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M$ is lobbying heavily in Bureau of Indian Standards(BIS) for valued Vote (India is a P-Member in ISO) in ISO/IEC JTC1 which is the International Standardization body of Information Technology standards. Dr. Nagarjuna is active in the campaign representing ODFAlliance & Free Software Foundation of India. The history of Discussion is archived at ODF aliance.

Why we are Opposing ECMA Office Open XML. a A lot of a lot of answers are in front of us. Technical, Political & More Technical...
Free Software community Suceeded in setting up Vendor independent De-codable Interoperable Public Standard called Open Document format. It is also approved by ISO26300 as an ISO standard (May 2006) .Microsoft denied to become a part of the OASIS Open document team and created a new 6000 page specification named ECMA Open XML , which is open Only on Name and applied for ISO recognition.It is now under the Fast Track Process & all standardization Bodies need to Vote on It. You can see a File format Timeline here. Common Interoperable Decodable Public standards ( called as Free Standards/ Open standards)always created a revolution in The history of Digital age. Look at the examples of HTML, Unicode etc. A dual standard adds costs, uncertainty and confusion to industry, government and citizens and deny the growth.

One of the Strongest Argument Raised By G.Nagrjuna in his paper, submitted to Working Committee, Board of Indian Standards on Wordprocessing is as Follows

In Ecma’s response document the truth of the matter comes out very vividly:

OpenXML is designed to represent the existing corpus of documents faithfully, even if that means preserving idiosyncrasies that one might not choose given the luxury of starting from a clean slate. In the ODF design, compatibility with and preservation of existing Office documents were not goals. Each set of goals is valuable; sacrificing either at the expense of the other may not be in the best interest of users. (p.6 Ecma Response)

This is the fact of the matter. This clearly shows that one of them is trying to preserve the existing data created by a single vendor, while the other is to provide a generic encoding standard for office documents. It is true therefore that their purposes are different. Since there is a difference in purpose despite the overlapping with ODF, Ecma argues, OOXML can also exist with ODF.

But the issue is: providing a way of preserving a vendor’s old documents is the service that a vendor is expected to do. This must happen. This can happen by converting the documents into ODF. Ecma did not prove that this is impossible.

We therefore think, that Ecma has the burden to prove that proprietary documents made by them cannot be converted into ODF. It is very likely that there can be a few elements that cannot be translated, since ODF was not made to serve a particular vendor’s requirements. Once such elements are identified, Ecma can propose a model of extending ODF so that the possible problems are sorted out. This is the desirable way.

The Technical Problems of OOXML are Very High I request you to Go Through G.Nagarjuna’s paper Titled Why Ecma OOXML cannot be regarded as a free/open document standard?

URGENT APPEAL FROM KASHIPUR SOLIDARITY GROUP

Saroj Mohanty, poet and long-time activist with Prakrutik Sampad Surakhya Parishad (PSSP), which has over 15 years been opposing the entry of large bauxite mining companies in Kashipur, has been arrested. Saroj was picked up at a railway station in Rayagada District, on Saturday, 14 July. He is currently in judicial custody in Rayagada district jail.

The charges against him are completely fabricated but serious. These charges include section 395 of the IPC (Dacoity), section 397 (Robbery or dacoity, with attempt to cause death or grevious hurt), and section 450 (House tresspass with intention to commit offence that is punishable with imprisonment for life).

These absurd charges against Saroj stem from attempts in late 2004 by the mining company UAIL and the Orissa government hell-bent on pushing the project for bauxite mining through to undermine the resistance to the project by slapping false cases on the leadership and mass base of PSSP. The intense protests by the people was met by severe repression, harassment and arrests, which continues to this day. As part of the continuing repression carried out at the time, a number of PSSP activists and ordinary people were falsely charged. Among them was Saroj Mohanty.

Yesterday I amazed to see the OpenDNS’s new feature called Shortcuts. Shortcuts are very simple, similar to bookmarks in your browser. OpenDNS shortcuts let you pair a word with a URL so that when you type that word in your address bar, you’re taken to that website. These shortcuts work regardless of your OS or browser - they are dependent upon your OpenDNS-enabled network. Simply login to your account and setup the shortcuts.

moving republic to ~~unplugged!…. marks the time between ISF to ViBGYOR. In this period, GAIA’s Free Information Infrastructures Initiative renamed as moving republic. blog moved to this place. Last month GAIA decided to allow movingrepublic initiative to create its own society & organisational structure outside GAIA in order to meet the community needs. Steps are on the track.

Personally it is a good time 4 me. i decided to focus more on kerala. Praveen, Hiran, Pramode sir & doxa set the team spirit. Hussain & Suresh boosted the confidence. Swathathra Malayalam Computing set the history.

And it is a time of Love too. Love happens.. a lot.. with/without the rhythm of unused imageries. shit too happens.. with all its logical base.

I’m Now Blogging from the Media centre of Indian Social Forum (ISF) happening in new delhi. The media centre here is Completly equipped with free software as of WSF 2004 in Mumbai. In WSF 2004 for the first time in WSF history, Free Software helped to keep communications alive by using the technology suits its politics with the help of FSF India. This time also at Indian Social Forum , indian miniature of WSF, GNU/Linux remains as the soul of Media Centre. ILUG Delhi is providing Technical support. a lot of volunteers are here & people like Gora are coordinating the works. ISF is happening at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium grounds in new Delhi (9-13 November).

Audio & Video of the speeches of Richard stallman & Eben moglen at 4th International conference on GPLv3 are available online now. Sankarshan had an entry summarising the Discussions. Some other reports are on Sen’s blog & on Thejesh GN’s Techmag. There is a critical discussion is going on in Kalyan’s blog abt discussions & participants at GPLv3 conf, bangalore. FSF-India website also contains some reports.

India will host the Fourth International GPLv3 Conference in Bangalore, this August 23-24, 2006. A part of the world-wide drive to create awareness about the upcoming version three of the GNU General Public License (GPLv3), the two-day conference is expected to draw delegates from across the communities - legal, bureaucrat and academia. While the first day will see Richard M Stallman and Eben Moglen, the original architects of the GPLv3 license, communicating latest updates on the GPLv3 final draft, the second day holds panel discussions on localisation, awareness and adoption of GPLv3 and threat of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM).

Kailas Raghoji Bichhewar, Bharat Devsing Akde, Sahebrao Gopala Kapse, Vasudeo Deorao Pote, Ganesh Bhimrao Thakare, Manohar Wamanrao Kadu, Jaipal Bhaurao Kharkar, Pralhad Wamanrao Nalakande, Abhay Shyamrao Chavhan, Vikram Maroti Rajurkar, Punaji Natthu Nare, Raju Nanaji Thakre, Mahadeo Motiram…

And those are just 13 of 655. farmers suicides in vidarbha & it still continues…

what about wayanad..?

Jace summarises the indian internet censorship issue in a wonderful article here

“All the samples showed excessive levels of chromium, eight samples showed excessive levels of cadmium and six samples showed excessive levels of lead. The water samples were collected in November 2005,”: The Hazards Centre and the People’s Science Institute report
The Hazards Centre and the People’s Science Institute tested nine water samples within a one kilometer radius of the Coca-Cola bottling plant in the south Indian state of Kerala and concluded that “the total natural water resources surrounding the Coca-Cola plant in Plachimada are contaminated.”
All the water samples, collected from open wells, hand pumps and borewells in the area, failed to meet the safety standards for drinking water prescribed by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) - ensuring that the groundwater is no longer suitable for human consumption.