[Fsf-friends] GNULinuxInIndia * July 22, 2003
Frederick Noronha (FN)
fred@bytesforall.org
Tue Jul 22 13:32:43 IST 2003
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Formerly LinuxInIndia * Compiled by: Frederick Noronha * July 22,2003
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GETTING THE NEWS OUT... A new initiative with a South Asian focus. We invite
all user-group coordinators, and also individuals interested in FLOSS
evangelism to join a new network, called FLOSSToday. The idea is make sure
that news about what happens in different parts of India percolates from one
region to another. The list was initiated with the aim of making
cross-pollination of ideas and events, announcements etc across India and
elsewhere in South Asia. This list aims at being an *event-centric*
announcement-list. Reports of meetings and events to be held or already
held, and announcements of FLOSS special events, gatherings, tech sessions
are welcome. Opinions, discussions, feature articles would be offtopic here.
For further details contact Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay <sankarshanmukhopadhyay
at vsnl.net> who has launched this initiative with support from the compiler
of this newsletter (FN). Says Sankarshan: "Let's hope this can bind the
fragmented nature of the FLOSS world in India."
Flosstoday mailing list * Flosstoday@mail.sarai.net
http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/flosstoday
INTEREST FROM BRAZIL: Christiano Anderson <anderson@debian-rs.org>
writes in from Brazil to say: "I have read the President in India
talking about free software, this is a very positive action, and we
would like to keep in touch with someone from government in India to
discuss about free software initiatives and experience with people
from the Brazilian government. We would like to invite someone from
India government to talk about the free software experience in our
next Free Software conference. Do you think it's possible? Who could
talk to us about the experience in your country? Marcelo Branco is
the coordinator of Free Software Project in Rio Grande do Sul, he is
also discussing free software initiatives for the Brazilian
government."
THIS IS AN INTERESTING page featuring Microsoft in India -- including the
Shiksha Microsoft e-learning initiative, and reports of Gates committing $21
million to IT projects. Also links to FLOSS in India, and "Microsoft against
Open Source". http://www.gnacademy.org/twiki/bin/view/SOS/MicrosoftInIndia
KUNAL <kunalbharati at yahoo.com> OF THE NORTH Mumbai GLUG has
arranged a seminar on FLOSS in his college. Says he: "It would
really help if you give me some ideas what I (could) do. I will be
distributing KNOPPIX 3.2 CDs. I would appreciate if someone from you
comes up with other good ideas..." Students do need more options,
any help would be welcome.
DESI (India-linked) names continue to make news in the FLOSS movement
worldwide. Guess who was making news when a new Debian Project Leader was
elected by a narrow margin recently? Manoj Srivastava, the General Secretary
of the Debian Project, who was credited with putting in the "work (that) had
made the election possible". See the discussion on the debian-devel-announce
list (lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2003/debian-devel-announce-
200303/msg00025.html)
FROM GOA ANIMESH N Nerurkar <banduji@gmx.net> has announced
plans for stepping up activities of the TUG-Goa network.
On Saturday July 26, Prof (Ms) Kshama Fernandes will
demonstrate the power of PDFLaTeX or LaTeX itself. Plans
are also underway for activities in the academic circles
of this small state on the west coast of India, otherwise
better known as a touristic destination. All are welcome.
SURAJ KUMAR <suraj@symonds.net> has on offer a copy of speeches on Free
Software and Software Patents, downloaded from gnu.org. Says he: "I have cut
a CD out of it. Unfortunately this collection does not contain RMS's speech
at Chennai (Madras Institute of Technology) made on March 13th, 2002.
However its worth noting that most of the speeches carry the same message
(the only differences being the humour that he adds to various speeches)."
See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/audio/audio.html
The CD also bundles two of GnuPress published books: * Free Software, Free
Society - http://www.gnu.org/doc/book13.html * Free as in Freedom -
http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/
Also included are the web pages from http://gnu.org/philosophy/ and
http://gnu.org/licenses/
LATEX WORKSHOP AT PUNE: Thanks to H S Rai <hsraidce@iitr.ernet.in>
for this pointer. Read the detailed report of the Latex workshop
held at Pune, western India during 9-14 July, which was jointly
organised by Bhaskaracharya Pratishthana and Dept. of Maths,
University of Pune.
http://www.tug.org.in/download/pune-workshop-report.pdf or visit
news item of the index page of www.tug.org.in
FLOSS IN THE THIRD WORLD: Open Source practitioners from Asia, Africa,
Europe and Latin America recently got together to produce a manifesto on the
role of Open Source Software (OSS) in the development cooperation context.
Asking all stakeholders to pay more attention to (FL)OSS, they argue that it
has a special importance when viewed, used and produced in the context of
development cooperation and should be employed wherever possible.
http://sarai.waag.org/display.php?id=28
E-BOOK: Prashanth CM <prashpro@yahoo.com> has announced his e-book
on the Vieditor. Says he: "I have compiled an e-book on using
vi-editor. Please go through this book and please send me comments.
I know there are lots of corrections (required)..." Contact him for
details.
GIMP AND CMYK: Subash Jeyan <nsjeyan@vsnl.net> notes that one of the major
cribs about the gimp has long been that it doesn't support cmyk colour
space. Now, says he, there is a plug that addresses this partially. If
you're interested, have a look at:
http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/projects/separate-0.1.tar.gz
HONG "FRED" FENG, one of the active Free Software proponents in
China whom some of us here in India are in touch with, says: "My
work in Koretide will be ended on Jul 20, 2003, so pls redirect the
emails to me from the list to hongfeng at gnu.org"
AN iLINUX DISTRO: Jyotirmoy Saikia <jyotirmoy_saikia@yahoo.com> of PicoPeta
Simputers (Bangalore) informs that IIT Kanpur has released an iLinux
distribution. Please check the site: http:///www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/isciig
and go to the link "download Indian Linux"
MALAYALAM DESKTOP PLAN: Dileep M Kumar <dileep@kumarayil.net> says
they are working on project to create a Malayalam desktop for
GNU/Linux. Says he: "We believe MGL may help to popularize 'Freedom'
into Kerala in a minimal way. We are looking for volunteers to help
us to translate more applications. As a first step we are
concentrating on GNOME now. Take a look at http://smc.sarovar.org"
RESTLESS SOUL TREVOR WARREN FROM MUMBAI <trevorwarren at softhome.net> has
come up with a new initiative -- building libraries of freely sharable Free
Software. He's looking out for anyone to sponsor/sell at a reasonable rate,
the following distros:
* Debian * SuSE * Gentoo * Knoppix(en) * Yellow Dog * Slackware
* Red Hat + SGI XFS * Lycoris * Mandrake (older releases)
* trustix * turbolinux * LDP(www.tldp.org) * FreeBSD 5.0 * OpenBSD
* Collection of FSF-OS ebooks-docs. * NetBSD * etc related to FSF-OS.
Can help? Write to Trevor with a cc to "trevorwarren at softhome.net". Says
he: Donations are welcome or if that isn't possible just lemme know the cost
of the cd's and i will pay for the same. This is a bit urgent.
FLOSS IN AFGHANISTAN: BBC recently reported that the United Nations
is training civil servants in the intricacies of FLOSS software to
help them get government computer systems up and running. The first
civil servants to complete their training in Linux went back to work
earlier this month. The UN hopes that training government workers to
use [GNU] Linux will help the country close the technology gap that
separates it from many other countries. Broadly free, Linux is
becoming a favourite among many organisations who want greater
control over what they can do with software. In contrast to
Microsoft operating systems, Linux gives programmers much greater
flexibility to scrutinise the core of the program and to adapt it to
their own ends.
FROM KERALA, Mahesh Pai <paivakil at vsnl.net> informs of a report in the
local newspaper *Mathrubhumi* (page 11, Kochi edition, 17 July 2003) that
sees the Opposition leader VS Achutanandan raise questions about the role of
Microsoft in the IT@School project.
The translation reads: "One of allegations raised by Achutanandan relate to
the 'project siksha' of Microsoft which is part of the IT@SCHOOL. The
project is worth Rs 10 crore (100 million rupees). It was made clear in the
agenda note given to the general body that an IT academy will be set up in
3000 Square feet space and and teachers will be trained (here) to use
Microsoft products. However, the leader of opposition pointed out that it
is made clear in the agenda note that the 3000 sq. ft. space in Technopark,
Thiruvananthapuram, which would fetch rent of Rupees 6,84,000 is to be
handed over to Microsoft for mere one rupee. He also stated that due to the
training, the teachers will be able to use only Microsoft's products."
It adds: "At the same time, authorities of IT@SCHOOL informed that there
is no block to use of 'swatantra' (Free) software in the project. But the
problem is that there would be no training support available. They also
point out that the government has directed that there shall not be any new
appointments for the training."
SCRIBUS 1.0 IS OUT: Programmer Franz Schmid has released Scribus 1.0
- the Linux Desktop Publishing. Two years in development and
available in 17 languages, Scribus represents the first open source
DTP application capable of generating professional "press-ready"
results. Unicode support including support for right to left
scripts. Can export CMYK separations and "press-ready" PDF including
PDF 1.4 features such as transparency. Scribus Home Page:
http://web2.altmuehlnet.de/fschmid/ and mirrored at:
http://scribus.planetmirror.com
LIC OF INDIA SHIFTS TO FLOSS: The Life Insurance Corporation has shifted to
a Linux operating system on the heels of pinpricks experienced with a Unix
system, according to LIC officials. At a media gathering to introduce LIC's
new pension policy, Mr R.R. Nair, Additional Zonal Manager, said "we are
shifting over to Linux; almost 75 per cent of the branches have shifted".
http://thehindubusinessline.com/stories/2003071501310700.htm
PUNJAB LINUX USERS GROUP: Jaspreet Willy <plug@linuxmail.org> has
started a user group for the Punjab region. Check out the Punjab
Linux Users Group website: http://www.plug.willywings.com
IN THE HOSPITAL: Dr G Parthasarathy <gpartha72 at vsnl.net> from a Kochi
hospital in South India writes: "I am a pathologist, also the IT Officer and
Sysadmin of the hospital networkj of a 316 bed hospital in Kochi. We are
currently running NT 4.0 with a proprietary hospital management software on
the hospital's 65 node network. I am not quite happy with the state of
affairs and want to port it all to Linux which is more robust and much
cheaper a solution. I wish to learn more about other hospitals like Breach
Candy who have used GNU/Linux with Open Source Hospital Information Systems
on their hospital networks."
DR BUD P BRUEGGAR (bud at sistema.it) of Sistema (www.sistema.it) in
Italy writes in to suggest: "Probably the most complete site on open
source in health-care can be found at http://www.euspirit.org/.
Among other resources, there is a software index at
http://www.euspirit.org/list.php.
FROM THE IIT-BOMBAY, Prof Siva <siva at iitb.ac.in> says: "Thanks much for
the mail about FLOSS in Asia.... Regarding interesting work at IITB, let me
start with two students (who can later put you in touch with others). Nandan
Dixit (nandan at cse.iitb.ac.in) see xmmsmplayer.sourceforge.net for his
work and Nilesh Bansal (nilesh at cse.iitb.ac.in) along with others is
working on KDE localization." See http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~siva
WHAT'S HAPPENING ON THE SIMPUTER FRONT? Perhaps the FLOSS lobby has
been guilty of ignoring it. Edward Cherlin <edward.cherlin at
etssg.com> explains all the way from the US that Africa Digital
Bridges is the Simputer distributor for the Middle East and Africa
http://www.simputerland.com/appmaster/m.partners.view.asp?pcode=AA0024
Cherlin is also setting up to recruit development partners for
Simputer applications in the US. Says he: "I have Simputers here in
Silicon Valley, and can demonstrate them for you. You can find
Encore's European partners at
http://www.simputerland.com/appmaster/m.partnerlist.asp" There is
also "a lot" happening in development and field trials. Says he: "I
am working with a developer of literacy software in the US to
produce a Free Linux version. The current program is for US English
only. It can easily be adapted to other forms of English, and we
will work on software for other languages as well."
FREE SOFTWARE, AND THE WORLD SOCIAL FORUM-4 IN MUMBAI: Diego Saravia <dsa at
unsa.edu.ar> writes in from distant Argentina to say: "I am searching for
people in india related to the World Social Forum and Free Software, I see
your bytesforall.org web site and I wonder if you could help me."
Incidentally the WSF4 is being held in Mumbai(Bombay)-India in early 2004.
Free Software advocates hope to deploy their solutions and raise issues at
this global meet of activists there.
See www.hipatia.info - info@hipatia.info - www.fsm.hipatia.info
Fsm2004 mailing list Fsm2004@hipatia.info
http://listas.hipatia.info/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fsm2004
JOIN OUR Latin American (and other) friends in an initiative to harness the
power of Free Software for free speech and knowledge! Writes Martin Olivera
<martin_olivera@yahoo.com.ar> from Argentina: "At first (this mailing list)
was intended to organize the Hipatia (www.hipatia.info) participation in the
WSF4 (World Social Forum 4). The main objective of Hipatia is the freedom of
knowledge, leveraging free software as the key tool to do this. In this way,
this list would like coordinate efforts to fulfill WSF4 software necessities
(web, mail, communications, news, virtual spaces, anything...) using only
free software, cooperating worldwide."
WSF4 is to be held in the Indian city of Mumbai (Bombay) in January 2004. Do
join this mailing list. It is open to everyone who could participate anyway
for this: coordination, local (India-based) support, resources, free
software selection/development/adaptation, content manmagement..."
What possibilities we think of is restricted only by your imagination! FN
List-Subscribe: http://listas.hipatia.info/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fsm2004
OR mailto: <fsm2004-request@hipatia.info?subject=subscribe>
AT SCHOOLS, IN GOA: Daryl Martyris <dmartyris@hotmail.com> of the
Goa Schools Computers Project says that 20 schools use the LTSP
(Linux Terminal Server Project) solution in Goa. "About 40 more use
standalone Linux, and about 40 use Windows This link might give you
an idea of cost comparison's - http://www.gscp.org/linux.htm "
INDIAN LANGUAGE TOOLS: Prof Nagarjuna G <nagarjun@hbcse.tifr.res.in> reports
that a team of students are to be working on Indianisation of Mozilla. Says
Sayamindu Dasgupta <unmadindu@Softhome.net> : "I have no idea about the
coding procedures followed by the mozilla developers. However, I guess, it
might help if the students take a look at the sources of already working
tools (for Indian language computing), like Yudit, QT 3.2, Pango, etc."
MAKING FLOSS SPEAK IN INDIAN LANGUAGES: Want to get GNU/Linux to
speak your language? Visit the web page below that will tell you
what are the words you need to translate
http://www.indlinux.org/downloads/gnomegloss/GnomeGlossary.csv
IN HINDI: Dinesh Shah <dinesh at shahmicro.com> writes: "We have GNU/Linux -
Hindi Edition - Milan ver 0.5 CDs with us. This is a bootable CD based on
Morphix. You can use it as demo CD or if you want you can install it on the
harddisk. Those who are interested can buy it from me or Mr. Venkatesh
Hariharan @ Rs. 30 each. We can mail it any where in India @ Rs. 50
inclusive of delivery charges. To learn more about Milan 0.5 CD, pls visit
http://www.indlinux.org" Phone Shah +91-98213-11906 +91-22-56919423
PROGRESS OVER HINDI FONTS: Young font and web designers Avneesh Chhabra
a.k.a. The Virus Shivaas Gulati a.k.a MaRiAnZ RuLe say "At last, after weeks
of hard work filled with successes and failures, we have finally done it. We
have come up with a new font that is totally handwritten. Feel free to use
it anyway you want. Released under the LGPL license. Hope to get some good
feedbacks. You can download the font from the ilug-d website's download
section or from www.msmschool.com/hindi freehand.ttf They can be contacted
via email fontdudes@rediffmail.com
FREE FONTS: Want to create fonts on GNU/Linux? Check
http://pfaedit.sourceforge.net/
S2S2 INITIATIVES IN KERALA: Sujeevan Pullanhiotan <sujeevan_p at
rediffmail.com> reports that in June 2003, the Swathantra Software Solutions
& Support( S2S2) conducted GNU/Linux awareness program at various colleges
and schools in Kannur district of Kerala. Talks on "Free Software in
Education" and demonstration on GNU/Linux system using Knoppix 3.2 bootable
CD was arranged at all places. "It was well attended and appreciated by
all," says he. A one-day orientation was held for 115 school teachers from
government schools in Kannur and remote Wynad participating. A seminar on
Free Software, Its Philosphy was held at Mahatma College, Iritty, Kannur,
besides others. Feedback: "Programes were successful, in the sense that
people at large got an idea of what free software is all about and what its
impact will be on society. Both students and teachers were overwhelmed by
the number of applications and packages available in GNU/Linux. For almost
all of them, the use of computer is limited to only word processing,
spreadsheet, presentation, music and movie playing. Students were found to
be better in learning and trying out Linux. Teachers have a different
complaint -- they would like to try out GNU/Linux in schools, but the school
IT syllabus specifies properitary packages..." http://s2s2net.netfirms.com
PUBLIC SECTOR FREE SOFTWARE INITIATIVES: Mitch Kapor and others have
just announced a web site for public sector free software
initiatives called http://www.opensector.org
LINUX, TO THE FIELDS: J S Sandha <jsandha at vsnl.net> has been trying to
weave two fields -- ICTs-for-development and R&D on agricultural tractors.
Sandha would like to take a project www.jagriti.com over to using
GNU/Linux-based networks, with no licensing issues and workable on lower PC
configurations. www.jagriti.com
CRITICAL FEEDBACK: Suman <mansu at gmx.net> has some critical feedback for
the sarovar.org and the Project Resource Centre
(http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/prc) initatives. Writes Suman: "It's
good to see such sites coming up but i hava a few suggestions regarding
this. As usual from the mail I see that nothing is different from
sourceforge. These days the software that is being developed and hosted is
pretty bloated, or they do not have any use or miss important features.
Above all most of the work is being duplicated. Hence most of the free time
of developers is wasted on projects which meet the needs of very few people
and which in many cases is inadequate to do the job. Linux is maturing now
so should the applications. Sarovar.org should be different. Why not host a
module where people pour in their ideas so that interseted others can take
them and work. PRC achieves this to a very small extent but it is no more
helpful because it doesn't help answering the larger question.... The site
can also host TODO lists of various projects seperately. In addition to the
ideas that flow here another thing that could be done is the person who
gives a suggestion should also give an idea of how to do it which helps the
developer take an instant decision. Also, if some KDE/GNOME gurus put their
ideas in they can ask people to write components which can be used by other
programmers like bonobo for gnome. If the ideas are easy to formulate many
engg. students will take it up for their projects. jus my two pence worth."
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YOUR INPUTS and criticism to this newsletter are welcome. Contact us at
fred at bytesforall dot org COPYLEFT 2003. May be freely circulated provided
entire text and credits is left intact. FN
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COMPILED AND CIRCULATED BY:
--
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Frederick Noronha (FN) | http://www.fredericknoronha.net
Freelance Journalist | http://www.bytesforall.org
http://goalinks.pitas.com | http://joingoanet.shorturl.com
http://linuxinindia.pitas.com | http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks
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