[Fsf-friends] FM Relaunch

[Amol Hatwar]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Imran William Smith" <imran@imran.info>
To: "Amol Hatwar" <rollacosta@phreaker.net>; <fsf-friends@mm.gnu.org.in>
Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2003 11:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Fsf-friends] FM Relaunch


> I am one of the people involved with the recently launched
> 'Asia Open Source Centre' (www.AsiaOSC.org).
> I hope we can establish some synergy.

We must!

> I just went to an open source Asia/ASEAN symposium in Thailand
> (Georg Greve of FSF Europe was also there) and 'free software' was not
> that welcome - seemed lots people are (ab?)using GNU/Linux as
> a quick way to get their hardware devices launched, I heard some people
> mention the 'problems' with GPL.  Also it's unclear how much the
> many Asian GNU/Linux distros have given back to the GPL community.
> Perhaps that's why none have been hugely successful, apart from
> Red Flag (China) and Hancom Linux (Korea).

Localization of software is one thing, and making an effort to widen the
perspectives of developers and users alike is another issue. By FM we aim to
do exactly this - widen perspectives and encourage people to change.

> Personally, I think free software is great, and it's a human rights
> issue.
>
> I can recommend the 'Postnuke' system for a quick way to build content,
> also allows people to be content admininstrators without letting them
> do full administration.

I did have Postnuke on my mind. But as an experienced PHP coder I wouldn't
exactly recommmend using the system it's support for standardised way of
marking-up articles and content is abysmall.

> Regarding the domain name - why not stick to '.org', or maybe
> investigate how to get a '.int' :)  A '.in' sort of excludes
> non-Indians.  If the FSF-India is trying to widen its audience
> (which is great, I hope to see a day when there is an FSF-Asia)
> then a '.in' domain doesn't help to explain that the audience is Asia.

Going international in step one is a good thought. We'll certainly keep this
one in mind :)

> Imran William Smith
> Malaysia

Thanks for your kind suggestions Imran.

Regards,

Amol Hatwar.