From: general-bounces@...
[mailto:general-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Tahir Abdul Rauf
Butt
Sent: Monday, October 02, 2006 11:59 AM
To: general@...
Subject: [LinuxPakistan] Translating Debian Installer in URDU

hi,
     We are working to translate the debian installer for UBUNTU in Urdu
Language.Please address our queries if you can.

   1) We have translated some programs of UBUNTU as Nautilus, and OpenOffice,
but now  we need to translate Installer for URDU.

   2) How and where to get the Source code of installer such that we could
translate the pot file, and compile the installer to get the working system
so that i could install debian from this installer.

   3) How should we test our translations for the installer, For example if
we have translated some strings of the installer, how should we test it.

                  We are looking forward for your immediate response.



Tahir Rauf Butt
Bsc(Hons). CS
PU College of IT
www.geocities.com\linux_kernel_worm

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From: Atul Chitnis <mail@...> Add Address
Date: 2006/10/05 Thu PM 01:06:40 GMT+05:30
To: "FOSS.IN" <foss-in@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [foss.in-announce] Heads-up: FOSS.IN/2006 talks registration
ending Oct.08

Move To:

All:

A gentle reminder that talks registration for FOSS.IN/2006 ends on
Sunday,
October 8th.

If you wish to present a talk/workshop/tutorial at FOSS.IN/2006, please
put in your talk proposals *now* at

http://foss.in/2006/cfp/speakers

Make sure that you have read and understood the Call for Participation

http://foss.in/2006/info/Call_for_Participation

To summarise, FOSS.IN is primarily about three objectives:

1. Highlighting Indian participation/contribution to FOSS projects

2. Enabling/empowering qualified people to get involved with FOSS projects

3. Sharing of non-introductory, advanced information or techniques related
to FOSS technologies.

We are most interested in Objective #1 (that's the .IN in our name :),
but
#2 and #3 are equally important.

Also, I strongly suggest that people submit multiple talks on different
subjects - that way your chances of getting selected improve
considerably,
because it is entirely possible that several people will submit talks on
the same subject, but we obviously can choose only one of them.

So go register and start submitting your talks! Time's tickin' away! :)

Atul

--
FOSS.IN/2006
Nov 24-26, Bangalore, India
http://foss.in/2006
Talk Submission now open!

(Apologies for such a long message, it's worth it!)

Dear FOSS/Linux Users and Community Members,

We are committed to promote Community and Commercial FOSS Ecosystems and
combat software piracy in the country. Various FOSS/Linux Service Provider
Companies, Academicians, Open Source Consultants and Professionals have
teamed up as a "Professional FOSS/Linux Club" to organize Meetings on a
regular monthly basis in Lahore in the beginning that can be replicated to
other cities. Membership is open to anyone related to any field having an
interest in FOSS and Linux.

Special Features of these meetings include corporate, professional and
scholarly presentations, research sharing, Tips & Tricks, free or subsidized
professional trainings, free information and software CDs, tours of
companies and universities, joint larger scale events and sessions visited
by members of Foreign F/OSS IT Companies including leading IT Industry
Leaders and Businessmen.

We invite all Linux, Open Source Software experts, professionals and
community members based in Lahore to join us in these 2 hour duration
meetings that will take place on Friday or Saturday Evenings with two
meetings per month. Three venues have been proposed and offered that will be
finalized upon confirmation on the number of confirmed participants.

The topics for the first meeting will be "Developing a Corporate Linux
Business Ecosystem in Pakistan", "Upgrading to Linux Ready Professional
Skills", and "Marketing Tactics for Selling Open Source". The topics will be
presented by participating companies and professionals that will be followed
by other short presentations on expert topics in FOSS by various
participating members. All meetings will be followed by sponsored Tea/Snacks
:o)

Participating companies include various software/hardware vendors and
distributors of IBM, Novell, Red Hat Linux; Ubuntu & Canonical Ltd. etc
where as Scholars, Teachers and Trainers from leading local Universities
will also be participating.

If you have a laptop, we encourage you to bring it along to share your
experiences or presentations. We are also exploring the possibilities to
setup a wireless LAN to share Linux and FOSS applications and conduct
install fests.

Expression of Interest for Membership and Participation in Meet-ups!

----------------

All interested community members are requested to subscribe the FOSS
Meet-ups mailing list on our group at Yahoo

Group name:    Foss Meet-ups
Group home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foss_meetups
Group email:    foss_meetups@yahoogroups.com

After subscribing, kindly send a request for participation email specifying:

1. Name:

2. Age:   /   Gender:

3. Preferred Badge Name (Leave empty if same as above):

4. NIC Number (For Security Reasons)

5a. Are you a FOSS/Linux user? [Yes] or [No]

5b. Select your user/expert level one from [Beginner] [Home User]
[Intermediate] [Professional] [Business]
or
[Exploring various options to combat software piracy]

5c. Are you interested in presenting during meetu-ups? [Yes] or [No]

6. Contact Address

7a. Tel
7b. Cell
7c. Fax
7d. Email (Compulsory)

8. Website URL (if available)

9. Have you joined our group on Yahoo [Yes] [No]
(Not yet? Please visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/foss_meetups and join
so that you can be notified about meetings and topics)

10. Title of Company or Educational Institution

11. Address Company or Educational Institution (If different from above)

12. Are you interested in bringing guests with you, kindly fill similar
information for all accompanying guests/participants.


* Decorum of Meetings

---------------------

The Dress code will be "Professional"; geeky getups will be receiving a
beating from Tux the Penguin.

All meetings will be started at the time intimated before hand.

There will be prayer breaks.

The language of delivery will be both English and Urdu.

All participants should practice mutual respect for each other and should
introduce themselves exchanging visiting cards or clearly display their
badge names.

Speakers may book presentation slots by sending us an email specifying the
name of the presenter, topic of the presentation, a copy of the slide or
handout.

Equal participation from both genders is encouraged.

The Club will not take responsibility for the participants' personal
belongings so secure your mobiles, laptops and any briefcases when leaving
the meeting venue.

The Club will not take responsibility of business commitments or financial
transactions between them.

If your company or institution is interested in sponsoring a meet-up, kindly
contact us at least 7 days before a meet-up. The gap between meetings is of
14 days unless otherwise notified.

The organizing committee reserves its right to accept or reject requests for
participation by individuals or ban a company from future meetings any
miscommitments or lack of professionalism reported by the club members.

For more information about adding value to this activity, you can drop me a
call during working hours at: 0333-4661290

Regards
-----------------------
Fouad Riaz Bajwa



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Results of Ubuntu Linux desktop tests in the VCS
Monday 16 October 2006 by Chris Bailey

Testing use of Linux on desktop computers

10 desktop computers using Ubuntu Linux were distributed to VCOs in the East
of England Region for testing and evaluation.

The organisations were:

Fenland CVS
Ipswich CVS
West Norfolk CVS
Cambridge Independent Advice Centre
Voluntary Action Luton
Colchester MIND
Crossroads, Cottenham
Community and Voluntary Forum: Eastern Region (COVER)
Cambridge Online
Herts Citizens Advice


A range of suitable FOSS programs were included:

Open Office - FOSS equivalent to Microsoft Office
Evolution - FOSS equivalent to Microsoft Outlook
Firefox - FOSS equivalent to Internet Explorer
Scribus – Desktop publishing
Project Planner - Project management
GnuCash – Finance

Methodology

The organisations involved were invited to an initial session where they
were introduced to FOSS and Ubuntu Linux. They then all received a personal
training session at their own premises. After three months the organisations
were invited to submit an interim assessment of their use of the computers.
At the end of the project they were asked to fill in a questionnaire.

Assessment of results

Feedback from actual users was generally very positive regarding use of the
software. They found it intuitive and, with only occasional difficulties,
quickly adapted to its use. Many of them seemed very surprised at this and
at the range of good quality free software available. They had clearly been
influenced to believe this would not be the case, but soon overcome any such
prejudices.

Resistance to more general use of the software was however much stronger at
managerial and decision making level. There were a number of factors
involved:

* Strong resistance from some contracted technical support staff who saw it
as a threat to their entrenched monopoly position of using Microsoft
software. In at least two cases they put strong pressure on the
organisations involved to switch the computers to using Microsoft, making
clear that they would not supply any support for Linux and implying that
there were unstated dangers to mixing its use with Windows. This raised
fears with decision makers about being able to get longterm technical
support for Linux.

* Managerial staff often considered that they had invested so much money on
technical support and solving past problems that they felt that moves to
Linux would be a waste of the money already spent. Obviously people don’t
change just for change sake and need good reasons to change to Linux from an
environment they have already heavily invested in. Linux desktop migration
is sometimes difficult when they have already heavily committed to a
Microsoft server environment, particularly if they are using Exchange
server.

* To a certain extent these problems were compounded by our own initial
approach to the project. We had initially envisaged, and indeed were funded,
to only supplying 10 desktop Linux computers for testing FOSS on a stand
alone basis. However, when the training visits to premises took place it
immediately became obvious that everyone was expecting us to integrate the
computers fully into existing networks and work environments. Without this
they were not really prepared to test the computers properly. We therefore
had to carry out a lot of additional work not originally envisaged without
adequate funding and resources. This meant we had to draw a line somewhere
on how far we could go with integrating the computers into existing network
systems and gave a false impression concerning the full capabilities of
Linux.

Despite these problems, in a number of cases managers were pleased to have
been made aware of FOSS as an alternative to proprietary software and said
they would certainly consider its use when making new major ICT investments
in future, providing the issue of good longterm technical support could be
dealt with.

Some conclusions

From the experiences of the overall East of England FOSS in the VCS project,
not just the Linux on the desktop project, it is clear that FOSS use by the
VCS can be a viable and extremely cost effective alternative to proprietary
software. It could also eventually result in software solutions much better
adapted to VCS use than present proprietary "off the shelf" solutions that
are often aimed primarily at users in the business sector.

The rapid recent development of user friendly Graphical User Interfaces for
Linux distributions, particularly Ubuntu, have created products that can
quickly convince end users of Linux usability. However for FOSS to be able
to establish itself within the sector it will need to adopt a clear strategy
aimed primarily at decision makers:

* Concerns about longterm technical support have to be addressed. Much of
this will need to be done nationally through development of a Linux user
group dedicated to the VCS, training ICT circuit riders in Linux support, a
national VCS help desk and knowledge base for Linux, etc. Pressure needs to
be put on technical support suppliers to force them from entrenched
positions of only supporting Microsoft operating systems.

* Although there are clear parallels between the ethos of the VCS and the
Free Software community few VCS decision makers will decide to switch to
FOSS solely on ethical or political grounds. Cost is a much more viable
reason in their eyes and it is most effective when they are considering new
ICT investment. Management are open to the argument that they are not doing
their job properly if they are not considering the cost savings that arise
from using FOSS, other things being equal. This can be taken advantage of
initially through developing a number of very cost effective FOSS solutions
to key needs of the sector that involve little disruption of existing work
practices - use of Open Office, Firefox, Thunderbird cross platform FOSS
programs, LAMP based CMS websites, Linux file server and backup systems,
suitable LAMP based groupware programs running on an internal Linux server,
etc.

* By proving the viability, stability, security and cost effectiveness of
even a relatively small initial number of FOSS solutions the conditions can
be created for convincing management to seriously think about moving more
widely to FOSS when it comes to times for considering major new ICT
investments, such as replacing old hardware, software upgrades, etc. This
present project represented an initial step in that direction.


References and Sources:

1. Source: http://foss.ciac.org.uk/article43.html

2. Interim assessments of using Ubuntu by participating organisations.
http://foss.ciac.org.uk/IMG/doc/Interim_assessments.doc

3. Herts Citizens Advice interim assessment. Longer interim assessment from
Herts Citizens Advice.
http://foss.ciac.org.uk/IMG/doc/Herts_Citizens_Advice_interim_report.doc

4. Voluntary Action Luton interim assessment. Longer interim assessment from
Voluntary Action Luton.
http://foss.ciac.org.uk/IMG/doc/Voluntary_Action_Luton_interim_report.doc

5. Questionnaire Replies. Questionnaire Replies from all 10 participating
organisations. http://foss.ciac.org.uk/IMG/doc/Questionnaire_replies.doc

Forwarded for information purposes by

Fouad Riaz Bajwa
FOSS Advocate



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From: general-bounces@...
[mailto:general-bounces@...] On Behalf Of Noumaan Yaqoob
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 4:05 PM
To: general@...; ubuntu-l10n-urd@...
Subject: [LinuxPakistan] Urdu Editor - Developers Where areyou?

We are discussing a project to develop an Urdu Note Pad for Linux.
Unfortunately we do not have the programming skills and developrs to carry
on this project.

There is a demand for an Urdu Notepad like application for Linux. Something
that quickly enables users to write in Urdu, save it, print it, create pdf
files and send it to their friends via email.

See Urdu Editor Lite for Windows with source code:
http://www.urduweb.org/blog/2005/05/36/

See Urdu Editor
http://www.urduweb.org/blog/2005/04/28/

And join the discussion here:
http://www.urduweb.org/mehfil/viewtopic.php?t=5326

Regards
Noumaan
_______________________________________________
General mailing list
General@...
http://mail.linuxpakistan.net/mailman/listinfo/general_linuxpakistan.net



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Pakistan takes to alternative software

By Indo Asian News Service
India eNews, Linux Today, October 24, 2006

Pakistan, often criticised for software 'piracy', is placing its faith on
the Free Software and Open Source options to get out of this trap and also
build local skills.

Also called Free/Libre and Open-Source Software (FLOSS), it is a family of
software liberally licensed to grant the right of users to study, change and
improve its design through the availability of its source code.

Fouad Riaz Bajwa, general secretary of a network called the Free and Open
Source Software Foundation of Pakistan (FOSS-FP), told IANS: 'FOSS-FP was
(thought of) in February 2004, and set up actually in 2005. Our goal is to
help people identify open alternatives to 'pirated' (or illegally copied)
software.

'Our aim is also to identify processes by which people, governments,
enterprise and the civil sector can use Free/Libre and Open Source Software
for their sustainable economic development.'

Bajwa said this was being done by working with universities, linking up with
the Pakistani public sector infrastructure and seeing whether it can be
utilised for FLOSS education.

Free Software and Open Source still has only a marginal presence in the
world of computing. But it is becoming increasingly attractive to a range of
governments, for a diverse - sometimes conflicting - set of reasons.

Kerala recently took a major decision to officially shift education in
schools to Free Software. Countries like Brazil and South Africa also
support its use, as does China, though some of the latter's concerns are
based around security.

In Pakistan, the attempt is also to build skills. FOSS-FP has been holding
short-duration, single-day literacy campaigns. 'We give (students) free
training on installing and using Ubuntu Linux, Open Suse, Red Hat Fedora
Core,' Bajwa said.

Free Software comes in the form of different 'distributions'. Although each
works in somewhat different ways from each other, there is commonness, and
learning the different 'distros' can be a challenge.

FOSS-FP is also trying to promote and build the FLOSS software developer
community in Pakistan.

'We want to build a community around FLOSS, and help them in terms of making
available open source resources, advocacy and collateral (marketing
materials), mailing lists, wikis (to share information) and portals,' he
says.

FOSS-FP's site claims to have received nearly 600,000 hits, and has 580
members. 'We have members in Malaysia, India and Dubai,' Bajwa says with
pride.


Sources:
* Pakistan Takes to Alternative Software
[http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2006-10-24-014-26-NW-DP-PB
Linux Today]

* India E-News "Pakistan takes to alternative software"
http://www.indiaenews.com/technology/20061024/26059.htm By Indo Asian News
Service

* NewKerala.com News
http://www.newkerala.com/news4.php?action=fullnews&id=39787 Pakistan takes
to alternative software

* Pakistan takes to alternative software
http://www.teluguportal.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=18717 Telugu
Portal



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Dear Linux Pakistan and Ubuntu Linux Community

It gives us great pleasure to announce an accomplishment of the Ubuntu
Pakistan Team Urdu-l10n International Translation Team (Noumaan Yaqoob, Team
Lead) for localizing and including the new "language-pack-gnome-ur 1.6.06+2
Pack" in the latest Ubuntu Linux version 6.10 global distribution giving
support for Urdu at installation. The latest version comes with an
installable Urdu Pack by default and is also available when you upgrade your
Ubuntu 6.06 LTS version to Ubuntu 6.10. We encourage you to test the new
features and report them to Noumaan at
noumaan{at no spam}ubuntu-pk{dot}org

I must point out here that the Ubuntu Pakistan Team members Noumaan and his
Team have done an excellent job by creating and contributing Pakistan's
first public Urdu Word Bank and Dictionary accessible at
http://l10n.urduweb.org/dictionary as well as translating the latest
versions of Gnome Interface into Urdu. This marks a whole new avenue and era
of localized Urdu computing not only for Pakistan but for the whole Urdu
Speaking Linux Users Community worldwide.

Also it is important to note here that Saadat Saeed (Ubuntu Pakistan Team
Member) has also made an excellent contribution by introducing the first
Ubuntu Linux Urdu Editor "PyUrduEdit" that will further accelerate further
community translation efforts. The Urdu Editor project is accessible at
https://sourceforge.net/projects/pyurduedit.

Waqas Toor, Team Lead Localized Documentation Team is shortly introducing
the Ubuntu Desktop and Server Guides in Urdu that will also be available in
the future versions of Ubuntu Distributions as default availability. You may
contact Waqas at waqas{at no spam}ubuntu-pk.org

I congratulate all the Linux communities, Noumaan, Waqas, Saadat including
their team members and the Pakistan IT community that today we have an
alternate and free-of-cost long term community supported Linux Operating
System in Urdu! (A solution to combat software piracy)

We are now gearing up for Sindhi and Punjabi Translations so all of you
interested volunteers out there, join the Ubuntu Pakistan Team that has over
40 volunteer developers and contributors with localization efforts going on
at:

Register at:

https://launchpad.net/people/ubuntu-pk (Ubuntu Pakistan Team)

https://launchpad.net/people/ubuntu-l10n-ur (Ubuntu Urdu l10n Team)

And subscribe to:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-l10n-urd

https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-pk

And participate in translation services at:

Urdu:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/edgy/+lang/ur

Sindhi:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/edgy/+lang/sd

On a separate note, Open Office 2.0+ is already available with Urdu Support
done by our neighboring country but that has to be added as a separate
language pack.

A gift to Pakistan by the Ubuntu Community on the occasion of Eid. Ubuntu
Rocks in Pakistan!

Best Regards
-----------------------
Fouad Riaz Bajwa
Team Leader
Ubuntu-Linux Pakistan LoCo Team
Cell: 92-333-4661290
Tel: 92-42-5030039
E-Mail: bajwa@...  
URL: www.ubuntu-pk.org
Mailing List: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-pk 
Disclaimer:
This e-mail message is intended for its recipient only. If you have received
this e-mail in error, please discard it. The author of this e-mail or
Ubuntu-Linux Pakistan LoCo Team take no responsibility for the material,
implicit or explicit.


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(FOSS Industry Analysis by Fouad Riaz Bajwa for the International FOSS
Movement)

Is Oracle finally buying its way into the FOSS Movement?

Oracle Unbreakable Linux Enterprise Support is the name of the new game by
Oracle Corporation for taking its step in to the global FOSS Movement big
time with partners including Dell, Intel, HP, IBM, Accenture, AMD, BP, EMC,
BMC, and NetApp joining in on the Unbreakable Linux Program. With a catchy
name for a Linux Distribution as well as support package, Oracle may believe
to win a share of the global Linux market by buying out an existing Linux
vendor or service provider company to offer a complete configurable Database
offering coupled with the Linux Operating System bundle.

This news isn't new as Oracle made its first move in 2005 by releasing a
free stripped down version of its Oracle Relational Database Management
System product suite Oracle Deluxe XE that widely supported interaction with
a variety of open source technology platforms including the LAMP stack.
Oracle has already offered trials of "Enterprise Linux", "Oracle Database
10g Release 2" and the "Oracle Application Server 10g" as free downloads.

Larry Ellison, Oracle's Chief Executive made a statement earlier this year
declaring Oracle was looking forward to launching its own Linux operating
system with the possibility of buying a main supplier of the technology that
was clearly identified as Oracle's clean move into the FOSS Ecosystem and
accepting the FOSS model that allows customers to use applications for free,
paying only for custom features, maintenance and support.

Oracle is now offering Enterprise Linux Operating System software thus
completing a complete stack of Oracle Technology and Application software
products including those running on the Linux Operating System. Industry
analysts are also referring to Oracle's plunge in 1999-2000 surprising
investors with quick unanticipated growth in new software licenses over the
past two financial quarters boosting its stock to the highest of levels
since 2001. The company has already gained 50 percent on its stocks and
continues adding to it recent buyouts of PeopleSoft and Siebel Systems
proving it can buyout any company that is beneficial to maintaining and
growing its market outreach and dominance.

Earlier this month, SAP SD conducted released a press release that Oracle
runs 40% faster on Linux as compared to Microsoft paving the way for Oracle
to take up Linux big time on the basis of performance and scalability. This
bags a world record on performance testing for Oracle. The Sales and
Distribution Standard Application Benchmark was run using Linux on Fujitsu
PRIMEQUEST 580 Server. Within various self funded and market researched
reports, Oracle has proven to be breaking the back of both Microsoft
database and operating system offerings. Now that Oracle has finally decided
that it will also rule in the Linux market game, Oracle might bundle and
configure products together in such a way that simple clicks will install
all the critical software including dependencies safely and optimized for
scalable performance.

Oracle may now be directing itself towards delivering custom-made complete
packages that will include both the operating system and all applications
needed to bundle a complete Linux offering. This should be putting a
considerable pressure for other vendors of commercial Linux including Red
Hat, Novell and IBM but again, Oracle is not about hardware, its software
that is the core of its business and that would still be an option for
considerable commercial strategic partnerships with these vendors and
service providers. The companies that are on the possible hit list for
buyout analyzed by market researchers may be Canonical Ltd or Red Hat and if
either one of these reports are true, this may prove to be the biggest Open
Source deal of the millennium.

Oracle is not alone in the game for new Linux distributions, various sources
have also reported Google taking interest in creating a new distribution
from Ubuntu Linux from Canonical Ltd that itself is a derived from the
Debian Linux Distribution. The Linux world is becoming a very interesting
place for both commercial and public sector organizations worldwide. Oracle
may have taken this decision for a number of strong reasons including the
increase of use of Open Source products like MySQL and PostgreSQL including
Enterprise DB.

Another major interest may be the fact the most of the Linux servers world
wide run the Apache web server that was already built into the Oracle
Application Server architecture supporting Java. At the backend of every
serious and mission critical organization, Linux is proving to be the best
choice for use and Oracle has been shipping Oracle products supporting a
variety of Unix and Linux distributions so the relationship tends to be a
strong proposition for the future that the Open Source models have proved
support services around the software to generate encouraging revenues.
Moreover Oracle has always been the preferable choice for Fortune 500s as
well as customers worldwide but this does not imply that these customers
have not tested or are not running any other type of Open Source in their IT
infrastructures already.

Where these moves represent an interest towards Open Source offerings, they
also tend to give an image of violating the essence of the FOSS Movement
based on the interesting factors of Oracle Licensing Schemes that one has to
agree to use Oracle's products that in no way show any resemblance with the
Open Source or GPL licenses and copyrights. The products also limit use in
prohibited countries like Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria
etc. Secondly the license retains ownership of all software to Oracle thus
the software falls completely into the proprietary software domain and does
not allow users to share or modify the software which is the common
philosophy of all FOSS technologies and platforms. Also where proprietary
software companies provide software and code back to the community, it is
usually a generation old in terms of the fact that the community free
offering is always a couple of versions old whereas the proprietary version
is more advanced in terms of features and offerings with lots of built in
custom code that may or may not fall into the FOSS domain.

Experts worldwide are also presenting a mix of different point of views
concerning whether such a move will be beneficial for the big corporation.
According to various sources Stuart Williams, senior analyst at Technology
Business Research, quoted on Network World that “Ease of use and ease of
installation would be of primary importance because [small and midsize]
firms don’t have the IT support of a larger enterprise. Because Oracle has
this pre-integrated stack, they can preconfigure everything you need and be
[service-oriented architecture] ready . . . and, because they use these
common networking protocols, they could also integrate with the existing
Windows environment. You drop it off, set it up and it’s ready to use.” CNET
News reports that Ubuntu (Canonical) chief Mark Shuttleworth says "I don't
think Oracle is going to make large amounts of money selling support for
Linux. I don't think it will ever be a high-margin, high-profit, exciting
growth business for them. It's becoming more and more of a commodity. But
that doesn't mean there isn't some tactical value to them in influencing or
playing in the space".

Whether the industry is happy or skeptical about Oracle's move into FOSS,
Oracle has already offered existing clientele 50% off on support offerings
under Unbreakable Linux Enterprise Program and moreover, the logo shows the
Linux mascot TUX in an armored suit to beat the odds. Results from Oracle
Corporations decision will be a great interest for the industry and users
will be seeing more similar offerings from other companies such as MySQL and
Enterprise DB. Community developed Linux, Ubuntu launched a LAMP
(Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP/Perl/Python) stack offering built into its server
distribution released earlier this year in June and Larry Augustine has
already been funding the VA VistA architecture built into a Linux
distribution for the medical care and hospital markets.

The industry will be seeing more buy in from commercial software vendors,
developers and service providers in the future towards the FOSS trend but
how many of these deals will buck the cash, is yet to be witnessed.

References:

http://www.oracle.com/technologies/linux/index.html

http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=03808#0

Oracle Joins The Free Standards Group As A Platinum Member, Redwood Shores,
Calif.m, 25-Oct-2006
http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2006_oct/oracle-fsg.html

SAP AG Standard Application Benchmarks were developed to provide comparative
load analysis of SAP solutions. http://www.sap.com/benchmark

Oracle Sets World Record for Two-Tier SAP® Sales and Distribution Standard
Application Benchmark Running Linux on Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST 580 Server.
http://www.oracle.com/corporate/press/2006_oct/oracle-fujitsu-wr-sapsd-bmrk.
html

Download Oracle Enterprise Linux Operating System software
http://edelivery.oracle.com/linux

-----------------------
Fouad Riaz Bajwa
FOSS Advocate
Member BytesForAll Network South Asia
Article released under
Creative Commons Share Alike 2.5 License

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Piracy creates jobs, but [Free Software and] Open Source and Open
Standards create opportunity, create entrepreneurs.  And I think
that's the challenge for the IGF as well, how to look at it is a
public interest forum, the Internet is a public space, and how can we
facilitate maximum sharing, maximum creativity, peer production, new
models, innovation. --Anriette Esterhuysen, at the Internet Governance
Forum, Athens, November 1, 2006
http://www.intgovforum.org/IGF-Panel2-311006am.txt
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http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/
Free Software gives you the freedom to run, study, copy and improve software!

Wireless Rural Connectivity Conference & Hands-on Workshop" Nov 15,
2006, Lahore

Dear Community Members,

Everyone is invited to the "Wireless Rural Connectivity Conference
and Hands-on Workshop" Nov 15, 2006 in Lahore. Registration is free
and open to all but nominations with name, contact address and phone;
organization should reach the President P@SHA Ms. Jehan Ara at
jehan@... as soon as possible. If anyone wishes to
participate in this initiative, we would welcome the support with the
possibility of identifying a town or village in Lahore that can be
utilized for a hands-on workshop. Please also inform as many people
as you can so that we have a good turnout and a larger number of
people benefit. NGOs, technology people, government reps, students
etc all need to be a part of this.

READ BELOW THIS LINE:

Wireless Rural Connectivity Conference and Hands-on Workshop Nov 15,
2006 in Lahore - Everyone is invited!

P@SHA (Pakistan Software Houses Association) is planning a Rural
Networking conference and Hands-on Workshop on Nov 15, 2006 in Lahore
in collaboration with Cisco Systems and the Punjab IT Board. The
intent is to have a one day conference followed by a hands-on
workshop and actually deployment in one of the towns or villages
close to Lahore if an effort can be identified that will benefit and
can benefit from local support for the first 3 months while they are
learning the ropes. BytesForAll Network South Asia is spreading the
word to all corners of the country.

INTERNATIONAL SPEAKERS

Jim Forster
Co-author of the book "Wireless Networking for the Developing World"
and Cisco's 30th employee (they now number in the tens of thousands)
is coming to Lahore at our request for the Keynote address and to be
part of several panels.

Malcolm Maston
An entrepreneur in the telecoms and IT sectors. In the early 1980's
he was a pioneer of the UK broadband industry and eventually sold his
interests to the US RBOC, Pacific Telesis. As a result of this
experience, he began to develop and enunciate the principles for the
emerging digital world of an OPLAN (open public local access network)
as the "4th Utility". He then formed COLT Telecoms as an OPLAN -
Europe's first all-fibre public telecommunications network but exited
the Company when it abandoned the 'open' strategy. Since then he has
promoted the OPLAN concept consistently around the world - doing so
now in the name of the OPLAN Foundation
(www.oplan.org) which he founded in 2005 as a not-for-profit body
dedicated to 'opening minds to open networks'. In late 2004, The
OPLAN Foundation was appointed to advise the World Bank on the
relevance of 'open access' for the developing world. He is an advisor
to various European cities developing their own OPLAN strategies and
has written widely on the topic for bodies such as the Institute of
Economic Affairs and the Technical University, Delft, Netherlands.
Educated at the University of Nottingham and the Harvard Business
School, he serves on the boards of various private companies
including OpenPlanet Ltd. (www.open-planet.net) which partners cities
and communities to develop their own OPLANs - serving citizens above
all others.

Bjarke Nielsen
An educational leader at DIIRWB (Djursland International Institute of
Rural Wireless Broadband) and he founded the DjurslandS.net, one of
the World's biggest non-commercial rural wireless networks,
connecting rural schools, -institutions, -firms and -up to now more
than 5000 rural households to the Internet.

DIIRWB is an institute for training builders of cheap rural wireless
broadband, based on the experience of establishing and running of the
DjurslandS.net. DIIRWB is a cooperation of the "Computer Support
Community of Djursland" and "the Grenaa Technical School".

Bjarke founded the Computer Support Community of Djursland in 1993
and has been its chairman ever since. He is also the chairman of
GrenaaS.net, the area-network of Grenaa, the largest city on
Djursland. He also chairs all pilot projects on rural wireless
networks in the EU-funded "Baltic Rural Broadband Project" in the
countries around the Baltic sea in Northern Europe, and are also
project-responsible for the Danish part called "Networking
Djursland". He is a member of the EU-funded think-tank or advisory-
board on "Broadband Access, Innovation & Regional Development" for
the North SeaArea. He is also one of the trendsetting coordinators of
the World Summits on Free Information Infrastructures.

Corinna"Elektra" Aichele.
Elektra's main interests include autonomous power systems and
wireless communication (antennas, wireless long shots, mesh
networking). Shemadeasmall Linux distro based on slack-ware geared to
wireless mesh networking.

Vickram Crishna
Vickram Crishna has worked in the fields of engineering, media and
management consultancy for over 25 years since his graduation from
IIT Delhi in 1975.

Today his focus lies in expanding the use of communication and
computing to reach a wider audience than has been possible in the
techno-economic scenario we live in. This builds from his original
training in engineering and technology, gained at the Indian
Institute of Technology, Delhi, one of the finest institutions of its
kind in Asia. He widened hisoutlook at the Indian Institute of
Management, Calcutta, where he graduated in management studies, and
followed this by working in and around industry in India for twenty
five years in various capacities.

He has worked for over eighteen years as an independent management
and technology consultant and journalist. He believes that IT has
made a serious and direct impact in the lives of most of India's
population. This will involve more than just changes in technology,
many of which are already happening, but also in ensuring that
suitable and appropriate technologies are applied to spur economic
growth and social development as rapidly as possible across India's
far-flung reaches. Many things that happen in India may safely be
said to apply to other emerging nations too, hence this is not an
isolationist viewpoint. His effort is to ensure that technology be
applied to leverage emerging growth in economic and social terms
across as many social, economic and geographic boundaries as can be
managed. To this end, he is involved with several initiatives in data
communication, software development, policy definition and education
and has been working in several of India's far-flung regions
examining, customizing and helping to implement technologies that
work in each individual situation.

Dr. Arun Mehta
Dr. Arun Mehta is a graduate of IIT Delhi. He is a computer scientist
with a PhD in Computer Science from Germany. His work for the most
part has focused on bringing technology to the less advantaged -
whether it be those with special needs or those in India's vast rural
sector. He is presently, amongst other things, head of computer
science at a university in Radaur, about 4 hours drive from Delhi. He
is the developer of Elocutor, the software for the famous Dr. Stephen
Hawking.

In 1989-91, Dr. Arun Mehta was part of Amnesty International's
Computer Communications Working Group which set up an international e-
mail network, taking into particular account problems related to poor
communications networks and lack of resources in developing countries.

He has since then been an active participant on cpsr-global, the
World Bank's INFOCONF, the Internet Society's Internet Societal Task
Force (ISTF), the Global Knowledge for Development mailing list, and
the Global Learn Day organising team set up by the Benjamin Franklin
Institute of Distance Education. He moderates many lists:
     * India-gii@..., looks at India's progress on the
information super-highway
     * netradio@egroups.com, an attempt to come to grips with the
technology needed for Internet radio to become widely accessible in a
poor country
     * free-india@egroups.com, cyber-activists in India
     * cyberlaw-india@egroups.com, which examines cyberlaw issues in
India
     * sasianet@..., a pre- and post discussion for the
workshop I conducted in Dhaka entitled: "The Internet in South Asia:
Opportunities and Realities" in 1999.
     * interact-kl@..., a pre- and post discussion for a
conference entitled Converging Responsibility - Broadcasting and the
Internet in Developing Countries.

In 1994, he was a founder of FREE, the Forum for Rights to Electronic
Expression, a telecom watchdog in India. Arun is currently the
President of the Society for Telecommunications Empowerment, which
seeks to bring the benefits of modern telecommunications to the poor
through technology showcasing, training and policy interventions.

LET'S BENEFIT TOGETHER

This is a team of individuals who each, in their own field, are
actively participating in the ever-expanding Internet by pushing its
reach farther than ever before. The massive popularity of wireless
networking has caused equipment costs to continually plummet, while
equipment capabilities continue to sharply increase. The following
experts will be visiting Pakistan for the conference and hands-on
workshop.

By taking advantage of this state of affairs, people can finally
begin to have a stake in building their own communications
infrastructure. This is not only possible, but has been done. This
team intends to provide the information and talk about the tools that
are needed to start a network project in our local community.

Wireless infrastructure can be built for very little cost compared to
traditional wired alternatives. But building wireless networks is
only partly about saving money. By providing people in your local
community with cheaper and easier access to information, they will
directly benefit from what the Internet has to offer. The time and
effort saved by having access to the global network of information
translates into wealth on a local scale, as more work can be done in
less time and with less effort.

Let's take advantage of this team being here and if any of you can
identify an effort close to Lahore where deployment can take place
right away, these people can actually show hands-on how it's done. We
will also have local Pakistani experts present who can help expand
this initiative into a mass effort.

If any of you wish to participate in this initiative, we would
welcome the support. Please also inform as many people as you can so
that we have a good turnout and a larger number of people benefit.
NGOs, technology people, government reps, students etc all need to be
a part of this.

At BytesForAll, we are already spreading the word to relevant people
and wish all the success to this event.


ABOUT JEHAN ARA

Ms. Jehan Ara, President of P@SHA (Pakistan Software Houses
Association), is an active Bytesforall.org admin member as well as
part of Pakistan ICT Policy Monitor Network. She is known to be
always very keen on bringing ICT revolution into mainstream
development agenda and see it contributing for people's good.

In an email conversation Jehan informed that for this event she took
advantage of a major connectivity Summit called AirJaldi Summit
http://summit.airjaldi.com/ held in neighboring country India (in
Dharamsala) by convincing some globally renowned leading experts in
the field to spare some more time and make a side trip to Pakistan
for a wireless networking event to be organized in Lahore on 15-16
November 2006.

Regards
-----------------------
Fouad Riaz Bajwa
BytesForAll Network South Asia
Tel: 5030039, 03334661290

FOSS Reality Bites!
FOSS CIO predictions from 2003 now becoming a reality by 2010?

(Business Analysis by Fouad Riaz Bajwa, FOSS Advocate,
bajwa|NOSPAM|fossfp|DAWT|org)

	 Christopher Koch predicted possible scenarios in the CIO Magazine
Dec. 15, 2003 Issue titled "The Future of Software" that by the year 2010,
the world will make a major shift towards Free and Open Source Software
(FOSS) due to the fact that government and enterprise Chief Information
Officers (CIOs) probably would find themselves hostage to a few monopolistic
vendors that keep software expensive and complex. Many of Koch's predictions
are becoming a reality today and this analysis takes into account such
various emerging FOSS trends within both the Public and Private sectors
worldwide.

	 Koch presented the case that Free and Open Source Software will not
be the answer to integration problems and instead will drive down prices in
selected areas of the software infrastructure with the possibility of OSS
turning expensive databases such as Oracle and IBM's DB2 into commodities by
2010. Today the scenario is relatively different since integration is no
more a dream in the FOSS based products and services ecosystem as platform
independence, virtualization and distributed services are at the forefront
of information technology strategies. It has also been seen major enterprise
vendors are introducing new FOSS products and services in today's global
marketplace. A significant move has been made recently by Oracle Corporation
releasing its Unbreakable Enterprise Linux Support programme thus
commoditization of FOSS technologies and platforms by enterprise vendors are
hitting mainstream business activity.

	 It was also predicted that smaller vendors will move toward the FOSS
model keeping in view opportunities for low-cost market entry further
lowering marketing costs building a user base through word of mouth and then
sell services and add-ons thus simply giving it away. This too has been the
trend for the past few years and many Silicon Valley, European and South
Asian technology startups have adopted this FOSS model opportunity. FOSS
provides the opportunity to immediately enter target markets providing
consultancy, training and support services while the core product
development is carried on in parallel. This helps develop an adequate
customer base before actually releasing the core product into the market.

	 At the enterprise level, FOSS will enter into corporate
infrastructure and emerge as a major rival to existing dominant software
models if the integration issues are covered effectively and this too has
proven true with more advancement on the Linux front and major players Red
Hat, Novell, Canonical and even Google moving in towards providing
customization and integration with round the clock technical support and
training for Linux, this is also proving to be very valid. Moreover, for
developing economies or economies in transition, FOSS has appeared as an
alternative tool to combat software piracy encouraging protection of
intellectual property.

	 In terms of business and investment return issues, Koch predicted
that CIO's at Enterprise level will find them stuck in an outdated economic
model for purchasing, installing and maintaining software and fewer dominant
vendors will do business at much higher prices proving fewer choices with
very high migration costs and increasing vendor lock-in. In light of this
concern, vendors will sell applications as specific, configurable components
that upgrade automatically and integrate with any type of system at no
additional costs incorporating minimal effort thus buyers would pay only
when employees use these applications. However Koch also stated that this
model would not prove to be a major revenue generating model for major
vendors and won't buy in interest or stability on the Stock Exchange from
investors but it seems the other way around as the buy-as-you-use model is
now in practice widely and is also termed as the On Demand Services Business
Model widely employed by IBM and major vendors.

	 It was also predicted that CIOs focusing on establishing low-cost
infrastructure that would be easily maintainable and less reliant on a
handful of vendors to function will have the upper hand in price
negotiations with vendors and the ability to adopt innovative new solutions
more quickly and easily than those CIOs locked in to a vendor's software
release schedule. This too has been made possible by companies investing in
the development of their in-house technical support teams employing the FOSS
model since updates are being made available for free and require reduced
vendor support for FOSS Linux distributions including the facility to
customize FOSS while benefiting from optimal IT infrastructure performance.

	 In the second scenario Koch predicted the possible Public sector
market responses towards vendor lock-in and open standards compliance that
by 2010, European and Asian governments will lead the way towards the
adoption of FOSS while American CIOs will be following their footsteps with
the risks identified that reliance upon a handful of vendors for their IT
would prove dangerous. Governments in Europe and Asia would shift their
purchasing and development dollars to FOSS and this has been evident within
the last three years with more joining in on the FOSS alternative. Once
again the most important risk mitigation will be seen towards reducing
vendor lock-in; defeating vendor dominance models, security of information,
compliance to open standards with calls for compliance to vendors should
they be interested to continue doing business with governments. Such a trend
would force vendors to comply towards creating FOSS within Open Standard
specifications.

	 Open Standards compliance has been evolving at a very fast rate
including the prominent case of the Open Document Format and Massachusetts
scenario. A dominant company like Microsoft has now included Open Document
Format support within their office and business productivity tools due to
compliance and further similar activity is predicated from other vendors who
had ignored such issues in the past. The trend is to continue within the
Public sector sharing the surge with the Private sector where governments
continue to mandate FOSS for communication with vendors forced to comply
with the new FOSS market trends. It may also be possible that governments
and enterprise CIOs have had enough of endless complex licensing agreements
and upgrades on enterprise software and instead opt for FOSS alternate
licensing models turning everything they've paid for out to the market for
free. Such a trend has been seen recently on SourceForge.net and
e-government websites worldwide where public and private sector
organizations are continuously making their FOSS technologies and platforms
available for free encouraging inspection of source code and extensive
testing before considerable use by stakeholders.

	 Koch's prediction regarding Europe's largest manufacturing companies
deciding to freeze all spending on enterprise software until vendors agree
on a standard set of truly open, free integration technologies to hook their
packages together also seems to be becoming a reality with the example of
Microsoft's ban in the EU marketplace until it paid huge sums of fines and
made compliance to such standards as set forth by the EU. Adding to it, the
EU has been investing heavily into FOSS research and adoption by both Pubic
and Private sectors within all member countries and each of them making back
considerable contribution to the development of FOSS.

	 Another successful prediction presented a strong case for enterprise
level availability of FOSS technologies and platforms by 2010 emerging from
all corners of the globe with major vendors backing and supporting such
solutions. Key factors would be customer unhappiness combined with FOSS
based commodity threats forcing major vendors to completely revamp their
licensing, pricing, sales, installation and technical support models. Many
vendors have already initiated the process of releasing two models of
software, one freely developed and distributed by FOSS communities and the
other as enhanced derivations from the latter. As an exception in some
cases, some vendors are also making available older versions of their
software free-of-cost while selling paid support.

	 The predicted services model is also present today where smaller
vendors are also making money by selling paid supplementary consultancy,
training, deployment, migration and technical support services around FOSS
technology and platforms developed by larger enterprise vendors thus an Open
and Inclusive open standards based ecosystem is in evolution. This is also
helping CIOs changing their role into architecture experts taking hands-on
roles creating cheap, standards-based IT infrastructures building highly
customized IT-enabled business processes based on FOSS standards as
predicted by Koch. The "Don't pay for the software but pay only for
services" business model is in full play today.

	 Nick Gall, SVP and principal analyst for Meta Group has also
predicted that "Open source and commoditization is a bottom-up process. It
will move slowly up over the next 20 years to the top of the stack. It will
be a slow, painful process for vendors." This may also be true since no one
model for FOSS business fits all and every entity has to explore which
services model suits its product. Some FOSS business models have not made
money with respect to pay for service and instead have relied on Venture
Capital supporting their sustainability. It has also been witnessed that
many online businesses provide all sorts of services free to their members
but make money out of targeted opt marketing strategies.

	 Koch also predicted an emerging market for FOSS based ERP and CRM
solutions opposed to the expensive ERP solutions from major vendors but the
fact remains there are only a few FOSS based ERP solutions in the market.
This prediction is still valid and very beneficial in terms of ERP solutions
being developed under FOSS and open standards complying with international
GAAP, financial, electronic data interchange and transaction procedures. The
market may prove to be really big and fruitful. Various companies that have
attempted to use FOSS based ERP and CRM solutions have invested in custom
development projects to add functionality to these packages freely
incorporating the new code into future releases as a contribution back to
the FOSS development communities.

	 As already mentioned, Koch also referred to the individual software
developer or developer groups that they would be paid for coding as well as
servicing and supporting their work thus if their clients decide to make
such code available for incorporation into a FOSS package for
redistribution, they will be able to sell services to other companies that
adopt that distribution. FOSS will develop into an immediate preference for
startups, small and medium enterprises as well as Venture Capitalists and
Brokers.

	 So what does it take to get out there and cash from the FOSS
ecosystem? According to Jeremy Allison, developer of Samba software, "All
you need is one good set of code out there" to act as a foundation for
building the complex software systems. FOSS avoids the biggest barrier to
entering the software industry: marketing and sales. FOSS needs no sales and
marketing budget, only a good development leader, quality software and word
of mouth for adoption. The FOSS enterprise software is not free, but it is
cheaper, and services vendors that install and run it for customers are
happy to contribute paid developers to the cause.

	 He further adds that innovation will flower because it will be much
easier to get new projects going and to sell add-ons for existing open
source. To separate the promising software from the bad, good CIOs will be
more in demand—and more valued—than ever!

Disclaimer:
	 The above information has been analyzed on a non-commercial basis
for information purposes only from an article written by the author
Christopher Koch published in CIO Magazine online dated Dec. 15, 2003 titled
"The Future of Software, A Land Where Giants Rule" at the website address
http://www.cio.com/archive/121503/softfuture.html thus proper copyright
attributions as informed by CIO Magazine should be made where necessary. The
author takes no responsibility whatsoever of the views and material
presented within the references provided and readers are encouraged to
research the facts on their own where deemed necessary.

Online references for further reading:

Koch, C. "The Future of Software, A Land Where Giants Rule", CIO Magazine.
(Dec. 15, 2003) http://www.cio.com/archive/121503/softfuture.html

Ohloh: Explore Open Source. Mapping the open source world by collecting
objective information on open source projects. http://ohloh.net/

Source Forge Free and Open Source Software Foundry
http://www.sourceforge.net

FOSS in South Asia http://www.bytesforall.net/aggregator/sources/11

European Working Group on Libre Software http://eu.conecta.it/

E.U.-Funded Project to Test Open-Source Viability
http://www.cio.com/blog_view.html?CID=25904

IDABC Website, dedicated to Free/Libre/Open Source Software to encourage the
spread and use of Best Practices in Europe
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/chapter/452

Oracle Unbreakable Enterprise Linux
http://www.oracle.com/technologies/linux/index.html

Canonical and Ubuntu Linux http://www.canonical.com

RedHat Enterprise Linux http://www.redhat.com

Suse Enterprise Linux SLE http://www.novell.com

The Economic Majority against Software Patents
http://www.economic-majority.com/testimony/silicide/index.en.php

Starting with Linux ZDNet
http://whitepapers.zdnet.com/whitepaper.aspx?docid=166160&promo=590&tag=nl.e
590

Microsoft Vista gets criticism before its launching in Europe
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.18/vista

EU threatens Microsoft with Vista ban - vnunet.com
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2152965/eu-threatens-microsoft-vista
Free Software Foundation http://www.fsf.org

Could the EU ban the Windows desktop from Europe?
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=12684

Adobe and Symantec seek EU ban on Vista bundling - ZDNet UK News
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/windows/0,39020396,39283555,00.htm

Open Source Initiative http://www.opensource.org

UNDP-APDIP-IOSN International Open Source Network http://www.iosn.net

International Free and Open Source Software Foundation iFOSSF
http://www.ifossf.org

BytesForAll Network South Asia http://www.byetsforall.net

FOSSFP: Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan
http://www.fossfp.org


-----------------------
FOSS Reality Bites! FOSS CIO predictions from 2003 now becoming a reality by
2010?
A Business Analysis by
Fouad Riaz Bajwa
FOSS Advocate
bajwa|NOSPAM|fossfp|DAWT|org
Released under Creative Commons License Attribution -Share Alike 2.5
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5

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The Microsoft Windows and Novell Suse Linux Deal - What's the catch?

(Analysis by Fouad Riaz Bajwa, FOSS Advocate, bajwa|NOSPAM|fossfp|DAWT|org)

In a recent report by CNet News (November 2, 2006) Microsoft and Novell have
joined forces in a partnership mixing the world of Proprietary Windows
Software with Open Source Linux towards working on harmonizing Windows
proprietary software and related products on the Novell Suse Linux platform.
The pact is to promote Microsoft's proprietary Windows work with Novell's
Suse Linux, which is based on open-source code. On the business side, they
will promote each other's products.

Within the pact, the partners have also struck a new deal on patents
designed to give customers peace of mind about using Novell's OSS products.
The companies will create a joint research facility at which they will build
and test new products, and work with customers and the open-source
community. The focus will be on three technical areas: virtualization, web
services for server management, and Microsoft Office-OpenOffice.org
compatibility.

Does this mean that we will see Microsoft promoting Novell Suse Linux on
their marketing collateral and information dissemination networks? Will
Microsoft partners and ISVs promote Linux inline with their Windows
offerings? Does this also mean Microsoft is bending to Open Source and Linux
in particular?

With this deal, it is now evident that Microsoft's earlier self-funded
reports about Linux performance and TCO issues were definitely self
populated false information. This also concludes that Oracle's Unbreakable
Enterprise Linux may have shook up Microsoft on the issue about its
dominance within various partnership deals with other enterprise software
vendors and developers.

If Microsoft had not been bending to Open Source, it would have never gone
with the Linux partnership deal on a Linux platform. Secondly, this deal
also shows that Open Source with Linux in particular has overcome the six
barriers to open source adoption indicated by Dan Farber in March 2004 on
ZDNet. Dan had indicated that open source carried the following critical
deficiencies:

- Informal support
- Velocity of change
- No roadmap
- Functional gaps
- Licensing caveats
- ISV endorsements

These deficiencies seem to have been overcome during the last few years as
we can see leading enterprise vendors including Oracle and Novell making
major investments in open source software. Possibly defying Richard
Stallman's Free Software ideology and taking into account the variable scope
of open source software, this deal is making benefit of the possibilities to
mix proprietary software code with open source software code.

Is this proprietary software mix with Linux code really possible? It may be
possible in light of the interview given by Open Source Initiative founder
Bruce Peren's in Apr 2006 to SearchOpenSource.com where he stated to a
question:

	 SearchOpenSource.com: What are some ways to mix proprietary software
and the Linux kernel?

	 Bruce Perens: Try to view this in the context of a cell phone, where
the cellular provider wants to protect the way they handle the network from
open source. In a phone like mine, there are actually two CPUs, so they can
put everything they want to protect in the embedded CPU and put all of the
open source code into the other CPU. Physically, they're both on the same
chip. The General Public License (GPL) would allow that coexistence and
permit the interface between those two chips. If it's a well-defined
interface then it can be considered a perfectly legal demarcation between
proprietary software and open source. Now, if you look at the license text
that comes with the Linux kernel, there's a special preliminary to it that
re-asserts that user-mode applications are OK. They are not affected by the
GPL license unless they actually incorporate a GPL file. The license of the
kernel does not affect the application. If that's true for the kernel in an
application, it's also true for a kernel on top of another kernel. One
strategy that has been used successfully in the past by IBM is to host the
Linux kernel on top of another proprietary kernel, which, in itself,
contains some proprietary device drivers. Invidia's strategy is interesting
since it's the shakiest one. I'm not sure if it is legal. Invidia [Corp.]
has made a single loadable module for their graphics kernel, which makes the
graphics card work. That loadable module is operating system-independent,
meaning that it runs on Windows and Linux. In addition, they have a GPL
portability layer that makes that loadable module work with Linux. So it
would be more difficult, given that it works on multiple operating systems,
to establish in a court that it was actually a derived work of Linux.
Finally, another way to mix proprietary software and the Linux kernel is to
put whatever you need to be proprietary in a user-mode application, rather
than in the kernel. It is possible to expose the I/O boss to a user-mode
application. You don't necessarily get the real-time services you get in the
kernel, but for many people, that doesn't matter. There are, of course, more
elements than what I've listed.

More questions remove this confusion accordingly that:

	 SearchOpenSource.com: Do you think it would be realistic to worry
about patent issues?

	 Perens: I'm not the only one worried sick. Every small and
medium-sized proprietary software manufacturer who understands the problem
is concerned because they're on the bottom. There are some other people who
can, essentially, dictate terms. If we get additional software patents and
standards, for example, you get a situation where Microsoft or IBM can
implement a standard without a patent tax. Small-sized companies might have
to pay that tax and their potential for profit would be limited. The
problems in patent quality only exacerbate this. It's a bad deal and it is
to the benefit of the largest companies in the world, not anyone else.
Everyone should be worried in the software business. Even users should be
concerned because this is going to close out their options. Will we have the
so-called 'nuclear option,' where, some day we get up in the morning and
read that a thousand patent suits have been filed against open source? It's
still perfectly possible and it's bad news for small and medium-sized
proprietary software manufacturers too. Those companies are 80% of their
sector's economy.

	 SearchOpenSource.com: You don't think the GPL 3.0 will take care of
patent concerns?

	 Perens: It wouldn't address them for the proprietary companies at
all. Not everyone is using the GPL 3.0, and there's always litigation. You
never know how much the judge is going to buy. The GPL 3.0 will help us with
our friends -- but not our enemies. Our enemies aren't putting software
under GPL 3.0.

Will Microsoft and Novell struggle together to get additional software
patents and standards so that the standards as a result of their partnership
can be implemented able without a patent tax? If this is the case, other
companies will have to pay that patent taxes reducing their profits thus
this mix may worsen the patent attack regime. What will be the real impact
of this deal on the FOSS Ecosystem is yet to be witnessed in due course of
time but one can be sure that they will be seeing new patents imposed
employing open source software development models.

Online references and further reading:

Microsoft makes Linux pact with Novell
http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-6132119.html?part=rss&tag=6132119&subj=news

Six barriers to open source adoption
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/Six_barriers_to_open_sou
rce_adoption.html

When to mix proprietary code with Linux
http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci117
9148,00.html

Free Software Foundation http://www.fsf.org

Open Source Initiative http://www.opensource.org


	 Disclaimer:
	 The above information has been analyzed on a non-commercial basis
for information purposes only. The author takes no responsibility whatsoever
of the views and material presented within the references provided and
readers are encouraged to research the facts on their own where deemed
necessary.

---------------------

Business Analysis by
Fouad Riaz Bajwa
FOSS Advocate
bajwa|NOSPAM|fossfp|DAWT|org
Released under Creative Commons License Attribution -Share Alike 2.5
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5

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Read the press release from Novell:

http://www.novell.com/news/press/item.jsp?id=1196

Microsoft and Novell Announce Broad Collaboration on Windows and Linux
Interoperability and Support

Press Release

Companies also announce a patent agreement covering proprietary and open
source products.

WALTHAM, Mass.—02 Nov 2006—Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc. today announced a
set of broad business and technical collaboration agreements to build,
market and support a series of new solutions to make Novell and Microsoft®
products work better together. The two companies also announced an agreement
to provide each other’s customers with patent coverage for their respective
products. These agreements will be in place until at least 2012. Under this
new model, customers will realize unprecedented choice and flexibility
through improved interoperability and manageability between Windows® and
Linux.

“They said it couldn’t be done. This is a new model and a true evolution of
our relationship that we think customers will immediately find compelling
because it delivers practical value by bringing two of their most important
platform investments closer together,” said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft.
“We’re excited to work with Novell, whose strengths include its heritage as
a mixed-source company. Resolving our patent issues enables a combined focus
on virtualization and Web services management to create new opportunities
for our companies and our customers.”

Under the agreement, Novell is establishing clear leadership among Linux
platform and open source software providers on interoperability for
mixed-source environments. As a result, Microsoft will officially recommend
SUSE Linux Enterprise for customers who want Windows and Linux solutions.
Additionally, Microsoft will distribute coupons for SUSE Linux Enterprise
Server maintenance and support, so that customers can benefit from the use
of an interoperable version of Linux with patent coverage as well as the
collaborative work between the two companies.

“Too often technology companies ask their customers to adapt to them. Today
we are adapting to our customers,” said Ron Hovsepian, president and CEO of
Novell. “Microsoft and Novell are enabling customers to take advantage of
each other’s products where it makes sense in their enterprise
infrastructure. We jointly believe that our business and patent agreements
make it possible to offer the highest level of interoperability with the
assurance that both our companies stand behind these solutions.”

Agreement Has Broad Scope
The two companies will create a joint research facility at which Microsoft
and Novell technical experts will architect and test new software solutions
and work with customers and the community to build and support these
technologies. The agreement between Microsoft and Novell focuses on three
technical areas that provide important value and choice to the market:

Virtualization. Virtualization is one of the most important trends in the
industry. Customers tell Microsoft that virtualization is one way they can
consolidate and more easily manage rapidly growing server workloads and
their large set of server applications. Microsoft and Novell will jointly
develop a compelling virtualization offering for Linux and Windows.

Web services for managing physical and virtual servers. Web services and
service-oriented architectures continue to be one of the defining ways
software companies can deliver greater value to customers. Microsoft and
Novell will undertake work to make it easier for customers to manage mixed
Windows and SUSE Linux Enterprise environments and to make it easier for
customers to federate Microsoft Active Directory® with Novell eDirectory.

Document format compatibility. Microsoft and Novell have been focusing on
ways to improve interoperability between office productivity applications.
The two companies will now work together on ways for OpenOffice and
Microsoft Office system users to best share documents, and both will take
steps to make translators available to improve interoperability between Open
XML and OpenDocument formats.

“As a result of this collaboration, customers will now be able to run
virtualized Linux on Windows or virtualized Windows on Linux,” said Jeff
Jaffe, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Novell.
“Customers continually ask us how they can consolidate servers with multiple
operating systems through virtualization. By working together, Novell and
Microsoft enable customers to choose the operating system that best fits
their application and business needs.”

The patent cooperation agreement enables Microsoft and Novell to give
customers assurance of protection against patent infringement claims. It
gives customers confidence that the technologies they use and deploy in
their environments are compliant with the two companies’ patents.

As part of this agreement, Microsoft will provide a covenant not to assert
its patent rights against customers who have purchased SUSE Linux Enterprise
Server or other covered products from Novell, and Novell will provide an
identical covenant to customers who have a licensed version of Windows or
other covered products from Microsoft.

“Both companies had to think creatively about how to create an intellectual
property bridge between the two worlds of open source and proprietary
software,” said Brad Smith, senior vice president and general counsel of
Microsoft. “This bridge is built on respect for the innovations of each
company and the open source community, and a passion for what we can deliver
for our customers together.”

Customer and Partner Reaction
Microsoft and Novell announced the new alliance at an event attended by
several customers and partners.

“We applaud Novell and Microsoft in their efforts to provide greater Windows
and Linux interoperability,” said Paul Otellini, president and chief
executive officer of Intel Corporation. “Customers want solutions that meet
their individual needs, and higher levels of software interoperability give
them the ability to more easily make the best choices.”

“Windows and Linux are extremely important to our enterprise customers and
the industry, and AMD strongly supports both,” said Hector Ruiz, chairman
and chief executive officer of Advanced Micro Devices. “This agreement by
Novell and Microsoft helps customers bridge the gap between these platforms,
giving them greater flexibility in doing what works best for them. This is a
great example of vendors working together to resolve complexity so their
customers don't have to.”

“This technology and business collaboration provides a model that allows
Microsoft and Novell to develop new solutions to enable open source and
proprietary software to work better together in a mixed-source environment,”
said Shane Robison, executive vice president and chief strategy and
technology officer at HP. “We applaud these two companies for doing the hard
work to build a bridge between Windows and Linux”

“IBM encourages more industry endorsement of mixed-source solutions that
promote open standards,” said Steve Mills, senior vice president and group
executive at IBM Software. “Microsoft support for interoperability with the
industry-standard OpenDocument Format is most welcome. Open documents give
customers choice and help unlock broad industry creativity, allowing access
to a new generation of innovative applications. Our view continues to be
that interoperability and choice are key values that customers demand and
deserve.”

“We are pleased to see that Novell and Microsoft have come together to
address customer needs with heterogeneous operating environments,” said
Kevin Kettler, CTO at Dell Inc. “As an industry leader in the IT market, we
are excited to see the technology investments being made around
virtualization and interoperability by both companies with this agreement.”

“SAP has been the first enterprise application vendor to run our apps on
Linux, while we have more Windows-based deployments than any other
platform,” said Shai Agassi, president of Product and Technology at SAP.
“Today’s announcement means that customers can now choose their preferred
operating system for each part of their SAP implementation with the
confidence that the systems will have strong interoperability and be
supported by SAP, Novell and Microsoft — both companies being strong SAP
partners.”

“One of the key challenges in government is IT interoperability,” said
Thomas Jarrett, secretary of the Department of Technology and CIO of the
state of Delaware. “We commend Microsoft and Novell for their collaboration
and their efforts to build bridges in the interoperability area, which will
help government to better serve our customers, our business community and
our citizens.”

Good for the Open Source Community
Novell officials noted that one of their priorities in working toward the
agreement with Microsoft was making sure the agreement made sense for the
open source community. As part of today’s agreement, Novell and Microsoft
are announcing three important commitments. First, Microsoft will work with
Novell and actively contribute to several open source software projects,
including projects focused on Office file formats and Web services
management. Second, Microsoft will not assert its patents against individual
noncommercial open source developers. And third, Microsoft is promising not
to assert its patents against individual contributors to OpenSUSE.org whose
code is included in the SUSE Linux Enterprise platform, including SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.

“Today’s announcement by Microsoft and Novell marks a significant milestone
in the adoption of Linux,” said Stuart Cohen, CEO of Open Source Development
Labs. “By choosing a course of co-opetition, Microsoft acknowledges the
critical role that open source plays today in an enterprise IT
infrastructure. We appreciate the role Novell is playing to help bridge the
gap between Microsoft and the open source community. We are glad to see
these two companies collaborating to further diminish the legal threat posed
to developers and customers by patent assertions. This is good for customer
confidence in Linux, the open source community and the broader IT
ecosystem.”

Additional Announcement Details
Like many commercial transactions, the financial terms of the agreement are
not being disclosed at this time.

Under the technical collaboration agreement, the companies will create a
joint research facility and pursue new software solutions for
virtualization, management and document format compatibility. These are
potentially huge markets — IDC projects the overall market for virtual
machine software revenue to be more than $1.8 billion by 2009, and the
overall market for distributed system management software to be $10.2
billion by 2010 — and the companies believe their investment in
interoperability will make their respective products more attractive to
customers.

Under the patent cooperation agreement, both companies will make upfront
payments in exchange for a release from any potential liability for use of
each other’s patented intellectual property, with a net balancing payment
from Microsoft to Novell reflecting the larger applicable volume of
Microsoft’s product shipments. Novell will also make running royalty
payments based on a percentage of its revenues from open source products.

Under the business collaboration agreement, the companies will pursue a
variety of joint marketing activities to promote the adoption of the
technologies they are collaborating on. In addition, Microsoft will purchase
a quantity of coupons from Novell that entitle the recipient to a one-year
subscription for maintenance and updates to SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.
Microsoft will annually make available approximately 70,000 of these coupons
to customers, with a mix of priority and standard support services. By
providing its customers with these coupons, Microsoft is enabling companies
to benefit from the use of the new software solutions developed through the
collaborative research effort, as well as a version of Linux that is covered
with respect to Microsoft’s intellectual property rights.

The parties are assessing the accounting treatment for the agreements and
will provide information as required in the course of their filings with the
SEC.

For more information on SUSE Linux Enterprise from Novell, see
http://www.novell.com/linux.

For more information on Microsoft Windows, see
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass.

About Novell

Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) delivers Software for the Open Enterprise™. With
more than 50,000 customers in 43 countries, Novell helps customers manage,
simplify, secure and integrate their technology environments by leveraging
best-of-breed, open standards-based software. With over 20 years of
experience, 4,700 employees, 5,000 partners and support centers around the
world, Novell helps customers gain control over their IT operating
environment while reducing cost. More information about Novell can be found
at http://www.novell.com.


About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT”) is the worldwide leader in
software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize
their full potential.

Microsoft, Windows and Active Directory are either registered trademarks or
trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.
Novell and SUSE are registered trademarks and Software for the Open
Enterprise is a trademark of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other
countries. *Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. The names of
actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of
their respective owners.

Forwarded from the Novell website, press release may be accessed at:

http://www.novell.com/news/press/item.jsp?id=1196


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To All Registered Participants & Interested Community,

The P@SHA Wireless Rural Connectivity Conference & Hands-on Workshop, NOV
15-16, 2006 Lahore will be held at HOLIDAY INN HOTEL Lahore organized by
P@SHA (Pakistan Software Houses Association) in collaboration with Cisco
Systems and the Punjab IT Board.

ONLY registered participants that have RECIEVED confirmations shall be
allowed to participate in the two day events due to limitation of space. For
all those participants that yet have not received confirmations or still
require registration, kindly register before the call is CLOSED this week
since there are only limited seats left to be occupied.

You can still register for FREE by sending an email to the President P@SHA
Ms. Jehan Ara at jehan@... including your Name, Address, Contact
and Organization Information. Upon acceptance, you will receive a
confirmation.

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE & WORKSHOP

The massive popularity of wireless networking has caused equipment costs to
continually plummet, while equipment capabilities continue to increase. By
applying this technology in rural areas in Pakistan that are badly in need
of critical communications infrastructure, more people can be brought online
than ever before, in less time, for very little cost. We hope to not only
convince you that this is possible, but also show how we have made such
networks work, and to give you the information and tools you need to start a
network project in your local community.

P@SHA (Pakistan Software Houses Association) is planning a Rural Networking
conference and Hands-on Workshop on Nov 15-16, 2006 in Lahore at Holiday Inn
Hotel in collaboration with Cisco Systems and the Punjab IT Board. The
intent is to have a one day conference followed by a hands-on workshop and
actually deployment in one of the towns or villages close to Lahore.

INTERNATIONAL SPEAKERS

Jim Forster
Co-author of the book "Wireless Networking in the Developing World" and
Cisco's 30th employee (they now number in the tens of thousands) is coming
to Lahore at our request for the Keynote address and to be part of several
panels. Download his book today from: http://wndw.net/

Malcolm Maston
An entrepreneur in the telecoms and IT sectors. Malcom formed COLT Telecoms
as an OPLAN - Europe's first all-fibre public telecommunications network but
exited the Company when it abandoned the 'open' strategy. Since then he has
promoted the OPLAN concept consistently around the world - doing so now in
the name of the OPLAN Foundation (www.oplan.org) which he founded in 2005 as
a not-for-profit body dedicated to 'opening minds to open networks'.

Bjarke Nielsen
An educational leader at DIIRWB (Djursland International Institute of Rural
Wireless Broadband) and he founded the DjurslandS.net, one of the World's
biggest non-commercial rural wireless networks, connecting rural schools,
-institutions, -firms and -up to now more than 5000 rural households to the
Internet.

DIIRWB is an institute for training builders of cheap rural wireless
broadband, based on the experience of establishing and running of the
DjurslandS.net. DIIRWB is a cooperation of the "Computer Support Community
of Djursland" and "the Grenaa Technical School".

Bjarke founded the Computer Support Community of Djursland in 1993 and has
been its chairman ever since. He is also the chairman of GrenaaS.net. He
also chairs all pilot projects on rural wireless networks in the EU-funded
"Baltic Rural Broadband Project" in the countries around the Baltic sea in
Northern Europe, and are also project-responsible for the Danish part called
"Networking Djursland".

Corinna"Elektra" Aichele.
Elektra's main interests include autonomous power systems and wireless
communication (antennas, wireless long shots, mesh networking). She made a
small Linux distro based on slack-ware geared to wireless mesh networking.

Vickram Crishna
Vickram Crishna has worked in the fields of engineering, media and
management consultancy for over 25 years since his graduation from IIT Delhi
in 1975. Today his focus lies in expanding the use of communication and
computing to reach a wider audience than has been possible in the
techno-economic scenario we live in. He has worked for over eighteen years
as an independent management and technology consultant and journalist.

Dr. Arun Mehta
Dr. Arun Mehta is a graduate of IIT Delhi. He is a computer scientist with a
PhD in Computer Science from Germany. His work for the most part has focused
on bringing technology to the less advantaged - whether it be those with
special needs or those in India's vast rural sector. He is presently,
amongst other things, head of computer science at a university in Radaur,
about 4 hours drive from Delhi. He is the developer of Elocutor, the
software for the famous Dr. Stephen Hawking.

Let's benefit together, registration is free and open so hurry up and send
your nominations with name, contact address and phone; organization should
reach the President P@SHA Ms. Jehan Ara at jehan@... as soon as
possible so that we can confirm your participation and notify you about the
venue.

Regards
-----------------------
Fouad Riaz Bajwa
General Secretary - FOSS Advocate
FOSSFP: Free & Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan ® Secretariat
Member
BytesForAll Network South Asia
BytesForAll Regional FLOSS Consortium
Office Contact
Cell: 92-333-4661290
Tel: 92-42-5030039



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Would appreciate if any one who understands this field could comment
on how serious and successful these projects are. --FN

Pashtu Localization Project
This project is designed to initiate and facilitate the
localization of Open Source Software into Pashtu, the
majority language of Afghanistan and the border areas of
Pakistan.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/localizepashtu/

Urdu Localization
Urdu internationalization utilities. Three utilities: Inpage
converter, typing tutor and collating/search will be made
available initially.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/urdu/

Urdu Font Project
Urdu Font Project is a step towards Opensource development of
True Type Unicode Standard based Urdu Fonts specially
"Nastaleeq", "Nastaleeq" Like and "Naskh" fonts.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/urdufontproject/

Urdu Indic Initiative
This is the F/LOSS-based localization (l10n) Initiative for
Urdu as spoken in the Indian sub-continent. We are working
towards a localized GNOME/KDE, Mozilla Firefox and
OpenOffice.org for ur_IN based on the Unicode Standard and
associated technologies.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/urduindic/

Urdu Bulletin Board
A Mozilla-Firefox Plugin which enables Urdu Typing/Rendering
for HTML Pages.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/urdu-bb/

RabtPad
RabtPad is a configurable unicode and Java based text editor
for arabic based scripts including Urdu and Farsi with
virtual keyboard for not latin scripts on latin based
systems, export to pdf, rtf, html and plain text (later xml).
http://sourceforge.net/projects/rabtpad/

PyUrduEdit
PyUrduEdit is a simple text editor for the Urdu
language.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pyurduedit/

Urdu phpBB
An Urdu adaptation of the phpBB forum software complete with
langauge translation and an online Urdu editor.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/urduphpbb/

Urdu OCR SDK
It is under progress and will be capable of of recognition of
Urdu isolated character recognition. It is an SDK for offline
Urdu character recognition.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/urduocrsdk/
--
FN 9822122436 +91-832-240-9490 (phone calls after 1 pm please)
Free the airwaves... for India's sake (see the article at the URL below)
[http://www.tehelka.com/home/20061111/20061111.asp?filename=18.jpg]

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Great news!

Sun picks GPL (ver 2.0) for Java code.

Check the link:

http://news.com.com/Sun+picks+GPL+license+for+Java+code/2100-7344_3-6134584.html


regards,
Tamim Shahriar (Subeen),
Lecturer, Dept. of CSE,
State University of Bangladesh.

Dear All
I'm happy to inform you that Ekushey.Org has released the first Unicode
Bangla Solution for Apple Computer Inc.'s Mac OS X. Ekushey is working
to improve Bangla Computing for a long time with the promise of
"Independent Bangla Computing".

Ekushey is the only organization which is working to implement Bangla in
Unicode. Two fonts and two different keyboard layouts are included in
Ekushey's new package for Mac OS X. These fonts and keyboard layouts are
already available for Windows under Ekushey’s Font and Keyboard projects.

Ekushey's Mac OS X project is to convert Ekushey's existing fonts and
keyboard layouts for Mac OS X. Although seven keyboard layouts for
Windows and eleven fonts for Windows and Linux are available, Ekushey
has released only two keyboard layouts and two fonts for Mac users so far.

These solutions for Mac users are available from Ekushey's web site
under Open Source GPL license. Anybody can download and use the
solutions absolutely free from: http://www.ekushey.org/projects/osx/

Enjoy Bangla Computing in the Unicode Way!

--
Omi Azad
Contributor
Bangla Computing & Localization Projects:
Ekushey: http://www.ekushey.org

DRAFT

MUCH POTENTIAL IN A LAND WHERE FOSS IS SEEN AS AN OPTION TO 'PIRACY'
Government and industry support makes it happen in Pakistan

FN

Pakistan -- the sixth most populous country in the world,
home to the second most populous city in the world, and the
second most populous Muslim country [1] -- is having an
interesting encounter with FOSS (Free and Open Source
Software). Its experience with FOSS contrasts with those of
neighbouring countries in South Asia, as also with those in
the rest of the Asian continent.

Initially, and  now too, the debate has seen FOSS being
promoted as an option to piracy. In Pakistan, FOSS gets
support from initiatives supported by the government (OSRC),
industry, and through coverage in the mainstream media.
Statements from senior officials have played a role in
shaping Pakistan's approach to FOSS. There have been
indications that the official world is willing to both fund
initiatives to promote FOSS, and take cognisance of existing
volunteer initiatives.

While useful initiatives are underway, like elsewhere, the
issue of making all these 'visible' -- both in tech circuits
and to the general public -- still probably remains an
unfulfilled need.

Diverse techie networks and individuals, both home-based and
expat, have lent a hand in promoting FOSS in this part of the
world. More could be done though in terms of building
networks in different parts of the country, specially when it
comes to building a national network across the diverse
regions of Pakistan.

'Piracy'
--------

Pakistan, a country often facing criticism for what the world
of proprietorial software terms as 'piracy' (i.e. the illegal
copying of software) [2], is placing its faith in the Free
Software and Open Source options, to get out of this trap and
also build local skills. Pakistan enters global listings as
having the-fifth highest 'piracy' rate in the world, after
Vietnam, Zimbabwe, Indonesia and along-with China where piracy
is also estimated at 86% [2]. In this context, a promotion of
FOSS not only makes sense to avoid global pressures over
'piracy', but also build independent local skills.

"Sure, piracy is far high. If
everybody somehow started using
Linux, we'd fall below the US
piracy levels, and maybe have
2% piracy. We want to be ahead
of these guys before they start
their next 'war on terrorism'
(using the issue of
'intellectual property')."
-- Salman Ansari, 2002

As Fouad Riaz Bajwa, general secretary of the Free and Open
Source Software of Pakistan (FOSS-FP), launched in 2005,
said: "Our goal is to help people identify open alternatives
to 'pirated' (or illegally copied) software. Our aims is also
to identify processes by which people, governments,
enterprise and the civil sector can use Free/Libre and Open
Source Software for their sustainable economic development." [3]

Way back in 2003, these issues were already being put on the
agenda through official statements. [4] Pakistan Ministry of
Science and Technology advisor Salman Ansari then raised the
possibility of some 50,000 low cost computers, PIIs costing
$100 each,  being installed in schools and colleges all over
Pakistan. Ansari said proprietary software for these PCs
would cost a small fortune, surely more than what the
computers cost. Using GNU/Linux would ensure low overall
prices. "Don't be surprised if we become the first country in
the world to say that all (government-run) services are going
to be GNU/Linux based," Ansari had then said in a NewsForge
interview.

Techies, and community
----------------------

From techies come other interesting initiatives. What is
surprising is the low-level of awareness about projects that
could have much relevance to Pakistan, South Asia and beyond.

For instance, Zeeshan Ali Khattak developed the Video-Whale
Project, which assembled a group of Red-Hat GNU/Linux boxes
into a wall of video. The Video-Whale Project is an
implementation of a video wall which exploits the combined
power of FOSS tools Gstreamer and Xinerama. With it, four
monitors are controlled by one machine, and a LAN of four
machine controls a 16-monitor video wall. It comes across as
a very interesting implementation of low-cost alternative
technology to meet needs of the hardware-constrained,
resource-poor but talent-rich Third World. [5]

"The [GNU]Linux community is
very large, but it needs to be
assembled together." -- Zeeshan
'Shan' Ashraf.

Fawad Halim has written a man interface in PHP. Code is being
distributed under the GNU GPL. There are also some attempts
at community building. Apart from the main Pakistan Linux
Users Community, other regional LUGs (or user-groups) that
have been noticed in recent years include the Sindhi's Linux
User Group (SLUG) in Hyderabad, Sindh, in the Indus Valley.
Not all have maintained activity though.

In 2002, the international site tracking FOSS news, NewsForge
[6] commented "Linux gains ground in Pakistan" [7].  While
the potential was noted, so were the shortcomings that
blocked the growth of FOSS in Pakistan.

Meraj Rasoo was quoted saying: "The drawback (blocking the
growth of FOSS) is trained people, I mean there is no such
institute or college (other than a few) who may have
qualified or experienced people in Linux. So no good Linux
training. For a business point of view, if you implement
Linux in (your) business, it would be very hard for you to
get support from any IT company. Because currently no one is
offering its support services for Linux. So it is also a
major drawback. The same I told to the Director of ASPLinux
[http://asp-linux.com] , who is from Pakistan. What we need
here in Pakistan is trained people so that we could give
support to the businesses who migrate to Linux. On the other
hand most of the ISPs in Pakistan are using Linux as their
platform...." [8]

Since then, the situation has changed somewhat, as the links
below would indicate.

"I'm interested in [GNU]Linux
because of the fact that in
[GNU]Linux you know what's
going on. Nothing is hidden
from you behind nice dialog
boxes as in Windows. It's a
very good toy for me as I can
play and tweak as much as I
want and I have all the
necessary help and information
from the Net." -- Zuhair Ali,
worked in networking and has
done his Masters in Physics and
Systems Engineering

As NewsForge's Robin "Roblimo" Miller commented in the same
article: "One contributing factor is -- like everywhere else
in the world -- proprietary software producers' increasingly
aggressive licensing enforcement. Pakistan is one of the
countries where almost all individuals and small- or
medium-sized businesses have historically used software they
either copied themselves or bought under the table, which
means Linux has offered little or no cost advantage over
Windows."

It has been suggested that in a context of much talent, the
high cost of proprietorial software, and some degree of
official support, FOSS appears to be well placed for growth
in Pakistan. It would help however if there was greater
awareness of initiatives in diverse parts of the country.
There is also a pressing need for greater communication among
the diverse islands of excellence that Pakistan has already
created, so as to encourage others to both find role-models
and enter the field themselves.

Recognising the community
-------------------------

In June 2002, the English-language newspaper 'The Dawn'
published from the port city of Karachi, announced: "... The
Government of Pakistan is committing itself to the reduction
of piracy and the protection of intellectual property. Linux
and open source technologies are the corner stone of this
initiative."

Pakistan's Technology Resource Mobilization Unit
(www.tremu.gov.pk) was been established by the Government of
Pakistan to enable groups of professionals to exchange views
and coordinate activities in their sectors.

"These physical and virtual groups involve volunteers in
Pakistan and abroad, who contribute to policy making by the
Government of Pakistan. Each group has national and regional
coordinators. Meetings, seminars and conferences are held to
debate, crystallize and propagate relevant ideas, concepts
and policy directions," the Pakistani government announced.
On the GNU/Linux front, "the task force is expected to
include committed professionals (e.g.PLUC), academics, and
practicing software developers to set the future direction
for Pakistan", it was officially announced via the Pakistani
press. PLUC is the Pakistan Linux Users' Community.

PLUC was formed in December 1999 by Abdul Basit. Initially,
there were just eight members in the group. In a couple of
months, the PLUC list increased to 30. By 2001, there were
100+. There were many more registered at
http://www.linuxpakistan.net Basit and his friends launched
this network from the Sir Syed University (SSUET) in Karachi.

In recent years, plans were announced to have a "Linux force"
-- as it has been described -- to hold meetings, seminars and
conferences to educate the user community. "They will also
come with proposals to the government (for) funding such as
the creation of user-friendly client/server software,
training strategies, local language software development, the
induction of Linux into (the) basic syllabi, etc," said the
government in an advert published in The Dawn newspaper.

TReMU, Pakistan's Technology Resource Mobilization Unit, in
the past, has plans to set up secure network and e-commerce
task forces too, in addition to the GNU/Linux task force.
"The main qualifications to participate are a commitment to
volunteer your time and intellectual inputs, to work in a
team, and to have a desire for the betterment of the
country," said TReMU.

It anticipated that these groups will "enable a sharing of
resources and ideas". Besides, TReMU has voiced hopes that
several of the ideas could germinate into development
projects and thus "translate the brainstorming, discussion
and planning sessions into practical realities". Forms to
sign-up were at www.gov.tremu.pk.

Some like Ovais Khan commented: "The interesting thing is
that the name of PLUC is in the ad. Congrats (to PLUC's key
driving force Abdul) Basit and all the others." But some felt
differently. Fawad Halim wrote: "I'm very skeptical about
anything (good) coming from the Government; but let's see
what comes out of this." Bilal Muddassir felt differently: "I
think the only organization that can mobilize immense amounts
of resources (of course if it wants to) for a particular
purpose currently in Pakistan is a government organization.
Being skeptical is okay..."

For some time now, officials in Pakistan have been talking
about "not stopping" the government from buying branded
(proprietorial) software, so long as they could justify their
decision and negotiate a good price. The need for a level
playing-field has also been stressed. "In a government
contract, if you're going to bid for computers which has a
legal OS and office suite, guess who's going to win," as
Ansari put it in an interview.

On the strategy has been encouraging legal software, enabling
a 'complete industry growth' for product development
(including tools based on GNU/Linux), and making people aware
of the powerful potential of FOSS.

New initiatives
---------------

In recent years and months, new initiatives have come up.

In Pakistan too, there are other networks -- like the
professional-based Linux Pakistan network, active since
earlier this decade.

FOSS-FP has been holding short-duration, single-day literacy
campaigns. They say they have given students free training on
installing and using Ubuntu Linux, Open Suse, Red Hat Fedora
Core. FOSS-FP is headed by a board of nine, with specialists
from the world of computer sciences, special education, and
gender-based representations. It networks with other
institutions such as CRULP (Centre for Research in Urdu
Language Processing), the FASTCE (Foundation for the
Advancement of Science and Technology), among others.

In Pakistan, FOSS-FP believes it contributed to helping 5000
individuals from 506 organisations in two years to shift over
to Ubuntu. "FOSS-FP provided technical support (to technical
reports) to 4000+ incidents. FOSSFP also released a book on
release of Ubuntu Drake. We hope to release a printed copy
soon, at a price of not more than Rs 150 (US$3 approx)," says
Fouad Bajwa.

The FAST initiatives on FOSS is made up of students. (FAST's
National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences is a
private information technology institute, established in 1980
under Foundation for the Advancement of Science and
Technology. www.nu.edu.pk)

Usage, Ubuntu
-------------

For long now, the highest rate of GNU/Linux usage has been on
the server side. Bulk of the ISPs use GNU/Linux. All
enterprise networks in Pakistan had -- and have -- a bridge
between the server side on GNU/Linux and the desktop network
on Windows. But with the entry of the simpler-to-use Ubuntu
distro, it is seen as something which could possibly change.
Easy to implement Urdu solutions to work on the Free Software
platform is one of the main priorities. Work is underway on
this front.

Comments FOSSFP's Fouad Bajwa: "Apart from its low-cost and
free-of-cost models, its greatest benefit particularly for
Pakistan is that FOSS can be localised into the 70 regional
languages spoken in Pakistan. This will provide versions of
FOSS that use Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Balochi, Pushto, Sariki,
Himalaya as an alternative to the widely available software
interfaces in English."

Some of the reasons for the slow spread of FOSS in Pakistan
have been identified as being due to the law of awareness,
software piracy, uncertainty of available support, lack of
active GNU/Linux user groups, and a lack of established
companies providing high-end training. (See Zeeshan Muhammad
in 'The Future is Open Source'
http://www.linuxpakistan.net/news/?q=node/254 )

Institutions
------------

Some of the institutions often named in FOSS-promotion
activities in Pakistan are the OSRC of the software-exports'
PSEB www.osrc. org.pk, Linux Task Force of the ministry of
science and technology www.tremu.gov.pk, Special Interest
Group of the Computer Society of Pakistan www.csp.org.pk/foss
and Linux Pakistan www. linuxpakistan.net are making their
contributions by creating awareness about the initiative.

Educational institutions offering FOSS training has been
identified as Peshawar University, SZABIST, MAJU, NUCS-FAST,
OpenTech, Oracle University, and APTECH (professional,
technical and managerial training) and GIK, NED, UET, or
NUST-NIIT (in the fields of engineering, GIS, etc).

This 'country profile' seeks to offer links to groups,
initiatives, issues and individuals taking FOSS forward in
Pakistan. Below are some specific links and resources.
Readers are requested to point out any omissions to fred at
bytesforall.org so that this could be corrected in future
releases.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan
[2] http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/05/23/78597_HN2005piracyrate_1.html
[3] http://tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=1262
[4] http://www.newsforge.com/software/03/10/05/162252.shtml?tid=132&tid=82
[5] http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/apps/videowhale.html
[6] http://newsforge.com/
[7] http://os.newsforge.com/os/01/12/20/1532225.shtml?tid=2
[8] http://os.newsforge.com/os/01/12/20/1532225.shtml?tid=2

RESOURCES AND NETWORKS IN PAKISTAN
-------------------------------------------------------------
AFFORDABLE SOFTWARE

Copied low-cost software available in Pakistan: Maintained by
Tariq Farooqi, 4 - E - 1/6 Nazimabad Karachi - 74600.
Low-priced CDs, in a range of distros. Debian, SkoleLinux,
Red Hat, Fedora, LTSP, En Garde Secure Linux,
Mandrake/Mandriva, Lycoris, Demo Linux, Knoppix, ASP Linux,
GLUE, Yoper, Ark Linux, AST Linux, redWall, EuroNode,
Startcom, OpenLX, Astrix@Home, ADIOS, Symphony, Slackware,
Vector Linux, Arch Linux, Free BSD, Lunar Linux, Debian NP
Live, Buffalo Linux, College Linux, SLAX Live, Blagg
Linux-LAMP Server, Trustix Linux Server, Trustix Firewall,
Lorma Linux, LAS Linux Server, SOL Linux, SuSE Linux, Gentoo
Linux, Damn Small Linux, Gnoppix Linux Live, Ubuntu Linux,
Kubuntu, Berry Linux Live, White Box-Enterprise Server, Tiny
Sofa-Enterprise Edition, YES Linux-Small Business Server, IP
Cop-Firewall Gateway, AUSTRUMI-Live, Debian Edu, OpenWall,
GoboLinux, Censor Net "Open source Internet Filtering &
Management solution", ZoneCD, Pentoo, Puppy, Admantix, Dragon
Fly BSD, JayOS, pfSense, PcBSD, GobLinx, Nonux, Freeduc,
Kanotix, Grml, KLAX, SaxenOS, SLAMPP, DDBackup, PCLinuxOS,
Finnix, TRIXBOX, SME Server, ZenWalk, NibleX, dyne:bolic,
easys, Fresh RPM's, Lycoris Dev Tools, INRIA Software,
Downloaded - Applications, Distro's and Manuals, LP ISO
Collection, GPL Software for Win_xx OS. Prices approx Rs 35
per CD. Contact linuxcd_AT_linuxpakistan_DOT_net
http://wapurl.co.uk/?FX3W2ZB OR
http://www.linuxpakistan.net/wiki/index.php?pagename=LinuxPakistanKarachiSoftwar\
e

Ubuntu Linux is available for download locally at
http://www.ubuntu-pk.org
http://www.fossfp.org
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/download/
http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/ubuntu-cd/

YES Linux Release Team <release@...> has announced
availability of YES Linux 2.2 Build 3.  This is the third
build of YES Linux 2.2.  This release features more updates
to features than to new features such as php, and apache.

http://www.khyberlinux.net
http://www.pakistanopensource.org
http://www.yeslinux.org

NETWORKS  IN PAKISTAN
-------------------------------------------------------------
MAILING LISTS

General -- LinuxPakistan General Discussion list
This is the list for general discussion at LinuxPakistan.net
general@...
http://mail.linuxpakistan.net/mailman/listinfo/general_linuxpakistan.net
362 non-digested members; 156 digested members as on Nov 12, 2006

pluc
106 Members, Archives: Public
New subscription requests will be sent to pluc@...
Moved to Mailman. At
http://mail.linuxpakistan.net/mailman/listinfo/general_linuxpakistan.net
Please subscribe to general@... instead. Even
though this list is still around, the activity on the list is
restricted. The new list has complete access for users.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pluc/

FOSSFP MAILING LISTS
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fossfp/join
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fossfp

The ICT4Pakistan Forum has been established by FOSSFP:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ict4pakistan/
93 members.

FLOSS network for South Asia (including Pakistan) set up
after the APC regional consultation in Dhaka, Bangladesh in
April 2006:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_floss/

linuxpromoters
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linuxpromoters/

PkOug_Linux
58 Members, Archives: Membership required
PkOug (Pakistan Oracle Users Group) SIG Linux
http://www.pkoug.org/sig/linux
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PkOug_Linux/

linux_pakistan
53 Members, Archives: Public
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linux_pakistan/

linux-system
18 Members, Archives: Public
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linux-system/

plpo
< 5 Members, Archives: Membership required
Group of users, programmers, gamers, administrators and
consultants for the [GNU]Linux platform.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/plpo/

linuxfoundation
45 Members
Linux Pakistan Research & Development
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linuxfoundation/

linuxpakistan
22 Members
A group dedicated to Linux experts in Pakistan
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linuxpakistan/

linuxworkshop_gift
13 Members
Linux GIFT University Gujranwala (Pakistan)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/linuxworkshop_gift/

Paklinuxclub
8 Members
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Paklinuxclub/

pakistan-linux
< 5 Members
An egroup for Pakistani Linux enthusiasts. The purpose is to
share knowledge, news and other issues about Pakistani Linux
community.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pakistan-linux/

lnxpakistan
< 5 Members, Archives: Public
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lnxpakistan/

Linux Pakistan.  Linux User group in Pakistan.
17 members.
http://groups.google.com/group/Linux-Pakistan

Ubuntu-Linux Pakistan Mailing List
http://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-pk

NETWORKS  IN PAKISTAN
-------------------------------------------------------------
WIKIS

LinuxPakistanWiki. (Currently not much information)
http://www.linuxpakistan.net/wiki/index.php/HomePage

Ubuntu-Linux Pakistan LoCo Team Community Wiki
http://ubuntu-pk.org

NETWORKS IN PAKISTAN
-------------------------------------------------------------
MISCELLANEOUS

Ubuntu Monthly Newsletter: Produced and Published by
Ubuntu-Linux Pakistan Local Team in collaboration with
FOSSFP: Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan
www.fossfp.org. Provide your feedback at bajwa at fossfp.org
Publishers say the Ubuntu-Pakistan Mailing List reaches to
800 subscribed members.

NETWORKS  IN PAKISTAN
-------------------------------------------------------------
ORGANISATIONS: REAL OR VIRTUAL

OSRC: The Open Source Resource Center (OSRC) was created by
the Pakistan Software Export Board (G) Ltd.
[http://www.pseb.org.pk/] at Islamabad. Its aim is to bring
together a wide range of expertise related to FOSS
technologies and resources at one place. It aims to enable IT
companies to access, share, and contribute the knowledge
"particular to the development and transformation of IT
products on Open Source technologies." This Resource Center
says it brings together established technology vendors,
startups, Open Ssource community members and enterprise IT
users/customers to jointly explore new opportunities for OSS
deployment and how to capitalize on them. The Resource Center
said it would serve local IT companies to discover
cutting-edge features of FOSS; offer detailed information on
the best practices in FOSS, bring in pragmatic guidance on
how to leverage FOSS in business; access the "comprehensive
knowledge base covering various facets" of FOSS; tackle
technical issues related to development, deployment,
distribution and packaging in general and to startups in
specific. It would also aim to hlep build networking of
professionals, start-ups, researchers and existing
communities Source: http://www.osrc.org.pk

Contacts: OSRC, Pakistan Software Export Board, Ministry of
Information Technology 2nd Floor, Evacuee Trust Complex Agha
Khan Road, Sector F-5, Islamabad Tel : 051 9208748 Fax: 051
9204075 Email: hosman@... URL:
[http://www.osrc.org.pk] ; [http://www.pseb.org.pk]

See details of OSRC seminars
http://www.osrc.org.pk/seminar/

LINUXPAKISTAN: http://www.linuxpakistan.net/
Linuxpakistan.net has some 4321 members in its discussion forum.

FOSSFP describes itself as "an organization that promotes
ICTs enablement through FOSS for reducing the digital divide
and promoting knowledge development and innovation."
http://www.fossfp.org/

NETWORKS  IN PAKISTAN
-------------------------------------------------------------
PROJECTS

"We have been actively involved
in open source training and
creating awareness, and by the
grace of Allah, today PING is
working on a completely open
source environment with an
ever-growing list of customers
who have migrated to Linux and
open source." -- Asaf Maruf
Ali, CEO of PING Systems
www.ping.com.pk. Quoted by
Zeeshan Muhammad in 'The Future
is Open Source'
http://www.linuxpakistan.net/news/?q=node/254

In May 2005, it was reported that the Ministry of Information
Technology [http://www.pakistan.gov.pk/moitt/index.jsp] is
currently implementing two open source software-related
projects under the Pakistan Software Export Board
[http://www.pseb.org.pk/] The "Automation of Domestic
Industry on Open Source Systems" project had as its aim to
develop Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software for "four
to five" industrial sectors and to introduce the automation
culture in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with a
developmental budget of Rs 38 million. It was announced:
"This project will create jobs by initiating open source
software development in Pakistan, and help local software
companies acquire knowledge and experience of open source
technologies. It is expected that this will help in
eliminating the software piracy issue in Pakistan, and also
bridge the gap between the local industry and software
companies."
http://mm.gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2005-May/003300.html

Seema Javed Amin noted that another project costing Rs 29
million, the Open Source Resource Center
[http://www.osrc.org.pk/] was meant to facilitate
"stake-holders and investors in the software industry, should
they decide to shift their businesses from vendor-dependent
proprietary software to open source software technology."

Yet another project costing Rs24 million was begun under the
auspices of the Pakistan Computer Bureau
[http://www.pcb.gov.pk/] "Its target is to create a talent
pool of 4,000 end-users and 200 systems administrators in
open source software technologies. It has already trained a
number of people in this regard. Another objective of this
exercise is to prepare related training material in a
simplistic format," Seema Javed Amin commented.
http://mm.gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2005-May/003300.html

NETWORKS  IN PAKISTAN
-------------------------------------------------------------
INTERESTING SOFTWARE PROJECTS FROM PAKISTAN, OR LINKED THERE

[Some in an initial stage of work, or at concept level.)

Fawad Halim's man software for PHP (a man interface in PHP)
http://www.linuxpakistan.net/man.php?source=1
Download 'saveable' code from
http://www.linuxpakistan.net/man.php.txt

Telenor SMS Script
Telenor SMS sender script enables you to can send SMS
to any Telenor mobile numbers. In Pakistan.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/telenorsms/

Pklinux (Minimal distribution set for all your basic
GNU/Linux needs)
http://linuxpakistan.sourceforge.net/pklinux/info.html

Pashtu Localization Project
This project is designed to initiate and facilitate the
localization of Open Source Software into Pashtu, the
majority language of Afghanistan and the border areas of
Pakistan.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/localizepashtu/

Urdu Localization
Urdu internationalization utilities. Three utilities: Inpage
converter, typing tutor and collating/search will be made
available initially.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/urdu/

Urdu Font Project
Urdu Font Project is a step towards Opensource development of
True Type Unicode Standard based Urdu Fonts specially
"Nastaleeq", "Nastaleeq" Like and "Naskh" fonts.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/urdufontproject/

Urdu Indic Initiative
This is the F/LOSS-based localization (l10n) Initiative for
Urdu as spoken in the Indian sub-continent. We are working
towards a localized GNOME/KDE, Mozilla Firefox and
OpenOffice.org for ur_IN based on the Unicode Standard and
associated technologies.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/urduindic/

Urdu Bulletin Board
A Mozilla-Firefox Plugin which enables Urdu Typing/Rendering
for HTML Pages.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/urdu-bb/

RabtPad
RabtPad is a configurable unicode and Java based text editor
for arabic based scripts including Urdu and Farsi with
virtual keyboard for not latin scripts on latin based
systems, export to pdf, rtf, html and plain text (later xml).
http://sourceforge.net/projects/rabtpad/

PyUrduEdit
PyUrduEdit is a simple text editor for the Urdu
language.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pyurduedit/

Urdu phpBB
An Urdu adaptation of the phpBB forum software complete with
langauge translation and an online Urdu editor.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/urduphpbb/

Urdu OCR SDK
It is under progress and will be capable of of recognition of
Urdu isolated character recognition. It is an SDK for off-line
Urdu character recognition.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/urduocrsdk/

Zeeshan Ali Khattak developed the Video-Whale Project, which
assembled a group of Red-Hat GNU/Linux boxes into a wall of
video. The Video-Whale Project is an implementation of a
video wall which exploits the combined power of Gstreamer and
Xinerama. With it, four monitors are controlled by one
machine, and a LAN of four machine controls a 16-monitor
video wall. It comes across as a very interesting
implementation of low-cost alternative technology to meet
needs of the hardware-constrained, resource-poor but
talent-rich Third World.
http://gstreamer.freedesktop.org/apps/videowhale.html

Sahana is a secure Web portal that provides applications for
coordination and collaboration in the aftermath of disasters.
Applications include finding missing people, connecting
organizations, reporting on the distribution of aid and
services, matching donations to requests, tracking temporary
shelters, and, overall, providing transparency and visibility
to groups working in a disaster. Key features include GIS,
biometrics, PDA support, and availability in the form of a
live CD. From Sri Lanka, but deployed in Pakistan following
the 2005 Pakistan earthquake.
http://sourceforge.net/potm/potm-2006-06.php

NETWORKS  IN PAKISTAN
-------------------------------------------------------------
CAMPAIGNS

FOSSAC'2005 1st National Free and Open Source Software
Awareness Campaign 2005 (August 2005) At the Punjab
University College of Information Technology
(PUCIT),University of the Punjab, Allana Iqbal (Old) Campus,
Lahore, Pakistan.  FOSSAC'2005 was a four day mass awareness
and training event organized by [FOSSFP]Free and Open Source
Software Foundation of Pakistan – Punjab University College
of Information Technology PUCIT, Pakistan Software Export
Board-Open Source Resource Centre PSEB-OSRC with support by
UNDP-IOSN International Open Source Network to promote
nationwide awareness about the benefits of Free and Open
Source Software and to persuade organizations and individuals
of Pakistan to use Free & Open Source Software by providing
an alternative to Pirated Proprietary Software."
http://www.fossfp.org/fossac

NETWORKS  IN PAKISTAN
--------------------------------------------------------------
LOCAL LANGUAGE COMPUTING

Ubuntu Pakistan Team Urdu-l10n International Translation Team
(Noumaan Yaqoob, Team Lead) has announced the localizing --
including the new "language-pack-gnome-ur 1.6.06+2 Pack" --
in the latest Ubuntu Linux version 6.10 global distribution
which gives support for Urdu at installation. The latest
version comes with an installable Urdu Pack by default and is
also available when upgrading Ubuntu 6.06 LTS version to
Ubuntu 6.10. Test new features and report them to
noumaan{at}ubuntu-pk{dot}org

Noumaan and team created and contributing Pakistan's first
public Urdu Word Bank and Dictionary accessible at
http://l10n.urduweb.org/dictionary as well as translating the
latest versions of Gnome Interface into Urdu. Saadat Saeed,
an Ubuntu Pakistan team member, introduced the first Ubuntu
Linux Urdu Editor "PyUrduEdit".
https://sourceforge.net/projects/pyurduedit

According to Faoud Bajwa, Team Lead Localized Documentation
Team Waqas Toor is shortly (as of October 2006) introducing
the Ubuntu Desktop and Server Guides in Urdu that will also
be available in the future versions of Ubuntu Distributions
as default availability. Contact: waqas{at no
spam}ubuntu-pk.org

An announcement said teams are now "gearing up for Sindhi and
Punjabi translations" and volunteers have been sought. Ubuntu
Pakistan Team claims to have over 40 volunteer developers and
contributors.

Register at:
https://launchpad.net/people/ubuntu-pk (Ubuntu Pakistan Team)
https://launchpad.net/people/ubuntu-l10n-ur (Ubuntu Urdu l10n Team)
Subscribe: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-l10n-urd
https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-pk

To participate in translation:
Urdu: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/edgy/+lang/ur
Sindhi: https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/edgy/+lang/sd

Open Office 2.0+ is already available with Urdu Support, with
efforts coming in from India, but that has to be added as a
separate language pack, according to Bajwa.

o Kamran Azeem (RHCE) has contributed Computer Based Training
programs for learning Linux in Urdu. CDs from
www.wbitt.com/urducbts according to a post by Fouad Riaz
Bajwa <bajwa@...> DVDs Rs 500 each. Contact Kamran:
kamran@...

o According to Gora Mohanty [gora_mohanty at yahoo.co.in] in
New Delhi there are now GPL-licensed Urdu fonts from an
organization called PakType. * CDAC, Pune has localized the
OpenOffice 2.0 user interface into Urdu, though there are
some issues with the drop-down selection boxes for a LTR
language. * Work has also been started on a Hindi-Urdu
transliterator, which can help by allowing a
first-approximation transliteration from Hindi to Urdu, that
can then be reviewed by an Urdu speaker.

   Other links:

o  FOSSFP Urdu Language Localization Project - ULLP
   http://www.fossfp.org/ullp

o  Urdu Linux Localization Project Presentation
   http://www.fossfp.org/fossac/downloads/ullp/ubuntu_localization.pps

o  Urdu Linux Localization Project Steps
   http://www.fossfp.org/fossac/downloads/ullp/steps_for_ubuntu_ver3.doc

o  Urdu Linux Localization Project Brochure
   http://www.fossfp.org/fossac/downloads/ullp/pamphetlet.doc

o Khalid Latif [klatif at ifs.tuwien.ac.at] says National
Langauges Authority (NLA) and FAST-NU had worked together on
developing nastaleeq true types font for Urdu and also an
installable windows keyboard layout [1,2]. True-type-fonts
also exists, he says [3].

[1] http://www.crulp.org/
[2] http://www.cicc.or.jp/english/hyoujyunka/mlit4/7-10Pakistan/Pakistan2.html
[3] http://www.crulp.org/linuxphonetickb.html

MISCELLANEOUS LINKS
-------------------------------------------------------------

Linux Pakistan User Group http://www.linuxpakistan.net
Linux Pakistan latest posts
Forum: http://www.linuxpakistan.net/forum/
News: http://www.linuxpakistan.net/news/?q=rss.xml
Jobs: http://www.linuxpakistan.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=9
Linux Pakistan News Portal: http://www.linuxpakistan.net/news/

Linux Pakistan General discussion list
http://mail.linuxpakistan.net/mailman/listinfo/general_linuxpakistan.net

Linux Pakistan Karachi
http://www.linuxpakistan.net/wiki/index.php?pagename=LinuxPakistanKarachi

Software avaiilable:
http://www.linuxpakistan.net/wiki/index.php?pagename=LinuxPakistanKarachiSoftwar\
e

Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan http://www.fossfp.org
Ohloh service http://www.ohloh.net
FOSSFP chapters http://www.fossfp.org/chapters
Rosetta http://www.launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/dapper/+lang/ur
BytesForAll FLOSS Localization
http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/bytesforall_floss

SOLUTIONS ... AND THE SEARCH FOR THEM
-------------------------------------------------------------

ERP GUIDE FOR PAKISTAN: Fouad Riaz Bajwa <bajwa@...>
has written a guide ERP-Rising in SPIDER Magazine, March-June
2003 which focuses on Enterprise Resource Planning in
Pakistan. More recently, he has been working on the second
edition of ERP-Rising "that will take into account ERP
implementation case studies from the Pakistani IT Industry
scene." Bajwa says they plan to also "be focusing on OSS
based ERP solutions identifying their viable market options
for Pakistan, presenting open business models that can be
taken into account." To share case studies, implementation
experiences, the pros and cons of OSS ERP solutions contact
bajwa at fossfp.org

PSEB-OSRC's Industrial Automation Project, also known as
BRIDGE-OPEN SOURCE Project was worth Rs.60 million that has
developed 4 OSS (Java/Postgre/Fedora/RedHat/Ubuntu) ERP
solutions to be deployed at member companies, according to
PSEB. PSEB has partnered with four industrial associations --
All Pakistan Textiles Processing Mills Association, Pakistan
Association of Automotive Parts and Accessories
Manufacturers, Pakistan Ready-made Garments Manufacturers
Association/Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association, and
the Surgical Instruments Manufactures Association. Initially
the solution will be provided to fifteen industrial units in
each of these four sectors. http://www.osrc.org.pk or
http://www.pseb.org.pk/page.php?page_id=100

ANNEXURES
-------------------------------------------------------------

o Tune your brains, by Fouad Riaz Bajwa: Open source software
has gradually made its way across the shores to Pakistan. It
is not only major organisations but also interested
individuals that can benefit massively from its arrival
http://www.spider.tm/sep2006/cstory1.html

o The open and closed case by Nizar Diamond Ali: A study of
open and closed source software reveals why more corporate
and home users are making the shift towards open source
http://www.spider.tm/sep2006/cstory2.html

o The Open Option By Seema Javed Amin, May 21, 2005
http://www.dawn.com/weekly/science/science6.htm

o My Ubuntu experience, by By Noumaan Yaqoob: A computer user
explains his reasons for switching from the near-ubiquitous
Windows operating system to a user-friendly version of Linux
called Ubuntu. http://www.spider.tm/sep2006/cstory3.html

o The Future is Open Source By Zeeshan Muhammad
http://www.linuxpakistan.net/news/?q=node/254

o In Pakistan, the Government looks to the Linux users' group
http://www.freelists.org/archives/linuxinindia/09-2002/msg00002.html

Feedback to: Frederick Noronha fredericknoronha at gmail.com
--
FN 0091-9822122436 +91-832-240-9490

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OPEN FORCES -
Monthly Global Free and Open Source Software Updates Newsletter

By Fouad Riaz Bajwa, your everyday friendly FOSS Advocate

********************

Monthly Quote: "And they thought we FOSS advocates were joking!"

November Features

********************

* French Parliament: Au Revoir Windows, Bonjour Linux

* New Thai IT Minister Rubbishes Open Source

* Thai FOSS Community Responds to IT Minister

* Looking to the long term

* French MPs dump Windows for Linux

* Birmingham City Council claims open-source success

* Pakistan looks to free software

* Nepalese NGO Releases NepaLinux 1.1

* FOSS.IN India A Grand Success

* Free and Open Source Software gets new 'poster girl'

* Philippine Law Mandates Use of Open Source in Government

* Tarique Sani, once a doc now software expert

* Bill Gates talks Vista and Linux

* Microsoft and Novell clash over patents

* MPs: Open source faces exclusion in schools

* TOF-E Survey The OpenForum Europe

* Sun releases Java as open-source project

* Open source and the mass market

* Big Three Search Engines Back Single, Open Protocol

* Linux Adoption (Wikipedia)

White Papers:

* Exploiting the Potential of Linux - CA

* TCO for Application Servers: Comparing Linux with Windows and Solaris -
Robert Frances Group

Story of the Month:

* Free software's Faustian moment


Now here we go!


French Parliament: Au Revoir Windows, Bonjour Linux

********************
By Jay Lyman | LinuxInsider | 11/28/06 3:42 PM PT
The French parliament this week announced plans to move from Windows to
Linux by the middle of 2007. Come next June, roughly 1,150 desktop PCs will
be running on Linux and open source software. The move comes on the heels of
Linux adoption by other French government agencies; cost savings reportedly
is the primary motivation for the switch from Windows to open source.
http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/54462.html


New Thai IT Minister Rubbishes Open Source

********************
After just over a month in office, Thailands new ICT minister Professor
Sitthichai Pokai-udom has declared the current government focus on Free and
Open Source Software a case of the blind leading the blind.
http://www.localfoss.org/New_Thai_IT_Minister_Rubbishes_Open_Source


Thai FOSS Community Responds to IT Minister

********************
An Open Letter to the Thai IT Minister has been released in response to his
claims that Free and Open Source Software is lacking in IP and offers
Thailand no value. I've reproduced an english translation below.
http://www.localfoss.org/Thai_FOSS_Community_Responds_to_IT_Minister


Looking to the long term

********************
Maxwell Cooter | Techworld | November 30, 2006
You don't have to be a Linux fanatic to give three cheers to Birmingham
Council. Three cheers because the council's decision to proceed with a trial
of open-source software- even though an independent report said it was the
cheaper option - is gratifying for three reasons.
http://www.techworld.com/applications/blogs/index.cfm?blogid=4&entryid=324


French MPs dump Windows for Linux

********************
Christophe Guillemin | ZDNet France | Published: 27 Nov 2006 09:03 GMT
After the gendarmes and the Ministry of Culture, it's French MPs' turn to
switch to open source. From June 2007, PCs in French députés' offices will
be equipped with a Linux operating system and open source productivity
software. The project, backed by MPs Richard Cazenav and Bernard Carayon of
the UMP party, will see 1,154 French parliamentary workstations running on
an open source OS, with OpenOffice.org, Firefox and an open source email
client.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39284863,00.htm


Birmingham City Council claims open-source success

********************
Matthew Broersma | Techworld
Birmingham City Council has defended its year-long trial of desktop Linux,
claiming it to be a success, despite an independent report showing it would
have been cheaper to install Windows XP.
http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?newsid=7459


Pakistan looks to free software

********************
Frederick Noronha | 8 November, 2006
Pakistan, a country often criticised for software piracy, is looking at free
and open source software as a way to transform its image and build local
skills.
http://www.tectonic.co.za/view.php?id=1262


Nepalese NGO Releases NepaLinux 1.1

********************
The Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya, a non-government organisation that describes
itself as the "principal archive of books and periodicals in the nepali
language", has released version 1.1 of NepaLinux.
http://www.localfoss.org/NepaLinux_1._1_Released


FOSS.IN India A Grand Success
Geeks and coders get support from government, corporations

********************
Frederick Noronha | Indo Asian News Service | Bangalore, Nov 26 (IANS)
It was started as a movement of long-haired geeks and coders, but today the
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) network is now seeing some big
corporate names and government institutions backing it with funding and
support in various ways. FOSS.in, the premier national event of the Free and
Open Source Software community, held here over the weekend, drew support
from web giant Google and software giant Sun Microsystems, with India's
ministry of communications and information technology as its principal
sponsor.
http://foss4us.org/ians....


Free and Open Source Software gets new 'poster girl'

********************
Bangalore |Nov 28 | (IANS)
India's Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement just has got a new
poster-boy, or rather girl -- Suparna Bhattacharya, the star of the
just-concluded FOSS.in event held here and presenter of the inaugural
keynote, is seen as one of India's most respected Linux kernel developers.
http://www.southasianews.com/112611/Free-and-Open-Source-Software-gets-new-p
oster-girl-.htm
Do read: Opening Doors to Open Source For Women
http://www.itmanagersjournal.com/feature/20990
HOWTO Encourage Women in Linux  http://infohost.nmt.edu/~val/howto.html


Philippine Law Mandates Use of Open Source in Government

********************

Officials in the Philippines have introduced a bill mandating the use of
open source software and open standards in all government programs. The law
would make proprietary software appropriate only when a proprietary system
is already in place and there is no available open source alternative, this
piece says.  http://www.itbusinessedge.com/item/?ci=20191
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/item/?ci=20191
Must Read: Open Source Becoming Increasingly Attractive To Governments
http://www.idm.net.au/story.asp?id=7467


Tarique Sani, once a doc now software expert

********************
For Paediatrician turned software expert Dr Tarique Sani passion has
overruled profession. After practising medicine for over ten years Dr Sani
shifted to his primary love -- software programming and since 2000 onwards
is pursuing his passion through the SANI Soft Technology Pvt Ltd along with
his wife Swati Sani.
http://news.hitavadaonline.com/news/index.php?mode=single&page=10&n=11473


Bill Gates talks Vista and Linux

********************
CNET - Bill Gates is pretty confident that when he spots an emerging
technology, it will emerge. Exactly when that happens, though, is sometimes
a question mark.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39284778,00.htm


Microsoft and Novell clash over patents

********************
Richard Thurston | ZDNet UK
Novell and Microsoft have clashed over the question of whether Linux
infringes Microsoft's intellectual property, just 18 days into their
controversial partnership. Earlier this month the two companies formed an
alliance to "improve interoperability" between Windows and Novell's Suse
Linux. This includes Microsoft offering Novell products to customers who
wish to deploy a mixed proprietary/open-source environment. As part of a
complicated series of payments, Novell is also paying Microsoft $40m to
ensure Microsoft won't sue Suse customers for patent infringement.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39284802,00.htm
The crazy fight:
http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10004553o-2000331777b,00.htm
http://www.novell.com/linux/microsoft/community_open_letter.html
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/nov06/11-20Statement.mspx
http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2006/112106-ballmer-linux.html?fsrc=rss-linux
-news


MPs: Open source faces exclusion in schools

********************
Richard Thurston ZDNet UK | Published: 27 Nov 2006 14:37 GMT
A group of MPs have accused a government agency of restricting schools from
deploying open-source software. Nineteen MPs, led by former teacher John
Pugh, are backing a parliamentary motion which claims that Becta (British
Educational Communications and Technology Agency), the government's advisors
on the use of ICT in education, is using outdated frameworks which exclude
suppliers of open source software
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39284874,00.htm


TOF-E Survey The OpenForum Europe

********************
- TOFE - is creating a marketplace where buyers and suppliers of Open Source
Software and Open Solutions can meet and do business. Background Reference:
Breakthrough For Open Source Software in Europe The Open Forum Europe Press
Release 15.11.05
A consortium of companies in Denmark, the UK and Ireland, working with
campaign group Open Forum Europe, has won a prestigious contract to promote
open source software throughout the 25 member states of the European Union.
The consortium has eighteen months to set up a series of portals to help
small companies, entrepreneurs, councils and governments to see how using
open source rather than branded software can save them money and improve
their security.
http://survey.tofe.ie/
http://www.openireland.org/sections/survey/tof-e-press-release/


Sun releases Java as open-source project

********************
The Associated Press | Published : November 13, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO: Computer server and software maker Sun Microsystems said
Monday that it had begun to make its Java technology an open-source software
project available for free on the Internet. The announcement represents one
of the largest additions of computer code to the open-source community - and
it marks a major shift for a company that had once fiercely protected the
source code used in 3.8 billion cell phones, supercomputers, medical devices
and other gadgets.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/13/business/web.1113sun.php


Open source and the mass market

********************
ZDNET - Why isn't open source stronger in the mass market? There have been
free programs that are strong in the mass market. Firefox is one. OpenOffice
is another. Linux is a third. But in each case we're mainly talking about
altruism motivating the provider, and we're not talking about big market
share. The folks who get value out of such products (I am one) don't need
support. We muddle through on our own.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=803


Big Three Search Engines Back Single, Open Protocol

********************
By Jennifer LeClaire | TechNewsWorld | 11/17/06 2:32 PM PT
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have put aside their rivalry in the search
business to agree on an open protocol designed to make it easier for all of
their search technologies to extract information from Web sites. Sitemaps
0.90 allows webmasters to universally submit their content in a uniform
manner.


Linux Adoption

********************
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux adoption refers to the uptake of the Linux operating system by homes,
organisations and governments. Linux migration refers to the change over to
Linux from other operating systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_adoption

********************

Whitepapers:

Exploiting the Potential of Linux - CA

********************
Why Linux is the right alternative for organizations seeking to optimize
resources and improve service as well as the challenges presented in
integrating Linux into a heterogeneous IT environment.
Exploiting the potential of LInux white paper.pdf (PDF document 77Kb)
http://www.opensourceacademy.org.uk/solutions/whitepapers/exploiting-the-pot
ential-of-linux-ca/file


TCO for Application Servers: Comparing Linux with Windows and Solaris
********************
Robert Frances Group
A TCO data quantitative analysis to highlight current operating system
experiences of Windows, Solaris and Linux.
RobertFrancesGroupLinuxTCOAnalysis05 .pdf (PDF document 177Kb)
http://www.opensourceacademy.org.uk/solutions/whitepapers/tco-for-applicatio
n-servers/file



********************

Story of the Month!

Free software's Faustian moment

********************

SANTEC Educational Technology for Development http://www.santecnetwork.org
Felix Cohen | Becky Hogge | 21 - 11 - 2006

A recent deal between Microsoft and Novell has ignited the long- smouldering
controversy about whether code can be owned. Is it the first step towards a
two-tier software economy?

Free Software is big business. This may come as a surprise to those whose
understanding of open source software development practice ends at the
caffeinated hacker contributing code in the small hours from the comfort of
his bedroom. But in between this, and the fact that five of the ten most
reliable web hosters run their sites on the open source operating system
Linux, is the story of an industry of support and bespoke development that
gives the major corporations running this software the products and peace of
mind they need to conduct business on a grand scale.

Although desktop users may prefer distributions of Linux, such as Ubuntu,
which are free (as in beer) as well as free (as in freedom), those,
including openDemocracy, whose businesses rely on the software they use to
serve products and services on the web and maintain internal development
platforms and networks, often pay for "enterprise" Linux distributions, such
as Red Hat's Fedora or Novell's SuSe. Unlike their proprietary colleagues at
Microsoft, who make money licensing owned code, fees paid to Novell and
RedHat by those choosing to buy "enterprise" in Linux go towards regular
support and security updates. Net profits from Linux-related sales at each
company run into the tens of millions. Thus an open pool of shared knowledge
fosters a vibrant knowledge economy around its edges.

But recently, companies like Red Hat and Novell have had to consider a new
kind of security to offer to their enterprise clients - safety from
litigation under intellectual property law. In the United States, two major
branches of intellectual property law obtain when it comes to software. The
first is copyright, which covers the lines of source code that make up
particular programs, and is neatly dealt with by the GNU general public
licence (GPL), the "copyleft" agreement under which most deployments of
Linux are distributed. The second is the pernicious practice, rife in the US
but so far (the story goes) resisted in the European Union, of patenting
methods of coding.

Software patents, that American folly of propertising what are often
basically mathematical algorithms, are an interesting problem for Free
Software. Microsoft in particular claims that Linux code violates a number
of patents currently held at Redmond. Although Microsoft will not be drawn
on exactly what those patents are, enterprise Linux distributors see the
claim as a way for Microsoft to distort the market and scare their
customers. The fear is that, should Microsoft choose to reveal the alleged
patent infringements, it could sue not only them, but also their customers.

In 2004, in response to a controversial series of cases against Linux, Red
Hat introduced their Open Source Assurance programme, which puts the onus of
resolving intellectual property issues squarely on their, and not their
customers', shoulders. Over the last few weeks, Novell have unveiled their
own strategy for insuring their customers against the menace of Redmond
lawyers. The result has had the Free and Open Source Software community
(often abbreviated to FLOSS, where the rogue `L' stands for "libre", the
"free as in freedom" so important to FLOSS coders) up in arms.

On 2 November, Novell and Microsoft announced a "broad collaboration on
Windows and Linux interoperability and support". The main aim was to provide
reassurance and support to companies that required Linux and Windows to
operate on the same hardware, in so- called "virtualisation" environments.
But the small print revealed a patent licensing agreement and mutual
covenant not to sue over patent infringements. This, many feared, would give
Microsoft vital fresh ammunition for its steady fire of unsubstantiated
claims that Linux infringes Microsoft's patents. In effect, Microsoft had
asked Novell the classic loaded question "when did you stop beating your
wife?", and Novell had unwisely attempted an answer.

The same day Dana Gardner at ZDNet penned a headline which, if there is any
justice, will go down in history "Microsoft and Novell: Fox marries chicken,
both move into henhouse". Influential legal/open source blog Groklaw.net
pronounced that "those of you who think the most important goal is market
share will be happy. Those of you who think freedom matters will want to
throw up." Their fears were borne out on 16 November, when Steve Ballmer,
Microsoft's CEO, reiterated his belief, in the context of the Novell deal,
that Linux "uses our intellectual property" to a conference audience in
Seattle.

Pleas for Novell to reconsider the deal came from far and wide. They
included a 12 November statement from the Samba community, a team of
programmers working to provide a free alternative to a vital protocol, which
labelled the decision divisive, and as such counter to the goals of the
FLOSS community. They accused Novell of "exchanging the long term interests
of the entire Free Software community for a short term advantage for Novell
over their competitors". Novell was exploiting the work of others to get
ahead in the market.

Interestingly, this is an outcome the GPL was specifically designed to
prevent. Originally, the threat had been copyright law - the GPL is designed
to cling to any code derived from Free Software in order to ensure that it
too is free, in a so-called "viral" legal arrangement. But the GPL also
speaks to patents, as its preamble makes clear:

"[A]ny free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to
avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually
obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent
this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's
free use or not licensed at all."

The hope is that, since Novell will be unable to freely pass on patent
licenses granted it by Microsoft to any or all who may want to use its code,
its ability to deploy the GPL will be compromised, and with it its ability
to use GPL'ed code. This would render the deal with Microsoft untenable, as
it would prevent Novell from going about its core business of distributing
SuSe.

Could the GPL work to ensure against the disruption of patents too?
It seems that Eben Moglen, General Counsel for the Free Software Foundation,
who has been working with Richard Stallman on a revised version of the GPL
for some time, thinks so. Speaking to Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier of Linux.com
last Friday, he confirmed that he has received "full and unfettered access
to senior executives at Novell" and was now involved in negotiations which
hinged around the deal's compatibility with the GPL.

The Novell/Microsoft deal could divide the FLOSS community into those who
code for profit, and those who code for fun. In their 2 November statement,
Novell and Microsoft stated that "Microsoft will not assert its patents
against individual non-commercial open source developers". Read this
statement closely and it speaks to a future where FLOSS code development is
split down the middle, where amateurs tinker and professionals profit.

Interestingly, this same future has recently been hinted at by another
figurehead of free culture, Lawrence Lessig. On 28 September this year, the
Creative Commons pioneer wrote a short blog post entitled "On the economies
of culture". In it, he argues that "the Internet has reminded us that we
live not just in one economy, but at least two". One was the common or
garden "work for pay" economy, the second that embodied in Wikipedia, which
went by a variety of names, including "amateur" and "non-commercial". These
were "separate spheres", argued Lessig, but ones that could and should be
linked, in order "to inspire the creative work of the second economy, while
also expanding the value of the commercial economy".

Creative Commons already offers different licences for those who wish to
share content on a non-commercial basis, and those who are happy to share
with profit-making entities who may go on to gain financially from their
work. Indeed, I have often been quizzed by free culture enthusiasts as to
why openDemocracy opts for a non- commercial Creative Commons licence (the
answer is we want to profit from syndication to newspapers, to compensate
poorly paid contributors and to earn money we can invest back into our
work).

In his post, Lessig dismisses anticipated objections to his theory from
advocates of total freedom as "simply ignoring an important reality about
the difference between these two economies". Perhaps this is because what
both Lessig's argument and, more importantly, the Microsoft/Novell deal
appear to ignore, is that many opt for Creative Commons or GPL licensing as
a means to object to intellectual property regimes currently in place.

The "important reality" of the commercial economy is one that many would
like to subvert, not graduate into, whether they object to the cultural
homogeneity of Big Media, or the anti-competitiveness and creative
stagnation of Big Software. Furthermore, the distinction between commercial
and non-commercial is not at all clear cut: as Lessig himself admits, FLOSS
has shown that what starts out as the non-commercial work of "amateurs" can
move into a professional, commercial setting without giving up on its
copyleft principles.

And let's hope things stay that way. Novell have asked for patience from
FLOSS stakeholders while they craft a response to the Sambas team's
objections. Hoping to scare off Microsoft, Eben Moglen is threatening to use
the new version of the GPL to permanently isolate any commercial Linux
distributor tempted to enter into similar patent licensing agreements. What
looked on the face of things as a simple business deal has turned into a
game of brinkmanship faster than you can say Free and Open Source Software.
The future of the movement hangs in the balance.

[Compiled by Fouad Riaz Bajwa - FOSS Advocate for the whole world!]

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Dear Community Members,

I have just launched a new blog for advocating FOSS and alternate forms of
IPR on the other side of the Digital Divide at http://www.tuxwatch.com
sponsored by 451 Press. The blog is covering all those important issues on
FOSS that are being so wrongly portrayed on this and that side of the FOSS
world by all those evil forces we have been fighting for so many years!

So come on and join me here anytime and share your opinions and comments.
It's not only about that part of the world only; it's about the east, west,
north south and even the moon!

TUX WATCH DOT COM IS ONLINE!

Fouad Bajwa
Your everyday friendly FOSS Advocate goes blogging!


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3:41 PM

France's gendarmes and Ministry of Culture and Communication have done
it, and now members of the country's parliament are about to switch to
open source.

Starting in June 2007, PCs in French deputes' offices will be equipped
with a Linux operating system and open-source productivity software.

The project, backed by parliament members Richard Cazenave and Bernard
Carayon of the Union for a Popular Movement party, will see 1,154 French
parliamentary workstations running on Linux, with OpenOffice.org
productivity software, the Firefox Web browser and an open-source e-mail
client.

A spokesperson for the parliament's administration said a decision as to
the choice of Linux distribution and e-mail client hasn't yet been made.
Currently, some of the parliament's servers have been running Linux,
with Apache Web servers and the Mambo content management system.

The project was the subject of a study by technology services company
Atos Origin, whose conclusions convinced the French National Assembly to
make the switch.

"The study showed that open-source software will from now on offer
functionality adapted to the needs of MPs (members of parliament) and
will allow us to make substantial savings despite the associated
migration and training costs," the parliament said.

Open-source supporters have welcomed the decision. Benoît Sibaud,
president of April, the association for the research into and promotion
of open-source computing, said the decision to migrate to open source
will enable the French parliament to have greater control over its
information technology without depending on any one vendor and to make
better use of public money.

This will be the first case of a French public institution switching its
PCs to a Linux operating system. Previous open-source initiatives
concerned servers, as was the case with the Minstry of Agriculture, and
with OpenOffice and Firefox, which were adopted by France's gendarmerie.

Christophe Guillemin of ZDNet France reported from Paris.

Source: ZDNet

Dear Community Members,

This is a final call for registrations to participate in the first
international "Conference on Hacking and Security | CHASE-2006" to be held
next week on Friday, December 22, 2006 in Lahore. The details on venue,
schedule and speakers is as per the following:

CHASE-2006 | Conference On Hacking And Security

***************
Date: December 22, 2006
Venue: Best Western Shalimar Hotel, Liberty Market, Gulberg, Lahore -
Pakistan.

Registration Fee: Rs. 500/-
[Register Here: http://www.chase.org.pk/en/register.html]

Sponsors:

***************
1. Esecurity
2. Netmag
3. FOSSFP: Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan
[For details visit: http://www.chase.org.pk/en/sponsors.html]

Scheduled Talks

***************
[For Details: http://www.chase.org.pk/en/index.html]

08:00 - 09:30
Registration

09:30 - 09:35
Recitation from the Holy Quran

09:35 - 09:45
Welcome and opening remarks
Mr. Muhammad Farooq-i-Azam

09:45 - 10:30
Keynote Address
Mr. Ammar Jaffery

10:30 - 11:00
Refreshments

11:00 - 11:30
A Synopsis of Intrusion Detection Systems
Mr. Khurram Bhatti and Mr. Atif Shehzad

11:30 - 12:00
ARP Games - Playing Man In The Middle Or Knocking Off With DoS
Mr. Muhammad Farooq-i-Azam

12:00 - 12:30
Social Engineering - A Hidden Threat to Network Security
Mr. Muhammad Arslan Ali

12:30 - 01:00
Defense Strategies Against Zero-Day Attacks
Mr. Zubair Khan

01:00 - 01:30
Snort - The Open Source IDS Tool
Mr. Khurram Bhatti

01:30 - 02:00
Prayer Break

02:00 - 02:30
Lunch and Networking

02:30 - 03:00
Forensics For Computers And Portable Devices
Mr. Nauman Ashraf Bodla

03:00 - 03:30
VOIP Weaknesses: How Technology Has Taken A Step Back
Mr. Omar Khushnood

03:30 - 04:00
Improving Linux Security
Mr. M.B.G Suranga De Silva and Mr. Shantha Fernando

04:00 - 04:30
Computer and Internet Security: A FOSS Perspective
Mr. Fouad Riaz Bajwa

04:30 - 04:40
Thanks and closing remarks
Mr. Omar Khushnood

04:40 - 05:00
Refreshments and Goodbyes


Alternatively you can visit the following website for more information:
http://www.fossfp.org

--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.15.18/585 - Release Date: 12/13/2006
11:49 AM

Invitation to join: Dialogue on Telecenters in Pakistan

By - Pakistan Telecenters Initiative (PTI)

PTI is a Civil Society Group carrying forward dialogues and actions in
support of Pakistan's upcoming massive rural Telecenter movement. The World
Bank, Government of Pakistan and Telecom Companies are contributing to a
fund of Pakistani Rupees 100 Billion under the Universal Service Fund USF
available for funding possibly 40,000 Telecentre deployments throughout
Pakistan. PTI invites participation from stakeholders including Civil
Society networks, Business Industry, International Organizations, Government
and Intellectual contributors towards developing this group as a Telecenter
Knowledge Management Resource (KMR) for efficiently managing and improving
the Telecenters Movement in the country.

You may join PTI at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Telecenters/join .

Organizations Civil Society Networks supporting the Pakistan Telecentres
Initiative

- SATC - Salman Ansari Technology Consultants
- FOSSFP: Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan
- International Free and Open Source Software Foundation (iFOSSF), MI, USA
- RBI - Responsible Business Initiative
- Pakistan ICT Policy Monitor (B4A-APC)
- BytesForAll Network South Asia
- Ubuntu Pakistan

By Fouad Riaz Bajwa
Country Programme Manager
Pakistan Telecentres Initiative (PTI)
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Telecenters
http://ifossf.org/group/foss_in_telecenters


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No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.15.19/587 - Release Date: 12/14/2006
7:28 PM

A Free Software friend of mine Subramanya Sastry <sastry@...>
has created this superb tool (called NewsRack) that allows you to
electronically track news published on certain subjects (of your
choice). You can set up the keywords, and it will keep track of the
news. Check up how it works for "Goa", the former Portuguese colony on
the west coast of India, where I live and work:
http://floss.sarai.net/newsrack/Browse.do?owner=fredericknoronha&issue=goa&catID\
=1

It's meant primarily for non-profit organisations, and you could try
it out too. Sarai.net in New Delhi has a server that allows you to
create "alerts" for themes of your choice.

--
FN M: 0091 9822122436 P: +91-832-240-9490 (after 1300IST please)
http://fn.goa-india.org  http://fredericknoronha.wordpress.com
http://www.goa-india.org http://feeds.goa-india.org/index.php