5th of June
Read this and comeback here.
The day started when mom woke me up at 4 ‘O’ clock. I had to be ready by 5 so that I can go to Kadampuzha temple with my cousine. I prepared tea and had break fast with beaten rice (Avil) and banana chips. But there was a misunderstanding as I didn’t turn up the day before and he thought I was not going with him ! So he didn’t stop for me and it was disappointing to wake up at 4′O clock during vacation and for nothing 
Anyway I had ‘Lord of the rings’ to read again at an unexpected time. (I always read books at these irregular hours like once I ventured to read Harry Poter 5 during my sessional exams during 5th semester, a night-out to read ‘Five point someone- what not to do in IITs’, ‘Dance Dance’ (Complete novel – highly recommended ! but you may find something not fiting into the scheme — because it is a sequel) of Haruki Murakami when everyone in the campus was deep in RS agarwal and Sakunthala Devi for campus placement preparations, ‘Sea Leopard’ during s8 exams and ‘Da Vinci code’ within a week before the s8 exams, to point out some 
) Continue reading ‘Another day at Rauf’s home’
I have been thinking about writing on BLUG meet for some days after seeing a mail and later a post from Atul. The meet was on 25th Aug as it was Linux’s Birthday (Why 25 ? Read an article from blug wiki). I went home after the meet and couldn’t upadate my blog during weekend.
Then there was another blog entry about another perspective of FLOSS in Education.
Me and Dilpu were again there together.
I got a chance to initiate a discussion on Software Freedom Day and there was a very interesting discussion. Some points are noted in SFD Bangalore wiki
. Then there was a video of Eben Moglen’s talk on Freedom of thought, culture etc.
The interesting thing was meeting those with whom I discuss things on mailing lists. Also the food was good though 150/- was a bit more I suppose (Though you won’t get that feeling with 150/- no where, so it was rather worth it)
Continue reading ‘Blug meet and education project’
The last saturday (20th Aug 2005) I attended the Bangalore Debian Developers conference at IIIT Bangalore with Dilip
. The event started at 2.30 pm with a video of Jaldhar Vyas, a Debian project leader from India and now in USA as the registration was going on. There was two Debian hackers [
Ramki (Ramakrishna) and Ganeshan ] (infact there are only two Debian developers from India right now, out of 1380 around the globe) present and shared their experiences. The next years event is already announced (19th August 2006) and we target a minimum of 20 Debian developers by that time.
The objectives of the conference were
* Enable more Debian contributors from Bangalore (later from India).
* Provide support for Debian developers in terms of mentoring and resources.
* Support adoptions of Debian in the region.
I hope we will be able to fulfil it.
Ramki (Ramakrishna) and Ganeshan explained about the Debian project and their experiences with Debian. For a detailed report see this link
A report of the first Bangalore Debconf .
The presentations of Ganeshan is available in pdf and sxi formats
http://people.debian.org/~rganesan/debconf-in-rg.sxi
http://people.debian.org/~rganesan/debconf-in-rg.pdf
I met one of my Senior Anish Kumar (95 – 99 batch in REC Calicut). He is also working with HP in OpenSSI. ( LB 2003 talk on OpenSSI ).
We have a group at Yahoo DebianIndia. If you are interested in future activities come and join.
See VTU Floss Campaign
This is the current status of the petition
See more photos here
On August 6th Saturday we got an apponitment to meet the VC at VTU
Campus in Belgaum. We (Thejesh, Ramakrishna, Vivek and myself ) met at Coffee Day at MG Road on 4th Evening and discussed the plans and presantation. We left for Belgaum on 5th Evening and reached there by 6th Morning. We preapared the presantation and by afternoon we reached the VTU campus. To our great disappointement the VC was not there. He didn’t keep his appointment. So we had to give the petition to the Registrar and comeback (We were very angry about the way VC responed and it even becam grave when registar told us that every weekend he is in Bangalore ! We had clearly mentioned that we are coming from bangalore and if he is in bangalore every week, then Why did he give an appointment at Belgaum ? He might have thought that we won’t go thus far to meet him ! Anyway we are not gonna let it go. We are trying to meet him in bangalore. If w cannot go some one else will be ready. He will have to listen to us one day.)
[Discuss about it here]
Update: VTU recognises FOSS.IN
Noted on 19 May 2005
I’ve been able to engage myself in ‘something or other’ for the last 3 weeks since I left NITC, like
Changathikkoottam,
IT@School training,
Movies (Akkareyakkare Akkare, Ninathen vanthai),
Sleeping
Reading [K.L. Mohanavarma's 'Settlement', News papers -- almost complete!! ]
or ‘Bakar’ (Kathi) with sabeel (he left for exams on 14th).
Update: He is placed in HCL Infosystems through Campus Recruitment
I went to rauf’s home to demeonstrate GNU/Lnux as Sabeel got really exited as I kept on telling him about my hacks. Well, it seems his interest has gone as he saw it as a simple thing !!! [It was Suse 9.3 Professional and I could not go into much of the commands and configuration files and options ]. To some it is interesting when it is not common or not challenging. Continue reading ‘Project Killing (time) — and lots of Partition hacks’
FSF and KSTA District level Planning meet for IT@School project support group formation
15th May 2005
KSTA Mandiram Koppam, Palakkad
I got a chance to talk on free software at Palakkad district meet of FSF and KSTA [I attended a similar meeting in Calicut where Arun M of FSF India talked]. This was arranged by Mohandas master [A master Trainer for IT@School project in the district]. The meet started at 2.00 pm with inauguration by Shri. A. K. Chandran, KSTA state secretary. He briefed the efforts of KSTA in the Kerala School educqtion sector and especially its commitment to support use of Free Software in schools of the state as part of the IT@School project. He also talked about KSTA’s intention to prepare educational materials with FSF India. Then I got my chance to talk after Shri. Venu of the KSTA district executive briefed about the agenda of the meet. This was my first chance to talk on Free Software to an audience. Continue reading ‘IT at School Palakkad support group formation — my first talk’
Changathikkoottam 2nd Day
On 10th of May early morning I left home for Nattukal for Police Verification required for my passport. I got my first chance to experience how our system “works”. I was back in Alanallur by 10 am. Before we started of with a song by Murali master, reports of the previous day was read by kids.
Scientist is labourer
Human tribes warrior
Science is driver for him
Science is his driver
Continue reading ‘Changathikkoottam – A crowd of friends Day 2′
Changathikkoottam – A crowd of friends
May 9,10 Krishna ALP School Alanallur
Day 1
I got a chance to be a part of ‘Changathikkoottam’ conducted by Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad (KSSP) [As an organiser]. It was a wonderful experience – a going back in time to the good old days in school. The programme was arranged for kids of age 9-12 (standard 4 –7) as mid-summer vacation programme. The programme was attended by over 50 students from various parts of Alanallur Panchayath. Changathikkottam consisted of Origami – which teach one to make models by folding paper -, science experiments, songs and games. I read about the programme in news paper and when I met Murali master I got the dates for our Changathikkottam. I thought the programme was on 8,9 so I went to GVHSS Alanallur on 8th morning only to see an empty school campus. On 9th I wasn’t that enthusiastic and I reched there by 11am, where as the programme started by 10am. In the beginning I discussed about Free Software with Parishad members as I was seeking their support for our efforts to spread free software. My first chance to get involved in the programme was when the participants are divided into two groups and one group doing Origami and other doing experiments. I went with the latter team and the first experiment was a plastic boat then we did dancing button and fire extinguisher. Continue reading ‘Changathikkoottam – A crowd of friends Day 1′
Some Background Info
Free Software Foundation of India was successful in its efforts to include free software in the high school curriculam [For the IT @ School project] in Kerala last year. But the teachers were given training only in Microsoft Windows even though GNU/Linux has given equal importance and a choice is given for schools to choose any one of these. About 33 schools [Out of toal 2699 schools in the state. Data from IT @ School Progress Reort ] chose GNU/Linux as a platform of choice and decided to go forward with the Free OS. But the IT @ authorities pressured many to change over to Windows but many persisted and forced to conduct the examinations on Windows as the Soft Exam — the software designed for that purpose was only available for Windows [See a news story from Hindu about protest by KSTA against SoftExam windows only version]. But two schools stood firm and refused to chose Windows [And now they have GNU/Linux version of the Soft exam as well]. The authorities had to budge before their determination and only two schools conducted [After a lot of hard work] their examinations on GNU/Linux platform. One was Mappila Higher Secondary School in Koyilandi and other was in Kannore District. Continue reading ‘A new beginning for IT education in Kerala’
This was a reply my friend Amar got from one of his friends. Thought it might be of interest.
[ All these discussions are available from the wiki http://bangalore.gnu.org.in/?Patents ]
The original mail was
Dear Friends,
Patents are a devious tool to harm developing countries’ development.
Not only will patents harm software; but will also lead to rise in
prices of medicines.[Read further for more info]
What you can do ?
a) Post this on your blog/website too if you have one
b) Email this to as many people as you know
c) Email to the Editor of various magazines, newspapers that we
don’t want patents
d) Email to the President of India and any political party in
India who has an email Continue reading ‘The other side of patents’
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