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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 !!

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They are recommending the use of Firefox 1.5 or IE6.0 while using Iceweasel 2.0.0.6 . It seems their check depending only on useragents

Shame on you google.

(Iceweasel is a rebranding of Firefox by Debian to make it compatible with Debain Free software guidelines.)

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India votes against ooxml unanimously. the decision of the committee was to disapprove ooxml with comments. The final meeting took place today after 3pm for about an hour and half, and no voting took place.

Venkitesh Hariharan also reports it.
Todays Economic Times & business standard picked up the story.
ET report says

“We unanimously agree on the disapproval of OOXML with comments. The same will be submitted to ISO,” National Informatics Centre head and BIS technical committee chairperson Nita Verma said after a marathon meeting that lasted over six hours. There was no need for a voting as only Infosys Technologies and CSI supported Microsoft.

Some quick links on Background of this campaign:

Why ECMA OOXML is not a Free Document standard aper By Dr. Nagarjuna

Update:
Brazil also Decided No to OOXML yesterday:-)

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About the secession of the Indian state from the citizens it is supposed to serve.

The secession of Indian politicians from the people they are supposed to represent.

The secession of the Indian rich from the fate of their fellow Indians.

The secession of India’s educated from the basic values of their own education (with values replaced by the price of their souls)

The secession of the idea of development from the real needs of the Indian people leaving only a trail of destruction and displacement.

As Independent India approaches the age of sixty- that magical sum of five cycles of 12 years each – it is time to tell the truth about our country.

The truth that six decades after the British departed India is still ruled like a colonial state that violates the rights of its ‘subjects’ with complete contempt whenever it wants.

The truth that so far successive Indian governments have primarily represented the business and landed elites and never the common citizens of this country.

The truth that indigenous communities, fisherfolk and Adivasis – the original people of India- have been victims of a systematic apartheid practiced by the Indian establishment.

The truth that the Dalits of this country still scavenge the waste of the upper castes who consume but are not ready to deal with the consequences of their consumption.

The truth that all Indian regimes since Independence have coveted the resources of the North East but treated its people as aliens in their own land.

The truth that Kashmir has become a property dispute between the establishments of India and Pakistan, neither of whom give a damn for the lives and rights of the Kashmiris themselves.

The truth that the spirit and essence of India’s democracy – that great political victory we won as part of the freedom struggle- has been reduced today to a bland consumerist choice between one brand of toothpaste and the other.

There was enough official celebrations on this year too, the media chattered about of India turning a Super Power and our politicians salivate at the idea of becoming a junior partner of US Imperialism. And yet behind this pomp, show and false grandeur lie the glaring contradictions of our country.

The contradiction of a poor, developing nation that wants to send a Man to the Moon when it can’t even send its children to decent schools.

The contradiction of a budding nuclear power that can make atom bombs but can’t generate enough electricity to light up its villages.

The contradiction of ‘patriots’ shedding crocodile tears for Mother India while girl children are killed even before they are born and women in this country are routinely murdered and raped.

The contradiction of a country that has the largest number of billionaires in the world outside the US while its impoverished farmers commit suicide and farm workers starve to death.

The contradiction of a government that allows Coca Cola, sitting in far away Atlanta, to poison the drinking water of this country while millions of its citizens are dying of thirst.

The contradiction of the Indian media which is growing in numbers but shrinking in stature, reduced to peddling trivia, titillation and shining trinkets sold by global corporations.

I believe the time has come for the people of India to openly talk of RESISTANCE.

RESISTANCE against the colonial Indian state to restore it as an instrument at the service of the people of India and make our public servants behave like servants of the public.

RESISTANCE against the attempt by the Indian government to sell off public resources to the highest bidders and privatize everything including the dreams of the Indian people.

RESISTANCE against the takeover of this country by progenies of the East India Company, the corporate ‘monarchs’ carving their princely kingdoms from the flesh and blood of the Indian nation.

RESISTANCE against the Brown Sahibs who rule us and are now busy negotiating the sale of our national sovereignty to foreign powers paving the way for a recolonisation of India.

A VICTORY for the people of India who refuse to be cheated, exploited and fooled in perpetuity by their rulers.

As usual Independence day is an occasion of Dreams & expectations too…. But I believe The Independence cannot be achieved without justice, human dignity, sovereignty, ecological sustenance and genuine democracy.

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As a tribute to Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish peer-to-peer activists who created the Pirate Bay (a Bittorrent tracker web site) have set up a tracker site called Bergman Bits to help people download Bergman’s films via Bittorrent:

Bergman Bits says

With the death of Ingmar Bergman, one of the last great film creators, an era has passed away. An era where cinema was the supreme medium, dominating the cultural landscape and powerful men could direct and dictate our inner most feelings and desires with mass media.

For good or worse, we now live in the time of the great distributed networks where all of us have the powers of communication and creation at our hands. Despite Bergman, lets not wish the time of mass media back, but let it silently pass away with a final gasp.

As big fans of Bergmans work, we decided to make a tribute site to the films he created and we all love. We want to help people share these works and hope that even though Ingmar is no longer with us more people will experience the films and enjoy them as much as we have.

His 54 Films are available to download (Hets Frenzy/Torment (1944) to Saraband (2003)) in Bittorrent format from

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GNU/Hurd aka Complete GNU system is a futuristic project. It was started by the end of 80′s . But was stagnant due to the architectural problems and lack of contributers after the arrival of Linux Kernel & GNU/LInux system. It is way forward from the monolithic kernel Linux to Micro kernel based systems. The Hurd is a set of servers running on top of the GNU Mach microkernel to implement file systems, network protocols, file access control, and other features that are implemented by the Unix kernel or similar kernels (such as Linux). Together they build the basefor the GNU operating system. Debian have a GNU/Hurd distribution on Development for a long time (It reached K14 now) . Some students from MES college of Engineering Kuttippuram under the leadership of C.K raju decided to created a new installer (installation is the biggest problem for people to use GNU/Hurd.) . Kiranchand and Team Created a wonderful Installer for Debian GNU/hurd. It is named as Debian GNU/Hurd LX installer as the successor of K series that boot Directly into X. wonderful development Kiran & team. Kiran also participated in in Our discussion on “Smart city & changing Kerala society” in Eranakulam on may and presented his experience as a case study on on how one can take part in Software Dev elopement project without and Exclusive smart cities or Technoparks.

Day before yesterday I tried the new installer. I amazed at the boot screen at first. A beautiful Image. It brings the professionalism which is necessary for each & every Project. The Installer is really superb compared to the Old Installer. You can place critiques on it only when you compared it to Debian GNU/Linux installer. After Installation (i was running it on qemu) I rebooted the system and amazed at the Grub. It have a auto configured grub with a beautiful background image. WoW. They are conducting its release function at Calicut tomorrow. I am participating in the seminar on after the release on the theme “Political Ethics in Information society- A discussion on Contemporary ICT developments in Kerala” . I am now on the bus back to Calicut. Write more soon.

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When the manuscript of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”– the seventh and final novel in the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling–was carried by hand from London to New York, the attorney for Scholastic, the book’s American publisher, sat on it throughout the flight. When it was bound and printed, the factory workers who oversaw its production were reportedly forced to work in near-darkness to prevent them from reading it. And when it was shipped to retailers, the vehicles carrying it were tracked by satellite to ensure that they did not deviate from their intended route.So what next?
Just after the book is released It appeared on Torrent servers. The versions include Photographed pages, Properly Compiled PDF, audio book etc. Thousands of people are sharing it See the below Picture for the number of seeds for The Torrent. A Simple search on Torrentz.com will be helpful to find the torrents.

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Right to read & Parody

Remember The Dont Buy Harry potter campaign initiated by Richard Stallman Last year during the release of “Half Blood Prince”. Some copies of this book are Mistakenly sold earlier by some canadian Bookstores. Then the Publishers obtained an Injuction from supreme court prohibiting the purchasers from reading the books before the official release date or from discussing the contents . Some points points Raised by stallman is Very Important even now

The right to read information in text that a company published “by mistake” can be very important. Suppose it’s not a work of fiction, but about the health effects of some of their products, or how to make a program that will interoperate with theirs. Suppose it gives information about corruption or government lies. The right to read is a right worth defending, and no exceptions can be tolerated

Still, is that more important than freedom of speech? More important than abortion rights? More important than preventing global warming? Why compare them? The comparison would be relevant if we had to choose to support just one, but we don’t have to choose. It is easy to support this campaign and others at the same time. Don’t buy Harry Potter books, and send the money you saved to the ACLU, NARAL, the EFF, the FSF, No2ID, or GreenPeace.

Parodies of Harry Potter books have been suppressed in many countries with copyright lawsuits. This is one more reason not to buy Harry Potter books. Meanwhile, it appears that JK Rowling is not content with her riches, but remains greedy for every last possible additional penny. In more ways than one she stands as a role model for copyright enforcers, and her status as a struggling single mother is often used as the analogy for the way copyright protects the rights of poor authors. While we are all happy for Ms Rowling, what is not convincing is how the example applies even after the publication of the fifth or sixth Harry Potter book, by which time the writer had become one of the highest paid authors in the world, with many millions of pounds in excess.

Thoughts on Piracy

When Torrent Networks creates an Excerpt sharing mechanism of peers, The copyright Industry is alarming about Piracy. Why “Piracy” is exists?

Piracy Exists in Society in the wide division between Copyright Industry & Informal Economy. Why a lot of harrypotter books are appearing on Our Roadside books stands for Rs 100 or 200? Lawrence Liang analyses this question in this Infochange India article By Comparing the Book Prices against average income. See the table below

ThisTable & Article Provides some Insights

One: absolute prices of books can be higher in the South than in the North.
Two: consumers in the South have to commit significantly higher proportions of their income to consume these books.
Three: if consumers in the USA had to pay the same proportion of their income towards these books as their counterparts in South Africa and India, the results would be luicrous

So Clearly pirates respond only to a market demand, and not every book is pirated. There is a particular popularity or price limit that has to be achieved before it enters into the piracy circuit. Presumably, if a book has achieved a certain status that leads to it being pirated, its author is no longer poor and struggling. And In second case, Piracy is also used as a Business Trick by the copyright Industry Itself. Just Think about Micro$oft. They are the the biggest corporate Pirate which uses Piracy as a market strategy to reach people.

Sharing & copy culture is embeded in Human History. “The Criminalisation of Sharing” (they dont have anything 2 do with attacking ships – the piracy) is clearly a new phenomenon. Harry poter & its 20$ Price is deciding the piracy here. I’m ending with a Quote from Derrida.

“The admiring fascination of the rebel can be understood not merely as the fascination for someone who commits a particular crime but that someone, in defying the law, bares the violence of the legal system or the juridical order.” – Jacques Derrida, The Mystical Foundation of Authority

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