VII World Congress of Computer Law / VII Congreso Mundial de Derecho
Informatico
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VII World Congress of Computer Law / VII Congreso Mundial de Derecho
Informatico
When: 3-7 December 2007
Where: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Steering Committee: University of Puerto Rico / Puerto Rico Bar
Association / Inter American University of Puerto Rico / Alfa-Redi
Website: http://www.alfa-redi.com/viicongress/

About Congress:

The Puerto Rico Bar Association, the School Of Law of University of
Puerto Rico, the  Inter American University of Puerto Rico and
Alfa-Redi, cordially invite you to the VII World Congress on Cyber
Law to be held from December 3 to December 7 in the city of San Juan,
Puerto Rico.  The VII World Congress on Cyber Law is a continuation
of the worldwide congresses held in the cities of Quito (Ecuador),
Madrid (Spain), Havana (Cuba), Cusco (Peru), Santo Domingo (Dominican
Republic) y Edinburgh (United Kingdom).

These congresses have been the starting point of new proposals, the
development of laws adopted in several countries, and laws that were
welcomed as guidelines by different decision-making public and
private organizations involved in the area of new technologies and
the development of the information society. These international
events are directed towards academic, regional and international
stakeholders, government employees, and individuals representing
organizations from the Civil Society involved in the processes
related to Policies and Regulatory Framework of the Information
Society at a regional and international level.

These spaces of dialogue are evoked to promote encounter, discussion
and proposal developing in diverse topics of the Information Society,
as can be shown in the different Web pages of past Congresses.

The subjects raised for this congress are:

1. Privacy and Personal Data Protection
2. E-Governance
3. Information and Communication Technologies in the Information
Society
4. E-Commerce and Cyber-banking
5. Virtual Worlds
6. Copyrights and Intellectual Property
7. E-gaming

Given the global, international and transforming nature of the
thematic relationship among policies and the regulatory framework of
the information society, we consider of utmost importance the
participation of international experts to provide a perspective to
the participants of the event who will be able to make comparisons
with their own experience, emphasizing on the harmonization processes
that have been promoted by diverse international organizations.

This Congress will include workshops which will be imparted by
international organizations interested in delivering lectures on
specific subjects.  These workshops will have a duration of one to
two hours, being held during the first two days of the Congress,
concerning issues such as Privacy and eGovernment, FTAs and
Information Society, Licensing models of contents, Playing games in
the net and  E-commerce, realities and perspectives.  If your
organization is interested in delivering a lecture on any of the
above mentioned subjects, please contact us.

More Information:
Website: http://www.alfa-redi.com/viicongress/

Dear all:

I'm working on a write-up on Free/Libre and Open Source Software in
Schools   and would be grateful if you could point me to useful links
about such ventures, where it has been used successfully or otherwise.

A draft paper (work-in-progress) of what I've put together so far can be read at
http://www.divshare.com/download/2205748-36f

Your suggestions, comments and critique is welcome.

Thanks in advance for any help you could offer. FN
--
Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph 0091-832-2409490
List of Indian e-lists http://wikiwikiweb.de/MailingListsInIndia

Dear Yusuf and all concerned,

	 As FOSS advocates, we are inviting the global FOSS community,
businesses, researchers and advocates as well as the Pakistan ICT Policy
Monitor to be a witness to this important discussion. OSRC is the Open
Source Resource Center www.osrc.org.pk, a project of Pakistan Software
Export Board www.pseb.org.pk mandated to develop a FOSS ecosystem in
Pakistan in parallel to the closed source software industry, readers may
acknowledge this to be clearly mentioned on OSRC's website given above. You
may also read our report at
http://globaliswatch.org/files/pdf/GISW_Pakistan.pdf that gives details on
the FOSS activities in the region.

	 We are laying this discussion on a strong foundation that we have
fueled since the last 4 years. Kindly review where we have partnered and
supported OSRC in the past is listed on the OSRC Achievements section:
http://www.osrc.org.pk/content/view/36/76 where it says Ubuntu, FOSSAC or
FOSSFP so we are going to discuss some "well-aware" issues. Here is a cover
story I did for SIPDER magazine last September discussing FOSS in Pakistan:
http://www.spider.tm/sep2006/cstory1.html
http://www.paul.sladen.org/ubuntu/fridge/SPIDER_September_2006_Cover_Stories
.pdf  and another story that our neighboring country published about FOSS in
Pakistan:
http://southasiaict4d.wordpress.com/2007/01/14/floss-in-the-neighbourhood/

	 Bringing your attention back to the Free and Open Source Software
FOSS issues that are against the philosophy of FOSS, how it is evolved, made
and distributed for the benefit of masses with respect to how PSEB's OSRC
Project should take these principles otherwise it may be possibly held
accountable to misappropriation and disregard of the global FOSS movement
and the business industry that evolves around it.

Lack of Public Participation in the FOSS process in Pakistan under OSRC:

	 First of all, the OSRC does not include a public participation
element as it should in light of the FOSS spirit and principles of community
development and evolution. It has been operating in isolation without
adequate participation from people like us. I would like to first request
you to kindly establish an Advisor Committee on OSRC that would recommend,
propose, advice and devise its plan of action to be considered by PSEB and
MoIT. AS an autonomous body in the form of a government company, PSEB can
take this initiative. The proposed Committee will include the better half
representation of the FOSS movement with people who have evolved communities
of FOSS learning and Practice and business development in Pakistan and OSRC
websites speak of our achievements, and not just OSRC. I made this clear to
the previous Project Manager of OSRC and he assured me that their was a
committee and that we would be included but nothing happened on that front,
kindly, it is a request from our end to look into this.

Where is the PSEB-OSRC (Open Source Software) ERP Solutions community and
deliverables that are claimed to be developed on FOSS principles and
platforms?

	 Secondly, PSEB-OSRC has been since 2004-2005 voicing an achievement
attributing it as its Open Source Software ERP Solutions at
http://www.pseb.org.pk/page.php?pid=7#automation with news circulated widely
titled "First ever Open Source ERP Solution �developed by a Pakistani
company, launched under PSEB Industrial Automation Project" - (08 Jun, 2007)
http://www.pseb.org.pk/page.php?nid=13. The FOSS communities, both local and
global have no access to the Document, Compiled Programmes and Source code
of these so called Open Source Software ERP systems. The FOSS community
operates in Public Mode copyrighting its software under GPL www.fsf.org or
Open Source Software licenses www.opensource.org. In light of these licenses
and the claims of PSEB and OSRC, we request you to release these systems
including their documentation from development to user manuals, source code,
database architecture, compiled programmes via www.sourceforge.org otherwise
this is not only a big folly on behalf of OSRC, it�s a global insult in the
name of the principles of FOSS! Public Tax Payers money used for Open Source
Software development for the General Business Industry in Pakistan requires
the source code to be widely available for all the industry to benefit!
Kindly furnish a timeline for making these systems for the FOSS community to
review and evolve for the general use by other industries as well!

Discrepancy in OSRC Staff Recruitment Process:

	 Third, some time ago, PSEB advertised the position for OSRC's
Project Manager hiring. The core requirement for hiring that person was to
have knowledge about FOSS Community development, to our knowledge the person
hired has no community development knowledge and we have never heard this
person's name before in both the Linux Pakistan and Ubuntu-Linux
communities, the two core FOSS communities in Pakistan. This person has
neither gotten in touch with our communities nor has discussed at any level
with the FOSS community OSRC plans. You are kindly requested to probe this
matter and inform us why credible and expert FOSS staff have not moved up
the ladder in OSRC and assumed important positions such as the Project
Manager of OSRC for which huge amounts of money has been invested on their
skills development including local and foreign trainings. We can furnish a
list of these trainings and the names of the staff as evidence that have the
core expertise to move OSRC ahead and they have been pushed back by hiring
non-skilled people.

Recognition of Linux and Open Source Skills in Pakistan:

	 OSRC sometime ago did a credible job of preparing a FOSS Curriculum
Toolkit released for the public http://www.osrc.org.pk/content/view/29/42/
that was to support training efforts of OSRC planned to offer to the general
business and industry as well as government after conducting various
trainings. This material was first developed in closed environment without
participation again of the core FOSS communities in Pakistan. These core
FOSS communities have never been invited to participate in these trainings
nor deliver course content. I offered OSRC venues in three cities in Lahore,
Karachi and Islamabad and had partners and supporters submit proposals, it
has been a very long time without any response from PSEB-OSRC. AS a result
we have had to step up ourselves now and offer something that PSEB-OSRC
should partner with us now to bridge this divide.

Linux Professional Institute LPI Offerings & Ubuntu Certified Professional
Certifications under LPI:

	 For mass certification of the IT Industry on Linux and Open Source
Skills including global recognition of such certifications, we would like to
offer Linux Professional Institute Certification Exams http://www.lpi.org
through paper based tests PBTs to PSEB-OSRC at highly discounted rates to
offer to the Government and PSEB stakeholders to evolve a productive and
skilled FOSS Ecosystem that will be globally recognized. The Pakistan
operations for LPI Pakistan have been setup and we will shortly be
announcing through global press releases about LPI offerings in the region.
We would like to make PSEB, OSRC and MoIT a part of these offerings. We will
report PSEB-OSRCs endorsement and their achievements in the future at
http://www.lpipakistan.org for the global Linux skills industry to view.
PSEB and OSRC are requested to offer Train the Trainer Workshops, LPI
Trainings and LPI Certification Exam Labs throughout Pakistan with us.

Lack of a Nationwide Software Piracy Prevention and Open Source Software
Promotion Campaign:

	 Closed source companies cannot mandate forcefully to citizens of
Pakistan to adopt their expensive software in light of our low-income
status. Why did they let their "special" (as a world's software giant calls
software piracy in Pakistan) software be dumped in the country in the first
place? Free and Open Source Software is freely available throughout
Pakistan. Ubuntu (Canonical Limited) www.ubuntu.com has widely distributed
over 250,000 plus free CDs of Ubuntu Linux Operating system throughout the
country including our 5000+ users training on copyright and FOSS awareness.
Where is such an awareness campaign by PSEB and OSRC. Why haven't
advertisements appeared from PSEB in national news papers and media advising
the citizens of Pakistan to stop using pirated software, either use FOSS or
buy legal software. This is a big lacking and PSEB may be unknowingly or
knowingly pushing the closed source software drive in Pakistan. Kindly be
aware of this that the FOSS and global open standards community reserve ther
right to forward petitions and voice a campaign on such issues and
discrepancies.

Recommendations for PSEB-OSRC in light of global reports:

Finally, in light of the Global Information Society Watch Report that I had
forwarded to your earlier, PSEB and OSRC's role as an enabler of the FOSS
Ecosystem in Pakistan, the following recommendations were made that have to
be directly channeled through your consideration and support. FOSS in
Pakistan - FOSS priority recommendations for Pakistan are:

All readers of this letter may review the GISW recommendations we made at:
http://globaliswatch.org/files/pdf/GISW_Pakistan.pdf

� The government should invite multi-stakeholder partnerships to develop its
technical capacity and encourage the formulation of concrete policies that
mandate the wide use of FOSS in light of WSIS recommendations.

� FOSS should be adopted within higher education, while the inclusion of
women and youth should be the priority of all ICT and FOSS-related
activities. A Women Linux Users Group should be formed, and where there are
religious or social constraints, women-run telecentres should be
established.

� The government should take measures to combat software piracy through
making citizens aware of their software freedoms through FOSS capacity
development. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) should be encouraged to use
FOSS instead of pirated proprietary software.

� Multi-stakeholder partnerships should be formulated to educate all sectors
of society about Digital Commons and alternative copyrighting such as
Creative Commons, GPL, Open Standards and Open Content.

� The government should support language localisation efforts, such as those
making various Linux distributions available in Urdu.

� The government should encourage the funding of small businesses initiated
by women and youth that involve FOSS-based service delivery and business
models.

� Telecentre initiatives should be established to promote ICTs and universal
access in all rural regions by deploying low-cost refurbished computers
running FOSS, instead of pirated or costly licensed proprietary software
packages.

� International donors should be encouraged to include FOSS policies in
their funding guidelines.

OOXML Voting Debate:

Kindly refer to our requests to include us into the process of voting from
Civil Society and Experts on the subject. The Linux Pakistan and Ubuntu
Community were never involved in any standardization process by any body,
that shows the level of public policy dialogue and the importance of such
groups by authorities, since late 2004, we have never read anything on the
subject after PSEB-OSRC was created, I think some things were never shared
with the Linux Pakistan community and no one would actually standup
themselves and share it.


More information and debate on this subject is on its way.

Looking forward to your comments.

Best

Fouad Bajwa
FOSS Advocate

Dear All, I'm working on a paper on FLOSS-in-schools and am looking
out for links to projects in South Asia. If you could point me to any
of the same, I'd be more than grateful. Thanks! FN
--
Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph 0091-832-2409490
List of Indian e-lists http://wikiwikiweb.de/MailingListsInIndia

http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=5241651

In Himalayan Nepal: Where language can propel FOSS

GOA, India -- NepaLinux, an initiative to create a localised GNU/Linux
distribution in the Nepali language, has been chosen as a joint-winner
of the first APC Chris Nicol FOSS Prize, by an international jury.
This prize is named after a passionate campaigner for free software
who played a crucial role in the Association for Progressive
Communications before his untimely death in 2005.

The initiative began as an attempt to find makeshift solutions for
electronically cataloguing books in the Nepali language (which has
seventeen million native speakers, and an estimated 40 million
worldwide). But as fonts were hard to come by, and there were
difficulties in sorting text (or using find-and-replace commands),
NepaLinux's Bal Krishna Bal saw opportunities grow out of these
challenges.

Over time, this grew into campaigns for font standardisation, a
Unicode initiative in Nepal. It has since sprouted into a Nepali
GNU/Linux (free software/open source) distribution.

APC-member BytesForAll co-founder and journalist Frederick "FN"
Noronha interviews NepaLinux's Bal Krishna Bal, who explains the
project's relevance to FOSS local language computing solutions in
Nepal, the challenges their project faced, why he carries on
confidently, and his vision of the future.

FN: To a newbie, how would you describe the project briefly?

Bal Krishna Bal (BKB): NepaLinux is a fully-localised Linux
distribution in Nepali.

In Nepal the English-proficient population is significantly low.
English acts as one of the main barriers in accessing the computer.
NepaLinux was conceived and developed to break this barrier and help
the larger Nepali population benefit from the use of computing
technology.

FN: How was your project implemented?

BKB: NepaLinux was undertaken differently from other free and open
source software (FLOSS) projects.

When we started developing, there were very few people who were aware
about the work, let alone have the required development or translation
skills.

We did try to involve university students as volunteers; but due to
the lack of proper quality control mechanisms it increased the
workload rather than decreasing it. So we started work with a
dedicated team who would take help (both inside and outside Nepal)
when required.

This was helpful in the planning and maintaining the progress of the
work. However, things are changing now. Skills are more readily
available.

We now collaborate with people or groups outside of the team on various fronts.

For instance, a group of volunteers had implemented and set-up a Linux
Terminal Server Project (LTSP) in a school. This is an add-on package
that allows many people to simultaneously use the same computer, by
having applications run on a server with multiple terminals, or thin
clients, handling input and output. It is based on Fedora [a
Linux-based operating system; editor's note]. We have now enabled the
LTSP set-up in NepaLinux, based on the feedback we gathered.

FN: How widely is the work being accepted or used?

BKB: The initial focus of the team was to develop a stable release of
NepaLinux so that troubleshooting could be maintained at a minimum.
After the release of version 2.0, the focus has now shifted towards
implementation.

Response so far has been good.

For example, the Ministry of General Administration has migrated to
NepaLinux for all its desktops. We have already provided the LTSP
set-up (including the hardware) to three schools in remote locations.

With help of the Nepal Telecom Authority, we will provide similar
support in 25 more schools by next year. We are also partnering with
ENRD to implement NepaLinux in their programme areas. This is still
the early phase for the implementation; we plan to take it further as
vigorously as we can.

FN: Is it a sustainable model?

BKB: NepaLinux, since the beginning, has been project-based work. It
was done under the PAN Localization project and the support is until
next year.

It's difficult to make project-dependent works sustainable. But, we
have been thinking of ways to make the development and support of
NepaLinux sustainable beyond the project.

For this, the Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya (MPP), of Patan Dhoka [a
not-for profit library which is the principal archive of books and
periodicals in the nepali language; editor's note] which has been
promoting this project, has recognised NepaLinux as one of its core
focus areas. This helps in making NepaLinux stable beyond the project
term.

We are also trying to work and collaborate with other public and
private sector partners over NepaLinux.

The network of FLOSS practitioners is increasing in Nepal at the
moment, and we hope that they also take ownership of NepaLinux and
help to take it forward. We work very closely with the recently formed
Nepal FOSS community.

FN: How important is local-language computing in Nepal? Why?

BKB: Really, really important in Nepal. More so when the government
stresses language plurality and respect for all national languages
(there are about 92, the last census reveals).

Also, the literacy rate is relatively low and English literacy even
lower.  Most Asian countries have a lot of linguistic diversities in
them. Local language computing makes a lot of difference in providing
access to computing technology in all kinds of languages.

It is not only about language but culture and local context as well.
Local language computing is really important in all countries.

We are not greatly concerned about people who already use computers
(either in English or otherwise). Our focus is in enabling the
millions of other users into using computers.

FN: Of your targeted users (individuals, governments, corporations,
educational institutions) who do you see as using it most effectively
until now?

BKB: We think the government and schools would use local language
computing the most. The government functions in the local language; in
most schools in rural Nepal the medium of teaching is still the local
language.

FN: Once you've created the solution, what's the best way of spreading it?

BKB: Carrying out a few pilot projects for targeted users, proving
that the solution is actually worthwhile, and making the media aware
of the solution, would be the best way of spreading. Our developers
(both employed and volunteers) come from the various IT colleges.

FN: What are the biggest challenges you've faced so far?

BKB: There are challenges like the lack of awareness among users, and
the need to develop expertise, but they are being tackled.

FN: What are the priorities for the future?

BKB: Making NepaLinux as stable and as user-friendly as possible, and
deploying NepaLinux as widely as possible.

FN: Is it difficult to convince users to switch over operating systems
to get a regional language (Nepali) solution?

BKB: No. Users would use whatever they think will serve them best. We
just have to make sure that the solution that we provide is as good
(both technically as well as aesthetically) as any other.

FN: Can this project help to spread FLOSS use in Nepal?

BKB: Certainly. As FLOSS has gained major hype in Nepal in the recent
years, people are interested to see if it actually gets implemented
amongst end-users.

Deploying NepaLinux will certainly help convince people to use FLOSS.
One way is to increase the widespread use of NepaLinux in schools and
at the same time do some advocacy of FLOSS.

--
Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph 0091-832-2409490
List of Indian e-lists http://wikiwikiweb.de/MailingListsInIndia

From: Karel Novotny [karel at apc . org]
Sent: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 9:32 PM
To: FOSS Prize; APC FOSS; SUCB
Cc: Jirka Reischig; Omar Martinez; Leandro Navarro; Roberto Soriano - Bobby;
Fouad Riaz Bajwa; Kong Sidaroth; ochuko onoberhie; Grant McHerron; Bako Mihaly;
Ugo Vallauri; Warren Noronha; Rolf Kleef; Michael Moritz; Milena Bokova; Alberto
EP; Lilian Chamorro Rojas; ivank
Subject: Announcing the APC Chris Nicol FOSS Prize 2007 winners / Anunciode los
y las ganadores para el premio Chris Nicol de software libre 2007 deAPC /
Annonce des vainqueurs du prix APC de logiciel libre Chris Nicol 2007

Español abajo
Le texte français est en dessous

===================================================================
ANNOUNCING THE APC CHRIS NICOL FOSS PRIZE 2007 WINNERS Initiatives from the USA
and Nepal which make it easy for people to start using free and open source
software (FOSS)
===================================================================

The first APC FOSS Prize established in 2006 to honour Chris Nicol, a long time
FOSS advocate and activist who for many years, worked with APC has been jointly
awarded to:

Free Geek (USA) and NepaLinux (Nepal)

"Free Geek" from Portland in the USA is an organisation that recycles used
technology to provide computers, education, internet access and job skills
training to those in need in exchange for community service. Any individual may
contribute 24 hours of volunteering in the "Adoption Program" at Free Geek in
exchange for a free computer and any individual who wishes to learn how to build
computers can join the "Build Program".
All computers have free and open source software installed.
http://www.freegeek.org

The other joint-winner from Patan in Nepal is the project "NepaLinux"
from the organisation "Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya". NepaLinux is a
Nepali-localised Debian and Morphix distribution based on GNU/Linux. The main
contribution of the project is allowing non-English speakers to use GNU/Linux
and to develop on it. The second contribution is creating a general awareness
around the use of FOSS in Nepal as opposed to using pirated and unlicensed
proprietary software. The NepaLinux team is committed towards producing more
user-friendly, more stable and less technical software that would meet the
actual demand of the Nepali people.
http://www.nepalinux.org

Both initiatives will share the $4,000 USD prize.

In addition to selecting above mentioned prize winners, the jury has decided to
award an honourable mention to the educational project Gleducar in Argentina.
http://www.gleducar.org.ar

The winners were selected from seven previously short listed best prize
nominations. The four remaining prize finalists were - Extramadura's
Technological Literacy and Free Software Plan in Spain, KLDP in South Korea,
MetaReciclagem in Brazil and Saregune in Spain. The winners were selected by an
international jury of FOSS experts.

Detailed description of the seven finalists and winners are available in English
and Spanish on the prize homepage:
http://www.apc.org/english/chrisnicol/finalists

You can read interviews from the APC with:

Free Geek: http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=5241758
NepaLinux: http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=5241651
Gleducar: http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=5245948

A ceremony celebrating the APC Chris Nicol FOSS Prize 2007 will be held during
the APC council meeting in Rio de Janeiro on November 6. The exact location will
be announced soon. The ceremony will be streamed online. All related details
will be made available on http://www.apc.org/english/chrisnicol

The Chris Nicol FOSS Prize is open to any person or group anywhere in the world
who supports or promotes user-oriented free and open source software. The prize
is financed by APC.

The Association for Progressive Communications is an international network of
civil society organisations dedicated to empowering and supporting groups and
individuals through the strategic use of information and communication
technologies, especially internet-technologies.

For interviews, contact the APC FOSS Prize coordinator, Karel Novotny:
Karel [at] apc.org


===================================================================
ANUNCIO DE LOS GANADORES DEL PREMIO CHRIS NICOL DE SOFTWARE LIBRE
2007 DE APC
Iniciativas de Estados Unidos y Nepal que facilitan el uso de software libre
===================================================================

La primera edición del premio de software libre de APC, creado en 2006 en honor
a Chris Nicol, activista y defensor del software libre que trabajó en APC
durante muchos años, ha sido otorgado en forma conjunta
a:

Free Geek (Estados Unidos) y NepaLinux (Nepal).

La organización "Free Geek" de Portland, Estados Unidos, se dedica a reciclar
tecnología usada para brindar computadores, educación, acceso a internet y
capacitación laboral a quienes lo necesitan, a cambio de servicio comunitario.
Cualquier individuo puede colaborar con 24 horas de trabajo voluntario en el
"Programa de adopción" de Free Geek, a cambio de un computador gratis, y
cualquier persona que desee aprender a construir computadores puede integrarse
al "Programa de construcción".
Todos los computadores son gratuitos y tienen software libre instalado.
http://www.freegeek.org

El otro proyecto ganador es "NepaLinux", de la organización "Madan Puraskar
Pustakalaya" de Patán, Nepal. Se trata de una distribución de Debian y
Morphix, basada en GNU/Linux, adaptada a lenguas locales. El aporte principal
del proyecto es que personas que no son hablantes de inglés pueden usar
GNU/Linux y desarrollarlo. Además, el proyecto logra generar una conciencia
general sobre el uso de software libre en Nepal, y marcar la diferencia con el
uso de software propietario pirata o sin licencia. El equipo de NepaLinux está
comprometido con la producción de programas más orientados a los y las
usarias, más estables y menos técnicos, que apuntan a cumplir con la verdadera
demanda de los y las nepalíes.
http://www.nepalinux.org

Ambas iniciativas compartirán el premio de 4.000 dólares estadounidenses.

Además de seleccionar a los ganadores mencionados, el jurado decidió otorgarle
una mención de honor al proyecto educativo Gleducar de Argentina.
http://www.gleducar.org.ar

Los ganadores fueron seleccionados a partir de siete finalistas que habían sido
elegidos previamente. Los cuatro finalistas no seleccionados
fueron: Plan de alfabetización tecnológica y software libre de Extremadura,
Expaña; KLDP, de Corea; MetaReciclagem, de Brasil; y Saregune, también de
España. El jurado estuvo compuesto por expertos y expertas internacionales en
software libre.

Se puede leer la descripción detallada de los siete finalistas y ganadores, en
inglés y en español, en la página principal del premio:
http://apc.org/english/chrisnicol/finalists

Entrevistas de APCNoticias con:

Free Geek: http://www.apc.org/espanol/news/index.shtml?x=5247246
NepaLinux: http://www.apc.org/espanol/news/index.shtml?x=5247232
Gleducar: http://www.apc.org/espanol/news/index.shtml?x=5247188

Se realizará una ceremonia para celebrar el premio Chris Nicol 2007 de software
libre durante la reunión del consejo de APC el 6 de noviembre en Río de
Janeiro. Se anunciará el lugar del evento a la brevedad. La ceremonia se
trasmitirá en línea. Todos los detalles estarán disponibles
en: http://www.apc.org/espanol/chrisnicol

El premio Chris Nicol  de software libre está abierto a cualquier persona o
grupo de cualquier parte del mundo que brinde apoyo o promueva el software libre
y orientado al usuario/a. Cuenta con financiación total de APC.

La Asociación para el Progreso de las Comunicaciones es una red internacional
de organizaciones de la sociedad civil que se dedica al empoderamiento y el
apoyo de grupos e individuos mediante el uso estratégico de las tecnologías de
la información y la comunicación, sobre todo las de internet.

Por entrevistas, contactarse con el coordinador del premio de software libre de
APC, Karel Novotny:
karel [arroba] apc.org

===================================================================
ANNONCE DES VAINQUEURS DU PRIX APC DE LOGICIEL LIBRE CHRIS NICOL 2007
Initiatives des États-Unis et du Népal qui facilitent l'utilisation des
logiciels libres par la population
===================================================================

Le premier prix APC de logiciel libre établi en 2006 en l'honneur de Chris
Nicol, un activiste et défenseur des logiciels libres de longue date, qui a
travaillé durant de nombreuses années avec APC, a été remporté par :

Free Geek (É.-U.) et NepalLinux (Népal).

"Free Geek" est une organisation qui recycle du matériel informatique usagé
pour fournir des ordinateurs, de la formation, des accès à internet et des
compétences d'enseignement aux gens dans le besoin, en échange de services
communautaires. Toute personne peut contribuer volontairement au "Programme
Adoption" durant 24 heures, en échange d'un ordinateur gratuit. Celui ou celle
qui aimerait apprendre à construire des ordinateurs peut suivre le "Programme
Build". Tous les ordinateurs fonctionnent à l'aide de logiciels libres.
http://www.freegeek.org

L'autre gagnant de la région de Patan au Népal, est le projet "NepaLinux" de
l'organisation "Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya". Nepalinux est une distribution de
GNU/Linux basée sur Debian et Morphix et en Népalais. La contribution la plus
importante du projet est de permettre à ceux qui ne parlent pas anglais
d'utiliser GNU/Linux et de développer des applications libres. La seconde
contribution du projet est de créer une connaissance générale sur
l'utilisation des logiciels libres au Népal, en opposition à l'usage de
logiciels propriétaires piratés et sans licences. L'équipe de NepaLinux
s'engage à produire des logiciels plus conviviaux, plus stables et moins
techniques pour répondre à la demande des Népalais.
http://www.nepalinux.org

Ces deux initiatives se partageront le prix de 4,000 dollars US.

En plus des deux gagnants sélectionnés ci-dessus, le jury a décidé de
remettre une mention d'honneur au projet  éducatif "Gleducar"
d'Argentine.
http://www.gleducar.org.ar

Les gagnants ont été sélectionnés parmi sept finalistes nominés. Les quatre
autres finalistes sont – le KLDP de  Corée du Sud, MetaReciclagem du Brésil,
le Plan d'alphabétisation technologique et logiciels libres de l'Estrémadure
en Espagne et Saregune d'Espagne. Les gagnants ont été sélectionnés par un
jury international d'experts des logiciels libres.

Une description détaillée des sept finalistes et gagnants est disponible en
anglais et espagnol sur la page Internet du prix :
http://apc.org/english/chrisnicol/finalists

Vous pouvez lire les entrevues suivantes [en anglais] réalisées par le service
d'actualités d'APC, APCNouvelles :
Free Geek: http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=5241758
NepaLinux: http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=5241651
Gleducar: http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=5245948

Une cérémonie célébrant le prix APC de logiciel libre Chris Nicol 2007 aura
lieu durant la rencontre du conseil d'APC à Rio de Janeiro le 6 novembre.
L'endroit exact de l'événement vous sera communiqué sous peu.
La cérémonie sera retransmise en ligne par lecture en transit. Tous les
détails seront bientôt disponibles sur:
http://apc.org/english/chrisnicol

Le prix de logiciel libre Chris Nicol est ouvert à tout groupe ou personne,
n'importe où dans le monde, qui soutient et encourage l'utilisation les
logiciels libres et gratuits. Le prix est financé par APC.

L'association pour le progrès des communications est un réseau international
d'organisations de la société civile dédié à renforcer et soutenir les
groupes et les personnes dans leur utilisation stratégique des technologies de
l'information et de la communication, et en particulier d'internet.

Pour un entretien, veuillez prendre contact avec le coordonnateur du Prix de
logiciel libre, Karel Novotny :
karel [at] apc.org
--
----------------------------------------------------
Karel Novotny
Knowledge Sharing Projects Coordinator
APC - The Association for Progressive Communications La Asociación para el
Progreso de las Comunicaciones karel@... http://www.apc.org
tel: + 420 605 243 246 (GMT + 2)
----------------------------------------------------
Online Monday - Wednesday/en línea lunes - miércoles
----------------------------------------------------

Mr. Shahzad,

Thank you for finally responding to our email, we are aware that the delay
has been due to Eid holidays. Despite the fact that we wrote a very
elaborate message and requested a great deal of clarification and
information on the subject of FOSS in Pakistan with respect to PSEB and
OSRC's projects, we are receiving very limited and diplomatic information
from your end. As shared earlier, the international community is with us on
this list, kindly support our request for detailed information and specific
replies to questions. Anyways, we are sure Yusuf will be replying shortly
amidst Venky's (Red Hat Inc.) comments that are pasted here after this
reply.

PSEB and OSRC may be having a slight problem in understanding the philosophy
and appropriation of the use of the word Open Source. Just to prove this,
our questions: May we read your agreements with these 'companies' online
with respect to the freedom of access to information within the Open Source
Movement and in compliance to the fact that PSEB and OSRC are using the
world Open Source that signifies a philosophy that should be well
respected?; May we read the balance sheets of the sums of money paid of to
these companies? May we read the TORs, presentations, company profiles,
selection communication, requirement specifications, the functional specs,
the user documentation, the source code on the PSEB website? May we read the
deliverable specifications? May we read the mailing list archives of the
communications between PSEB and the developers, may we read the project
plans, schedules, details of deliverables etc, or may we read just the news
on PSEB's website that there is something Open Source ERP underway and when
15 implementations are completed of "What?" then we will get to see the
ERPs, oh please! Stop embarrassing the Open Source Movement.

The type of answering to my questions only indicates close source software
development as is the norm with the corporate industry in the region at the
moment. Once again, kindly refer to www.opensource.org and clarify where
does it say that government bodies can call their software development
initiatives Open Source and close down information under an agreement with
software development firms when PSEB has paid a considerable amount of money
to these companies for development and I am sure they aren't working for
free for PSEB and OSRC?

Like I discussed earlier, OSRC is very well aware of my existence and advice
since 2005. I have partnered with OSRC on certain occasions to carryout
initiatives and make OSRC look good. Does the Mark Shuttleworth and
Ubuntu/Canonical Ltd Asia Tour launch from Lahore Pakistan ring a bell from
January 2006 last year? I can circulate the Newsletter/Invitations from PSEB
and OSRC that clearly mention it disseminated to the whole software
industry. Let's stop playing this game that hey, who is this guy and realize
that we are all discussing and requesting appropriate OPEN SOURCE and access
to information here.

When PSEB and OSRC does something useful, even I myself write articles to
share with the international community so kindly stop saying that you could
use my support, just use it if you guys are really serious:
http://www.iosn.net/south-asia/countries/pakistan/news/pakistan-opens-up-ope
n-source-training-toolkit-to-everyone

VENKY from Red Hat Inc's Message:
Dear Yusuf and all concerned,

I look after public policy and academic relations for Red Hat India. It
has been an educative experience to be a part of this thread. Fouad has
sent in a very detailed mail but for the time being I would like to
confine my comments to the OOXML issue because I was part of the OOXML
review committee in India that finally voted (unanimously, I may add)
against the OOXML proposal.

The whole OOXML issue has to be seen against the background of the
global move towards open standards. Open standards are not just
important, they are fundamental to efficient e-governance. Using
proprietary, closed standards is akin to handing the keys to the
treasury to a third party and is a very unwise step when it comes to
citizens data.

The open source and free software communities believe that public data
should be in public formats. The government is the *custodian* of
citizens data and has an obligation to ensure that this data is not tied
to one particular application. Take the case of land records, which need
to be preserved for 400 years or more. If land records are stored in a
proprietary format, there is no guarantee that it can be retrieved a few
hundred years later because the only one who can unlock the file is the
organization that created the format.

The only way to guarantee that data can be stored and retrieved freely
is to use published standards that have been built through collaboration
and consensus and have multiple third party implementations. The
Internet is one of the finest examples of true open standards because
anybody can create web browsers and e-mail clients by following the
standards published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

On 29th August 2007, when I came to know that Pakistan has recently
become a voting member at ISO, I e-mailed Mr. Abdul Ghaffar Soomro and
Mr. Abdul Rauf K. Kirmani at PSQCA to bring to their attention several
issues that the community has found with OOXML and why Pakistan should
review these issues before taking a final decision. Incidentally, on
23rd August 2007, India voted No to OOXML and this vote was preceded by
six months of intense, often gruelling debate on the merits and demerits
of OOXML. Since I could not get through to PSQCA, I did the next best
thing--call up my friends in Pakistan's IT industry to find out if they
know about any OOXML review committee being formed in Pakistan. Most of
them, including the IT Ministry of Pakistan were not aware of this. On
September 4th, 2007, I came to know through
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/

that Pakistan has voted in favor of OOXML. After further digging around,
I found that the OOXML review committee consisted of four Microsoft Gold
Partners. These are issues that Fouad and others must have highlighted
to senior policy makers like yourself. However, it is still not too
late. The ISO will be holding a Ballot Review Meeting in Geneva in
February where there will be another opportunity for participating
countries to review their stance.

Our request to influential policymakers like yourself is simply this--we
request you to use your influence to ensure that there is a transparent
review of OOXML that also involves the free and open source software
community of Pakistan.

With warm regards,

Venky


Best
Fouad Bajwa
FOSS Advocate




-----Original Message-----
From: Shahzad Basir [mailto:sbasir@...]
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2007 2:35 PM
To: All
Subject: RE: FOSS Lackings, PSEB-OSRC and (Open Source Software) ERP
Solutions - Where is the Source Code & Community Participation?

Dear Mr. Fouad Bajwa,

I hope that you are doing very good... I had heard about you from Mr. Salman
Ansari and the great work that you are doing in the promotion of open
source... We have also made great strides in the OSRC and the Industry
Automation projects for the promotion of open source... Khurram will update
you on the achievements in the OSRC project... I wanted to take the
opportunity to update you on the status of the open source ERPs that have
been developed under the Industry Automation project at PSEB:

The ERPs developed for readymade garments and hosiery (GBMS) and automotive
parts and accessories (AutoPlus) have been successfully implemented in the
respective model units... The products are in the process of implementation
at 14 additional units in each sector to be completed under the project...
The products along with the source code will be available after completion
of implementation of the products in the 15 units (as per agreement with the
software development companies...) (This is expected to be completed by
February 2008)... The other two ERPs are still in the process of model
implementation... Regular updates on the Industrial Automation project can
be found in PSEB's Monthly News Bulletin
http://www.pseb.org.pk/subscribe.php in the Facilitation section...

Also, I would appreciate if you can share you thoughts and suggestions on
the promotion of open source in general and about Industry Automation
project in particular... Please feel free to contact me at any stage...


Thanks.

Best Regards,

Shahzad Basir,
Project Manager (Industry Automation Project),
PSEB
Phone: 92-51-9204074 x-109
Cell: 0345-5117249
Fax: +92-51-9204075
e-mail : sbasir@...
URL: www.pseb.org.pk; www.osrc.org.pk

-----Original Message-----
From: Fouad Riaz Bajwa
Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2007 6:49 AM
To: All
Subject: FOSS Lackings, PSEB-OSRC and (Open Source Software) ERP Solutions -
Where is the Source Code & Community Participation?

Dear Yusuf and all concerned,

	 As FOSS advocates, we are inviting the global FOSS community,
businesses, researchers and advocates as well as the Pakistan ICT Policy
Monitor to be a witness to this important discussion. OSRC is the Open
Source Resource Center www.osrc.org.pk, a project of Pakistan Software
Export Board www.pseb.org.pk mandated to develop a FOSS ecosystem in
Pakistan in parallel to the closed source software industry, readers may
acknowledge this to be clearly mentioned on OSRC's website given above. You
may also read our report at
http://globaliswatch.org/files/pdf/GISW_Pakistan.pdf that gives details on
the FOSS activities in the region.

	 We are laying this discussion on a strong foundation that we have
fueled since the last 4 years. Kindly review where we have partnered and
supported OSRC in the past is listed on the OSRC Achievements section:
http://www.osrc.org.pk/content/view/36/76 where it says Ubuntu, FOSSAC or
FOSSFP so we are going to discuss some "well-aware" issues. Here is a cover
story I did for SIPDER magazine last September discussing FOSS in Pakistan:
http://www.spider.tm/sep2006/cstory1.html
http://www.paul.sladen.org/ubuntu/fridge/SPIDER_September_2006_Cover_Stories
.pdf  and another story that our neighboring country published about FOSS in
Pakistan:
http://southasiaict4d.wordpress.com/2007/01/14/floss-in-the-neighbourhood/

	 Bringing your attention back to the Free and Open Source Software
FOSS issues that are against the philosophy of FOSS, how it is evolved, made
and distributed for the benefit of masses with respect to how PSEB's OSRC
Project should take these principles otherwise it may be possibly held
accountable to misappropriation and disregard of the global FOSS movement
and the business industry that evolves around it.

Lack of Public Participation in the FOSS process in Pakistan under OSRC:

	 First of all, the OSRC does not include a public participation
element as it should in light of the FOSS spirit and principles of community
development and evolution. It has been operating in isolation without
adequate participation from people like us. I would like to first request
you to kindly establish an Advisor Committee on OSRC that would recommend,
propose, advice and devise its plan of action to be considered by PSEB and
MoIT. AS an autonomous body in the form of a government company, PSEB can
take this initiative. The proposed Committee will include the better half
representation of the FOSS movement with people who have evolved communities
of FOSS learning and Practice and business development in Pakistan and OSRC
websites speak of our achievements, and not just OSRC. I made this clear to
the previous Project Manager of OSRC and he assured me that their was a
committee and that we would be included but nothing happened on that front,
kindly, it is a request from our end to look into this.

Where is the PSEB-OSRC (Open Source Software) ERP Solutions community and
deliverables that are claimed to be developed on FOSS principles and
platforms?

	 Secondly, PSEB-OSRC has been since 2004-2005 voicing an achievement
attributing it as its Open Source Software ERP Solutions at
http://www.pseb.org.pk/page.php?pid=7#automation with news circulated widely
titled "First ever Open Source ERP Solution �developed by a Pakistani
company, launched under PSEB Industrial Automation Project" - (08 Jun, 2007)
http://www.pseb.org.pk/page.php?nid=13. The FOSS communities, both local and
global have no access to the Document, Compiled Programmes and Source code
of these so called Open Source Software ERP systems. The FOSS community
operates in Public Mode copyrighting its software under GPL www.fsf.org or
Open Source Software licenses www.opensource.org. In light of these licenses
and the claims of PSEB and OSRC, we request you to release these systems
including their documentation from development to user manuals, source code,
database architecture, compiled programmes via www.sourceforge.org otherwise
this is not only a big folly on behalf of OSRC, it�s a global insult in the
name of the principles of FOSS! Public Tax Payers money used for Open Source
Software development for the General Business Industry in Pakistan requires
the source code to be widely available for all the industry to benefit!
Kindly furnish a timeline for making these systems for the FOSS community to
review and evolve for the general use by other industries as well!

Discrepancy in OSRC Staff Recruitment Process:

	 Third, some time ago, PSEB advertised the position for OSRC's
Project Manager hiring. The core requirement for hiring that person was to
have knowledge about FOSS Community development, to our knowledge the person
hired has no community development knowledge and we have never heard this
person's name before in both the Linux Pakistan and Ubuntu-Linux
communities, the two core FOSS communities in Pakistan. This person has
neither gotten in touch with our communities nor has discussed at any level
with the FOSS community OSRC plans. You are kindly requested to probe this
matter and inform us why credible and expert FOSS staff have not moved up
the ladder in OSRC and assumed important positions such as the Project
Manager of OSRC for which huge amounts of money has been invested on their
skills development including local and foreign trainings. We can furnish a
list of these trainings and the names of the staff as evidence that have the
core expertise to move OSRC ahead and they have been pushed back by hiring
non-skilled people.

Recognition of Linux and Open Source Skills in Pakistan:

	 OSRC sometime ago did a credible job of preparing a FOSS Curriculum
Toolkit released for the public http://www.osrc.org.pk/content/view/29/42/
that was to support training efforts of OSRC planned to offer to the general
business and industry as well as government after conducting various
trainings. This material was first developed in closed environment without
participation again of the core FOSS communities in Pakistan. These core
FOSS communities have never been invited to participate in these trainings
nor deliver course content. I offered OSRC venues in three cities in Lahore,
Karachi and Islamabad and had partners and supporters submit proposals, it
has been a very long time without any response from PSEB-OSRC. AS a result
we have had to step up ourselves now and offer something that PSEB-OSRC
should partner with us now to bridge this divide.

Linux Professional Institute LPI Offerings & Ubuntu Certified Professional
Certifications under LPI:

	 For mass certification of the IT Industry on Linux and Open Source
Skills including global recognition of such certifications, we would like to
offer Linux Professional Institute Certification Exams http://www.lpi.org
through paper based tests PBTs to PSEB-OSRC at highly discounted rates to
offer to the Government and PSEB stakeholders to evolve a productive and
skilled FOSS Ecosystem that will be globally recognized. The Pakistan
operations for LPI Pakistan have been setup and we will shortly be
announcing through global press releases about LPI offerings in the region.
We would like to make PSEB, OSRC and MoIT a part of these offerings. We will
report PSEB-OSRCs endorsement and their achievements in the future at
http://www.lpipakistan.org for the global Linux skills industry to view.
PSEB and OSRC are requested to offer Train the Trainer Workshops, LPI
Trainings and LPI Certification Exam Labs throughout Pakistan with us.

Lack of a Nationwide Software Piracy Prevention and Open Source Software
Promotion Campaign:

	 Closed source companies cannot mandate forcefully to citizens of
Pakistan to adopt their expensive software in light of our low-income
status. Why did they let their "special" (as a world's software giant calls
software piracy in Pakistan) software be dumped in the country in the first
place? Free and Open Source Software is freely available throughout
Pakistan. Ubuntu (Canonical Limited) www.ubuntu.com has widely distributed
over 250,000 plus free CDs of Ubuntu Linux Operating system throughout the
country including our 5000+ users training on copyright and FOSS awareness.
Where is such an awareness campaign by PSEB and OSRC. Why haven't
advertisements appeared from PSEB in national news papers and media advising
the citizens of Pakistan to stop using pirated software, either use FOSS or
buy legal software. This is a big lacking and PSEB may be unknowingly or
knowingly pushing the closed source software drive in Pakistan. Kindly be
aware of this that the FOSS and global open standards community reserve ther
right to forward petitions and voice a campaign on such issues and
discrepancies.

Recommendations for PSEB-OSRC in light of global reports:

Finally, in light of the Global Information Society Watch Report that I had
forwarded to your earlier, PSEB and OSRC's role as an enabler of the FOSS
Ecosystem in Pakistan, the following recommendations were made that have to
be directly channeled through your consideration and support. FOSS in
Pakistan - FOSS priority recommendations for Pakistan are:

All readers of this letter may review the GISW recommendations we made at:
http://globaliswatch.org/files/pdf/GISW_Pakistan.pdf

� The government should invite multi-stakeholder partnerships to develop its
technical capacity and encourage the formulation of concrete policies that
mandate the wide use of FOSS in light of WSIS recommendations.

� FOSS should be adopted within higher education, while the inclusion of
women and youth should be the priority of all ICT and FOSS-related
activities. A Women Linux Users Group should be formed, and where there are
religious or social constraints, women-run telecentres should be
established.

� The government should take measures to combat software piracy through
making citizens aware of their software freedoms through FOSS capacity
development. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) should be encouraged to use
FOSS instead of pirated proprietary software.

� Multi-stakeholder partnerships should be formulated to educate all sectors
of society about Digital Commons and alternative copyrighting such as
Creative Commons, GPL, Open Standards and Open Content.

� The government should support language localisation efforts, such as those
making various Linux distributions available in Urdu.

� The government should encourage the funding of small businesses initiated
by women and youth that involve FOSS-based service delivery and business
models.

� Telecentre initiatives should be established to promote ICTs and universal
access in all rural regions by deploying low-cost refurbished computers
running FOSS, instead of pirated or costly licensed proprietary software
packages.

� International donors should be encouraged to include FOSS policies in
their funding guidelines.

OOXML Voting Debate:

Kindly refer to our requests to include us into the process of voting from
Civil Society and Experts on the subject. The Linux Pakistan and Ubuntu
Community were never involved in any standardization process by any body,
that shows the level of public policy dialogue and the importance of such
groups by authorities, since late 2004, we have never read anything on the
subject after PSEB-OSRC was created, I think some things were never shared
with the Linux Pakistan community and no one would actually standup
themselves and share it.


More information and debate on this subject is on its way.

Looking forward to your comments.

Best

Fouad Bajwa
FOSS Advocate

----------------------------------------------------------
SEAMONKEY, AND URDU
----------------------------------------------------------

Sarmad Hussain of the Center for Research in Urdu Language
Processing (CRULP) at the National University of Computer and
Emerging Sciences (FAST-NU) in Pakistan informs of the
release of the Urdu language pack for SeaMonkey 1.1.4
developed by the PAN Localization Project's Pakistan Country
Component at the Center for Research in Urdu Language
Processing (CRULP). SeaMonkey is an open-source,
multi-platform, complete Internet suite including a web
browser, an email client, an IRC chat client and a simple
HTML editor. The released version of the Urdu language pack
for SeaMonkey includes the following features:

     * Installable on a SeaMonkey Windows installation (also
       installable on Linux and Mac OS X, but not tested)
     * SeaMonkey browser in Urdu
     * SeaMonkey email client in Urdu
     * SeaMonkey HTML editor in Urdu

Future versions are expected to include translated help
files, complete Urdu version of training material and other
improvements, according to the announcement. For download and
installation details, go to SeaMonkey Urdu Language Pack.
http://www.crulp.org/software/localization/OSS/Seamonkeyulp.html
--
Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph 0091-832-2409490
11866 downloadable, sharable hi-res photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/

[Sorry for the cross-post...]

Friends,

We are glad to inform you that, 2nd installable Bangla distro based on
Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) [0] has released. The codename of this
release is Hoimonti (হৈমন্তী). The first one, Sraboni
(শ্রাবণী), was
based on Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake) [1].

Some new features over the default Gutsy installation:

     * Customized Debian/Ubuntu Installer: It will take less inputs
then usual text installer
     * After installation it will boot into Bangla locale (ie. bn_BD
locale) by default
     * Some important software are included,
           o Banshee - Audio Management and Playback application
           o Gnash - free SWF movie player
           o Gnome-PPP - modem internet connection tool for the GNOME Desktop
           o GParted - GNOME partition editor
           o Ogle - DVD player with support for DVD menus
           o VLC Player - multimedia player and streamer
     * Some codecs are included which will help to play various
audio/video files out of the box
     * Some updated deb packages (ie. Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.8)

Some issues:

     * There might be some issues while installation if the CDROM is
old, DMA enable/desabled, S.M.A.R.T. enable/desabled for IDE channels.
     * If you put IP address during installation but there is no
Internet connection, then it will take un-wanted delays cause it tries
to download some packages from the Internet.
     * Internal modems might not work/be detected/need to download
restricted modules.
     * Gutsy itself has some issues which are mentioned in their
Release Notes [2].
     * Let us know if you get any.

Please check, http://www.ankur.org.bd for more details.

Regards,
-Jamil

[0] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GutsyGibbon
[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DapperDrake
[2] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GutsyGibbon/ReleaseNotes

Source:
The Bangkok Post
http://www.bangkokpost.com/Database/31Oct2007_data01.php

Notebooks for all
A Canadian company has yet another solution for bridging the world's digital
divide

Story by DON SAMBANDARAKSA

A Canadian alternative to the much talked about "one hundred dollar laptop"
is making the rounds of the region in the hope of winning support from
governments by offering a different solution to bridge the digital divide.

Rather than one inexpensive laptop per child, the answer being presented is
a somewhat more powerful computer, with zero maintenance or moving parts,
which can be shared by a number of children running free and open source
software.

Gerry Morgan, founder of Ink-Media and the man behind the Ink-Media Mobile
Personal Computer, explained how the original idea came out of his work in
architecting Schoolnet India. The key problem there was that a normal PC had
a typical life span of just six months due to power fluctuations, brownouts,
dust and software or operating system corruption. The answer to that
question was a rugged PC with no moving parts, and one which had no
rewritetable storage for the OS, which could be corrupted.

The idea was to cut maintenance costs, typically around 30 percent, down to
zero. Furthermore, by basing the system on free and open source software,
another significant running cost.

[-- Image: http://www.bangkokpost.com/Database/311007_data01.jpg
Caption: Gerry Morgan shows off his Ink Media budget notebook that he hopes
will help bridge the digital divide. Rather than one laptop per child, it is
designed so that one laptop can serve many children. � DON SAMBANDARAKSA --]

Years later, Morgan came up with the idea that became the Ink-Media Personal
Mobile Computer. Perhaps the oddest technical feature of the tablet-style PC
is the fact that it runs an ARM-based RISC CPU, the Freescale i.mx31. The
key reason for choosing this RISC CPU over a conventional x86 Intel or AMD
processor was battery life. Morgan explained that this CPU's power envelope
of just 3.5 watts made an 8-hour use possible. The other key reason was that
this particular chip had strong video and graphics capabilities, which would
be needed to show videos and animations in a classroom environment.

The downside is that it does not run the vast amount of x86 software out
there.

The operating system is a cut down version of Debian Linux, recompiled for
the ARM architecture, complete with most of the office and communications
software expected in a GNU/Linux system. The OS and applications are locked
away in semi-permanent flash memory that under normal circumstances cannot
be written to by the system.

"It can't get a virus, it can't slow down. The system has no hard drive, no
fan. Nothing can break and it is completely maintenance free," he explained.


Morgan said that he does not believe in the one-laptop-per-child (OLPC)
philosophy. Rather, he believes that computing should be as ubiquitous as
pencils and that one laptop could be made to serve many children.

The architecture is different in that rather than storing data in the
machine, all user data, preferences and language settings are stored in the
user's SD card or USB drive. Plugging in your drive in any of these machines
would then bring up a Thai language desktop with your files the way the user
left it. This separation of machine and data is important to help one
machine serve many people.

Morgan said that the idea of a pencil lab today would be utter absurdity, so
why then do we persist with the concept of a computer lab? In his worldview,
the PC should be a tool that humans use to express our thoughfulness,
resourcefulness and insightfulness rather than an end in itself.

Already, Morgan is talking about extending the concept beyond education and
to healthcare, homes and even small businesses in the developing world that
have yet to use a computer.

"Four fifths of the world's population has yet to touch a computer. I was
trying to build something to fit their needs," he said.

The open source movement features a lot in his talks. Morgan said he was
touched by these people who created all this great software and gave it away
for free, offering an alternative economic model to the one that has become
entrenched in our collective psyche.

The PC design has many similarities with the OLPC and many differences. For
instance, the screen is a conventional screen rather than the special OLPC
design that works in bright light. Morgan said that two years ago, he
conducted a survey right here in Thailand and everyone preferred a
conventional screen with good colour rendition to one that had poor colour
but was more readable in bright daylight. The Debian-based Linux OS also
looks and feels more conventional and can easily be used by anyone
accustomed to Windows - unlike the OLPC's altogether different human
computer interface.

The wireless LAN component is a standard 802.11G unit from Marvel. "Meshing
was a very interesting idea, but when you put it in a classroom, it's the
equivalent of passing paper notes to all your friends. As a former teacher,
would I want that? I don't think so," he said. As for the question of
providing connectivity across areas that the OLPC's mesh WiFi promises,
Morgan thinks that soon enough we will have WiMax that will address that
need with more standard equipment.

Profits from the endeavour are channelled back into the Gerry Morgan
foundation, which invests in poor regions sometimes for computers, sometimes
for other basic infrastructure. The first project is a school in Uganda for
around 200 AIDS orphans. The entire project is designed to be self
sustaining, which means that each system is sold at a small profit in order
to make the ecosystem viable and scalable.

Ink Media is ready to scale up production with its partners in China as
early as January but before that can happen, Morgan is travelling the world
meeting governments trying to convince them of his vision and gain their
commitment.

"The idea of low cost computers is a very important economic strategy and it
has to become a national priority in every country. Up until now, the entire
computing revolution has touched less than 20 percent of the world's
population. We are about to have the second revolution, and yes, I believe
the end goal can be achieved within my lifetime," he said.

Today, the Ink-Media Personal Mobile Notebook can be ordered in bulk for
US$250 per unit and a desktop version - which has the same processor and
internals but is to expected to be hooked up to a second hand monitor,
keyboard and mouse - can be had for as little as $160.

Dear Faraz, Jehan and All,

Long message but its very important!

I hope you all have already learnt a great deal about the issues relevant to
the OOXML and how most countries of the world took a decision against it,
even our neighboring countries but we fell pray to the proprietary software
forces backing the initiative and technical lacking of information on what
OOXML actually was is a big issue!

This ISO pro OOXML global lobbying campaign has been clearly planned,
coordinated and managed by very competent experts and its time to counter
that with our experts! Even our committee that voted in its favor PSQCA,
Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority has become a voting member
fairly recently, and it may not have had sufficient time to review the 6,000
page OOXML proposal. ISO needs consent of 2/3rd majority by the world
countries to push OOXML as a standard. Pakistan has initially voted FOR
OOXML (The meeting was held hush-hush by the PSQCA and on the board were 4
Microsoft Gold members!!

If you go through the http://www.noooxml.org website which documents the
technical issues with OOXML and the documents attached with this message,
all refer to why OOXML is not culturally adaptable to Muslim countries. The
enclosed attachments highlight many other technical and legal issues that
need resolution. In light of these issues, I would request members and
bodies to vote "No with Comments" as this is the only way of ensuring that
the problems in OOXML are resolved. South Africa, Brazil, China and other
developing countries voted "No with Comments" against OOXML. Our neighbor
also decided to vote "No with Comments" and as I have learnt that the
committee decided this and the committee unanimously agreed that none of the
answers submitted by Microsoft on the 181 issues raised by the committee
were satisfactory.

I would like to announce the No OOXML Campaign under Foundation for a Free
Information Infrastructure (FFII Pakistan Chapter) for taking forward the No
OOXML campaign in the region that I was a member of globally
http://www.noooxml.org/petition and that will now be supporting our
activities in the region but once again, all of you as members can help us
all move forward in helping the concerned institutions realize what is wrong
and what will go wrong if and uninformed and wrong decision is taken! I will
be announcing the website for Pakistan shortly! All of you people in the
team here are already members of this group now!

Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure
The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) is a non-profit
organisation dedicated to establishing a free market in information
technology, by the removal of barriers to competition. The FFII was largely
responsible for the rejection of the EU software patent directive in July
2005, working closely with the European Parliament and many partners from
industry and civil society. CNET awarded the FFII the Outstanding
contribution to software development award for this work, which was the
result of years of research, policy, and action. Today we continue to defend
your right to a free and competitive software market by working towards sane
patent systems and open standards. Website: http://ffii.org

Faraz is already bringing forward a group comprised of
1. Emergen Consulting
2. Ibn-e-Khaldun Systems
3. Ping Systems
4. Convergence Systems Islamabad

and to the best of our knowledge, presence of experts from these companies
will provide an expert view of view of why the entire world thinks OOXML is
evil. The meeting of the Sectional Committee for "Information technology" is
scheduled to be held on Wednesday, the 28 th November, 2007 at 10:00 A.M. in
the Conference Room of Standards Development Centre, 2nd Floor, Mubarak
Manzil,  39 � Garden Road , Saddar, Karachi-74400. (Ph. (021) 5440036). As
Faraz is leading the first initiative and Heading the Committee on OOXML for
us, he will step up and represent the first set of statements against OOXML!

FFII Pakistan's First Stance for the committee to participate under Faraz
Khan of Emergen Consulting in the first meeting including comments from the
attached documents:

Ask the national members of ISO to vote "NO" in the ballot of ISO DIS 29500
(Office OpenXML or OOXML format) for the following reasons:

1. There is already a standard ISO26300 named Open Document Format (ODF): a
dual standard adds costs, uncertainty and confusion to industry, government
and citizens;

2. There is no provable implementation of the OOXML specification: Microsoft
Office 2007 produces a special version of OOXML, not a file format which
complies with the OOXML specification;

3. There is information missing from the specification document, for example
how to do a autoSpaceLikeWord95 or useWord97LineBreakRules;

4. More than 10% of the examples mentioned in the proposed standard do not
validate as XML;

5. There is no guarantee that anybody can write software that fully or
partially implements the OOXML specification without being liable to patent
lawsuits or patent license fees by Microsoft;

6. This format conflicts with existing ISO standards, such as ISO 8601
(Representation of dates and times), ISO 639 (Codes for the Representation
of Names and Languages) or ISO/IEC 10118-3 (cryptographic hash);

7. There is a bug in the spreadsheet file format which forbids any date
before the year 1900: such bugs affect the OOXML specification as well as
software applications like Microsoft Excel 2000, XP, 2003 and 2007.

8. This standard proposal was not created by bringing together the
experience and expertise of all interested parties (such as the producers,
sellers, buyers, users and regulators), but by Microsoft alone.

9. Download Ecma376 - http://www.noooxml.org/ecma376
The standard documents for ECMA376 which are the basis for ISO OOXML
standardisation can be found on their site:
http://www.ecma-international.org/publications/standards/Ecma-376.htm
Comments in the ISO national standard committees will largely be based on
these standard documents.

I am looking forward to everyone's comments!

Best
Fouad


-----Original Message-----
From: Faraz Khan [mailto:faraz.khan@...]
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2007 9:10 AM
To: sami@...; asad.alim@...; wasim@...;
mohtashim@...
Cc: fouadbajwa@...
Subject: the OOXML issue and Meeting PSQCA

Dear All,
I'm sending this to you as I know that everybody on this list cares
about the local and international IT policies of the government which
affect all of us. I do not know if you are aware but there is a huge
battle going on worldwide regarding the OOXML issue. To read up on
this please check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML
http://ooxmlisdefectivebydesign.blogspot.com/
http://m8-2.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=143&Itemid=9999999
9&mosmsg=Item+successfully+saved.

OOXML is a office document standard microsoft is proposing which is
pending ISO standardization for office document files. There is too
much corruption going on in the world and some corrupt governments
which are run by microsoft (including ours) are voting FOR OOXML.
THERE IS NO REASON TO GO FOR OOXML SINCE THERE ALREADY IS A STANDARD -
ODF. OOXML is firstly not a proper standard and secondly leaves too
much gaping holes for microsoft to 'close' it in the future. This
cannot be allowed to happen. The standard of the future is ODF and
Microsoft should not be let to run the worlds future through corruption.

ISO needs consent of 2/3rd majority by the world countries to push
OOXML as a standard. Pakistan has initially voted FOR OOXML (The
meeting was held hush-hush by the PSQCA and on the board were 4
Microsoft Gold members!!   FSF India (Free sofware foundation India)
has moved the local government to say a unanimous NO to the OOXML
issue (half the countries in the world have voted AGAINST it,
countries where corruption is high have voted FOR it)

Involvement from your side in this meeting to vote AGAINST OOXML can
help force the country's decision.  If you wish to help, please
acknowledge. Fouad Bajwa is copied on this email who is organizing a
'movement' against OOXML and making a case to the government in the
next meeting.


--
Faraz R Khan
Chief Architect
Emergen Consulting Pvt Ltd
+92.21.111.111.320 x200
www.emergen.biz

Dear All and Jaijit,

First an update and then my message continues below the following:

OOXML scrapes through, final vote Feb 2008
On 2 September 2007, ISO national bodies voted on Ecma 376, "OOXML". The ISO
secretariat has decided to move forward with a Ballot Resolution Meeting in
February 2008 to make the final decision. Microsoft got to pass with 19
"difficulties" round one (fasttrack OOXML) and lost round two (vote on OOXML),
and now the fight moves to round three, the definitive one. From February 25 to
29, 2008, national boards will meet in Geneva to discuss and vote finally on
OOXML. If our country is not present, it won't have a say in the final result.
It needs to submit a delegation list by December 11. The http://www.noooxml.org
website explains how to help your national ISO board do its job and reject
OOXML.

My Message
First of all a round of thanks to everyone for participating in the No OOXML
Campaign for Pakistan by the FFII Pakistan Chapter, FFII is the official
campaigner for the NO-OOXML Global Campaign http://www.noooxml.org and that’s
where we have all joined in from therefore I would recommend not fracturing the
campaign that is already at large and continue the petition and debate in
preparation of the final voting on 8th of February next year.

In practice of my provisions, I initiated the campaign through hosting the email
list for Pakistan at the space for FFII Pakistan at Alternate Development, the
regional bearer for all FFII campaigns and activities. You all may now subscribe
to the specific email list set on the NoOOXML Campaign for Pakistan at:
http://lists.alternatedevelopment.org/mailman/listinfo/noooxml where as after
subscription, you may direct your emails to nooxml@... on
the subject.

As for PSEB’s and OSRC’s chant about getting PSQCA to invite participation
from Academia, Civil Society and the Companies (Private Sector) has definitely
turned into a piece of crap, I wonder what Khurram Islam from OSRC has to say on
this? Sorry to say, I have been very skeptical about the claims that PSEB has
been making in various areas of intervention and deliberations on various
subjects such as Open Source, IPR and finally the OOXML issues. I would also
mention this to be a failure on part of PSEB’s Corporate Social
Responsibility. PSEB is letting both its member companies and stakeholders down
on this issue, totally!

Keeping this in view and being both an IT Professional and then a full time FOSS
Advocate, my confidence has been shattered a bit but at the same time, its time
to stop moving individually and form a consortium under Alternate Development
supported by FFII as a Civil and Economic-Majority by the companies on both FOSS
and Alternate forms of IPR as a means to bring public value into society and
economy. Let’s all move ahead to joining the mailing list at and this will
help us identify the actual stakeholders and participants on the issue.

You are all invited to join the mailing list; the list has been set to
moderation in order to restrict spam attacks and other menacing by groups trying
to prevent the No-OOXML campaign!

The alternate development website is under development and will be coming live
shortly.

Best
Fouad Bajwa

________________________________________
From: Jaijit.Bhattacharya@... [mailto:Jaijit.Bhattacharya@...]
Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2007 11:43 PM
To: Claude Almansi
Cc: pakistanictpolicy@yahoogroups.com; fouadbajwa@...; Faraz Khan;
sami@...; asad.alim@...; wasim@...;
mohtashim@...; Pieter Hintjens; Badar Khushnood; Zaheda Bhorat;
vfranz@...; Shahzada Irfan; Waqas Toor; rabia garib; editor@...;
bytesforall_floss@yahoogroups.com; Zahid Jamil; jehan@...; Jehan;
kislam@...; Sufyan Kakakhel; Ashish Gautam; Venkatesh Hariharan;
Charlotte Thornby Nielsen; Dravida Seetharam; Lin Lee
Subject: Re: [pakistanictpolicy] Re: the OOXML issue and Meeting PSQCA

Dear All,

I am copying this mail to Venky who is in touch with another set of policy
influencer's in Pakistan on the OOXML issue.

Venky: Can you possibly setup a mailing group of all those who are interested in
open standards in IT in Pakistan so that it it easier to share and disseminate
information.

Regards
Jaijit

Claude Almansi wrote:
Dear All

Several dubious, apparently Microsoft-induced, things happened during
the Swiss September vote on OOXML. So Norbert Bollow, who was in the
Swiss committee and spearheaded their exposure, started OpenIso.org.
It doesn't deal only with OOXML, but there are several threads about
it in the international mailing list
http://openiso.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss . The  archive is public
and discussions are in English.

Best

Claude

On Nov 23, 2007 12:20 PM, Shahzad Ahmad <shahzad@...> wrote:

Dear Colleagues,

Met with Jaijit a few days ago. He was very keen about this process in
Pakistan. I did tell him that there is a committee now and they will be
meeting soon. Ready to help, he informed that they have conducted a lot of
research, which our folks in Pakistan may like to use for their work.

Will request the lead committee members to please contact Jaijit as soon as
possible and am sure their work will be of immense help for our committee.

best wishes and regards.

Shahzad

(...)


--


Jaijit Bhattacharya, PhD
Country Director, Government Strategy
Sun Microsystems India Pvt. Ltd.
The Capital Court, Olof Palme Marg,
5th Floor, R Wing, Munirka
New Delhi - 110 067
Direct:    (91)  11 4219 1089
Board: (91) 11 4219 1100
Fax:     (91) 11 2616 0928

If you pass on your comments, I'll post it to the list where this came up --FN

TAMAL SAHA <saha_tamal2002@...> wrote:

     Hi,
     Thanks for the article. But I think most of us know these things.
On a few points I have to say a few things:

     1. I am not a big fan of Linux. I do agree that Linux is more
stable than Windows. I have to reinstall Windows every 2/3 months, as
it gets 'slow' with time. But still I prefer Windows. Why? As a
student of BUET, I had to use Linux for my OS course. I used Fedora
Core 6. Everybody was saying Linux is an OS for programmers(!).  But
my understanding is that an OS should be for users. In Fedora Core 6,
I could not access the NTFS drives. I had to install special drivers.
Fed_6 did not have any working multimedia  software to play
songs/videos. All of them needed codecs. Open Office was there. But it
looked slow. And its LooknFeel was not as impressive as  MS Office.
And installing all those extra softwares were not easy. Anybody who
has done that will agree with me. Those open source projects think
that they have shown the poor people enough mercy by letting them use
free software. Those open source projects normally have so much
confusing download pages that u can do a PhD on 'How to download a
open source software and install that on Linux'. If u do not believe
me then try installing a Eclipse IDE with Visual Editor. I have
stopped trying any more after trying for 3 days.

     2. Moreover, Gnome is the default Desktop on Linux. Every time u
double click on a icon a new window opens. I tried to stop that. I
knew there must be an option for that. But it was very difficult to
find that. And u know this kind of things are hard to find by
googling. And honestly speaking, I do not understand why those people
reinvent the wheel(KDE, GNome, X-windows).

     So, my point is that if Linux has to really make an impact in OS
market, they have to stop saying that they are a programmers OS and
they have to be more user friendly. And they have to make simple
things easy. I have a feeling that, the open source business model is
the obstacle here. It feels that they intentionally make these things
difficult. Recently I went to MySQL site. Now, they are also selling a
enterprise version and slowed down the bug fixing of the community
edition. They have to decide what they mean by 'proving service'.

     AND

     Those advocates of Linux in Bangladesh who pretend to be very much
fond of Linux need to be clean to their mind. How many of them really
use Linux for their personal use? I doubt that it wont be even 10% of
them. And they should choose the right version of Linux. Why the
'worst' version of Linux: Red Hat distribution. which is not  'Free'.
Why not tell people to use SUSE/Dbian/Ubuntu/Kubuntu(Ubuntu with KDE).
Why not show them a version that can play music by default? Why not
show  them a version of  Linux that can access NTFS drives
automatically. Why tell a 'lie' of free software when the general
users have to com to service centers to have their Linux software
installed? Is Red Hat doing a very good marketing ? We also missed the
cheap AMD processors because all we knew that Intel was the best.
Intel was best because they told us that They are the best. BUt being
an AMD user for last 3 years, I know that that is a damn lie. In fact
AMD performs better than Intel. I can say that from my personal
experience.

     SO

     We do not want to be called the 4th notorious software pirates
because in England 27% softwares are pirated. Those wealthy people
should stop piracy first to stop piracy here.

     Thanks the author for his article. This was my personal view.

     Best Regards,
     Tamal Saha.


--
Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph 0091-832-2409490
12000+ downloadable, sharable hi-res photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/

Dear Faraz,
The list is to be made active by all of us as I have set up the list on
http://lists.alternatedevelopment.org/mailman/listinfo/noooxml and it is to
act as a collaboration point as well as record what we do on this.

Once again, instead of posting to all the various people through the current
method may not be welcome by many therefore, I would like to request
everyone on this list who would like to participate in the NoOOXML campaign,
kindly subscribe to the list:

http://lists.alternatedevelopment.org/mailman/listinfo/noooxml

I will be traffic moderated, no spamming, and moderated membership to avoid
trouble for the moment!

Best

Fouad Bajwa


-----Original Message-----
From: Faraz Khan [mailto:faraz.khan@...]
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 12:49 PM
To: fouadbajwa@...
Cc: All
Subject: Re: Mailing List Announce for the Pakistan OOXML issue and
MeetingPSQCA

Fouad I do not think this list is active.

At any rate,

Mr. Tariq from LinuxPakistan, Mr. Asfar from IBM and Mr.Khurram from
OSRC were able to delay the meeting to a later date which they will
disclose shortly.


Quoting Fouad Riaz Bajwa <fouadbajwa@...>:

> Dear All and Jaijit,
>
> First an update and then my message continues below the following:
>
> OOXML scrapes through, final vote Feb 2008
> On 2 September 2007, ISO national bodies voted on Ecma 376, "OOXML".
> The ISO secretariat has decided to move forward with a Ballot
> Resolution Meeting in February 2008 to make the final decision.
> Microsoft got to pass with 19 "difficulties" round one (fasttrack
> OOXML) and lost round two (vote on OOXML), and now the fight moves
> to round three, the definitive one. From February 25 to 29, 2008,
> national boards will meet in Geneva to discuss and vote finally on
> OOXML. If our country is not present, it won't have a say in the
> final result. It needs to submit a delegation list by December 11.
> The http://www.noooxml.org website explains how to help your
> national ISO board do its job and reject OOXML.
>
> My Message
> First of all a round of thanks to everyone for participating in the
> No OOXML Campaign for Pakistan by the FFII Pakistan Chapter, FFII is
> the official campaigner for the NO-OOXML Global Campaign
> http://www.noooxml.org and that?s where we have all joined in from
> therefore I would recommend not fracturing the campaign that is
> already at large and continue the petition and debate in preparation
> of the final voting on 8th of February next year.
>
> In practice of my provisions, I initiated the campaign through
> hosting the email list for Pakistan at the space for FFII Pakistan
> at Alternate Development, the regional bearer for all FFII campaigns
> and activities. You all may now subscribe to the specific email list
> set on the NoOOXML Campaign for Pakistan at:
> http://lists.alternatedevelopment.org/mailman/listinfo/noooxml where
> as after subscription, you may direct your emails to
> nooxml@... on the subject.
>
> As for PSEB?s and OSRC?s chant about getting PSQCA to invite
> participation from Academia, Civil Society and the Companies
> (Private Sector) has definitely turned into a piece of crap, I
> wonder what Khurram Islam from OSRC has to say on this? Sorry to
> say, I have been very skeptical about the claims that PSEB has been
> making in various areas of intervention and deliberations on various
> subjects such as Open Source, IPR and finally the OOXML issues. I
> would also mention this to be a failure on part of PSEB?s Corporate
> Social Responsibility. PSEB is letting both its member companies and
> stakeholders down on this issue, totally!
>
> Keeping this in view and being both an IT Professional and then a
> full time FOSS Advocate, my confidence has been shattered a bit but
> at the same time, its time to stop moving individually and form a
> consortium under Alternate Development supported by FFII as a Civil
> and Economic-Majority by the companies on both FOSS and Alternate
> forms of IPR as a means to bring public value into society and
> economy. Let?s all move ahead to joining the mailing list at and
> this will help us identify the actual stakeholders and participants
> on the issue.
>
> You are all invited to join the mailing list; the list has been set
> to moderation in order to restrict spam attacks and other menacing
> by groups trying to prevent the No-OOXML campaign!
>
> The alternate development website is under development and will be
> coming live shortly.
>
> Best
> Fouad Bajwa
>
> ________________________________________
> From: Jaijit.Bhattacharya@... [mailto:Jaijit.Bhattacharya@...]
> Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2007 11:43 PM
> To: Claude Almansi
> Cc: pakistanictpolicy@yahoogroups.com; fouadbajwa@...; Faraz
> Khan; sami@...; asad.alim@...;
> wasim@...; mohtashim@...; Pieter Hintjens;
> Badar Khushnood; Zaheda Bhorat; vfranz@...; Shahzada
> Irfan; Waqas Toor; rabia garib; editor@...;
> bytesforall_floss@yahoogroups.com; Zahid Jamil; jehan@...;
> Jehan; kislam@...; Sufyan Kakakhel; Ashish Gautam; Venkatesh
> Hariharan; Charlotte Thornby Nielsen; Dravida Seetharam; Lin Lee
> Subject: Re: [pakistanictpolicy] Re: the OOXML issue and Meeting PSQCA
>
> Dear All,
>
> I am copying this mail to Venky who is in touch with another set of
> policy influencer's in Pakistan on the OOXML issue.
>
> Venky: Can you possibly setup a mailing group of all those who are
> interested in open standards in IT in Pakistan so that it it easier
> to share and disseminate information.
>
> Regards
> Jaijit
>
> Claude Almansi wrote:
> Dear All
>
> Several dubious, apparently Microsoft-induced, things happened during
> the Swiss September vote on OOXML. So Norbert Bollow, who was in the
> Swiss committee and spearheaded their exposure, started OpenIso.org.
> It doesn't deal only with OOXML, but there are several threads about
> it in the international mailing list
> http://openiso.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss . The  archive is public
> and discussions are in English.
>
> Best
>
> Claude
>
> On Nov 23, 2007 12:20 PM, Shahzad Ahmad <shahzad@...> wrote:
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> Met with Jaijit a few days ago. He was very keen about this process in
> Pakistan. I did tell him that there is a committee now and they will be
> meeting soon. Ready to help, he informed that they have conducted a lot of
> research, which our folks in Pakistan may like to use for their work.
>
> Will request the lead committee members to please contact Jaijit as soon
as
> possible and am sure their work will be of immense help for our committee.
>
> best wishes and regards.
>
> Shahzad
>
> (...)
>
>
> --
>
>
> Jaijit Bhattacharya, PhD
> Country Director, Government Strategy
> Sun Microsystems India Pvt. Ltd.
> The Capital Court, Olof Palme Marg,
> 5th Floor, R Wing, Munirka
> New Delhi - 110 067
> Direct:    (91)  11 4219 1089
> Board: (91) 11 4219 1100
> Fax:     (91) 11 2616 0928
>
>
>
>



--
Faraz R Khan
Chief Architect
Emergen Consulting Pvt Ltd
www.emergen.biz

Hi all,

* Sorry for cross-posting *

Glad to share the news that FOSS Nepal Community has been declared one
of 3 winners of the Software Freedom Day 2007 Best Event Competition!

http://softwarefreedomday.org/Competition2007/Winners

Cheers,
Subir B. Pradhanang
FOSS Nepal Community
www.fossnepal.org


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Pia Waugh <pia@...>
Date: Nov 30, 2007 1:56 AM
Subject: [SFD-discuss] SFD 2007 Competition Winners!
To: "Software Freedom Day discus..." <sfd-discuss@...>


Hi all,

We are very pleased to announce the results of the SFD Competition 2007!
Many thanks to all the entrants, we saw some excellent examples of how to
take software freedom to local communities, and we were inspired, as you
all will be to see some of the outcomes and reports.

   http://softwarefreedomday.org/Competition2007/Winners

We have three winners, who will each receive an OLPC (One Laptop Per Child)
computer. All winners, highly commended and entries of note will also
receive a certificate for their excellent submissions.

I want to extend a warm congratulations in particular to the three winners
(in no particular order):
   - FOSS Nepal Community
   - SFD Nicaragua 2007 Team
   - Beijing Software Freedom Day (China)

And the two highly commended entries:
   - Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society
   - SFD Tunisia

Read more about the entries along with their reports at the website above.

Cheers,
Pia

--
Software Freedom Day 2007                   http://softwarefreedomday.org/


_______________________________________________
SFD-discuss mailing list
SFD-discuss@...
http://mail.sf-day.org/lists/listinfo/sfd-discuss

BYTESFORALL: A LOOK AT SOME URDU DEVELOPMENTS...

Some useful and interesting links from the UrduComputing mailing list
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/urdu_computing

URDU NVU RELEASE

Huda Sarfraz huda.sarfraz@...: The current release of
the Nvu localization includes the Urdu Nvu installer for
Windows, which has it's GUI in Urdu. Work to be done for
future releases includes changing the layout direction of
Urdu Nvu to right-to-left. For download and installation
details, please go to Urdu Nvu Windows Installer.
  http://www.crulp.org/software/localization/OSS/NVu.html

Nvu (pronounced "N-view") is a WYSIWYG HTML editor, based on
the Composer component of Mozilla Application Suite and Gecko
1.7. It is a common WYSIWYG editor for Linux and is intended
to be an open source equivalent to proprietary software like
Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver (although to
date it is missing many features they possess). As a WYSIWYG
editor, it is designed to be easy for novice users and does
not require any knowledge of HTML or CSS to use. The project
was started by and sponsored by Linspire. Linspire hired
Daniel Glazman, former Netscape Communications Corporation
employee and CEO/Founder of Disruptive Innovations, to be
lead developer. Nvu is available for Linux, Mac OS X and
Microsoft Windows, and it can be built successfully on any
platform with the Netscape Portable Runtime. (Source: Wikipedia)

* * *

ONLINE DICTIONARY:

Aijaz Akhtar aijazakhtar@...: A very good
Dictionary is now available on line. Its huge database,
Unicode nature, and Nafees Web Naskh font give it an edge
over other on line dictionary sites. Visit here:
http://www.urduenglishdictionary.org/

[Works fine in FireFox 2.0.0.9, on Windows XP-SP2 with Urdu
fonts and phonetic keyboard installed for MS Office.  When
doing Urdu to English search, you will need to switch your
keyboard to Urdu from the language bar.]

* * *

GNU/LINUX WINDOW MANAGER xfce IN URDU:


Aijaz Akhtar aijazakhtar@...: Very good news. A
low end yet powerful window maker for Linux is now translated
into Urdu by Makki. XFCE may not be as beautiful an interface
as KDE or Gnome for Linux, yet it is powerful and consumes
less processor power and is light on RAM requirements, making
it suitable even on a pentium-1 or 2 machine with 400-500 MHZ
processor (Correct me if I am wrong). So now one can download
this, and configure your Linux (with XFCE preloaded, since it
is not bundled with in some Linux disros) to use Urdu
interface of Linux. Download presently from here:
 
http://www.4shared.com/file/28497917/a3c84cdc/xfce_441_Urdu_Translation_by_Makki\
.html
Soon to be uploaded in the download section of
http://urduweb.org. Mohammed Ali Makki had already translated
and made available Urdu Slax earlier that is available here:
http://www.urduweb.org/mehfil/local_links.php?catid=19

* * *

HINDI TO URDU TRANSLITERATOR:

Abdur Radhid: arnandan@... A beta version of Hindi to
Urdu Transliterator is available on line. Please give your
feedback. Visit here: http://hindi2urdu.tripod.com

COMPILED IN PUBLIC INTEREST BY:
* * *

TYPING IN URDU, UBUNTU ETC:

Ali Hussnain Shah: hussnain_shah@... as a starting point
you can use crulp's Urdu Layout for Linux at
http://www.crulp.org/software/localization/keyboards/linuxphonetickb.html

There should be one text file containing the key mappings.
You can us it to learn and change it as you like and use that
on linux.

After you have developed a standard keyboard and if this
should be included in all Linux distributions, submitting it
to xorg (opensource implementation X Window System, on which
KDE,Gnome are based) would be better.. their mailing list is
at http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xorg

After submission to xorg it will be included in all linux
distributtions (debian, suse, ubuntu ...) as soon the
distribution uses a new version of the X system. I think
Sergey Udaltsov is responsible for handling of the X input
system there in the list.

* * *

PAKTYPE NASKH BASIC FONT:

Lateef Sagar Shaikh lateef_sagar@...: I have created
PakType Naskh Basic 1.0 font, which is available at:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/paktype
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/paktype/files/NaskhBasic/1.0/

This font supports following languages: Amazigh, Arabic,
Balochi, Balti, Berber, Brahui, Burushaski, Farsi, Fulani,
Gojri, Hausa, Hindko, Kalami, Kanuri, Kashmiri, Khowar,
Kurdish, Ladakhi, Maba, Malay, Mandinka, Ormuri, Pashto,
Pathwari, Punjabi, Saraiki, Shina, Sindhi, Somali, Swahili,
Torwali, Turkish, Urdu and Uyghur and others.

This font is free for distribution and modification under
GPL.  Glyphs taken from ArabEyes.org font KacstQurn, having
following copyright notice; KACST holds the copyright of the
included Arabic font which is donated under GPL by KACST. URW
Design and Development holds the copyright of the included
Latin font which is donated under GPL by URW.

* * *

LIGATURE-BASD NASTALEEQ WRITING SYSTEM:

Sarmad Hussain sarmad.hussain@...: In 1980 Mr. Ahmad
Mirza Jamil developed a ligature based Nastaleeq writing
system. He has written about 18,000 valid ligatures of Urdu
and developed a Noori Nastaliq font.

Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing (CRULP) is
releasing a soft copy of these ligatures in Unicode format.
CRULP has extensively used these ligatures for testing the
fonts developed at the center and realised that it will be a
valuable resource for other font developers. These ligatures
are grouped in 2 to 8 characters and are sorted in the end
character order.  The ligatures can be downloaded from
www.crulp.org.

Reference: "Noori Nastaliq computerised Urdu calligraphy
(list of ligatures)," calligraphically designed and compiled
by Ahmad Mirza Jamil, Elite Press, Karachi.

* * *

URDU AND PHOTOSHOP CS2:

Imran Ahmed imran1@...: Why Urdu isn't supported in
Photoshop CS2:
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Adobe-Photoshop-1028/Urdu-Images-Photoshop.htm

* * *

SEVERAL KEYBOARD LAYOUTS:

  Imran Ahmad imran1@...: For the past couple of
years I have been trying to find easy way to type in Urdu on
computer. For these reasons I tried several Urdu keyboard
layout such as pakUrdu, Bhurgri, NLA, Phonetic, phonetic-2,
Ishaque, Olympia, Urdu Mahir, and MS_UR_KB. The fact that
there are so many Urdu keyboard layouts while not having any
standard set, made it more complex to achieve my goal.
Finally I end up sticking with Microsoft Urdu keyboard, but
the options for clear fonts type still lacks.
--
Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph +91-832-2409490
Links from Goa: http://goalinks.livejournal.com/

Free and Open Source Software FOSS Makes Strides in Egypt

By Fouad Bajwa,
Open Letter from a Global Trotter FOSS Advocate

It has nearly been a month since I arrived in Cairo, Egypt but it has
felt like the FOSS atmosphere in the country had been waiting for a
trigger to ignite and uncover the widespread interest in the region.
Yes, FOSS has already been here for quite some time now through LUGs
and small initiatives as well as Egyptians have been using FOSS
technology platforms in one way or the other but mostly for personal
needs.

My anticipation has been to help establish the Linux Professional
Institute Egypt and Ubuntu Linux activities while advocating the
benefits of adopting FOSS to the government organizations,
universities, civil society and private sectors. My first contact was
a group of trainers getting ready to launch professional LPI training
programs as well as technical support for FOSS in the country. Second
was bumping into Samer Azmy, an ex-UNDP Project Manager and FOSS
Advocate whom I had met during the Asia Source 2 Camp by UNDP-IOSN
last year in January in Indonesia.

The community is strong, there are many people and organizations
gearing up for adopting FOSS and pushing the agenda of open innovation
to the next level breaking the barriers towards accessing knowledge.
Only last week on the night of Saturday, Orbit TV Egypt aired a 20
minute documentary and talk show on the benefits of FOSS, Linux with a
focus on Ubuntu Linux, its Arabic language capabilities and the
opportunities it holds for Egypt and the Arab world.

After the TV show, somehow, lots of people sourced my local cell
number and a downpour of telephone calls started causing me trouble
explaining FOSS benefits in English language whereas the callers were
mostly speaking Arabic. But, all hope was not lost because they
somehow knew what I was trying to explain and viceversa.

The most prevailing questions included parents asking how they can
prevent their children from using or stealing pirated software and
businessmen concerned about the protection of their information and
removing pirated software. Somehow, many callers also knew about
specialized FOSS ERP and Communications applications. The most
interesting call was from a group that was interested in developing
electronic games for egypt on FOSS based gaming engines.

The most tangible result evolved from a caller from a Christian Youth
initiative that has agreed to train all its members on Ubuntu Linux as
well as sit the first LPI paper based tests in the region. There
stance was, how can we steal other people's efforts through pirated
software when we have the opportunity to learn and use FOSS both for
social as well as economic benefits of their community members. It is
true, FOSS creates its own path for adoption.

The next two weeks are packed with lectures to be delivered by myself
and a number of other FOSS advocates at various government educational
and research institutions on the topic of FOSS in Education and
Government Policy. A cultural center will be hosting a full house
event on the topic of FOSS and Cultural Production that will air open
productions and explore the various tools for use by cultural
organizations and arts enthusiasts.

Before I leave Cairo mid of next month, two seminars with nearly 25
business partners of a global technology giant will be held in the
offices of various companies where a technical review of FOSS will be
carried out in light of the problems that these companies have faced
with closed source software. A key topic of discussion will be the
economic and business models of FOSS driving the path for adopting
such technologies in mainstream commercial service delivery.

A number of organizations are signing MOU's as well as short term
contracts for further technical support on the subject and this
creates a positive environment for development of a FOSS Ecosystem in
which the government will adopt small but effective FOSS initiatives
while universities and vocational centers are looking at becoming LPI
partners. On the other hand civil society is interested in finding
opportunities in FOSS whereby they can improve their outreach as well
as extend ICT capacity to the sector and their stakeholders.

Having shared this, some good news in the form of press releases will
be following by the adopting institutions bringing Egypt clearly on
the global FOSS adoption map but at the same time, I will be stepping
into other countries this year, this time on the corners of Europe,
spreading the message of FOSS and catalysing such efforts that just
need a bit of a push in terms of financial and knowledge resources
though it is a long journey but the motivation lives strong.

Share Article: This article is released by Fouad Bajwa under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
License.

CC-SA 3.0 Licence Source:
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/">
<img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0"
src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/3.0/88x31.png" />
</a>
<br />This work is licensed under a
<a rel="license"
href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/">Creative
Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
License</a>.

Hi all,

Hey, let me make it clear, there is already an ISO Open Document Format as
an open standard and approved and in place and being used, Microsoft just
wants to battle it with its "Vendor Backed" OOXML format so that it can have
its "Always There" & "Monopolistic Advantage" to lock-in everyone who uses
it to Microsoft. Boy, don't we all love Microsoft for that? Since we are so
na�ve, we never thought of looking at: ISO/IEC 26300:2006
http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnum
ber=43485

I would like to appreciate Shahzad's optimism as always, but still, I would
remain very skeptical on Pakistan's decision to vote in favor or against MS
OOXML Specification, we already know their answer, despite our efforts and
the reasons being very factual, and that have continuously been witnessed on
the Pakistan ICT Policy list since we first brought up the issues and
started the campaign against OOXML. We have had an experienced background to
do so, not claiming that we have full knowledge against it, just for the
sake of it, and we continue to advocate against it.

First, international vendors and corporations like Red Hat India and Google
were the first ones to notify Pakistan of the MS OOXML campaign, even IBM
Pakistan didn�t respond, which definitely shows lack of responsibility on
their part whereas they have been beating the Open Source drums for quite
some years now probably since 2001. Novell India that heavily pushes Suse
Linux and OpenSuse (all carrying ODF support) that services Pakistan has
been also acting like a chicken, probably their eggs will hatch soon.

Secondly as far as the Government of Pakistan with reference to the Ministry
of IT & T and Pakistan Software Export Board is concerned, now that the PSEB
MD has left his seat, I can guarantee you, the acting MD may have no
knowledge of the issue and it would definitely be a hectic task to have him
or his new team go through the 6000 document specification and understand
all the technical and not so technical jargon and identify where Pakistan
should have its position in the process. I don't blame them, their eggs may
be ready to hatch too, its summer already.

Reality bites but Ministry of IT has no control or intervention power over
the Pakistan Quality Standards body as it falls under the Ministry of
Science and Technology that is totally alien to Open Source Software, Open
Standards, for them, the Internet may be believed to be a product of
Microsoft too. A bit of letters may have revoked some activity in favor of
the OOXML discussion but that was due to continuous pushing from our end to
the PSEB to take up its stance on such an IT/ICT issue as it affects their
members. Only a handful of vendors of open source solutions from Pakistan
intelligently pursued the matter despite PSEB claiming it was playing a role
but if you browse through our email exchange with the ex-MD PSEB on the
subject, he had raised his hands as well declaring PSEB has intervened for
all it could in its limited capacity. Big round to the IT Industry, as they
claim, they are well aware of "all" the technology advancements around the
globe, we can say "DUH" to that.

Second set of issues involve, the local industry is hardly aware of the
existing ISO open standard called Open Document Format or XML-ODF or how
these affect its future of document exchange. With the new Electronic Crime
Bills and various other electronic ordinances, we will be witnessing a lot
of foul play, I am not going to explain it here though but we may remain
optimistic that it's going to eventually happen. Well just for "Pete's Sake"
and since all of already knew about it, and to feed my sheer optimism in
favor of Shahzad, here is information about the standard:

ISO/IEC 26300:2006 - Information technology -- Open Document ...
http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catalogue_tc/catalogue_detail.htm?csnum
ber=43485

OpenDocument - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument

OASIS Open Document Format for Office Applications (OpenDocument) |
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/office/

In order to vote against OOXML, it must be initially recognized that our
Government lacks knowledge on the Open Document Format ODF, the existing
open standard and specification already approved by ISO. It never accepted
it in the first place and isn�t against it either since its awareness on the
subject is limited and we would like to assure you that with the way things
have been, there may be less luck in the future.

The purpose of XML-based ODF is for document contents to become independent
from specified application or vendor's file format and vendor lock-in, an
important issue that governments must take into consideration, especially
the Government of Pakistan that has many ICT/IT programs in progress
throughout the public infrastructure. Hence open and transparent
standardization process through opinions from worldwide user community is
being developed and its position has strengthened since its official
approval from ISO, international organization for standards, as file format
standard.

For example, the Korea Agency for Technology and Standards announced in
November 2007 that it had accepted ODF as a national standard (KS) and
OpenOffice.org applications such as word processor, spreadsheet,
presentation etc, have been accepted as document formats for the first time
thus following the KS establishment, ODF now stands as the national standard
for Korea, have we heard anything of this nature from Pakistan?

It must also be noted that even though Korea approved ODF as KS, it is not
compulsory for users but it could be influential in public institutions as a
choice of document standard. At the time, 23 countries were voting rights
including Korea all voted in favor, thus it was approved as ODF without any
objection. According to an official at Korea Agency for Technology and
Standards, ODF was approved as ISO standard for it realizes open mind with
participation of various vendors and it is not subordinated to a specific
vendor. These reason also worked for the approval as KS in its case.

I would like to point you all to realize that what you all think or
anticipate is happening here is not actually action but discussion. Like the
PKNIC issue, clearly diverted to a point of no-discussion. Same goes on the
OOXML case, just be optimistic because pessimism is only for the action
takers. A change in attitudes and coalitions for change is required. Things
are getting messed up and we just want to play wearing blindfolds to the
problems arising instead of gearing up towards taking action to resolve
them.

Anyways, as always, going on with sharing Shahzad's optimism, the world is
beautiful, we are all intelligent, we are not going to vote in favor of
OOXML and we are really all aware of ODF, PKNIC is no more an issue, we
govern the internet really well, oh there really is no problem, if there is,
lets hope it will just disintegrate with our optimism. Keep up the good work
all and beat the drums on Pakistan ICT Policy but lets understand one thing
for sure, it ain't all peanut butter and jelly for us.

Btw, Shahzad, I would love to know what you feeded the government officials
and what we campaigned for, I hope it�s the same thing, oh, by the way,
don�t get me wrong, but, did you feed the ODF pill first or the OOXML first
because what's happening is making perfect logical sense.

Best optimist ever

Fouad Bajwa
FOSS Advocate with a twist

May I share two links from India that might be of interest?

FLOSS for third standard students:
http://divshare.com/download/4053521-61e

Paper on FLOSS in schools in South Asia:
http://divshare.com/download/3321637-94c

Rgds, FN
--
----------------------------------------------------------
Frederick 'FN' Noronha   | Ym/Gmailtalk: fredericknoronha
http://fn.goa-india.org     | fred@...
Independent Journalist   | +91(832)2409490 Cell 9970157402
----------------------------------------------------------

May be you will like my writing at:
http://www.developertutorials.com/blog/general/two-gaint-linux-distribution-to-r\
elease-new-versions-for-the-desktop-users-122/

Comments are welcome on the given link.

--

--
Omi
http://omi.net.bd

Bangla Computing Projects: http://ekushey.org
OSS News in Bangla: http://mukto.org

I decided to give away latest Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron Linux DVD/CDs
for free under some easy conditions. The offer is applicable for
Bangladeshi residence. If you want to grab a copy, please take a look
at http://omi.net.bd/?p=219

Regards
Omi

---------- Forwarded message ----------
  From: Hempal Shrestha <hempalshrestha@...>
  Date: 2008/5/1
  Subject: [FOSSNepal] Fwd: {OLPC Nepal} Can we rescue OLPC from Windows?: RMS
  To: foss-nepal@googlegroups.com




  Dear All,

  Here is what RMS is asking, How are the OLPC things going to take
  shape in Nepal?
  Source:
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/can-we-rescue-olpc-from-windows/blogentry_view

  Regards,

  Hempal Shrestha
 
================================================================================\
====

   Can we rescue OLPC from Windows?



  by Richard Stallman

  I read Negroponte's statement presenting the OLPC XO as a platform for
  Windows in the most ironic circumstances possible: during a week of
  preparing, under a deadline, to migrate personally to an XO.

  I made this decision for one specific reason: freedom. The IBM T23s
  that I have used for many years are adequate in practice, and the
  system and applications running on them are entirely free software,
  but the BIOS is not. I want to use a laptop with a free software BIOS,
  and the XO is the only one.

  The XO's usual software load is not 100% free; it has a non-free
  firmware program to run the wireless chip. That means I cannot fully
  promote the XO as it stands, but it was easy for me solve that problem
  for my own machine: I just deleted that file. That made the internal
  wireless chip inoperative, but I can do without it.

  As always happens, problems arose, which delayed the migration until
  last week. On Friday, when I discussed some technical problems with
  the OLPC staff, we also discussed how to save the future of the
  project.

  Some enthusiasts of the GNU/Linux system are extremely disappointed by
  the prospect that the XO, if it is a success, will not be a platform
  for the system they love. Those who have supported the OLPC project
  with their effort or their money may well feel betrayed. However,
  those concerns are dwarfed by what is at stake here: whether the XO is
  an influence for freedom or an influence for subjection.

  Since the OLPC was first announced we have envisioned it as a way to
  lead millions of children around the world to a life in which they do
  computing in freedom. The project announced its intention to give
  children a path to learn about computers by allowing them to study and
  tinker with the software. It may yet do that, but there is a danger
  that it will not. If most of the XOs that are actually used run
  Windows, the overall effect will be the opposite.

  Proprietary software keeps users divided and helpless. Its functioning
  is secret, so it is incompatible with the spirit of learning. Teaching
  children to use a proprietary (non-free) system such as Windows does
  not make the world a better place, because it puts them under the
  power of the system's developer -- perhaps permanently. You might as
  well introduce the children to an addictive drug. If the XO turns out
  to be a platform for spreading the use of proprietary software, its
  overall effect on the world will be negative.

  It is also superfluous. The OLPC has already inspired other cheap
  computers; if the goal is only to make cheap computers available, the
  OLPC project has succeeded whether or not more XOs are built. So why
  build more XOs? Delivering freedom would be a good reason.

  The project's decision is not final; the free software community must
  do everything possible to convince OLPC to continue being (aside from
  one firmware package) a force for freedom.

  Part of what we can do is offer to help with the project's own free
  software. OLPC hoped for contribution from the community to its
  interface, Sugar, but this has not happened much. Partly that's
  because OLPC has not structured its development so as to reach out to
  the community for help -- which means, when viewed in constructive
  terms, that OLPC can obtain more contribution by starting to do this.

  Sugar is free software, and contributing to it is a good thing to do.
  But don't forget the goal: helpful contributions are those that make
  Sugar better on free operating systems. Porting to Windows is
  permitted by the license, but it isn't a good thing to do.

  I am typing these words on the XO. As I travel and speak in the coming
  weeks, I will point to it in my speeches to raise this issue.
  ________________________________


  Copyright 2008 Richard Stallman
   Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are
  permitted worldwide without royalty in any medium provided this notice
  is preserved.

 
================================================================================\
====



  --
  Frederick FN Noronha * Independent Journalist
  http://fn.goa-india.org * Phone +91-832-2409490
  Cell +91-9970157402 (sometimes out of range)
  Please see http://nursing.goa-india.org

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/05/09/gates-offers-free-softwar\
e-asia

Gates offers free software in Asia

Pulls Intel trump card for digital have-nots

By Mark Ballard: Friday, 09 May 2008, 5:31 PM

BILL GATES HAS OFFERED free software for a million PCs the Indonesian
government is trying to acquire for students, according to the Jakarta
Post today.

Gates met Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, president of Indonesia, the
world's fourth most populous country, yesterday to talk about how the
country was also the fourth amongst 'piracy offenders' in Asia. He was
also there to renew Microsoft's 2006 deal to supply software to the
government and to add another University to its growing international
network of proprietary training centres.

The newspaper reported that Gates promised free software, "if
Indonesia could make a deal with Intel chairman Craig Barrett, who
will meet Yudhoyono in Jakarta next week".

The government was trying to buy a million PCs for under $200 each to
get more computers in education. Indonesia had one PC for every 1,000
students. It aimed to have one for every 20. So the deal might not
quite bridge the digital divide, but at least it throws a rope near
the far bank.

Microsoft's push into Indonesia and other Less Smug Countries (LSCs)
pitches US industrial might against European guerrilla software
innovation.

USAID, the US federal overseas development fund, supports a tech
innovation competition run by Microsoft in Indonesia that attracted
100 proposals last year.

The software giant has also since 2006 established a network of 110
Microsoft Innovation Centres in 60 countries, the last of which it
launched in Jakarta yesterday, which provide training and encourage
firms and students to use Microsoft software. It now has five such
centres in Indonesia.

The Europeans on the other hand have given €0.7m to the Flossinclude
programme to encourage homegrown opensource development in Asia, India
and South America.

Rishab Ghosh, an opensource guru at Maastricht University who helps
run Flossinclude, said that Microsoft was being forced to take the
"drug-pusher strategy" to Asian markets because of competition from
government-supported open source initiatives.

"They give free software to governments, but they are not going to
keep it free forever. They'll start charging, and then they make it
difficult for you to migrate because of their proprietary standards.
That's the classic lock-in strategy of the monopoly," said Ghosh, "In
the long-run, you have to pay the company that you are dependent on."

After his meeting with Gates, Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono, gave a heart-swelling speech about how IT could "fight
poverty", "raise the dignity of man", and ensure no less than the
"survival of the human race".

"We must promote technology that will reinforce, not lose, our common
humanity," he said.

This was once the philosophy that led One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), a
scheme to get cheap laptops the into the hands of African school
children, to choose the open source Linux operating system for its
machines. Open source software was supposed to spawn a network of
do-it-yourself software engineers and local repair shops across LSCs,
instead of spods trained to fill the corporate coffers of a US
multinational. But OLPC has since said it might drop Linux for
Microsoft's Windows. Sales of Linux laptops weren't going too well,
the Wintel giants were charming LSC governments with a competing model
of cheap laptop, and people were pirating Microsoft software anyway.

Gates, renowned for his tycoon philanthropism, used his trip Indonesia
to promote his vision of Microsoft as the means by which impoverished
peoples will raise themselves up on the crutches of knowledge and
modernity.

Microsoft's pitch is also identical to OLPC's once egalitarian call to
action. Microsoft's proprietary training centres would be a
"sparkplug...empowering citizens with IT skills and nurturing strong,
local software economies".

Giving free software to LSCs would also help Microsoft solve the
piracy problem in Indonesia. It merely repackages Microsoft's old
policy to piracy in LSCs, which was to let it ride because it got
people locked into its software. Gates may as well gift sand to the
Arabs. µ

--
Frederick FN Noronha * Independent Journalist
http://fn.goa-india.org * Phone +91-832-2409490
Cell +91-9970157402 (sometimes out of range)
http://www.youtube.com/user/fredericknoronha

The Hunger Project Hall Room
The Hunger Project Building - 4th Floor
3/7 Asad Avenue, Mohammadpur, Dhaka
View/Download the location concept guideline image from here.

• 3.30 - Registration
• 4.00 - Welcome note, introduction to Ubuntu Bangladesh community team
• 4.15 - A presentation on Linux usages and the new features of Ubuntu 8.04
• 4.45 - A peek into Ubuntu flavours: Kubuntu, Edubuntu, and Xubuntu
• 5.15 - Open discussion about Ubuntu Bangladesh community, a peek into the web tools such as: mailing list, Launchpad, forum, IRC, etc.
• 6.45 - Question/Answer session
• 6.30 - Call for help: volunteers/developers/donations/etc.

--
Omi
http://omi.net.bd
Bangla Computing Projects: http://ekushey.org
OSS News in Bangla: http://mukto.org

Dear All,
It gives me a great pleasure to inform you that Madan Puraskar
Pustakalaya, the Nepal Country Component of the PAN Localization Project
has made two important software releases on May 25, 2008. Please find
below the information about the release.

_NepaLinux 3.0 released_

Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya (MPP), Lalitpur, PatanDhoka, Nepal has released yet
another version of NepaLinux, (NepaLinux 3.0) on May 25, 2008.
NepaLinux is a localized Debian and Morphix based GNU/Linux Distribution in
Nepali. It is a Free Open Source Software released under the GNU General
Public License(GPL). MPP has been conducting development works of NepaLinux
since the year 2004. It is being developed under the PAN Localization
Project, which is a software localization initiative in some ten countries of
South and South East Asia. The project is supported by the International
Development and Research Center (IDRC), Canada and administered through the
Center for Research in Urdu Language Processing (CRULP),
National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences (NUCES), Pakistan. So far
three different versions of NepaLinux 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 have
been released respectively in December 2005, October 2006 and June 2007.

NepaLinux 3.0 like the previous NepaLinux 2.0 version, features two separate CDs
with respectively GNOME and KDE Desktop environments and
a combined DVD containing both of these. Some of the chief attractions of this
version are the two new applications, respectively,
the Nepali Text-to-Speech Application and Nepali Sabdakos. Among other useful
packages included in this version are offline English dictionary and
several other useful educational tools like Gcompris, TuxType, Nepali Spell
Checker and KTouch typing tutor. For detailed information on technical
specifications, please visit the link _http://nepalinux.org
<http://nepalinux.org/>_

_Nepali Office CD Released_

Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya (MPP) released the Nepali Office CD. This consists of
the localized OpenOffice.org suite in Nepali along with
a few other useful Free and Open Source Software like Gimp, Gcompris, TuxType,
FireFox, Thunderbird etc. The Nepali Spell Checker is also
integrated in the OpenOffice.org suite. This Spell Checker has the capabilities
of spell checking and providing suggestions to around 6 million Nepali
words. The Nepali Office CD is believed to be an important tool for helping to
migrate to Free and Open Source Software solutions.

Regards,
Bal Krishna Bal
Project Manager
PAN Localization Project
Nepal Country Component
Lalitpur, PatanDhoka
Nepal