Dear All, SPACE is now completed 10 years. As some of you know, SPACE played an important role in development of free software in Kerala. It was instrumental in many development in free software and free knowledge in Kerala which include
1. Migration of IT@School to free software 2. Free Software Free Society Conference Series 3. Helping to draft ICT Policy in 2007 4. Use of Free software in govt, particularly community based initiative of KSEB 5. Promoting Free software for disabled 6. Free software based community radio initiative 7. Promoting FOSS Cell in colleges in 2000s 8. Training College teachers on free software 9. Release of Malayalam Encyclopedia under free license. 10. New Media awareness initiatives for media students and social organisations 11. Gender aspect of technology and bridging gender gap in ICT 12. Initiate Malayalam computing and FreeGIS community in Kerala Though formally we got started in 2003, SPACE's story is much older and is linked with development of free software movement in India. SPACE evolved out of small free software community in Trivandrum which existed from late 1990s. The work of that group, primarily lead by Sri C V Radhakrishnan on TUG India/Rivervalley Technologies created nucleus that built free software movement in Trivandrum. In 2001 it lead to creation of FSF chapter in India. Along with that also started first Malayalam localisation initiative - in TeX and in Gtk/Gnome which later lead to creation of first localised Malayalam desktop - Sopanam. SPACE was initiated in 2003 by the then IT Secretary, Smt Aruna Sundarraj IAS with the objective of providing free software related support to state in more institutionalised manner (as opposed to just voluntarism). She took leadership for this after seeing the work being done on Malayalam desktop and IT@School. Looking back we are happy that we could do something, even if we move out of memory, changes we brought to Kerala still continues. Our best days were early days of schools moving to free software. We were moving around the state, receiving support calls from unknown people 24/7 living in houses of people whom we know only through phone. A change was happening before our eyes. We felt excited to be part of it. Some of us who were involved in these early day activities were trying to recollect these periods. We find that no records exists! Not a single photograph of several workshops, meetings, activists gathering that we held. We were so engrossed in our task that we forgot to record any thing. Sad but real, 'The Revolution will not be Televised' Free software is not fringe any more. The whole dynamics have change. I do not see the same level of excitement. Not that it has got boring. Collective and community seems have become 'virtual'. Its interesting but I fear we miss something(may be i am getting old). I still remember 4-5 of us going bit outside the city walking through green field (rice?) to reach venue of usergroup meetings. Going to user group meeting itself was a inconvenient, but exciting one. To celebrate our journey so far we are holding two events a talk by RMS and an Exhibition. We would like to do it together with all of you. Please do mail us if you would like to get involved. Speech by RMS will be on 16th (Venue to be finalised) and Exhibition on 18th. Exhibition will be mainly on free software in Education, Free software for Privacy and Free Hardware. with regards arun -- http://space-kerala.org Where Free Software is a way of Life -- -- "Freedom is the only law". "Freedom Unplugged" http://www.ilug-tvm.org You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ilug-tvm" group. To control your subscription visit http://groups.google.co.in/group/ilug-tvm/subscribe To post to this group, send email to ilug-tvm@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to ilug-tvm-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For details visit the google group page: http://groups.google.com/group/ilug-tvm?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Free Software Users Group, Thiruvananthapuram" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ilug-tvm+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
