GNU/Linux Preloaded Laptops to Kerala MLAs
Kerala NiyamaSabha Website published Tender for Purchasing GNU/Linux Preloaded Laptops to 141 Members of Kerala Legislative assembly
The Tender Demands Ubuntu 9.04 Preloaded & Ubuntu compatible / Certified Laptops as Requirements
We Must Congratulate TD Kuriachan, Network Administrator, Kerala Legislative Assembly IT Section for Making This Tender as a Free Software Preinstalled Purchase
ODF Alliance award: A Clarification
Press Release
Apr. 6, 09
Trivandrum
On 27th March 2009, On 27th March 2009, a section of the press carried a news which said Mr. Anvar Sadath, Executive Director, IT@School has received an international award from ODF alliance for his contribution to the ODF. It was surprising for many of us who wondered what his contribution to ODF was. Two days later, some of us received a press release issued by ODF alliance which made it clear that recognition was given to Mr. Anvar for the ODF adoption in schools of Kerala. The press release also had quotes from Mr. Anvar Sadath and Mr. Marino Marcich of ODF alliance.
“Anvar Sadath has bridged the digital divide in Kerala,” commented the ODF Alliance’s Marcich. “He was among the first to recognize that an open format like ODF means giving students, teachers, and parents alike the flexibility to use a wide range of software than they currently have, including free solutions. Just as importantly, Sadath translated ideas into actions for the benefit of educational development in Kerala.”
Being involved in IT@school project from year 2001, we knew that above statement is factually wrong. Anvar Sadath was never involved in the ODF adoption phase of this project for which the award has been granted. It was clear that a mistake has happened either from the side of those who applied for the award or by those who have given the award. Neither the recipient nor anyone else involved took the initiative to correct the statement. Hence some of us took the initiative to correct the situation by sending letters to ODF alliance and various individuals involved. We are happy to inform that ODF alliance accepting the mistake decided to correct the citation to recognise individuals and the teaching community involved. We welcome the constructive steps taken by ODF alliance in this regard.
However, recent reports in the local media and online forums tried to put this incident in bad light. We want to clarify that the recent reports on the issue in a section of the press attempting to link our opposition to the award as having political connotations is completely misplaced. Our intention, as activists of the Free software movement, is to correct a mistake on the side of the ODF Alliance . We are happy that the Alliance has been open to our criticism and have admitted the flaws in their selection process.
From the discussions attached with this press release, it can be seen that the entire discussion was to correct a mistake. We request not to inappropriately link this incident to other political issues.
Arun M Ph 09447034795
Anivar Aravind Ph 09663379908
Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards (DCOS) Agreement on Procurement in Support of Interoperability and Open Standards
3rd Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
Hyderabad, India
6 December 2008
Preamble
The Contracting Parties,
Recalling the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Declaration of Principles which states that “[i]nternational standards aim to create an environment where consumers can access services worldwide regardless of underlying technology,”
Recognizing that standards are increasingly global concerns, involving goods and services that move in international trade across borders,
Aware that current competition and legal remedies may not be enough to solve the inherent tensions that routinely arise in the realm of patents and standards,
Desirous of encouraging procurement policies that require evaluation of multiple, competing products based on open ICT standards in order to ensure a level playing field for vendors, governments and consumers,
Cognizant of the need for procurement policies for software programs that are predicated upon an open standard,
Open Standards
Given the multiplicity of interpretations of the term open standards, for the purpose of this document we endorse as an acceptable definition the position contained in the European Union’s draft European Interoperability Framework:
- The open standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties (consensus or majority decision etc.).
- The open standard has been published and the standard specification document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a nominal fee.
- The intellectual property – i.e. patents possibly present – of (parts of) the open standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty free basis.
- There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.
As noted in the European Interoperability Framework cited above, open standards or technical specifications must allow all interested parties to implement the standards and to compete on quality and price. The goal is to have a competitive and innovative industry, not to protect market shares by raising obstacles to newcomers. Thus, open standards or technical specifications must be possible to implement in software distributed under the most commonly used open source licences, with no limitations arising from patent associated with the standard in question.
In addition to the above requirements, it is recommended that there should be multiple independent implementations of the standard.
Governments, publicly funded and non-profit institutions agree to implement the following policies.
Governments, publicly funded and non-profit institutions
Hereby agree to the following measures in order to promote interoperability and accessibility through the use of open standards.
- To create a policy statement on interoperability and open standards, to be available to employees and the public.
- By 2010, procurement of all software should be vendor neutral and implement open standards
- By 2010, tender specifications for hardware (including peripherals and mobile devices) should require that manufacturers provide the driver and interface information necessary to work with a reasonable range of proprietary and free operating system platforms.
- By 2010, all public facing web pages should conform to W3C standards for structure, presentation and accessibility.
- By 2010, tenders for the supply of web based services (for example, online reservations) must specify the requirements of point 4.
- By 2010, agencies should implement policies regarding the storage and archiving of government data and records to ensure that data is stored in open data and document formats.
Signed by the following parties:
- Aslam Raffee, Government IT Officers’ Council, OSS Working Group, Republic of South Africa
- Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
- Bob Jolliffe, Freedom To Innovate, South Africa
- Centre for Internet and Society, India
- Hamid Rabiee, Sharif University of Technology, Iran
- Knowledge Ecology International
- Moving Republic, India
- Shuttleworth Foundation, South Africa
- Swathanthra Malayalam Computing, India
Endorsed by the following parties:
- Bangladesh Friendship Education Society, Bangladesh
- Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), India
- Foundation for Media Alternatives, Philippines
- OpenForum Europe
National Free Software Conference, Boycott Novell & Turn outs
While mailing lists becomes a play ground to execute Goebbelsian tactics, I feel i need to scribble the reason & step by step incidents in our campaign in National Conference on Free Software.
Q:Why You are Opposing Novell?
You all are aware of the 2 major campaigns in which Free Software community in India fought Last 1.5 Years. The Campaign for Document Freedom and Ongoing Campaign against software patents. Novell was always opposite to the Free Software Movement’s position
After the evil agreement with Microsoft Corporation (MS), Novell betrayed the Free Software community by violating the spirit of the GNU General Public license, which is the corner stone of the Free Software movement and legitimising the patent threats of Microsoft corporation.
The deal also legitimized Microsoft’s doubtful and undisclosed patent claims. This stigmatised every other distribution as open to lawsuit and disruption. Novell continues to advertise this.
Novell’s deal with Microsoft has many noteworthy impacts. To list several principal ones:
- If Novell and Microsoft get their way, then metaphorically speaking, GNU/Linux will increasingly be pressured into a corner of the datacentre, essentially being marketed as a guest machine (running under Windows), as opposed to a host running with or without Windows virtualised. The virtual machine can be exploited as a sort of ‘gateway’, much like OEM bundling or even interference with boot sequences.
- Microsoft formats and protocols, some of which are encumbered by software patents, receive priority, precedence, prevalence and promotion at Novell.
- Microsoft creates revenue streams at the expense of those who build, maintain, support and distribute Free software. This not only deters developers but it also makes Free software a less appealing choice, based on cost. It impedes adoption of Microsoft’s number one competitor (according to Microsoft’s CEO).
- It divides GNU/Linux into two classes; on the one hand you have ‘legal’ GNU/Linux (only a perceived notion fueled by threats of lawsuits) and ‘illegal’ GNU/Linux, which is “not licensed”. This raises tensions and it is not healthy to the ecosystem which is supposed to thrive in sharing of code. This week’s announcement of a predatory strategy against Red Hat is a timely example of that.
To name detriments that have occurred in the two years since that agreement, Novell lost the community’s trust and their market share arguably fell relative to competitors that did not make a similar deal.
Here are a few key detriments that affected Novell’s competitors (there are many more):
- Patent allegations came from Microsoft in the middle of May 2007. At times, these allegations were explicitly backed by the deal that had been signed with Novell. This was not the first such incident and it was not the latest either (last one spotted a month ago).
- The deal with Novell may have led to a chain of at least 7 more patent deals that cover Linux and accompanying parts. Novell’s deal served as precedence for ‘marketing’ such deals, as myself as others anticipated from the very beginning. The harms of these newer deals are similar to the harms of the deal with Novell, which was by far the most comprehensive (involving the most strategic collaboration and having the most negative impact).
- As noted above, exclusion came from hypervisors, particularly in Hyper-V, using patent-protected hypercalls.
- In a gruesome display of manipulation and misconduct, Microsoft managed to force OOXML through ISO’s gates. Novell helped this happen in a variety of well-documented ways. This type of help was part of the deal — the binding contract Novell had signed.
- Concessions from regulators, who are being ’sold’ the story that Microsoft collaborates with GNU/Linux (but only Novell’s).
- The deal enabled Microsoft to ’sell’ the impression that it intended to do well with the Free software community and thereby enter Linux and FOSS conferences as early as the deal was signed, sheltered by Novell’s presence or implicit invitation.
- Novell is developing the GNU/Linux version of Microsoft’s proprietary web Technology called silverlight. The ‘covenant’ under which Novell has been granted this exclusive access also specifies conditions that are incompatible with the licensing that covers most other free software. As examples, it specifically requires that the software must have been “obtained directly from Novell or through an Intermediate Recipient” and that it must be “not licensed under GPLv3 or a Similar License”. free software proponents Groklaw have called the covenant “radioactive” and “worthless”, although Novell, Inc. is enthusiastic.
Our Campaign is just a Continuation of Campaign for Document Freedom and Campaign for Open standards in general and Ongoing Campaign against software patents . The posting mela on FSF-Friends & FSF-Bangalore only shows some of them does not have enough exposure in Free Software. At least they must understand Novell- Microsoft partnership hazardous to free software community compared to Indo-US nuclear deal to India
Boycott Novell campaign in CUSAT : The Process
While we came to know about Novell’s role in Software as a Platinum sponsor, we were too sad because it was not communicated earlier /through event website & we all are working for the success of Conference (I am a programme committee member, Swathanthra Malayalam Computing is a supporting Organisation, Shyam, me and Hiran were speakers , We all are planning to conduct a Free Software Film festival inside conference). On that night we (Hiran Venugopalan, Unni, Shyam Narayanan, VK Adarsh, Me ) Planned how to raise this issue without affecting the Conference. The major reason for our concern was the newbies in the conference. Novell is the Only GNU/linux company name mentioned in the Conference. since it is organised with the silent support of CPIM (You can understand it simply by going through schedule) a lot of people from Employee Unions, Students Unions, teachers Unions etc were participated in the event. Our intention is to protect these people being misguided by Novell. Novell was mainly promoting their fork of OpenOffice 3.0 (after they implemented notorious OOXML support & forked it after OOO3 moved to to LGPLv3)& SUSE in their stall. Most of the participants in the Conference were newbies and Novell is the only GNU/Linux distro widely promoted in the exhibition. Our protest is not targeted at Organizers or Novell. It was just a way to spread awareness on Novell’s evil trends through the posters to protect new users being misguided.
Thats why we prepared the charge sheet. We communicated the idea to few friends like Sameer Thahir from Ilug cochin on same night itself and communicated the idea. and he offered full support. We considered it as a Corrective measure taken by the free software Community towards the proper success of a Free Software community event.
On second day morning we reached early (by 8.30 )in Computer centre and prepared charge sheet. Unni created some wonderful posters, with the help of hiran. Arky joined us in the lab and also given some more poster inputs (A Chameleon changing to Windows logo colors) . And Jefry & me printed and photostat to A3 from TD Junction.
The Campaign.
We started posting at the Big Flex which displays programme list (also features Novell Logo, them Moved to Indian Coffee House, and posted some posters. Coloured the Logo “MICROVELL” and moved near Open Air Auditorium and posted Posters on Trees and some walls also in front of the state. (See Photos credit: Hiran Venugopalan)
Lot of people asked us about the campaign and we explained the reasons. All them were satisfied with our reply. Pramode sir, Renjith (IT public) , Jaisen(SMC), suresh, some more students from GEC Thrissur & MES (also volunteers of FSUG Thrissur/ SSUG Malappuram) etc joined with us. Vikram Vincent, who is sending abusive mails now also joined us while putting Poster in Front of the Open air State. (Removed as per the request of Vikram Vincent)
We posted another set of Posters on the gate of Kunjali Marakkar Campus. Out side the entrance of Exhibition there was a Banner of Novell. We posted the Microvell Poster and ‘Novell in Trash’ Poster along with the charge sheet on it without Blocking the content in the poster. Then Novell stall Owners came out asked us to remove the poster. I said If Organizers have issues in the content of the poster let them tell it publicly. And One person with Organizer badge (visible in video ) came and asked us to remove the poster. I said, this is just a protest against novell’s anti Free Software Practices. If You have issues, you remove it. And the organizers changed the Flex. See the video ( we never said we will post 10 posters if poster is removed . People like anil, Joseph Thomas and Haynes Davis are using the Goebbelsian tactics in mailing lists and blogs to make it as truth. But Luckily we had the video taken in Mobile. Thanks to Hiran). The Novell stall Owner visible in the video used the Checkmate response to the organizers.They will not pay if the poster is not removed
Then we posted charge sheet opposite to the wall of Novell’s stall. We never posted anything on their stall. It was removed just after we fixed it. But we didn’t raised any opposition. Some people from Focus Computers stall was arguing with hiran about the issues with Novell.
When moving to ILUG Cochin Stall, Hiran & Unni already reached there and distributing posters to MES Students. Most of them are well aware about Free Software . Manu & Friends were posting these posters on their stall. Jaisen, Unni & me moved to ILUG Cochin stall and put posters with the help of prinson. Then Dr.M.Bhasi came and pulled me from stall. I asked him to dont touch on body and communicate with Stall Owners. ILUG Cochin people said it is the campaign they are supporting. Then Dr. M Bhasi argued Organizers approval is needed for each posters on the stall and pulled me again. Shyam Hiran etc were distributing a poster saying “we support Boycott Novell Campaign” to Other stalls. Dr. Bhasi Threatened us saying he will through us out of the campus. and called security & police.
Me & Unni said we are ready to go out if you can point at least one critique to any one point in Charge sheet. Otherwise it will be the denial of freedom of expression of Free Software Activists.
I called – Anilkumar K V from OSS, One of the Organizer at that time and informed the situation asked him to Intervene. But He refused and said Dr. M. Bhasi (see Photo)will do the needed. Then I noticed a Team of SFI People from Cochin University Student Union under the leadership of Deepak from Cochin University Research Scholars Association(CURSA) also standing behind Dr. Bhasi and roaring at us. Since I studied on same campus and I am familiar with the dynamics of the campus violence by these people. So the better way is to move with the security people. Dr. Bhasi was continued shouting and one more person with him visible in this photo caught my Tshirt’s neck.
Then security people came and separated me from the team and manhandled. SFI people were behind security persons and trying to hit me by shouting who are you to protest in our programme. I got 2-3 hits on my back. People like Hiran & Unni were also treated badly in the crowd. Arky & some students from MES & GEC were taking photos.
Just after reaching back near Open Air Auditorium, people like arun, vimal, Hussain Master (rachana) and informed the incidents. Arun, Anilkumar from IT mission went to Kunjali Marakkar campus for discussion. By this time I got Updates from MES friends that Their posters were forcefully removed from stall and Videos and photos on their mobile phones are deleted.
UPDATE: Freedom of Expression cant be prevented using Muscle power
MES Students recovered forcefully deleted videos from their mobile phones. See the videos below
The first video. You can see i am in phone and asking anilkumar kv to intervene to solve the issue
Second video is without sound. buy you can see Deepak from CURSA leading SFI students
Rest is in Arun’s mail to FSF-Friends
I feel people destroyed the event is the Organisors like Mr. Bhasi from SMS, CUSAT, Deepak from CURSA, Anilkumar K V from OSS, who refused to act on a Crucial time. People who does not have enough exposure on Free Software Politics is made a small campaign as a Big issue through the denial of Freedom of Expression and Giving Weightage to Novell’s Concerns over Free Software Community Concerns.
UPDATE II:
- Mail From RMS
I recived a mail from RMS (Richard mathew Stallman) , the founder of Free Software movement. He says
First of all, congratulations on being the first free software activist
to be physically attacked for a peaceful protest.
This means our movement is gaining in stature.
He also commented about our campaign strategy
me> Most of the participants in the Conference were newbies and Novell is
me> the only GNU/Linux distro widely promoted in the exhibition. Our
me> protest is not targeted at Organizers or Novell. It was just a way to
me> spread awareness on Novell’s evil trends through the posters to
me> prevent Novell’s misguiding new usersThat’s the right way to approach it.
- ILUG Cochin’s Event Report
ILUG Cochin Released an Event Report about the event. The event Report says
The series of events that happened was bad in terms of the organizers
taking an unnecessary tough stand on the matter and not lending an ear to
the actual facts.We were happy to raise our voice and protest with the
Free Software community opposing the likes of forces like Novell. Indeed
it was good to see a resistance in a programme of such magnitude like the
National Conference. Although there is no doubt to the fact that the
conference did its job, bringing people from all walks of life and ILUG
Cochin did the job telling people the principles behind it, the opposition
against Novell has also increased the significance and importance of the
event thereby bringing about a lot of questions into the community which
would not have been raised otherwise.
<snip>
Members from SMC were part of the Programme Committee and the Souvenir Committee. There were no indication that Novell was the platinum sponsor of this Free Software Event. The organisers never communicated about the sponsorship and thus betrayed the whole Free Software community as Novell did. This is evident from the incidents that occurred after the peaceful campaign to boycott Novell by the SMC members & other Free Software Supporters present at the meeting.
</snip>
<snip>
SMC takes this opportunity to deeply condemn the organisers decision to include Novell into the Free Software event. SMC urges the organisers of the event to aplogize to the community on this dreadful alliance with the notorious Novell Corporation and the way the organisers treated Free Software Campaigners.
</snip>
I am starting an FAQ to answer questions aimed at me in various mailing list. I will update this post by including new Questions and answers.
Q: Who Organised National Conference on Free Software what was your role in it?
A: National Conference on Free Software was Organised by Cochin University of Science and Technology(CUSAT), Appropriate Technology Promotion Council(ATPS), IT@School Project of Kerala Government, Open software Solutions and Industrial Cooperation (OSSIC). They also invited other groups supporting the Free Software cause such as KSSP, KSEB, Indian Linux User Group Cochin , Swathanthra Malayalam Computing(SMC) etc to be part of Various committees to support the Conference. I was included on programme committee representing Swathanthra Malayalam Computing(SMC). We made some suggestions like removal of Anand Parthasarathy from Meet the Personnel section (He is a pro-patent, pro-proprietary gadget reviewer well known in Free Software Circles as a person spreading Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt about Free Software) and suggested some rearrangements in schedule and including new people. Few of them were accepted but changing of people like Anand was not possible due to pressure from some organizers who does not have much exposure in free software.
Q. what are your activities in National Free Software Conference? Why you didn’t Organised protest in First day
A: We were invited as speakers and resource persons to conference and too busy with a lot of stuff. We were too busy on First day with Localisation Track on Computer center, Localisation of swathanthra Software session in Photonics department, meeting friends in the sidelines. Anil already aware that we were completed speaker registration by 7.30 PM . We were noticing Novell’s platinum sponsorship banners in Open air stage during evening plenary & sitaram Yechuries Speech.
Q. Are you a member of FSF India. The event website’s speaker list lists you as a member of FSF India
Q: It is without my Knowledge. After jayakumar pointed it in the sidelines of the conference , I communicated with joby . In my presentation, He introduced me as a member of SMC and Movingrepublic
National Public Meeting on Software patents
On behalf of the organizers, Free Software Users Group- Bangalore
cordially invites you to
The National Public Meeting on Software Patents
Venue
2nd Floor, Ecumenical Resource Centre,
United Theological College,
Millers Road, Benson Town.
(Behind Cantonment Railway Station)
Bangalore–560046
Google Map
Time
10:00–17:00
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Software patents in India occupy a contentious and indeterminate legal space. While recent amendments to the Patent Act have sought to bring our law in conformity with WTO-mandated standards, these amendments have shied from pronouncing conclusively on the patentability of software. The result is an equivocation in the law which is being wrestled aggressively and effectively by corporate interests, patent attorneys and the Patent Office in favour of granting software patents. Unheard, and so unrepresented in this powerful triad are the interests of millions of citizen-consumers who are either presumed too ignorant to be credited with a view on the issue, or are presumed to be irrelevant to the determination of issues which are seen as purely “business” matters (as opposed to “citizen” matters).
Software is everywhere you look (and many places you never think of looking). With the explosion of low-cost computing devices (think mobile phones and iPods), software has leaked out of its traditional home—the PC—and begun infiltrating various aspects of our lives. From traffic signals to toilet commodes in some countries, refrigerators to railway tickets, vacuum cleaners and electronic voting machines, TVs, refrigerators and electronic pacemakers, inanimate objects of all sizes are humming to themselves, chattering amongst themselves in an intricate, highly complex tongue called ‘software’ that few of us can ever hope to understand. On the impulses of software, we stop or move on streets, fill up on petrol, and elect governments. Someone’s heart beats. Someone else receives land records on a village kiosk. Someone is standing by helplessly for fourteen years (the un-evergreened term of a patent) because software failed to factor in her disability.
There are big stakes involved in the control of software in an era when software is becoming increasingly central to the way we humans organize our lives and inhabit a democracy. At one level this is about preserving the right of agency and self-direction that citizens have in their own lives. At another, it is about the right not to be silenced when our long-fought democratic republic is at risk of being diminished by a few lines of software in a machine. Whether or not we are all in fact capable of deciphering software is inessential. Those of us who are ought not to be denied the freedom to interrogate, tinker and improve.
Patents have the effect of adding an additional layer of ‘protection’ to already existing copyright protection of software, while simultaneously overriding the various affordances and safeguards built into copyright law. For instance, the right of “fair dealing” under copyright law permits users to examine and modify any software in order to make it interoperable with other software. This is an extremely potent right that reasserts our right to intervene in the shaping of our surroundings. It is also one of the rights that is most imperiled by software patents.
The present “public hearing” on software patents is an invitation for dialogue on the various issue surrounding software patents. Although the Patent Office had scheduled a public consultation on its Draft Patent Manual to be held in Bangalore in August this year, that meeting was abruptly cancelled (or postponed indefinitely, or to an unannounced date—we can’t be sure) without any reasons having been assigned by the Patent Office. This signals either of two unpleasant scenarios: first, the Patent Office is proceeding with its consultations in an extremely mechanical fashion, not intending inputs received in the course of these consultations to qualitatively impact their functioning in any way; or secondly, perhaps the Patent Office underestimates the amount that citizens living in the IT capital of India might have to say on the subject of software patents.
It is our attempt in this public hearing to organize the kind of consultation that the Indian Patent Office ought to have conducted. We hope also hereby, to serve as a gentle but firm reminder to the Patent Office that its task is as yet undone.
Agenda
See CIS website for schedule
Organisers
Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore Free Software Users Group, Bangalore Free Software Foundation of India SPACE, Trivandrum IT for Change, Bangalore Alternative Law Forum Delhi Science Forum Movingrepublic Sarai/CSDS, Delhi OpenSpace, Bangalore Swathanthra Malayalam Computing Servelots – Janastu, Bangalore Mahiti, Bangalore DeepRoot Linux, Bangalore Wiki Ocean, Pune Turtle Linux Lab, Bangalore Aneka, Bangalore Zyxware Technologies, Trivandrum INSAF(Indian Social Action Forum)
Good Computing needs Good fonts
I am blogging after a long break. Last entry was posted during foss.in. In between I posted some occasional responses on my Malayalam blog. But some situations force me to blog, and this is one such
I am specifically referring to recent posts by Pravin Satpute and Rahul Balerao. Since they already set the flame on Planet FLOSS india and Planet Fedora , I am contributing my share to it
Some Background
- Swathanthra Malayalam computing (SMC) team was reorganised in 2006 September by Praveen & me and it developed a lot of tools and improved malayalam support in GNU/Linux Desktop. We feel our major achievement is contributing atleast 20 new developers committed to free software.
- SMC works on upstream, but running our own yum repositories for Fedora 6, 7, & 8 & CentOS 5 and apt repositories for Debian etch, lenny & sid to support old versions in use & to address the delay in getting projects/patches in upstream.
Malayam Rendering & Fonts
- While working on Malayalam Rendering Issues the first bug we need to clear was a bug created by Rahul Balerao by fixing rendering engine against a buggy font called Lohit malayalam. ( ref#357790 and this flickr image). Later Rahul understood his mistake and was ready to work with us for fixing upstream bugs.
- We started with a pango patch by Suruma for perfect malayalam rendering. It was a rendering engine patch + font patch based solution to the issues regarding the shaping of post-base forms of consonants viz. YA,RA,LA & VA , in certain contexts when they are the rendered in pango & QT Treating them as ordinary consonants in the shaping engine means they can be used with ‘akhand’ tag in the font substitution table.ie, the respective form will appear whenever we input followed by the above mentioned consonant, irrespective of the context.
- Another issue solved is the post GSUB reordering of the isolated RA sign(used in reformed script),wherein it should be placed in front of the base glyph.This reordering is still to be achieved by any of the rendering mechanisms except the uniscribe.Moreover, using the post base forms for RA and LA leads to weird shaping results when they are followed by NGA, RA, RRA etc. and may more
- Suresh Worked on restoring uniscribe rendoring support in font and solved shaping issues of post-base forms of YA and VA at font level by adding half form(pre base).The half forms for other consonants are also used for the better shaping of complex syllabic cluster. This leads to 04 version of SMC fonts. It is compatible to upstream pango now.
- Only bug remaining in pango now is the Bug #441654 . A work around is available to fix it. But not accepted in upstream yet.
- In the meantime SMC developed new Traditional fonts Meera (K.H Hussain & Suresh P), Dyuthi (Hiran & K.H Hussain) following the model of Rachana Movement , which restored the traditional script of the language. Meera font become very popular and is now used/recommented by 2 major newspapers (Mathrubhumi & Mangalam) for their online versions.
- Praveen fixed/tested most of the upstream bugs on Mozilla Firefox 3.0 related to Indic rendering and Indic Printing
Reply to Pravin Satpute’s Posts
- In your post comparing Rachana & Meera fonts , you seem to be unaware of the differences between fonts. In Malayalam we only have 51 basic alphabets but we have nearly 1000 glyphs in usage. Unlike latin, font perfomance for indic languages need to be measured based on how it performs with conjuncts. I am not joining with Malayali-non-malayali comments on the post. But people may get angry while seeing the bugs in Lohit and its design mistakes.(see last part of my post for more details on this). Language is always linked with peoples emotions .
- Relative size seems to be your major point. Meera using Ascent = 560, Descent = 440, for Em size 1000 while Lohit-malayalam is using Ascent = 650, Descent = 374, for Em size 1024. Meera is using smaller sizes to prevent cutting of glyphs below baseline because it is a traditional lipi font.Relative satus can be configured using proper fontconf scripts. We already used it in SMC Debian Repository.
- You did a great job in packaging smc-fonts for Fedora9. But In the post you are saying ” license inside fonts but not easily viewable, person should have fontforge or any other font tool to actually see that license” . It is a bug with Gnome font Viewer & not with the font. See bug #407605 . So detaching Licence text is not the right solution.
Reply to Rahul Bhalerao’s comments & advices
- On the post Lohit Fedora & Community , Rahul starts with the the complaint “huge agitation by Malayalam community” . Does fedora thinks reporting bugs is “agitation”? We are just showing the issues we have come across. We also helped him. Accepting issues and solution to better the technology is the duty of a good programming artist. And Hiran Venugoplan, a student & font developer with SMC helped him to fix Lohit-malayalam’s critical bugs . It is available for download here. It still works better than the official 2.2.1 Version of Lohit-malayalam against Upsteam pango
Current release: |
 |
- I am not in favour of malayali vs non-malayali debate. But Can you think why people are becoming angry?. After reporting bugson lohit in 2007 beginning, and after community offered help, it has not been fixed till date. And first Instruction in SMC Fedora Repos are yum remove lohit-fonts-malayalam
- Your Contribution is not much in solving rendering issues of Malayalam till date and you created enough harm for malayalam rendering. Without your help language community studied it and found the solutions. People may get angry when you are claiming the authority without contributing your ability.
- Inclusion of smc-fonts in Fedora 9 gives you the authority to blame SMC for pointing bugs . But i am considering it is not as a “favour” but as your duty. I am sure without its inclusion you will loose the merit of Language support, because all you have are 2 typewriter script fonts , Lohit-malayalam & samyak-malayalam(Fixed by Hiran Venugopalan). Most of the people who are using Malayalam in Fedora are already using SMC repositories for Fedora 6, 7, and 8.
- See the below image for current rendering bugs in Lohit. Also read the section on Design mistakes in Lohit-malayalam. I am comparing it with Meera a Traditional Lipi font and Raghu-Malayalam, a typewriter script font by R.K Joshi
Design Issues in Lohit-malayalam glyphs
These issues are listed with the help of Hiran Venugoplan, who helped rahul to fix critical bugs in Lohit Malayalam and Samyak-Malayalam. (both are in Fedora 9). For the analysis I have used the Lohit Malayalam font that Fedora 9 contains as its default font. Its just an analysis, not comparision with any other. Issues over rendering is not discussed here.
- In general, the glyphs are just drawn and not designed scientifically. The font as per my analysis is done by using only one font as for reference, which is unfair while design a language which designer does not uses and knows. The size of circles, curves, proportions as foursquare is impressive. The circles need more radius, more lovely curves to be added to glyphs in order to attain better visibility.
- The previously considered four square, is a method that calligraphist suggests over Malayalam language. By that they suggest to divide the glyph to four parts using one vertical and other horizontal lines (as Rule of the thirds in photography). The calligraphist suggest for equal quantity of ink/darkness for all squares (exceptions are there).
- Malayalam digit 0 : The glyph contains a circle, which is NOT the Malayalam digit ZERO.
- Lohit Malayalam contains indo-arabic numbers : As far as I know, no other lohit fonts contains the numeral glyphs, U+0004 to U+000D. As lohit is done in a way “let other fonts replace the unknown”, they where not necessary. The design of numerals is not matching with Malayalam glyphs, in shape and in size.
- Vocalic R : The design of Vocalic R (U+0D43) is imperfect, irregular and unattractive. The glyph design starts before the LBearing hence in certain cases the glyph is overlaps the previous.
- Malayalam digits 3 (U+0D6A) and 9 (U+0D6F) : The glyph used for 3 and 9 digit representation is the similar to that of glyphs 0×00f2 and 00×00f1 respectively. This causes confusion while reading, typing and can cause spoofing.
- Proportion of vertical combination glyphs : The major problem the lohit has is that it fails over readability over screen and print which is supposed to be the major karma for a default typographic language font. The glyphs from glyph157 to glyph165, of X + la form, the size of joined part to X (which represents la) is imperfect, over sized. Similar disproportions can be seen widely over the font for vertical glyphs, glyph152 glyph154 glyph155 glyph202 and so. 0×010D is also having issue over proportion.
- For the same vertical glyphs, the vertical size relation between two such glyphs are not same and hence makes issue over readability as it make the reader a thought that he is reading a zigzag content.
- The issues are still more over readability. The font is unimpressive in screen and unreadable in papers. It is quite disappointing to see version of fedora is the one which contain many Malayalam localisation efforts and packages with such a unimpressive font as its default font. A bad font results in bad computing.
HOWTO Open an OLPC Laptop, Live Demo from FOSS.IN/2007
See The video from FOSS EXPO Gnome stall in FOSS.IN/2007
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-911008751202235387Karunakar Rocks!!!
Conclusion: Total Time needed to open an OLPC Laptop is 2.52 Minutes (including time taken to takeout Battery)
Thanks to Santhosh for the video
Wikipedia Offline with Greasemonkey
Ben Lisbakken writes an faq for usinggoogle gears +greasemonkey to make anysite available offline by describing Wikipedia as an example.
Greasemonkey script for offline wikipedia is here
Free Burma
SMC-SFD07: Wide news coverage in malayalam dailies
Swathanthra Malayalam Computing(SMC) got widespread support from malayalam mainstream print media for the 2 day (14th & 15th september) software freedom day celebration & the release of 7 software packages developed during last year. It is the time to look at our history.
SMC is reactivated from a dead state, as a result of personal discussions with praveen, hiran & vimaljoseph in the sidelines of GPLv3 Conference in bangalore. The new team is setup at last year SFD celebrations in Thrissur. Suresh, Baiju(the founder of SMC), Hussain KH (rachana), Anwar, Students in GEC etc also joined in the team at that time. Now we have more than 30 developers+localizers. The astounding progress within the short span of time is described below
- December 2006: Debian Installer is Fully Translated into Malayalam ( The Work of Debian malayalam, a sub team of Swathanthra malayalam computing)
- January 2007: Santhosh Thottingal of SMC done a complete architectural rewrite of Dhvani, the Indian language text to speech system by Ramesh hariharan & added Malayalam support to It.
- March 2007 : participated & Conducted workshops in FOSS Meet@NITC, Kozhikkode
- March 2007: Swathanthra Malayalam Computing selected as a participating Organisation ( and only Indian Organisation) in Google Summer of Code Project. 5 projects were allotted.
- April 2007: GNU aspell supported Malayalam (major issues are resolved)
- May 2007: Swanalekha: a Phonetic Input scheme for malayalam using SCIM
- June 2007: Lalitha, Bolnagiri based xkb keyboard for malayalam by Jinesh
- July 2007: Added pango support to Tuxtype by Mobin M as part of GSoC work. Now Tuxtype is usable for all Indian languages
- August 2007: Malayalam Matrix screen saver Release, & First Public Release of Aspell- malayalam spellchecker with More than 137000 words list (It is the largest Indian Language Aspell wordlist. Second is hindi with 25000 words).
- September 2007: Gnome Officially supports malayalam in Gnome 2.20 with More than 80% translations
- September 2007: Sarika : The first Free Indian language speech recognition engine is developed by Shyam K (as a part of GsoC). It Currently identifies more than 50 malayalam words
- September 2007: Tuxtype malayalam is Released by Mobin.M & friends (Vimal, Shreyas, Sreeranj, Prince)
- Meera , a Malayalam Traditional opentype font with more than 900 glyphs is released under GNU GPL by Hussain K.H and Suresh P . It is developed for Suruma renderering scheme (not compatible with Uniscribe scheme for windows) . Authors are working on a Uniscribe compatible (windows) version now
Pramode Sir wrote:
A society and a culture is identified by its language – once the language is dead, the society starts losing its identity. A good way to keep a language alive is to take it to the digital world – the world of the PC/Communication devices and the Internet. This is one context in which developing regional language computing environments and popularising them has great significance.
The theme for the 2 day event was “Swathantra Software and Malayalam computing” . Free software is touching the lives of common man now !!
