[Fsf-friends] Re: suggestions needed on an initiative

[Thejesh GN]

Few days back I had written a mail on my colleged list asking the students 
work on FOSS projects, and about the support which I can give it to them.
But nothing interesting came back from my juniors. Now I am open to others 
too. Please read the mail below and forward to interested people. Or if 
somebody from FSF-I can co-ordinate this, I am will be happy to co-operate 
along with them.
Hopefully will hear something interesting this time.
Thanks,
Thejesh
thej at techmag dot biz
http://www.techmag.biz/?q=node/87
[FORWARD] 
 Hello BTLITians,
I have always been always thinking that students can create wonders.....even 
I have been student (but didnt create any other than B** reputation). And I 
have been thinking about the open source. Wonders have been created when 
they came together all time. Linux is the best example I can give. Well I 
wasn't a computer science student when I was in college so I didnt try to do 
any extra-ordinary. But surprisingly all my college projects were software 
projects. I did enjoy coding but most of it was coded by Vinay.
I joined the bandwagon when I joined a software company and it became my 
job. I have been coding for almost two years now and I really enjoy it. And 
I could appreciate some of the wonders like phpMyAdmin, 7-Zip,FCKeditor, 
Open Office etc.....well all this are running on my computer now. Well the 
configuration of my own site goes like this.....it runs on *Apache webserver
*, with *MySQL* running on the back ground supported by *PHP* , using *Drupal 
CMS*; all running on *Linux*. Well I forgot to tell you that I maintain the 
database using *phpMyAdmin*.
This is my time to give back to my college and the open source area. I am 
not a rich guy to support something really big but still can give something 
to this area. I have decided to support an innovative student project this 
year for three months. May be if I have enough cash I might do this every 
year; But for now I would like to support the best open source student 
project. Here the best doesnt mean the best in the college; It means I will 
go through the proposals and If I decide the project is innovative and can 
help the real world project then I might support it at the cost of Rs 
2500/month for three months. Well I know its not big money but its quite 
enough to buy some books and get an internet connection isn't it? So start 
thinking of solutions to real world problem. I dont want code it and forget 
it kind of projects.
Well when we have money we will surely have conditions ..isn't it? Here are 
few..... The project will be open source project. It will be hosted at 
sourecforge.net <http://sourecforge.net> /sarovar.org /
gnu.org.in<http://gnu.org.in>.
Which means it will be completely public. It can be of any domain from 
computer science to image processing. My other condition is I will pay only 
when it reaches some stable condition. If that looks ok then start writing a 
small proposal guys.
Well initially I will keep it only for BTLITians in the beginning. If I dont 
get a satisfactory result I might go even to public. So this is your chance 
to grab it. Keep sending proposals using
http://www.techmag.biz/?q=feedbackInclude some basic details about you
group; mail ids; purpose and summary of
the project. Just a two page write up should be enough. Include proper 
subject line.
Thanks,
Thej 
[/FORWARD]

 On 5/10/05, Joe Steeve <joe_steeve@gmx.net> wrote: 
> 
> Krishna Pagadala <krishnaact@yahoo.com> writes:
> > same lines. Since all students are required to do some or the
> > other projects. I was thinking that we should try to leverage
> > that time. Especially we should try to encourage CS engineering
> > final year project to be free software.
> 
> Some colleges (actually many in Tamil Nadu) give more credit to
> students who do their projects in a company (even CS). This makes
> the project owned by whatever company they are doing their
> respective projects in, and it becomes a company policy to either
> give the software out as Free Software or not.
> 
> Ideally, colleges should not allow this to happen. They should
> have the terms clear that the students should submit the source
> code along with the project reports. But, this is not so. Often, a
> `company project` is a easy title by which the students can escape
> From the project work. They can simply claim they did the project,
> and then not submit the sources saying its company policy. This
> happens in a number of colleges here. In most of these cases, the
> companies are usually startup or not-heard-of, and all they'd need
> is some money from the student to endorse the project.
> 
> So the place to attack is not the students., but rather the
> colleges. The colleges should make it mandatory for all project
> software to be given under a non-restrictive license to the
> college. And the college top-brass should be educated to release
> all this software as Free Software on their own portals. This way,
> the college would get a name and these free software projects
> would really help the students learn something.
> 
> --
> .O. A proud GNU user
> ..O http://www.joesteeve.tk/
> OOO http://joe.bsdnerds.org/
> 
> 
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>