Re: [ilugd] Shocking and Sad news.
This is really sad news. I remember working with him during the open standards fight and admired his determination to ensure that proprietary standards did not prevail. In fact, one of the crucial meetings during the open standards fight was held in his house. He was such a lovable and outspoken eccentric with his heart in the right place. I will miss him. RIP Raj! Venky On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 12:05 PM, Kapsicum duaka...@gmail.com wrote: RIP Raj 'Oldmonk' Mathur as he check out from opium den. Regards, Kapil Dua On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 11:51 AM, Akshat Sharma akshat...@gmail.com wrote: RIP Raj Mathur Sir. You were inspiration for a lot. Thanks for sharing your wonderful experience of life. On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 11:44 AM, Raakesh kumar kumar3...@gmail.com wrote: Very shocking... Even after reading above posts, i am still not able to believe this. Speechless :( On Thu, Dec 13, 2012 at 11:42 AM, Sudev Barar sba...@gmail.com wrote: The last rites would be performed at Lodhi Road Crematorium New Delhi at 1500hrs -- Sudev ___ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd -- Regards RAKESH KUMAR http://raakeshkumar.wordpress.com ___ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd -- Thanks Best Regards Akshat Sharma +91 9813966007 ___ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd -- Kapil Dua Skype: mitr2mitr IRC: kaps Mobile: +917760542233 Good and Bad things are your perception at that point of time. ___ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd ___ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd
[ilugd] A radical shift in e-governance
The Hindu has a nice feature on the Indian open standards policy. The examples cited in this article are very relevant. Venky = A radical shift in e-governance On November 12, in a very progressive and sound move, the Union Ministry of Communication and Information Technology notified the National Policy on Open Standards in e-governance An Indian case study of how open standards can make an impact on the domestic technology industry and promote innovation, by offering a level-playing field for technology companies — both big and small — is the Smart Card Operating System for Transport Applications (SCOSTA). SCOSTA was a standard developed for smart card-based driving licences and transport-related documentation by different State governments. It was developed by the National Informatics Centre in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Despite attempts by proprietary lobbies to make the body opt for a proprietary standard, the NIC and academics went ahead and developed an open standards, one that comprised technological specifications that were entirely royalty-free, and put up the specifications on their website. By doing so, they made a huge impact on the entire market. http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/article907442.ece ___ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd
[ilugd] Open standards policy in India: A long, but successful journey
This article of mine appeared at http://opensource.com/government/10/11/open-standards-policy-india-long-successful-journey Venky = Open standards policy in India: A long, but successful journey Posted 19 Nov 2010 by Venkatesh Hariharan (Venky) (Red Hat) Last week, India became another major country to join the growing, global open standards movement. After three years of intense debate and discussion, India's Department of IT in India finalized its Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance, joining the ranks of emerging economies like Brazil, South Africa and others. This is a historic moment and India's Department of Information Technology (DIT) deserves congratulations for approving a policy that will ensure the long-term preservation of India's e-government data. A major victory for the Open Source community is that the policy now says, 4.1.2 The Patent claims necessary to implement the Identified Standard shall be made available on a Royalty-Free basis for the life time of the Standard. This victory is really important to the open source community because open source and open standards have a symbiotic relationship. While open source is the freedom to modify, share and redistribute software source code, open standards refer to the freedom to encode and decode data and network protocols. One freedom without the other is a limited freedom. In the Indian policy, proprietary software vendors wanted to define open standards in such a way that even royalty-based standards would be included. Due to stiff opposition from the free and open source software community, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), academia and others, this proposal was rolled back. Under the National e-Government Action Plan, the Indian government is spending more than 10 billion dollars on e-governance. Some of the largest greenfield e-governance projects are in India. For example, one project aims to give a unique ID to more than 700 million Indians. Given the scale and scope of e-governance in India, the storage, archival and retrieval of e-governance data is a critical state responsibility. The standards selected by India also have global implications because the sheer volumes of usage in India, could make those standards the most popular standards in the world. It must be remembered that while software changes every few years, the underlying data (birth and death records, census data, tax data etc.) is fairly static and might have to be preserved for centuries. If the government stores its data in a closed format, it could permanently lose access to that data if the owner of that format goes out of business or refuses to provide access to that format. If the government stores its data in proprietary formats that require royalty payments, the negotiation power of the vendor goes up as more and more data is stored in that proprietary format; a situation that no sovereign power should tolerate. The Indian policy also states that a single open standard will be used for e-governance. This clause is also extremely important. For example, if a Central Government Ministry requests a certain set of information from state governments in India, and each state government submits the data in a different format, enormous amounts of time will be wasted in converting the data into a common format. There is also risk that data could be lost in the process of converting data from one format to another. Therefore, the usage of a single, open standard for an application area is the backbone that will unify these applications and enable the sharing of data across different applications. This will drive more efficiency in e-governance enabling policy makers and e-government practitioners to quickly pull together data from different government departments and take more informed decisions. It was a very tough fight and the proprietary vendors used their market clout and strong field presence in their attempts to subvert open standards. For example, in the previous draft policy dated 25/11/2009, the wordings of the key section read, 4.1.2 The essential patent claims necessary to implement the Identified Standard should preferably be available on a Royalty-Free (no payment and no restrictions) basis for the life time of the standard. However, if such Standards are not found feasible and in the wider public interest, then RF on Fair, Reasonable and Non Discriminatory terms and conditions (FRAND) or Reasonable and Non Discriminatory terms and conditions (RAND) could be considered. Commenting on the final policy, veteran journalist, Glyn Moody said, “As you can see, there is no room for doubt here, no quibbling with 'RF on Fair, Reasonable and Non Discriminatory terms and conditions (FRAND)' or 'Reasonable and Non Discriminatory terms and conditions (RAND)' as the earlier version suggested: just a clear and simple 'Royalty-Free basis for the life time of the Standard'.” So how did the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community succeed
[ilugd] Open Standards policy finalized--major victory for the FOSS community
The open standards policy has been finalized and it incorporates many of the suggestions made by the FOSS community in India. In the previous draft dated 25/11/2009, our major objection was to section 4.1.2 of the policy which said, 4.1.2 The essential patent claims necessary to implement the Identified Standard should preferably be available on a Royalty-Free (no payment and no restrictions) basis for the life time of the standard. However, if such Standards are not found feasible and in the wider public interest, then RF on Fair, Reasonable and Non Discriminatory terms and conditions (FRAND) or Reasonable and Non Discriminatory terms and conditions (RAND) could be considered. Our comment on this section reads: The usage of terms like “preferably” in a section titled, “Mandatory Characteristics” weakens the section and could even render it meaningless. Mandatory characteristics should be laid out clearly and unambiguously, The term “essential patent claims,” is meaningless because a standard cannot be implemented partially. Therefore, the ENTIRE standard should be royalty-free and not just the essential parts of it. In other words, ALL patent claims necessary to implement the standard should be royalty-free. Also, RF on FRAND/RAND is self-contradictory. If a Standard is Royalty Free (RF) then it cannot be RAND. Therefore, the wording of this section should be changed to ALL patent claims necessary to implement the Identified Standard should be available on a Royalty-Free (no payment and no restrictions) basis for the life time of the standard. As you can see from the extract below, the points mentioned above have been incorporated In the recently finalized policy. This section now reads: 4.1.2 The Patent claims necessary to implement the Identified Standard shall be made available on a Royalty-Free basis for the life time of the Standard. Overall, I'd say this is a major victory for the Indian FOSS community and more than three years of hard work have paid off. The file can be downloaded from: http://egovstandards.gov.in/approved-standthe suggestions mards/egscontent.2010-11-12.9124322046/at_download/filehttp://egovstandards.gov.in/approved-standards/egscontent.2010-11-12.9124322046/at_download/file or from: http://egovstandards.gov.inhttp://egovstandards.gov.in/approved-standards/egscontent.2010-11-12.9124322046/at_download/file(click on the links on the top left hand side). Venky ___ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd
Re: [ilugd] Software Patent Busting at CIS
Dear Krithika, This is a welcome initiative by CIS. The kind of sneaky language that is being used to file software patents is against the will of the Indian parliament and needs to be defeated. Venky On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 8:24 PM, Krithika krithika...@gmail.com wrote: Yes, software is not patentable in India. That is precisely why the trend of software claims being applied for and granted patents in India is a disturbing trend. Although the applicant may not explicitly claim that it is software, many patent claims which are essentially software are couched in confusing language, or merely attached to hardware (which, by itself is not innovative). Alternately, software is patented by embedding it in hardware (which has no utility other than executing the software) and by claiming patent for the combination of the two. We are therefore, working to bust this trend by filing oppositions - pre-grant or post-grant - to these patents. Krithika On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 5:27 PM, Sudhanwa Jogalekar sudhanwa@gmail.comwrote: Software patents are not allowed in India. No point in wasting energy related to software patents. There could be some interesting case about the patents in the products Micosoft is selling in India. What will be the validity of such patents within the products. Legal experts, please comment. -Sudhanwa On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 5:11 PM, Krithika krithika...@gmail.com wrote: Dear All, The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is filing a pre-grant opposition to a software patent application by Microsoft. We need people to help us analyse the technical claims of the application and possibly those of previously granted patents/previously filed applications where the invention is similar to the one in the application we wish to oppose. Interested persons may write to me at the earliest at krithika...@gmail.com. Regards Krithika The Centre for Internet and Society Bangalore ___ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd -- ~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~! www.projects4students.com ___ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd ___ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd
Re: [ilugd] Software Patent Busting at CIS
Sudhanwa, I am not a lawyer, but some software patents have been granted by the patent office, while many others have been applied for. Based on the status, one will have to file a pre-grant or post-grant opposition against these patents. Venky = On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 5:27 PM, Sudhanwa Jogalekar sudhanwa@gmail.com wrote: Software patents are not allowed in India. No point in wasting energy related to software patents. There could be some interesting case about the patents in the products Micosoft is selling in India. What will be the validity of such patents within the products. Legal experts, please comment. -Sudhanwa On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 5:11 PM, Krithika krithika...@gmail.com wrote: Dear All, The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is filing a pre-grant opposition to a software patent application by Microsoft. We need people to help us analyse the technical claims of the application and possibly those of previously granted patents/previously filed applications where the invention is similar to the one in the application we wish to oppose. Interested persons may write to me at the earliest at krithika...@gmail.com. Regards Krithika The Centre for Internet and Society Bangalore ___ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd -- ~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~!~! www.projects4students.com ___ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd ___ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd
Re: [ilugd] Software Patent Busting at CIS
On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 5:37 PM, Sudhanwa Jogalekar sudhanwa@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 5:32 PM, Venkatesh Hariharan ven...@gmail.com wrote: Sudhanwa, I am not a lawyer, but some software patents have been granted by the patent office, while many others have been applied for. Based on the status, one will have to file a pre-grant or post-grant opposition against these patents. Can you please give some examples or the URLs for the said patents. Need to find a lawyer to fight against that. -Sudhanwa try these: http://www.pfc.org.in/db/db.htm http://india.bigpatents.org/ Venky ___ Ilugd mailing list Ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd
[ilugd] Photos of FOSSCOMM Mumbai Meeting, 11th September 2009
The FOSSCOMM Mumbai Meeting photos are now online at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/venky7/sets/72157622560678420/ It's been an intense and interesting day-long discussion. Will send an update later. Meanwhile, enjoy the photos :-) Venky ___ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
Re: [ilugd] National policy on e-governance: An official position from ILUG-D?
On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 11:54 AM, Praveen Aprav...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/7/7 narendra sisodiya narendra.sisod...@gmail.com: I wonder if the last date was 7th july !! I think it is extended till 15th as per Jaijith's mail in fosscomm list. - Praveen The Apex committee will meet on July 15th. If we send it off well before that, they will hopefully have time to read it. venky ___ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
[ilugd] Open Source University Syllabus
Does anyone have copies of/links to university syllabus that prescribes open source software in the main (not elective) syllabus? One of our supporters is advising a university in connection with finalizing the syllabus for their courses. Currently, their syllabus includes oracle/windows/DotNET/SQL 2005 and other proprietary products/technologies. If you have copies of/links to university syllabus that prescribes open source software, that would strengthen the case. Kindly forward the same to me. Regards, Venky ___ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
Re: [ilugd] BJP accepts key sections of the FOSS Manifesto
On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 12:53 PM, Sandip Bhattacharya li...@sandipb.net wrote: On Sunday 15 March 2009 09:35:54 Raj Mathur wrote: Great work, everyone who contributed and specially Venky for taking the initiative. Everything else being equal, a clearly-articulated FOSS policy would definitely sway my vote towards the BJP. Nothing specific against BJP, but do you really think that a policy intention has in the past ever worked against market forces in a government/economics setup which is market-driven? As one of the many people from the FOSS community who worked on localization and other issues that help bridge the digital divide, I am happy that political parties are looking at FOSS more seriously now. We need this support because proprietary software is so deeply entrenched. For example, we have been trying to make the syllabus remove the endorsement of proprietary software for so many years. I guess most of us in the FOSS community believe that FOSS and open/free content like Wikipedia can be powerful forces for development. The fact that the top leaders of BJP and CPIM have acknowledged this in their political manifesto/vision is a powerful coming of age for FOSS in India, This is a very important milestone for all of us. We must congratulate ourselves, but also realize that the real work of taking FOSS to the grassroots level begins now. Our past friends CPIM talked about FOSS on one hand and proudly announced strategic partnership with M$ for state education on the other hand. The CPIM's stand on software patents, open standards and FOSS is driven by an anti-monopoly approach and also a respect for the growing paradigm of the knowledge commons which benefits everybody. I may have missed the news but I cannot recall reading any, strategic partnership with M$ for state education. Would be interested in knowing more. We cannot rejoice/rely on support by political parties for pushing for FOSS. We should rejoice that they are publicly supporting FOSS. A few years ago, many of the policy makers I met would privately criticize proprietary software vendors and pay lip sympathy to open source. However, in the presence of the proprietary software vendor, they would turn into meek lambs. Some policy makers used to treat the worlds open source like bad word. The fact that FOSS is now being talked about in the highest political circles will definitely change these mindsets and that is a powerful change in itself. On the statement that, we should not rely on support by political parties for pushing for FOSS, I would heartily agree and add that we should build such a vibrant FOSS community that no political party can ignore. We must now focus on areas like FOSS open source in education, for the visually handicapped etc where there are clear benefits to the country and prove once and for all that FOSS is the best bet for India in the long term. I however do acknowledge that the Indian contingent in the recent ISO OpenXML saga did a very commendable job against very heavy odds. Of course the people involved weren't government officials, but at least it had the blessing in some way of the Indian government. There were six government organizations that voted against OOXML (I don't think OpenXML is a good name for 6,000 pages of XML dump of a legacy file format :-). All of them spent a lot of time reviewing one of the most voluminous standards ever created. Also, way before the OOXML saga, some key officials in the government have always said that India will mandate open standards. The OOXML issue forced them to finally come put with a clear policy on open standards and tame the beast of proprietary standards. To give credit where it is due, some of the bureaucrats within Department of IT and the Bureau of Indian Standards did a tremendous job despite the immense pressure from all sides, -- proprietary vendors, the media coverage of the issue, the uncompromising stance taken by open standards supporters, the issue being escalated to the Prime Minister's Office... See: http://osindia.blogspot.com/2007/10/media-replies-on-ooxml-issue.html Many of my friends have said that the OOXML saga was one of the most brilliant lobbying efforts and also a great example of how the checks and balances of a democratic country like India work. In our neighboring countries, the negative vote against OOXML by technical committees was overturned due to the pressure exerted on the ministries that the standards bodies report to. Some of the committees were plain rigged, as happened in Pakistan: http://osindia.blogspot.com/2007/09/microsoft-certified-ballot-box.html The heavy odds comment is spot on. When the whole issue started, Gora, myself and others had attended a BIS meeting (see below) and we never thought that we would be able to get India to vote against OOXML. http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/msg16585.html Miracles do happen! Venky
Re: [ilugd] BJP accepts key sections of the FOSS Manifesto
On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 9:53 AM, Pradeepto Bhattacharya pradeep...@gmail.com wrote: Hi, On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 9:35 AM, Raj Mathur r...@linux-delhi.org wrote: Being the cynic that I am, I'm not sure how much of this would actually see the light of day if the BJP does come into power, but given the the choice between 2 (or n) evils, I'd rather choose the evil that at least promises to support FOSS :) I am still trying to do that math. What good would FOSS do to me, if my family/female-members are not secure and are attacked based on what they wear and where they choose to go? ah well... this can be a long rant and I guess this is not the forum for that .. Cheers! Pradeepto Maybe we can collect outdated distro CDs/DVDs and use them like Lord Vishnu's Sudarshan chakras against the moral police :-) Venky ___ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
[ilugd] BJP accepts key sections of the FOSS Manifesto
Dear Friends, Key sections of the FOSS manifesto (Point # 1 on FOSS in education, # 4 on open standards, #5 on encouraging freely shareable, FOSS based knowledge repositories like Wikipedia in Indian languages), have been strongly articulated in the BJP's IT vision document that was unveiled today by BJP's prime ministerial candidate, Shri LK Advani. The 40 page vision document is at: http://www.lkadvani.in/eng/images/stories/it-vision.pdf The press release is at: http://www.lkadvani.in/eng/content/view/799/281/ The FOSS Manifesto is at: http://www.public-software.in/FOSS-manifesto (have you signed it yet?) I am also enclosing my blog on this subject: Venky = http://osindia.blogspot.com/2009/03/bjps-it-vision-supports-open-source-and.html Saturday, March 14, 2009 BJP's IT Vision supports open source and open standards The BJP, the largest opposition in India has released an IT Vision document that endorses open source and open standards. Many of the points mentioned in the FOSS Manifesto for India that we put up online last week have been incorporated in this document. This document was unveiled by none other than Shri. LK Advani, the BJP's candidate for Prime Minister. I did a quick read of the 40 page document and am impressed with how thorough and comprehensive it is. As a long time supporter of free and open source software, I am delighted to see a major Indian political party endorse it. However, I am even more delighted to see that this endorsement is rooted in a comprehensive vision for India's development. A big chunk of the credit for this document should go to Shri. Sudheendra Kulkarni (an alumnus of IIT Bombay) and Shri Prodyut Bora (an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad). Shri Kulkarni was advisor to Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee when Vajpayee was prime Minister of India and Shri Bora is Head of the IT Cell of the BJP. I was happy to see that the Digital Colonization theme that my friend, Jaijit Bhattacharya of Sun talks about has been incorporated in this document. Apart from the FOSS Manifesto, some of my key passions on open standards (that we don't pay for standards like weights and measures in the physical world, so why should we pay for standards in the digital world?) have been reflected. Also, as a co-founder of IndLinux.org which we started in 2000 in an attempt to bridge the digital divide, I am happy to see that the BJP has promised to create a National Mission for Indian Language Computing. The CPI(M), another national party in India has always been a strong supporter of our stand on open source, open standards and our fight against software patents. We are hopeful that other political parties will also take cognizance of the FOSS Manifesto and incorporate the same into their IT plans for India. With the country scheduled to go to polls next month, we now have a broad consensus emerging around the use of open source and open standards. This is great news for all of us who believe in free and open source software! ___ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
[ilugd] Request to sign FOSS Manifesto for India
Dear Friends, The Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community has published a manifesto requesting Indian political parties to make FOSS usage and promotion a central part of the IT, e-government and education plans. FOSS is a powerful enabler for spreading education and opportunity to all peoples. With its collaborative knowledge model, FOSS can effect change and transparency in India. Supporting this petition is one small step in the right direction. The manifesto is up as a public petition at: http://www.public-software.in/FOSS-manifesto The signup link for the petition is at: http://www.public-software.in/node/add/sign-petition The list of signatories is at: http://www.public-software.in/signatories Some of the comments made by the signatories are worth reading. Regards, Venky = ___ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
Re: [ilugd] National Coalition for promotion of FOSS - meeting on 22.02.2009
Dear Vinay, This is a welcome initiative and I wish I could have joined you guys in Bangalore. However, I just returned from vacation and saw this mail today... too late to hop onto a plane:-) A quick submission I'd like to make is that FOSS can play a huge, constructive role in India's development and the efforts that we are now seeing in areas like Open Source Drug Discovery, Agropedia etc. indicate that policy makers are growing aware of this trend. However, given the scale and breadth of India, we need more advocacy and this is where this group can make a mark. Wish this meeting all the best and will definitely try to be there for the next meeting. Venky On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 11:51 AM, vinay ವಿನಯ್ vi...@itforchange.net wrote: Dear All, Many of us have been advocating for several years the adoption of FOSS applications and platforms and FOSS related advocacy has been gathering momentum. Last year, we had an advocacy processes relating to software patents and the OOXML debate, we had RMS and Eben Moglen visiting various places in India sharing their views on FOSS. Yet, we do have a long way to go before FOSS is widely used in India. Bringing different groups of actors (who believe in the principles of Free Software), including academic institutions, NGOs and CBOs, research and advocacy groups, professional associations, FOSS enterprises providing services in different areas as development, training, support and maintenance, we believe will help in supporting and cohering a positive discourse in favour of FOSS. Some of us have been thinking that a loose national coalition of such individuals/ organizations and associations should be formed that will work towards the widespread adoption and promotion of FOSS. Such a network of organizations working along a broad consensus on promoting FOSS will provide stronger and more effective responses to events relating to FOSS as well as initiate proactive actions than perhaps individuals or institutions acting in isolation. We are writing to you all, to suggest a meeting to discuss this idea of the coalition and thereafter also items for immediate action. We would request you to join for a half-day meeting, on Sunday, the 22nd of February to discuss the same. Time : 3pm - 6pm Venue : CIS office, Cunningham road, Bangalore, landmark – same building as Wockhardt hospital Map : http://tinyurl.com/apltcb Present below is the proposed agenda for the meeting - a. Formation of a national coalition of organisations advocating for FOSS. The goals, scope, priorities, approaches, structures, issues / risks, alternatives, resources for such a coalition etc, name of the coalition will be discussed. Some proposed activities which can be discussed - b. Working with government departments and public sector units advocating them to adopt and promote FOSS When we individually speak to any of our contacts/departments in the government the impact may not be significant. However, if we send collective representations to departments such as the e-Governance, IT, Education, RDPR departments, and seek meetings to explain the issue and the advantages of FOSS, it would gradually help them to look at the issue in depth. c. FOSS initiatives in the country, including the Gujarat ICT in schools program Many state governments across India are in different stages of adoptiong FOSS (many on the extreme of not using FOSS!) and we can share our understanding and views on the current situation. The Gujarat government for instance is implementing a 500 crore ICT in school education program. They are inclined to go towards FOSS, however the final decision has not been taken yet. We need to look at ways so that they consider FOSS seriously. There are also plans for a FOSS workshop in Delhi, where different groups, including political parties and government officials could be invited and disuss the advantages of adopting and promoting FOSS. d. FOSS initiatives in Karnataka There are some initiatives in Karnataka for which we can work together to help in the adoption of FOSS. We have an informal request for a proposal for a pilot project to train government staff and vendor staff in Bangalore on GNU/Linux platform that has been chosen for the ICT in schools program. We also need to work on the issue of using Nudi on FOSS. A big impediment currently to getting the government to use FOSS is be that 'Nudi' works only on MS Windows and does not work on FOSS distributions. Lastly we should explore what could be done to help VTU adopt FOSS and prefer it over proprietary technologies. Engineering colleges adopting FOSS will make a huge impact on the creation of the FOSS ecosystem in the state. We can also discuss other means and methods which we can collectively work on to promote FOSS. Please do let us know if you can make it (so that we know how many chairs, tea/coffee we need) Please mail vi...@itforchange.net
[ilugd] A draft FOSS manifesto for Indian political parties
With elections approaching in April 2009, it was time to create a draft FOSS manifesto for Indian political parties. This is a first draft and I have written this keeping in mind that most Indian politicians would not be familiar with FOSS. Hence, the usage of simple language that anyone can understand. If you feel that any section here needs improvement, please let me know. Comments/suggestions welcome. venky A draft FOSS manifesto for Indian political parties http://osindia.blogspot.com/2009/02/draft-foss-manifesto-for-indian.html The Free and Open Source Software community in India calls upon political parties to make FOSS usage and promotion a central part of the IT, e-government and education plans in their election manifestos. FOSS is software which is liberally licensed to grant the right of users to study, change, and improve its design through the availability of its source code. The open, inclusive and participatory nature of FOSS is a natural fit for the vibrant traditions of Indian democracy. Since software is the foundation of the knowledge economy, India's IT infrastructure should be built on FOSS and not on closed, proprietary software systems. We believe that encouragement of FOSS will result in: * Development of the domestic IT industry * Creation of jobs * Encouragement of skills development and upgradation * Enable localization of software to Indian languages * Reduction of India's dependence on monopolistic proprietary software vendors * Encourage the usage of open standards * Bridging the digital divide * Rapid modernization and computerization of India's education system * Technology upgradation of India's Small and Medium Enterprises * Efficient usage of budget outlays for e-government * Faster technology development through Collaborative Innovation We call upon political parties in India to support the Indian FOSS community by: 1. Encouraging the use of FOSS in Indian education system. This will inculcate the virtues of collaboration, sharing and participation in children from a very young age and make computerization of schools affordable. 2. Eliminating proprietary software from the education syllabus and making the syllabus vendor-neutral, thus giving teachers and students the choice of software that suits their budgets and needs. 3. Using FOSS in e-government to the maximum possible extent and ensuring that government tenders are open and do not favor proprietary software vendors. All software developed with tax-payers money should be released under a FOSS license to encourage collaboration; and the sharing of code and best practices. 4. Mandating the usage of open standards that are free from royalties and vendor lock-in so that the interaction between the government and citizens happens in a free and open manner befitting a democracy. 5. Encouraging freely shareable, FOSS based knowledge repositories like Wikipedia in Indian languages. 6. Encouraging the usage of the collaborative model of FOSS in scientific research. Science thrives on collaboration and the sharing of knowledge. The current trend of privatizing knowledge leads to secrecy in science and reduces collaboration. We must use the FOSS model based on collaboration, community and shared ownership of knowledge to spark a renaissance of knowledge in India. 7. Eliminating software and business method patents that have lead to huge amounts of litigation in developed countries. Indian traditions have held that knowledge grows by sharing and diminishes when hoarded. Patents on software and business methods grant undue monopolies on ideas and prevent independent invention and the sharing of knowledge. India has one of the most youthful populations in the world and it is important that they have access to the tools with which the information society is built. The freedom to modify the source code, the ability to share knowledge and build communities make Free and Open Source Software the best, long-term model for India's development. We therefore urge all political parties to encourage the usage of FOSS for India's development. ___ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
Re: [ilugd] Hall of Shame : http://dit.mp.gov.in//incentive11.htm
On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 4:36 PM, Smruti smrutiman...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/1/20 narendra sisodiya narendra.sisod...@gmail.com This link belongs to M.P. govt http://dit.mp.gov.in//incentive11.htm Firefox users are unable to see the table. Don't want to discourage or anything in anyway...but is there anybody out of this list who even gives a damn to this compilation. If yes..then please let me know. If not then I personally don't see any good in listing these websites unless something substantial is done on this. Regards Smruti I think it is useful to have such a list because it serves as a useful reference point. Whenever I meet officials in the government, I try to explain the importance of open standards. A similar list on the proprietary bias in the education syllabus is at: Syllabus Review - FOSS Community Indiahttp://fci.wikia.com/wiki/Syllabus_Review This is an issue that some of us are currently engaged in and this list has been extremely useful. More on this on my blogs at www.osindia.blogspot.com Venky ___ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
[ilugd] The practical problem with software patents
An edited version of my article, The practical problem with software patents, appeared in today's Economic Times (Bangalore edition). Hope you find this interesting. Venky = The practical problem with software patents The Bilski case judgment has reversed the trend of granting patents to abstract ideas in the US, and is good for software developers, says Venkatesh Hariharan In their book, Patent Failure: How Judges, Bureaucrats, and Lawyers Put Innovators at Risk, Boston University professors, James Bessen Michael J. Meurer, show that Murphy's Law (If anything can go wrong, it will) has been working overtime in the area of software. The authors dedicate an entire chapter to software and business method patents, which are particularly problematic because they account for almost 38 percent of all patent litigation. The authors find that in the United States, software patents are twice as likely to be litigated as other patents while business method patents (which act as a proxy for software patents) are seven times as likely to be litigated. The authors say, Our reading of the case law convinces us that patent law tolerates too many software claims untethered to any real invention or structure; in such a world clear boundaries are unattainable. The authors point out that patent on abstract ideas are often subject to multiple interpretations and are therefore more ambiguous. An example of this ambiguity is the E-Data patent on point of sale location. In the IT industry, this term is jargon for the cash register or location where the customer pays the cashier. When the US Federal Circuit interpreted this claim, they decided that it referred to any location where an e-commerce transaction might take place. Thus, a patent filed 17 years ago when e-commerce did not exist, ended up causing several lawsuits. The lack of clear boundaries in software means that even law-abiding software developers who intend not to violate another's patent have no clear means of avoiding it. The authors point out that there are around 4000 patents on e-commerce and around 11,000 patents on online shopping. Add to this the fact that getting legal opinion on each software patent can cost around USD 5,000 and we have a vexatious, if not impossible, task at hand. For most software developers, doing a patent search in connection with their work is simply not economically feasible. Even leaving aside the cost of a search, the results are seldom conclusive. Thus it really is not possible to eliminate the risk of a patent infringement lawsuit. It is well known that the U.S. has the most permissive patent system in the world. However, even in the US, there are signs that the pendulum may be swinging the other way. In the recent Bilski case, which dealt with a method of hedging risks in commodities, the US courts ruled that abstract ideas which are not tethered to a device cannot be patented. The decision reversed the 1998 State Street decision that opened the floodgates for software patents. In the European union, a move to patent, computer implemented inventions was thrown out in 2005. In India, section 3(k) of the Indian Patent Act says that, A mathematical or business method or a computer programme per se or algorithms are not patentable. In the discussions around India's Draft Patent Manual, the interpretation of the term, computer programme per se has been the most contentious one. Given the lessons of history and considering the amount of litigation that software patents have created in the US, India must avoid going down the same path. A patent is a state-granted monopoly on an invention, in return for disclosure of the idea. The original intent of the patent system was to encourage disclosure by the inventor in exchange for exclusive rights for a limited period of time to the invention. This ensured that inventors did not take their inventions to the grave and that society could build on existing knowledge rather than re-invent the wheel. The regime of software patents began its major expansion in the 1980s in the US. Since then, software developers have been consistently arguing that that software is better protected through copyrights rather than patents. Under copyright law, if software developers write code that is similar to that of another, they can defend themselves on the grounds of independent invention because copyright protects the expression of an idea. However, the same defense is not possible under a software patent regime because a patent is a monopoly on the idea itself. Thus, even if software developers independently create a program, they may be liable for infringement of one of the more than 200,000 software patents in existence in the U.S. Even end-users who use software for routine, everyday activities may be liable for infringement. For example, McDonalds and 400 other entities were served notices for violating DataCard's patent on Method for processing debit purchase transactions using
Re: [ilugd] Russia's Open Source Revolution
On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 7:17 PM, Raj Mathur [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Saturday 18 Oct 2008, PJ wrote: tirveni yadav [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Russia's top leadership is advocating and making policies which are good for open source. Heh. Cue lots of american trolls saying linux is communist. Unfortunately that only works if you consider ``communist'' a pejorative word, as they do in .us (thank you. McCarthy!). For the ``rest of the world'' it's mostly just another political party. Regards, -- Raju In India, it is the communists who have helped us the most with their support for open source, open standards and our fight against software patents. Venky ___ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/
