Amachu

Free Software Media is an initiative to publish, promote & distribute, Free Software related text, audio and video contents across India, professionally. Inspired by the work of Network theory Ltd, We are pleased to announce this initiative with a similar objective for India.

To commence We are happy to bring out three selected Titles from Network Theory Ltd themselves, at reasonable prices for the Indian audience. And they are,

* An Introduction to GCC, by Brian J. Gough, foreword by Richard M. Stallman
* An Introduction to Python – The Python Tutorial, by Guido van Rossum and Fred L. Drake, Jr.
* Comparing and Merging Files with GNU diff and patch, by David MacKenzie, Paul Eggert, and Richard Stallman

Currently We support three modes of purchase,

Electronic Money Transfer or Money Transfer to our Bank Account
Demand Draft/ Cheque
Value Payable Post
Details of all modes of purchase can be found at our website http://fsm.co.in

We offer a portion of our profit to foundations that are related to each of the above mentioned titles or make use of it for appropriate Free Software related activity. Specific details can be found from each book’s page at http://fsm.co.in

We hope the Free Software Community of India, Students, Teachers and the General Public would be benefited immensely as a result of this initiative. We thank Network Theory Ltd for the support they extended towards this initiative.

So go & grab your copies, of the above mentioned titles, visiting http://fsm.co.in. You can also gift it to your dear ones studying Computer Science.

We aspire more. If you are a geek, who could write on Free Software related Titles and is willing to offer it for freely distributable publication, contact us. Would you like to see specific Title to come up related to Free Software, may it be Technical, Philosophical, Legal or in your Language, write to us. If you like to extend your co-operation to us, in other ways, express it through http://fsm.co.in/site/contact. Let us revive the spirit of sharing & sustaining.

And above all, help spreading the word across. Website: http://fsm.co.in

Was at Salem last Sunday – 11 Oct 09 to introduce Ubuntu to General Public. Thanks to Selva Murali for Organizing the event.

More about the event in his own words http://groups.google.com/group/mintamil/browse_thread/thread/bb2d6315dbe4a553# in Tamil.

Report at Sangamam Live: http://sangamamlive.in/index.php?/content/view/5932/1/

Joined with KanchiLUG to introduce Free Software to participants of BIOS Symposium held at Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswathi Vishwa Maha Vidhyalaya, Enathur, Kanchipuram on 09 Oct 09.

Kanchi LUG students had different stalls related to Installation, Font development. Art Work etc., Kudos to them and was a memorable occasion to share time with them.

A post from their blog: http://kanchilug.wordpress.com/2009/10/11/klug-discussion-about-bios-event-feedback-and-clarification-ruby Don’t miss, there are more related posts there.

Event snaps at: http://picasaweb.google.com/kanchilug/FOSSStallsInBIOS09SCSVMV#

Thanks to Ullas, Student of Univerisity and Vasanth Mehta, Lecturer at the Univerisity for providing us with the Oppurtunity.

A day long conference titled “Open Source Tools in Education: Benefits & Challenges” was Organized by SCMS School of Technology & Management, Cochin on 07 Oct 2009, jointly with Redhat.

The day long session had speakers from different backgrounds sharing experiences from their respective field works. Anwar Sadath, Executive Director of IT@School Project shared his experiences on taking FOSS to the teachers & students of Kerala. Later Sri Ramadoss, of Gemini Communications, FOSS Services Division, shared with the participants the importance of Free Software and its relevance to a healthy society covering the Business aspects and more.

Krishna Das, Director of Open Source Solutions ICS Ltd., later shared few notable a case studies that made customers (both Public & Private sector) realize the importance of FOSS. Ignatius Kunjumon, CUSAT gave an insight on FOSS Productivity Tools & their use in Research. It was and in-depth overview covering all aspects of Arts, Science, Engineering & Technology and usage of FOSS in them.

Kumar Chander of SCMS-Cochin shared his views on Role of Intelligent Agent in Learning Management System. Dr. Vijayakumar, Reader & Hon. Director, Centre for Information Literacy Studies, Univeristy of Kerala, elaborated the audience on Open Source Tools for Library and Information Services covering major FOSS solutions for Library/ Digital Library management like Koha, DSpace etc.,

Dr. Clifton M Kussmaul, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Muklenburg College, Pennsylvania, US shared his thoughts on FOSS in CS & SE Education. Later, Mr. Hiran Venugopalan of Swatantra Malayalam Computing initiative introduced Localization & Swatantra Malayalam Computing to the participants.

The participants were provided with a kit that had a Fedora 11 Live CD with the contents related to the talks mentioned above.

Indu Nair, Director of SCMS Group of Institutions said in her post-event remark,

As an outcome of the Conference we at SCMS are to have “Individual Contribution to Open Source Community” as a component in the Internal Assessment for MCA students in Semester 5. Hope this will bring in motivation and enthusiasm among the students in campus towards FOSS contributions.

Following the inauguration of SRCFOSS at SASTRA university, a small group has emerged there and is regularly conducting weekly sessions on various FOSS topics.

I was there on Oct 01, to elaborate them the basics of Virtualization & demonstrated it with a Live Migration on Redhat.

Special thanks to Prof. Hari Prakash, HOD of CSE Department of Srinivasa Ramanujam Centre, SASTRA University & the SRCFOSS students for organizing the event.

There is a long thread going on at FOSSCOM network mailing list as to how it should be and who shall be part of it. That’s a big thread to follow and post a reply, but I did posted of on who shall be members or part of the FOSSCOM. I am reproducing the same here,

// Quoting Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon at au-kbc.org
Wed Jul 8 02:11:19 PDT 2009

as FOSSCOMM is a collection of individuals and organizations, we have the
following use cases:
1. A person belonging to an organization, but in FOSSCOMM in his individual
capacity – then nature of his organization is irrelevant.
2. A person representing an organization in FOSSCOMM – nature of organization
is relevant //

That was indeed a huge thread to follow up and post a reply.

Well on who can become a member, I agree both individuals and
Organizations can become members.

I have two set of individuals coming to my mind,

#1 A FOSS admirer
#2 A FOSS activist

#1 are those category of non-IT people who are thankful to the FOSS
community and have got benefited because of it.

#2 are FOSS developers, non-developer activists.

On how can they become a member of the FOSSCOMM,

We should have a Oath defined that is Loyal to Free Software Philosophy
and make it available in all Indian Languages.

Any one from any part of the nation who takes that oath true to his own
conscience/ god or what ever he may prefer shall become a member.

On Organizations, I have five set of Organizations coming to my mind,

#1 FOSS beneficiaries
#2 FOSS also as Business
#3 FOSS Advisories
#4 FOSS only Business
#5 Other FOSS favourites

#1 are non-IT companies who are benefited because of FOSS and they want to
see more things coming up in FOSS and they want to support any such
initiatives.

#2 are 50%-50% cases like Zimbra, Novell, and Organizations who also
provide FOSS services for there is also Business in it. They shall be part
of the Community, but kept at an outer ring.

#3 are people like Redhat, Canonical, Mandriva, OpenBravo etc., whom we
admire, respect for their dedication to FOSS but could not allow them into
administrative aspects of a setup unique to India, as any decision at
their Organizational level, outside India directly affects their
operations in India. (I hope in IT 100% FDI is allowed.)

#4 is an association of Organizations who swear to do Business only
through FOSS and is of Indian Origin. The Community should collectively
work for such Organizations to prosper and fight for their causes,
com-batting hindrances created by NASSCOM, M$ etc.,

(Some relaxation shall be given to #3 & #4 when it comes to
inter-interoperability with Proprietary Units)

#3 & #4 work together in all aspects but any representation of the
Community shall only be made through #4

#5 are Organizations shall be FOSS friendly favoring NGOs, government
initiatives like NRCFOSS etc.,

Organizations that want to be part of the Community should, covey to the
Community under which category they fall and we shall have instructions
accordingly.