[school-discuss] NEWSLETTER: GNU/LinuxIndia Dec 27, 2002 (fwd)

[Doug Loss <drloss@suscom.net>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 2002-12-27 18:30:46 +0530
From: Frederick Noronha <fred@bytesforall.org>
Subject: [LinuxInAfrica] NEWSLETTER: GNU/LinuxIndia Dec 27, 2002


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  Formerly LinuxInIndia * Compiled by: Frederick Noronha * Dec 
27,2002
  
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GNU/LINUX TO GET A BOOST VIA PUNE: This message is from students at 
Pune. We wish them all the best. Contact navhindhanuka at hotmail 
dot com: "We the students of 'Symbiosis Institute of Computer 
Studies and Research' (SICSR) want to contribute to the GNU project. 
With this aim in mind, we are organizing 'GNUnify', with the whole 
hearted support of the management of our institute." Set up in 1971, 
primarily to promote world understanding between Indian and foreign 
students through education, Symbiosis has a strength of over 16,000 
students from over 32 countries. Says the institution: "We in 
Symbiosis believe that the 'World is one Family'."

The annual fest of SICSR 'Unify', is composed of various cultural, 
academic events & contests. This year the institution is adding on 
GNUnify, as their own way "of contributing and encouraging the Free 
Software movement".
See http://www.sicsr.ac.in (to be updated by early Jan 2003)

The aim of GNUnify is to unify and encourage efforts of GNU 
developers across the country, by "awarding the best and motivating 
the rest". Events will include:
1. Code-Presentations (open for all)
1.1 App Dev (Web Apps, Biz Apps, Edu Capsules)
1.2 Embedded Linux
1.3 Network Programming
1.4 Kernel Development / Device Drivers

2. Paper-Presentations (open only for students)
2.1 General (Socio-economic aspects of using GNU/Linux, Does 
GNU/Linux make sense for India?, and Will China get ahead of India 
using Free Software?)
2.2 Free Software B-Plan Contest: The major concern of most 
developers is that since GNU is free there is little / no money to 
be earned out it.  To disprove this a free s/w or gnu based B-plan 
contest. People submit their B-plans built around free s/w.
2.3 Technical (how to use Apache, migrating from ASP to PHP, Wirel)
3. Techie-Talks (under planning... if you know of any powerful 
speakers from across the country, do suggest)
4. Hands-on Workshops [Under Planning]
5. Install-Fest of GNU/Linux [Debian, Redhat, Slackware, Mandrake, 
...]
6. Screenings. [RMS's Public Lecture @ IIT-Mumbai & Linux-The Code 
Movie] Event Dates: 15 & 16 Feb 2003
E-Mail: gnunify@symbiosiscomputers.com

NEWS FROM KERALA: Arun M <arun at freedevelopers dot net> reports 
that he had a recent meet with the general secretary of the KSTA, 
the trade union of teachers in the southern Indian state of Kerala. 
They're planning a meet on IT education in schools, and want experts 
to talk about Free Software.

Meanwhile, Kerala's IT@School expert committee met and seems 
agreeable to the view that Free Software must be used for the 
project. Logistical issues of training, text books, and distribution 
CDs etc need to be taken up. Help is needed for rewriting the 
textbooks, in a way that these don't exclusively promote 
proprietorial software.

	USERS EXPO 2003: 'Linux India - National Users eXpo 2003' is packing
	itself as *the* national conference on GNU/Linux in India. It is
	scheduled between February 7 to 9, at the Marian College Kuttikkanam
	in Kerala. Want to present a paper? Send in an abstract via email. 
	Organisers are keen to get presentations on kernel programming,
	compiler design/porting, x-windows, Linux and the computer industry,
	Linux security, etc. Technical partners for this event are the IPSR
	group. Contact ipsr at satyam dot net dot in

LINUX ON AN EMBEDDED BOARD: Anand Babu <ab at gnu dot org dot in> 
and Mridul Jain worked extensively on porting a version of Linux 
kernel to SA1110-based embedded board from scratch. "We do have a 
complete embedded GNU/Linux
system and we use it in our firewalls and system installers. I can 
give ...the whole system for free," says Babu. Contact him or Mridul 
Jain mridul.jain@californiadigital.com Phone in Bangalore (080) 
5565570
	ANJUTA 1.0.0., LATEST STABLE RELEASE: Heard of Anjuta? Its the
	integrated development environment initiatied by Naba Kumar and
	named after his girlfriend! Biswapesh Chattopadhyay
	<biswapesh_chatterjee at tcscal dot co dot in> recently announced
	that Anjuta 1.0.0 "Diwali" has been released. This is the latest
	stable release of Anjuta, an Integrated Development Environment
	(IDE) for the GNOME 1.x platform. This release includes numerous
	enhancements and bugfixes.  Website: http://www.anjuta.org/ Project
	Page: http://sf.net/projects/anjuta/ Downloads:
	http://sf.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=14222&release_id=120396
	About Diwali: http://www.bawarchi.com/festivals/diwali1.html

SITEWATCH :  http://gpasokan.com/demo-schools/

The Demo@Schools Project: The demo@schools project aims at demoing 
Free Softwares to schools and make the schools adopt free softwares 
as a subject of education in their syllabus. They also actively 
involve ourselves in encouraging children to hack free softwares and 
learn more. "Schools are increasingly putting efforts to impart 
software education to their students.  We are in an attempt to make 
schools teach free softwares before they become dependant on 
non-free softwares," say the Demo@Schools promoters.
SITEWATCH : http://www.ilug-cal.org

The Kolkata chapter of the Indian Linux Users's group (ILUG-CAL) is 
a volunteer driven organisation dedicated to the propagation and 
usage of GNU/Linux in Kolkata, and in West Bengal. It says: "The 
organistion tries to provide suppport to the Linux community in 
Kolkata, as well as to increase the usage of GNU/Linux among the 
general computer users community in the city. It also organises 
workshops, seminars, etc for the local student community." 
Highlights: Sayamindu (Bangla Tux) has started a new project on Free 
Bangla fonts. Check out the site at 
http://www.nongnu.org/freebangfont/

WINDOWS... IN WEST BENGAL SCHOOLS: The West Bengal government is 
considering using open-source operating systems (OS) like Linux as 
an alternative to Microsoft Corp's Windows OS in its school computer 
literacy programme, and has approached hardware maker International 
Business Machines (IBM) to provide the system support, reports 
ZDNetIndia. It says the computer
literacy programme will cover 11,000 schools all over the state, and 
the government has already bought 3000 personal computers (PCs) 
pre-loaded with Windows OS. 
http://www.zdnetindia.com/news/national/stories/nsl,70367.html

	GNU/LINUX IN PUNJABI? Gurupkar Waraich <waraich at linuxmail dot
	org> says he would like to start a new team for Punjabi
	localization. See punjabi-linux.sourceforge.net Says he: "Volunteers
	please get in touch so that we can start working."

LG... LINUX GOING TO THE DESKTOP: LG Electronics India recently 
announced its decision to launch branded GNU/Linux-based PCs in 
India. In a stagnant market, will LG's attempt to break into the 
branded PC market succeed?  Srikanth R P reports in Express Computer 
on LG's move to extend Linux to the desktop. R Manikandan says the 
Linux OS is not only relatively stable and bug-free, but also offers 
stronger memory management to the end-customer 
http://www.express-computer.com/20021125/newsan1.shtml

*********************************************************************
See http://linux-bangalore.org for slide presentations of speakers 
at LinuxBangalore/2002 and also photographs of the event. 
**************
*********************************************************************

STORY FROM INDIA'S NEIGHBOURHOOD: Video Whale Project grew out of 
the concept of Umer Anwar Sheikh and was developed by Zeeshan Ali 
Khattak (zak147(AT)yahoo.com)

The video-whale project is an implementation of video-wall which 
exploits the combined power of Gstreamer (www.gstreamer.net) & 
Xinerama. Says the team: "We plan on using these videowalls in 
Pakistani universties and schools to let them quickly set up 
videowalls for use in the classrooms when need be. Anyone interested 
in the videowalls on a commercial basis is also of course welcome to 
contact us."http://www.gstreamer.net/apps/vw/
	PROPRIETORY SOFTWARE: Amol Hatwar <rollacosta at phreaker dot net>
	drew our attention to the story at
	http://rediff.com/money/2002/nov/13gates.htm This is about the 
Govt. 	of Karnataka and Microsoft signing an MoU for a portal called
	Bangalore One.

r_dobhal at mailandnews dot com came up with this idea: "Why not 
mark a "Free Software" Day?  Inorder to express your views please 
visit www.software-freedom.org"
	SPEECH SYNTHESIS: Rohit Kumar of the Speech Processing Lab, LTRC at
	IIIT Hyderabad points to a speech synthesis demo at
	http://196.12.44.11/~speech/index.htm Says he: "I look forward to
	your responses both about the speech quality and the ease of use and
	understandability of the web interface. PS: For all [GNU/]/Linux
	enthusiasts the speech synthesizer is currently built on Red Hat
	Linux 7.2 and we have tested it with RHL 8.0."

61 LUGs ACROSS INDIA: National network LinuxIndia points to the 
existence of nearly 61 LUGs across India (see below). If this is 
true, then=20 we have more LUGs in India than what the international 
press is reporting as being present in the whole of Asia! Does 
anyone know of any unlisted LUGs? Or have some on this list gone 
inactive? http://www.linux-india.org/chapters.html Guntupalli 
Karunakar <karunakar at freedomink dot org> and Arun Sharma <arun at 
sharma-home dot net> point out that Pramod R has created some 
screenshots of Gnome applications in Kannada. 
http://kannada.sourceforge.net/gnome-screens/screenshots.html

Raghavendra <yesgr at vsnl dot com> points out the need to draw the 
attention of others in the Kannada computing world. Says he: "You 
can also do a demo on setting up the locale, installing the font, 
show off the translations, setup gtranslator/poedit, etc." The 
Kannada mailing list is at 
http://www.sharma-home.net/mailman/listinfo/kannada Meanwhile the 
Indic-Computing project is at indic-computing.sf.net

	Want a set of the latest Debian and Knoppix CDs? Contact
	ragu@vsnl.com Some of Raghavendra Bhat's other involvements
	are in the FSUG-Kochi http://symonds.net/~fsug-kochi/
	
***************************************
UPCOMING MEETS Mumbai * LUG Meet on 12 Jan. 2003 @ VJTI
***************************************

Sajith T S <sajith@symonds.net> announces a JFS translator for the 
Hurd, and calls it "the first industrial-strength journaling 
filesystem for the Hurd". It's a readonly translator, so no 
journaling for now.  See http://www.symonds.net/~sajith/hurd/  More 
on JFS here: http://oss.software.ibm.com/jfs/

AN OPEN SOURCE BUSINESS MODEL: Dr Tarique Sani <tarique at sanisoft 
dot com> has published SANIsoft's Open Source Business Model on his 
site. See http://www.sanisoft.com/openmodel.php Says he: "Feedback 
from you will be very much appreciated."

SOME FEEDBACK TO GNU/LinuxINDIA NEWSLETTER:
	From: Arun Sharma <arun@sharma-home.net>
	I understand that you can't fit an ASCII art logo mentioning
	"GNU/Linux India" in 80 columns, and hence had to abbreviate "Linux"
	part a little bit. But given all the controversy about the term
	"GNU/Linux", I find the above logo in bad taste -- it almost seems
	like you're posting about "GNU India", when in fact, the message is
	about what I'd normally call "Linux". I'm sure you could design a
	logo that displays "Linux" more prominently.-Arun

	From amish_munshi@sify.com Fri Dec 27 17:07:26 2002
	Can you change this artwork, it is not readable. I am very bad at
	art work, so I can not provide any artwork, sorry. Overall, it is
	the best newsletter I have ever got, very well made. Keep it up. How
	regularly will I be getting such rich content?

	From paivakil@vsnl.net Fri Dec 27 17:08:37 2002
	Wow!!!!  What a beautiful logo!!! -- Mahesh T. Pai.

INDIAN-LANGUAGE SOLUTIONS FROM PIONEERS AT IIT-MADRAS:
Dr Hema A Murthy <hema at lantana dot tenet dot res dot in>, 
associate professor at the IIT Madras (Chennai) is one of the two 
coordinators of the IndLinux effort, along with Timothy A Gonsalves 
<tag at tenet dot res dot in>. You can also contact indlinux at 
tenet dot res dot in for information.

She recently wrote in to point to some of the shortcomings in an 
article written recently. Our apologies for an inadequate 
representation; we have no excuse other than the general 
difficulties in garnering information across a virtual 
sub-continent, largely depending on e-mail.
Says Dr Murthy: "Currently, the TeNeT group is involved in the wide 
scale deployment of Internet kiosks across the countryside.  The 
kiosks require local language software so that they can be 
effectively used by the marginalised literate population of our 
country."

We are grateful for the explanation below to Dr Murthy:

Given the number of Indian languages and different encoding 
standards and fonts they use, it was felt that we need to develop 
Indian language support that is essentially independent of encoding 
and font.  Further, we felt that this support must be provided at 
the kernel/X-Window system levels so that applications that run on 
top of the kernel/X-Window system inherit the interface.

To this end we provide two different solutions under linux: kernel 
based and X-Window based.
Kernel based solution:  Indian languages have variable width 
characters. To support variable width at the kernel level, a 
multiglyph approach is proposed, i.e. a keystroke may correspond to 
one or more glyphs. Further, the number of keystrokes possible on 
the standard QWERTY keyboard is not sufficient to represent all 
characters and character clusters in any given language.  This 
results in the problem that a sequences of keys may correspond to 
different glyphs (in that a key sequence ab might correspond to a 
glyph g1, while a key sequence abc might correspond to a different 
glyph g2). This requires that the system has a memory of the 
keystrokes that have been made.  To address this problem a finite 
state machine and a set of associated rules was introduced in the 
kernel.

X-Window based solution:  Two different solutions are supported at 
the X-Window level, namely, glyph based and encoding based.  In the 
first approach, similar to that of the kernel, the parsing is done 
on the input side, while glyphs are produced on the output side 
(file/display).  In this approach, clearly the system is tied to the 
font that is used.  To overcome this problem, an encoding based 
solution has also been provided.  The problem with this approach is 
in cursor positioning.  The position of the cursor is maintained by 
the application which interacts with X to obtain the widths of 
characters.  The cursor is positioned based on the keys typed (no 
memory/context sensitivity is assumed). We are yet to address this 
problem.  We do feel that the only solution available to us is to 
provide a set of cursor APIs in X which can be used by any 
application.

In either solution, the language dependent information is provided 
in parse rule tables.  This information is loaded at runtime.  This 
ensures that changing the local language environment is simply a 
question of manipulating parse rule tables.

Applications:  The solutions that we have provided enable a user to 
type in a local language in most applications (Open Office/ 
KOffice/gcc...).  We have further customised some of the 
applications (menus/errors in local languages), namely, KOffice, 
Konqueror, gcc, pine, emacs.  We are currently working on 
customising Open Office. We are also working on a convertor from 
fonts to encoding, fonts to fonts, encoding to font.

Current Support:   Tamil  (Glyph-based) - TamilNet99, Inscript
                  Hindi  (Glyph-based) - Inscript

		   Tamil (Encoding-based) - ISCII
		   Hindi (Encoding-based) - ISCII

The above supports are complete. (This simply means that we have 
populated the appropriate language dependent parse rule files). We 
are currently working on Malayalam, Oriya, Marathi and Gujarathi.

Future Plans: This work is part of a major plan to develop a 
multimodal interface to the computer.  By multimodal, we mean, 
handwriting, keyboard and speech interfaces.  We have started work 
on both handwriting and speech.  We have developed a handwriting 
interface for Tamil and have developed speech technology software 
for: speech synthesis in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and
Malayalam (Malayalam database was obtained from ISDL, Trivandrum); 
spoken language identification, syllable-based recognition of 
continuous speech, speaker identification. (ENDS)
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YOUR INPUTS to this newsletter are welcome. Volunteers more than 
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Contact us at fred at bytesforall dot org --COPYLEFT 2002, GPL. May 
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