the e-Development Thematic Group site: http://www.worldbank.org/edevelopment. -- arky Rakesh 'arky' Ambati GPG Key ID: 0x92BCF7D4 Blog [ http://arky.in ] Member FSUG-Bangalore [ http://bangalore.gnu.org.in ] Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

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FSUG-Bangalore June 2005