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
naïve, 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

Dear Colleagues,

If you received this email in error, please forward it to the
appropriate department at your institution.
Please do not reply to this message. In case of any queries please
email us at ncoss@...

NCOSS-09: National Conference on Open Source Software
May 25th - 26th, 2009, Mumbai, India

Organized by

C-DAC, Mumbai



Supported by

IEEE Computer Society, Mumbai and Chennai chapters

Computer Society of India, Div II on Software & SIG-OSS





* * *   CALL FOR PAPERS   * * *




NCOSS - 2009 is being conceived of as a forum to bring together the
various groups working on developing Open Source Applications catering
to specific domains in the ICT world, including education, health,
accessibility, localisation, e-commerce, disaster management, expert
systems, machine learning, etc. A number of high quality software
solutions are available in many of these areas, for example, SugarCRM,
Koha, Drupal, Moodle, Sahana, CollabCAD, etc. Work on these systems
require a combination of domain knowledge and development expertise.
Much of the public awareness in open source is focussed on desktop,
operating system and general productivity tools. With this background,
NCOSS-09 has chosen to focus on the layer above this, bringing
together groups working on various application domains.



The conference will present experiences in deploying FOSS
applications, comparative studies among competing software solutions,
efforts in adapting and localising FOSS applications, development of
new applications, etc. The conference will consist of the following:

Invited talks by experts from India and abroad

Presentation of contributed papers selected based on refereeing by a
panel of referees

Exhibition by industry and academia

Pre conference Tutorials (on May 24th )

Panel discussion

  Papers are invited on the topics listed below. All papers will be
subject to external refereeing and acceptance will be subject to
referee evaluation. Accepted papers will be published in the
conference proceedings. We also invite proposals for tutorials.

*** TOPICS ***

Other application areas may also be considered.

Accessibility
  Machine Learning and Data Mining

Indian Language Computing
  e-Health

Localisation
  Knowledge Management

e-Learning
  Collaboration Technologies

Information Extraction and Retrieval
  Content Management

Disaster Management
  e-Commerce

e-Governance







*** INSTRUCTIONS ***

Papers must report original work carried out by the authors. The work
can include enhancing existing Open Source applications for specific
requirements, development of new solutions and comparative analysis of
competing solutions. Direct survey or overview papers are not acceptable.

Length should not exceed 10 pages of A4 size in length (approx. 5000
words) including figures, etc.

Papers should be in English.

An abstract of about 100-200 words and the area(s) under which the
paper can be categorized, must be included with the paper.

Papers exceeding the specified length are subject to rejection without
review. Since reviewing will be blind, the author names and
affiliations along with the main area of the paper should be given
only on a separate cover sheet. Papers should be in one of the
following formats: PDF, RTF or ODT.

Papers may be submitted via the web at the URL
http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in.A template paper is also made available at
the URL for formatting reference. Those who are unable to make
electronic submissions may send four copies of the paper to the
address listed below.

*** PROGRAMME COMMITTEE ***

- Hide quoted text -
Ramakrishnan S., C-DAC, Pune (chair)
  Chakravarti A. K, DIT, Delhi

Zia Saquib, C-DAC, Mumbai
  Sivakumar G, IIT, Mumbai

Sasikumar M, C-DAC, Mumbai
  Venkatesh Hariharan, RedHat, Mumbai

Mohan H R, The Hindu, Chennai
  Rishab Aiyer Ghosh,UNU-MERIT, Netherlands

Krishnan C N, AU-KBC, Chennai
  Gora Mohanty, Sarai, Delhi

Rajagopal M R, C-DAC, Chennai
  Dravida Seetharam, IBM, Bangalore




(This list is partial)





* * *   IMPORTANT DATES   * * *



Submission of papers
  February 15, 2009

Acceptance intimation
  March 15, 2009

Camera ready due
  April 15, 2009

Tutorial Proposals due
  March 15, 2009

Tutorial Acceptance intimation
  April 15, 2009






* * *   CONTACT DETAILS   * * *





Address :

NCOSS Conference Secretariat

CDAC-Mumbai (formerly NCST), Rain Tree Marg, Sector-7,

Near Bharti Vidyapeeth, Opp. Kharghar Railway Station,

CBD Belapur,

Navi Mumbai - 400614

Maharashtra, India



E-mail: ncoss@...

Web: http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in

Ph.: +91 - 22 - 27565303
Fax: +91 - 22 - 27560004 (on request)





With warm regards,

NCOSS team

Dear Colleagues,

If you received this email in error, please forward it to the
appropriate department at your institution.

You are still in time to submit papers to NCOSS-2009 in order to share
your work in the tracks mentioned in the CFP below. PAPER SUBMISSION
DEADLINE: 15 February 2009
Please do not reply to this message. In case of any queries please
email us at ncoss@...


NCOSS-09: National Conference on Open Source Software
May 25th - 26th, 2009, Mumbai, India


Organized by


C-DAC, Mumbai





Supported by


IEEE Computer Society, Mumbai and Chennai chapters


Computer Society of India, Div II on Software & SIG-OSS







* * *   CALL FOR PAPERS   * * *






NCOSS - 2009 is being conceived of as a forum to bring together the
various groups working on developing Open Source Applications catering
to specific domains in the ICT world, including education, health,
accessibility, localisation, e-commerce, disaster management, expert
systems, machine learning, etc. A number of high quality software
solutions are available in many of these areas, for example, SugarCRM,
Koha, Drupal, Moodle, Sahana, CollabCAD, etc. Work on these systems
require a combination of domain knowledge and development expertise.
Much of the public awareness in open source is focussed on desktop,
operating system and general productivity tools. With this background,
NCOSS-09 has chosen to focus on the layer above this, bringing
together groups working on various application domains.



The conference will present experiences in deploying FOSS
applications, comparative studies among competing software solutions,
efforts in adapting and localising FOSS applications, development of
new applications, etc. The conference will consist of the following:

     * Invited talks by experts from India and abroad

     * Presentation of contributed papers selected based on refereeing
by a panel of referees

     * Exhibition by industry and academia

     * Pre conference Tutorials (on May 24th )

     * Panel discussion


  Papers are invited on the topics listed below. All papers will be
subject to external refereeing and acceptance will be subject to
referee evaluation. Accepted papers will be published in the
conference proceedings. We also invite proposals for tutorials.

*** TOPICS ***


Other application areas may also be considered.

Accessibility


	 Machine Learning and Data Mining


Indian Language Computing


	 e-Health


Localisation


	 Knowledge Management


e-Learning


	 Collaboration Technologies


Information Extraction and Retrieval


	 Content Management


Disaster Management


	 e-Commerce


e-Governance








*** INSTRUCTIONS ***


     * Papers must report original work carried out by the authors. The
work can include enhancing existing Open Source applications for
specific requirements, development of new solutions and comparative
analysis of competing solutions. Direct survey or overview papers are
not acceptable.

     * Length should not exceed 10 pages of A4 size in length (approx.
5000 words) including figures, etc.

     * Papers should be in English.

     * An abstract of about 100-200 words and the area(s) under which
the paper can be categorized, must be included with the paper.


Papers exceeding the specified length are subject to rejection without
review. Since reviewing will be blind, the author names and
affiliations along with the main area of the paper should be given
only on a separate cover sheet. Papers should be in one of the
following formats: PDF, RTF or ODT.

Papers may be submitted via the web at the URL
http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in. A template paper is also made available at
the URL for formatting reference. Those who are unable to make
electronic submissions may send four copies of the paper to the
address listed below.

*** PROGRAMME COMMITTEE ***


Ramakrishnan S., C-DAC, Pune (chair)


	 Chakravarti A. K, DIT, Delhi


Zia Saquib, C-DAC, Mumbai


	 Sivakumar G, IIT, Mumbai


Sasikumar M, C-DAC, Mumbai


	 Venkatesh Hariharan, RedHat, Mumbai


Mohan H R, The Hindu, Chennai


	 Rishab Aiyer Ghosh,UNU-MERIT, Netherlands


Krishnan C N, AU-KBC, Chennai


	 Gora Mohanty, Sarai, Delhi


Rajagopal M R, C-DAC, Chennai


	 Dravida Seetharam, IBM, Bangalore


G Nagarjuna, HBCSE, Mumbai, India











* * *   IMPORTANT DATES   * * *





Submission of papers


	 February 15, 2009


Acceptance intimation


	 March 15, 2009


Camera ready due


	 April 15, 2009


Tutorial Proposals due


	 March 15, 2009


Tutorial Acceptance intimation


	 April 15, 2009







* * *   CONTACT DETAILS   * * *






Address :

NCOSS Conference Secretariat

CDAC-Mumbai (formerly NCST), Rain Tree Marg, Sector-7,

Near Bharti Vidyapeeth, Opp. Kharghar Railway Station,

CBD Belapur,

Navi Mumbai - 400614

Maharashtra, India



E-mail: ncoss@...

Web: http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in

Ph.: +91 - 22 - 27565303
Fax: +91 - 22 - 27560004 (on request)





With warm regards,

NCOSS team

Dear Colleagues,

[Apologies if you received multiple copies of this email. You may
forward this email to anyone else, as relevant.]

The paper submission deadline for NCOSS - 2009 has been extended to 28
February 2009.

The CFP for NCOSS can be viewed at :

     *

       NCOSS site- http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in or
     *

       CSI Communications - January 2009, Isuue no. 10, Volume no. 32

Based on requests received from many people, we have now added a
guidelines document for writing a paper, which can be referred here.


With warm regards,

NCOSS Team

Dear Colleagues,

If you received this email in error, please forward it to the appropriate
department at your institution.

Please do not reply to this message. In case of any queries please email us at
ncoss@...

NCOSS-09 announces

Demo Hall for Open Source Applications

on 25th - 26th May 2009, Mumbai, India.
ABOUT DEMO HALL

     The National Conference on Open Source Software, NCOSS-09, announces DEMO
HALL for showcasing open source applications. The aim is to provide a platform
for people to demonstrate their open source works/tools to the world.
Irrespective of whether you have a paper at the conference, you can use this
opportunity to showcase your work.


     The application, to be demonstrated, should be an open source application -
i.e., an application which is open source, not just built using/on open source
technologies. The application may be new systems or significant enhancements to
existing open source applications. Adapting and adopting a collection of open
source systems to solve a problem will also be considered. With lower priority,
we will also consider existing applications with which you have extensive
experience that you can share with the audience. So, if you find, say Moodle, an
excellent learning management system and you have used it extensively, you could
offer to demonstrate it, to spread awareness of such applications.


     All those participating in the demo-hall must register for the conference.
The demo hall will have demonstrations slotted for half an hour each. The
demo-hall will run in parallel with the conference paper presentation, excluding
the plenary sessions. The slot allocations will be done by the conference
organisers, considering the topic of the demo and other parallel events likely
at that time.


     If you are interested in participating, mail your applications to
ncoss@... giving a brief description of the demo sessions. Last date
for submitting your 'Demo Hall' entries: May 05, 2009. According to its
relevance to the conference and other constraints, we will short-list entries
from received applications. The list of demo-hall entries will be announced
periodically, adding new entries subject to availability of slots. So apply
early...


Contact Information

     Address


     :


     NCOSS Conference Secretariat

     CDAC-Mumbai (formerly NCST), Rain Tree Marg, Sector-7,

     Near Bharti Vidyapeeth, Opp. Kharghar Railway station,

     CBD Belapur,

     Navi Mumbai - 400614

     Maharashtra, India

     E-mail


     :


     ncoss@...

     Web


     :


     http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in

     Ph.


     :


     +91 - 22 - 27565303

     Fax


     :


     +91 - 22 - 27560004 (on request)





With warm regards,

NCOSS team

Dear Colleagues,
If you received this email in error, please forward it to the appropriate
department at your institution. Please do not reply to this message. In case of
any queries please email us at ncoss@...

Call for Participation

NCOSS-09: National Conference on Open Source Software

May 25 - 26, 2009, Navi Mumbai, India.

Organized by

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Mumbai

Supported by

IEEE Computer Society, Mumbai and Chennai chapters &

CSI, Div II on Software & SIG-OSS

The National Conference on Open Source Software is intended to act as a forum
for promoting adoption of open source softwares and solutions in different
areas, by sharing experiences in solution selection, customization/adaptation,
etc. Over 110 papers were submitted to the conference from all over India. After
a rigorous international refereeing process, about 30 papers have been selected,
which will be presented during the conference.

Conference Programme :

     *

       Paper Presentation in areas including
           o

             e-Learning
           o

             Collaboration Technology
           o

             Language Computing and Localization
           o

             Knowledge Management
           o

             e-Health
           o

             Machine Learning and Data Mining
           o

             Testing and Application Frameworks
     *

       Invited Talks
     *

       Panel Discussions
     *

       Live demos of FOSS applications
     *

       Pre-Conference Tutorials (on May 24, 2009)

Programme Committee :

Ramakrishnan S., C-DAC, Pune (chair)

Chakravarti A. K, DIT, Delhi

Zia Saquib, C-DAC, Mumbai

Sasikumar M, C-DAC, Mumbai

Sivakumar G, IIT, Mumbai

Venkatesh Hariharan, RedHat, Mumbai

Mohan H R, The Hindu, Chennai

Rishab Aiyer Gosh,UNU-MERIT, Netherlands

Krishnan C N, AU-KBC, Chennai

Gora Mohanty, Sarai, Delhi

Rajagopal M R, C-DAC, Chennai

Dravida Seetharam, IBM, Bangalore

Nagarjuna G, HBCSE, Mumbai

Demo Hall :

NCOSS-09, announces DEMO HALL for show-casing open source applications. The aim
is to provide a platform for people to demonstrate their open source
works/tools. Irrespective of whether you have a paper at the conference, you can
use this opportunity to showcase your work.

All those participating in the demo hall must register for the conference. Mail
your applications to ncoss@... giving a brief description of the demo
sessions by May 05,2009.

For more details visit http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in

Registration Fees:





Conference


Tutorial

Not for profit/ educational institutions


Rs. 2200/-


Rs. 700/-

Industry


Rs. 3500/-


Rs. 1000/-

Student


Rs. 1100/-


Rs. 500/-

( Registration form and more details on website )



Contact :

(For more details and registration)
NCOSS-09 Secretariat,

C-DAC Mumbai, Raintree Marg, Near Bharati Vidyapeeth,

Opp. Kharghar Railway Station, Sector 7, CBD Belapur,

Navi Mumbai - 400 614, INDIA.
E-mail : ncoss@...
Phone : +91-22-27560013
Fax : +91-22-27560004
URL : http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in


Warm regards,

NCOSS Team.

Free
Sender: "Omi Azad" <omi@...>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:30:52 +0600
Message-ID: <20090428083052461.7D9D0D38598A2800@Omi-PC>
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
Importance: Normal

Hello All,
On 23 April 2009 Ubuntu released it's new version of Desktop and Server
operating system Jaunty Jackalope (version 9.4). As you may know that every time
they release a new version of their OS, I distribute it's DVD for free with some
easy conditions. I wrote a post on that in my blog which can be found at
http://omi.net.bd/402

If you are interested to have one copy, you are encouraged to visit the above
given link and follow the steps.

Happy Linuxing
Omi Azad


--
This message has been scanned for viruses and
dangerous content by MailScanner, and is
believed to be clean.

Dear Colleagues,
If you received this email in error, please forward it to the appropriate
department at your institution. Please do not reply to this message. In case of
any queries please email us at ncoss@...

2nd Call for Participation

NCOSS-09: National Conference on Open Source Software

May 25 - 26, 2009, Navi Mumbai, India.

Organized by

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Mumbai

Supported by

IEEE Computer Society, Mumbai and Chennai chapters &

CSI, Div II on Software & SIG-OSS

Media Partner

Linux For You

The National Conference on Open Source Software is intended to act as a forum
for promoting adoption of open source softwares and solutions in different
areas, by sharing experiences in solution selection, customization/adaptation,
etc. Over 110 papers were submitted to the conference from all over India. After
a rigorous international refereeing process, 25 papers have been selected, which
will be presented during the conference.

Conference Programme :

     *

       Pre-Conference Tutorials (on May 24, 2009) which include
                 +

                   Adopting Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) using Open Source
Software
                 +

                   How to build your extensions for Open Office
                 +

                   MySQL cluster & high availability
                 +

                   Customize your Moodle [Learning Management System]

More information on these tutorials can be found at
http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in/index.php/oss/OSS09/pages/view/aboutTutorials

     *

       Paper Presentation in areas including
                 +

                   e-Learning
                 +

                   Collaboration Technology
                 +

                   e-Commerce
                 +

                   Enterprise Applications
                 +

                   Indian Language Computing and Localization
                 +

                   Knowledge Management
                 +

                   Other domains

Visit this link for more information on selected papers of the conference
http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in/index.php/oss/OSS09/pages/view/SelectedPapers

     *

       Invited Talks
                 +

                   Keynote address by Prof. C. R. Muthukrishnan, Advisor TCS and
Ex-Director IIT Madras
                 +

                   Invited Talk by Prof. Prabhu Ramachandran (Developer of
Mayavi), IIT Bombay
                 +

                   Invited Talk by Dr. B.K.Gairola, Director General, NIC (to be
confirmed)

     *

       Panel Discussion
                 +

                   A panel discussion on - 'Circumventing barriers to FOSS
adoption'

             More information on invited talks and panel discussion will be
updated at
http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in/index.php/oss/OSS09/pages/view/TalksDiscussion
     *

       Some live demos of FOSS applications like
                 +

                   Vanilla - Open Source Business Intelligence software
                 +

                   Project OSCAR
                 +

                   Indic script rendering in PDF using jasper reports
                 +

                   Webservice testing tool and more . . .

Programme Committee :

Ramakrishnan S., C-DAC, Pune (Chair)

Chakravarti A. K, DIT, Delhi

Zia Saquib, C-DAC, Mumbai

Sasikumar M, C-DAC, Mumbai

Sivakumar G, IIT, Mumbai

Venkatesh Hariharan, RedHat, Mumbai

Mohan H R, The Hindu, Chennai

Rishab Aiyer Gosh,UNU-MERIT, Netherlands

Krishnan C N, AU-KBC, Chennai

Gora Mohanty, Sarai, Delhi

Rajagopal M R, C-DAC, Chennai

Dravida Seetharam, IBM, Bangalore

Nagarjuna G, HBCSE, Mumbai

Demo Hall :

NCOSS-09, announces DEMO HALL for show-casing open source applications. The aim
is to provide a platform for people to demonstrate their open source
works/tools. Irrespective of whether you have a paper at the conference, you can
use this opportunity to showcase your work.

All those participating in the demo hall must register for the conference. You
would just have to fillup the following
http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in/files/conferences/2/ApplicationforDemoSession.rtf and
mail it to ncoss@... asap. Now limited slots are available on a
first-come-first-serve basis. So apply early...

For more details visit
http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in/index.php/oss/OSS09/pages/view/aboutDemoHall

Registration Fees:





Conference


Tutorial

Not for profit/ educational institutions


Rs. 2200/-


Rs. 700/-

Industry


Rs. 3500/-


Rs. 1000/-

Student


Rs. 1100/-


Rs. 500/-

( Registration form and more details on website )


Limited seats available, register early !


Contact :

(For more details and registration)
NCOSS-09 Secretariat,

C-DAC Mumbai, Raintree Marg, Near Bharati Vidyapeeth,

Opp. Kharghar Railway Station, Sector 7, CBD Belapur,

Navi Mumbai - 400 614, INDIA.
E-mail : ncoss@...
Phone : +91-22-27565303
Fax : +91-22-27560004
Website : http://ncoss.cdacmumbai.in


Warm regards,

NCOSS Team.

Accept Greetings of Peace from Pakistan.

ALPA Foundation is a registered non-governmental, non-sectarian, non-political
entity. We are committed to pursue sustainable development following the
mandates of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for sustainable human
development for the deprived segments of society.
The Foundation came into being on 31st January 2002 and is registered under the
Societies Act 1860 on 7th July, 2003. It was January 29, 2004 that the
Commissioner of Income Tax of the Central Board of Revenue, Rawalpindi Zone have
granted ALPA Foundation its non-profit status (Tax Exemption Approval
-06/03-04/4074/ I).

We promote productive lifestyles for all, building on goal-oriented self
development, efficient resource mobilization of available resources, hard work,
good ethics and good governance.

Starting this year, we are planning a project on People to People Contact for
Peace among India and Pakistan. This project will focus the youth and use the
Information Communication Technologies and Community Radio/Web Podcast/Web Radio
for developing peace among the youth of the two nations; this will strengthen
the relationship between two Countries. We are seeking partners from India to
Implement this Project From Nov-2009 the interested community organizations and
groups practicing ICT4D are invited to send their Expression of Interest to take
part in this project by email to Tanvir Akhtar tanvir@alpa. org.pk Grace Tinapao
Shaikh grace@.... pk This project's participants will visit the each of the
countries during this project and opportunity to see the success full
initiatives in the Region as well.

Thanks in advance…

Tanvir Akhtar
Founding Director
Coordinator ICT4D Project

Website and application procedure:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cprose/winterschool/index.html (preferred deadline:
October 25, 2009)

This internship program in technology-supported education will draw on broad
areas such as mobile learning, educational games, technology-assisted language
learning, computer-assisted collaborative learning, intelligent tutors, machine
learning, educational data mining, human-computer interaction, as well as speech
and language technologies. The goal is to create an international bridge between
institutions of higher learning in India and Carnegie Mellon University, which
is at the forefront of research both in technology and in the learning sciences
in the U.S., and even worldwide.

This internship program will provide valuable research training opportunities
for Indian undergraduates through a partnership between one of India's premier
technical universities and one of the top ranking schools of computer science in
the world, with the goal of expanding the pool of talented young researchers in
India. A secondary goal is to provide a mechanism through which ongoing research
partnerships can form and flourish between researchers at institutes for higher
learning in India and researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, such as taking
the form of co-advised B-Tech projects. And finally, the internship program
directly benefits the infrastructure for education in India as a biproduct of
the research projects the students will engage in. As part of the internship
program, participants will focus on topics relevant to education in India, and
in the developing world more generally.

The internship program will be composed of two stages. In the first stage,
students will apply to participate in a two-week winter school from December
10-22, 2009 in Hyderabad. During these two weeks, students will attend lectures
that will cover research and research methodologies, tools and techniques,
insights about theory and practice, and a broad overview of the field of
technology-supported education. Students will participate in team projects,
which will be presented in demo sessions at the end of the winter school.
Students who successfully complete the winter school will be invited to apply
for research internships at Carnegie Mellon University. Successful applicants
for stage two will be matched with internship advisors for a summer internship
at Carnegie Mellon University's main campus in Pittsburgh, USA, for summer 2010.
Some financial support for the summer internship may be available.

Please help to spread the word. Thanks!

-Matt


Matthew Kam
Assistant Professor
Carnegie Mellon University
School of Computer Science
Human-Computer Interaction Institute
Email: mattkam@...
URL: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mattkam

Let's discuss this.
The WORLD MARCH FOR PEACE & NON-VIOLENCE (www.theworldmarch.org) did
go to the wagah border and people from Pakistan were there on the
other side, but the officials had their own reasons for not allowing
us to meet.
What you are proposing is interesting and we intend taking this forward.
Let's work together on it.
Sudhir Gandotra

On 9/14/09, alpafoundation <alpafoundation@...> wrote:
> Accept Greetings of Peace from Pakistan.
>
> ALPA Foundation is a registered non-governmental, non-sectarian,
> non-political entity. We are committed to pursue sustainable development
> following the mandates of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for
> sustainable human development for the deprived segments of society.
> The Foundation came into being on 31st January 2002 and is registered under
> the Societies Act 1860 on 7th July, 2003. It was January 29, 2004 that the
> Commissioner of Income Tax of the Central Board of Revenue, Rawalpindi Zone
> have granted ALPA Foundation its non-profit status (Tax Exemption Approval
> -06/03-04/4074/ I).
>
> We promote productive lifestyles for all, building on goal-oriented self
> development, efficient resource mobilization of available resources, hard
> work, good ethics and good governance.
>
> Starting this year, we are planning a project on People to People Contact
> for Peace among India and Pakistan. This project will focus the youth and
> use the Information Communication Technologies and Community Radio/Web
> Podcast/Web Radio for developing peace among the youth of the two nations;
> this will strengthen the relationship between two Countries. We are seeking
> partners from India to Implement this Project From Nov-2009 the interested
> community organizations and groups practicing ICT4D are invited to send
> their Expression of Interest to take part in this project by email to Tanvir
> Akhtar tanvir@alpa. org.pk Grace Tinapao Shaikh grace@.... pk This
> project's participants will visit the each of the countries during this
> project and opportunity to see the success full initiatives in the Region as
> well.
>
> Thanks in advance…
>
> Tanvir Akhtar
> Founding Director
> Coordinator ICT4D Project
>
>
>


--
Sudhir Gandotra
www.sudhirgandotra.in
Best Indian Linux for 2008 - www.OpenLX.com
Humanising Technology - Transforming Lives

Let's discuss this.
  The WORLD MARCH FOR PEACE & NON-VIOLENCE (www.theworldmarch.org) did
  go to the wagah border and people from Pakistan were there on the
  other side, but the officials had their own reasons for not allowing
  us to meet.
  What you are proposing is interesting and we intend taking this forward.
  Let's work together on it.
  Sudhir Gandotra




On 9/14/09, alpafoundation <alpafoundation@...> wrote:
> Accept Greetings of Peace from Pakistan.
>
> ALPA Foundation is a registered non-governmental, non-sectarian,
> non-political entity. We are committed to pursue sustainable development
> following the mandates of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for
> sustainable human development for the deprived segments of society.
> The Foundation came into being on 31st January 2002 and is registered under
> the Societies Act 1860 on 7th July, 2003. It was January 29, 2004 that the
> Commissioner of Income Tax of the Central Board of Revenue, Rawalpindi Zone
> have granted ALPA Foundation its non-profit status (Tax Exemption Approval
> -06/03-04/4074/ I).
>
> We promote productive lifestyles for all, building on goal-oriented self
> development, efficient resource mobilization of available resources, hard
> work, good ethics and good governance.
>
> Starting this year, we are planning a project on People to People Contact
> for Peace among India and Pakistan. This project will focus the youth and
> use the Information Communication Technologies and Community Radio/Web
> Podcast/Web Radio for developing peace among the youth of the two nations;
> this will strengthen the relationship between two Countries. We are seeking
> partners from India to Implement this Project From Nov-2009 the interested
> community organizations and groups practicing ICT4D are invited to send
> their Expression of Interest to take part in this project by email to Tanvir
> Akhtar tanvir@alpa. org.pk Grace Tinapao Shaikh grace@.... pk This
> project's participants will visit the each of the countries during this
> project and opportunity to see the success full initiatives in the Region as
> well.
>
> Thanks in advance…
>
> Tanvir Akhtar
> Founding Director
> Coordinator ICT4D Project
>
>
>


--
Sudhir Gandotra
www.sudhirgandotra.in
Best Indian Linux for 2008 - www.OpenLX.com
Humanising Technology - Transforming Lives

Dear all,

FYI, an article on "FOSS is rejected by CAN InfoTech Nepal" by Pravin Raj Joshi:

> http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/130491/

In his own words:

"After the CAN fiasco I wrote an article published on lxer.com
available at: http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/130491/
My primary thinking in this is to try and convert negativity into
optimism. It would be very great if you guys could reflect this
article on other web-sites that you guys know off, where people can
see it. I don't much of such sites besides Digg, so I am requesting to
you guys."

--
"FOSS is rejected by CAN InfoTech Nepal"

CAN (Computer Association of Nepal) InfoTech is the largest IT
products and services show in Nepal featuring nearly all who is who's
of the computer and IT world. This year the program is going to be
organized on the 16-17 of January and is sponsored by HP and Samsung.

Every year, for the last couple of years, FOSS community Nepal has
been getting a small stall to showcase whatever they have to the
unusually large mass that come to witness the event. Not that FOSS is
going anywhere in Nepal, but still that opportunity to try and create
awareness existed. From this year onwards FOSS community is not going
to be able to do that too as they have been told that due to lack of
space they will not be able to put up a stall.

FOSS Nepal is a loosely knit group of FOSS enthusiasts (mainly
students) who are trying to create awareness about FOSS and Linux in
Nepal. As most of the members are volunteers, FOSS suffers largely
from availability of budgets. To compensate for this CAN had been
providing a small (let me repeat that) stall to FOSS Nepal to use.
From this year this is gone. And to add fuel to the fire this year the
program is organized as a special showcase for MS Windows 7.

In Nepal FOSS is not a wide spread phenomenon. The two main reasons
for this are:

1. Rampant use of pirated software. Today, people and organizations
using non-pirated software in Nepal are a rare breed. Due to this
Nepali people have come to associate that when one buys computer
hardware, any software is included free of cost. Most of the time the
hardware is pre-loaded with Windows and MS products. So the whole of
Nepal believes that computer means Windows and nothing else. Good from
an MS point of view.

2. Lack of Awareness about FOSS. I have heard, read and viewed many
stories about efforts to bring in FOSS technology to poor and least
developed nations. Many people and organizations have touted as FOSS
being the right technology to bridge the ever-widening digital divide.
I have also come to know that lots of money has been poured even in
countries like Nepal to create awareness about FOSS. My feeling is the
recipients are making the money pourers happy and in turn the money
has been poured down the wrong drain.

An incident that comes to mind is when the Tax Officers from the Nepal
Government came to do a Tax audit of my school systems, they accused
me of trying to cheat them by using a system that they did not know
(Ubuntu Linux) and an accounting software that they could not trust
(GnuCash). They said they had to print the data themselves in a
specific format and remanded me for making them use OpenOffice
Spreadsheet in place of MS Excel. They have told me personally that
when they come the next time they would want MS Windows, Ex or Tally
(2 accounting softwares that are commonly used in Nepal) and MS Excel
to print out data in their specific formats.

All this said much room remains for FOSS in Nepal, but at this point
in time the desperation of the FOSS community can be felt from their
Google group discussions. This was one big platform, if they could not
change an entire mass, they could at least change one person at a
time. But, again opportunity is lost.

What would be a good idea is for the FOSS community to host its own
show and paper presentation seminar talking FOSS and nothing else.
Have they tried it? Yes, once, but due to dire lack of budget and
professional preparation the program was largely unsuccessful. Can it
be done again? Yes, but the resource constraints have to be met this
time around. I think this is the time that FOSS communities and
organizations around the world can help.

The possible help that communities and organizations around the world
can give are:

1. To coordinate their agents here in Nepal to be more FOSS friendly.
Most of the big companies have agents here in Nepal selling their
products and services. Companies like IBM and Dell have been around
for a long time and the last time I did a rain check these companies
were still big in preaching FOSS around the world. Maybe some of these
big companies have to show a little bit more love for Nepal in terms
of FOSS.

2. Nepal has been used as examples for the innovative works done in
FOSS. I think most of us have heard people like Professor Nicholas
Negroponte and others talk about their technology being fit for
countries like Nepal. Maybe these people need to come forth and talk
to people in Nepal about these technologies rather than use Nepal as
their marketing tool only. Mahabir Pun's community network has also
been citied in many marketing gimics around the world. That network
uses a lot of FOSS tools. Instead of only talking only in
International arena about it, maybe people can come forth to talk
about it more in Nepal itself.

3. Help run awareness campaigns here. Experiences shared is knowledge gained.

4. Help run a FOSS show here by donating money, experience and
technical expertise.

Besides these a lot more can be done and this is just an appeal to all
out there to come out with ideas that can help foster FOSS in Nepal.
--

Cheers,
Subir