--- Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:
I trust your remark is rhetorical. There is PLENTY a list like this can do, being vibrant and full of aware people as well as people who lurk to learn.
You can work with the cybercafe initiative (which is a brilliant and practical idea, and having watched it emerge from the discussions over the past couple of weeks, I really applaud the consensual method) to create a working distro that addresses the needs of tomorrow's computer users, unlike the bloatware that is increasingly irrelevant and inherently expensive to use, and that never succeeds in emerging productively from the morass of contraditictions that is the DRM world.
You can work with each other (all of us) to create better installers, that deliver not just simpler install routines but also address the mix of h/w and peripherals in the real world.
You can help put together a visual platform (qua Aqua) that will deliver designs that match anything that comes from the Mac world (the only competition, as far as this aspect is concerned, IMHO Vista is so far behind, you wonder - well, I wonder - whether they even know what visual delight means).
And then there's work pending on a FOSS mobile interface to deliver the announced features of the iPhone for an Indian audience (localised, the works) - that will run on any Linux-enabled mobile box.
In the legal playing field, the FOSS movement in India doesn't have the kind of groundswell 'critical mass' to pursue court battles against restrictive practices such as the unsigned pamphlet the Bombay Police put out for cybercafes. We need to identify the root causes of this apathy (ie, it is awareness? is it funding?) and address them in a structured manner. As we all know, there are many more restrictive practices in place that make it difficult for ordinary users to switch comfortably.
We need to find a way of placing people in key organisations in the civil society movement (many of these organisations pay quite well, actually, and prefer persons who have an all-round approach to work, rather than tightly focused on, say, being a sysad 24/7). Such people will play a key role in bring such organisations directly into the FOSS movement. We also need to make visible persons who work in medium and large commercial organsations to come and talk - at LUG meets, for instance - on the use of FOSS in their operations.
Just some food for thought. If some or all of these things begin to happen, you can be sure that the developers in the 'doze world will think twice about letting restrictive software out into the real world.
I just saw Nagarjuna's post about being at HBSCE all of today, and must say, talk about communication gap, I didn't notice ANY post from anyone saying the venue would be available all day. I could easily have been there earlier, but am now committed to only getting there in the evening.
Vickram
___________________________________________________________ Inbox full of unwanted email? Get leading protection and 1GB storage with All New Yahoo! Mail. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
On Saturday 31 March 2007 14:44, Vickram Crishna wrote:
It's not the developers (or any body else) it's M$ and the toplevel managment that makes these decisions. And it's the inabaility to cannabalise their work in the fond hope that they can iron out the mess.
I was under the impression after reading rony's post that there indeed is a NEW restriction on availability. So settled for whatever was available.
-
jtd -
Vickram Crishna