An interesting piece of information that is really relevant to a developing country like India. A major part of the case studies and implementations are in countries where the socio-economic condition mandates usage of F/L OSS to ensure wider access to technology. The report does not talk in detail about the business case nor about the model but makes for good reading.

From: "zeeshanhasan"
To:
Subject: [biosforum] Brazil moving to Linux
Date: Monday, November 17, 2003 6:08 PM

Brazil Leans Away From Microsoft (http://apnews.excite.com/article/20031116/D7URSKHO0.html)
Nov 16, 2:04 PM (ET) ALAN CLENDENNING

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) - If he is to make good on his promise to improve life for the tens of millions of Brazilians who live in dire poverty, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva knows that one key challenge is to bridge a massive technology gap. And if that means shunning Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) software in South America's largest country, then so be it.

Silva's top technology officer wants to transform the land of samba and Carnival into a tech-savvy nation where everyone from schoolchildren to government bureaucrats uses open-source software instead of costly Windows products.

Such a policy makes eminent sense for a developing country where a mere 10 percent of the 170 million people have computers at home and where the debt-laden government is the nation's biggest computer buyer, says Sergio Amadeu, the open-source enthusiast appointed to head Brazil's National Information Technology Institute by Silva after the president took office this year.

Paying software licensing fees to companies like Microsoft is simply "unsustainable economically" when applications that run on the open-source Linux operating system are much cheaper, Amadeu said. Under his guidance, Silva's administration is encouraging all sectors of government to move toward open-source programs, whose basic code is public and freely available.

"We have some islands in the federal government using open-source, but we want to create a continent," said Amadeu, a former economics professor who gained fame before joining Silva's team by launching a network of free computer centers in Brazil's largest city, Sao Paulo.

Amadeu, who uses a Linux laptop in his office in an annex of Silva's presidential palace, authored the book "Digital Exclusion: Misery in the Information Era," which argues that the gap between the needy and the wealthy will only deepen unless the poor have easy access to the technology that the rich have at their fingertips, especially in developing countries like Brazil.

Only two small government agencies in Brasilia - Amadeu's department and the government-run news agency - have so far shifted from Microsoft operating systems to open-source. But Brazil recently signed a letter of intent with IBM Corp. to help boost government use of such platforms as Linux.

Amadeu says he's even talking to election officials about using open-source software in the country's more than 400,000 electronic voting machines, about 20 percent of which run on a Windows variant.

Although Amadeu insists the government has no plans to mandate open-source software use, Microsoft is worried and is lobbying to prevent the policy from becoming law.

"We still think free choice is best for companies, the individuals and the government," said Luiz Moncau, Microsoft's marketing director in Brazil. "There is the risk of creating a technology island in Brazil supported by law."

Any move away from Windows use by Brazil's government would clearly hurt Microsoft in its biggest South American market. The company got between 6 percent and 10 percent of its $318 million in Brazilian
revenues from the government for the fiscal year that ended in June, Moncau said.

Slashing Microsoft's bottom line would likely not disturb Silva, a former union leader whose most prominent initiative seeks to end hunger by providing poor families with $18 per month to buy food.

Open-source represents a small share of the global software market, but governments around the world have begun turning to it for various reasons, not least of them a sense of not wanting to be beholden to Microsoft.

Federal agencies in major powers including France, Germany, China and the United States have adopted Linux for servers. Cost is a factor, although many network administrators consider Linux more stable and less susceptible to viruses and hacker attacks.

And while other developing countries such as India are farther along than Brazil in promoting use of open-source systems, Brazil is poised to become a role model for other Latin American countries aiming to cut their computer costs, said Vania Curiati, IBM's software director in Brazil.

As it does in other developing countries including Peru, where the company has faced an open-source challenge, Microsoft donates software to Brazilian non-profit organizations and schools.

In the private sector, many Brazilian businesses are already either using or testing Linux in some capacity, Curiati said. IBM last year helped one of Brazil's largest fast food chains, Habib's, install a Linux system that lets customers order by phone for home delivery within 28 minutes.

Microsoft's Moncau plays down predictions by Brazilian open-source supporters that government efforts to increase Linux use could create jobs and turn the country into a technology exporter. Open-source software could actually be more expensive than Windows programs when service costs are factored in, he said.

But try telling that to the tens of thousands of Brazilians who regularly visit the 86 free "Telecentro" free computer centers in Sao Paulo, a sprawling city of 18 million. All the centers' computers use open-source software, and the Telecentros cater to working class Brazilians without the means to buy computers. They learn how to send e-mail, write resumes and cruise the Web.

Waiting his turn for a terminal while bouncing his toddler on his lap, Francisco de Assis said his monthly salary of $200 makes owning a computer impossible. The 31-year-old security guard considers the government's plight to be similar. "If this was a rich country, it wouldn't matter and we could buy Microsoft products, but we're a developing country and Linux is just a lot more accessible, so we're heading toward a Linux generation."


- posted by sankarshan @ 11/18/2003 04:25:00 AM 0 comments

 
Infocomm2003 has begun at The Oberoi Grand and the Kolkata Maidan. In the light of the AnkurBangla LiveCD, we had requested the organisers and especially Mr K K Mahapatra to look into the matter and see if it would be possible to accomodate us at the seminar/panel discussion. Unfortunately the proposal was roundly rebuffed. A group of volunteers working in a self funded environment towards an objective that ties in neatly with the proposed and publicised E-governance initiative of the GoWB and they are ignored in the roadshow that promises to change the future of the state. Surprised ? Not me. The past six months have seen a few of us at Ankur run from pillar to post and from person to person trying to get some amount of media space, a presentation or a hearing. And till date the nonchalance has really been mind boggling.

At this point consider the scenario - GoWB desires to obtain the optimisation of the resources by using a F/L OSS based infrastructure. It also plans to rollout the largest localised implementation of e-governance initiatives. IBM is one of the key players in the scenario and takes an active part in setting the project roadmaps. Yet the project needs a localised GNU/Linux distribution, which we possess and we are not the part of any Special Interest Group . The fun part is that from the time the IT Policy was drafted and circulated, the Ankur Group has been releasing the beta of the CD in an attempt to prove its technical competence. Technocrats and other people from the entire spectrum, be it from the Indic Consortium, Unicode Consortium, C-DAC, WBEIDC as well as the internal L10n unit of IBM are aware of the announcement releases and the availability to the project ISOs at the sourceforge site. And here we are still going around with the begging bowl to ensure that our efforts are recognised while at the same time plunging neck deep into other languages.


- posted by sankarshan @ 11/18/2003 04:25:00 AM 0 comments

 
The AnkurBangla LiveCD beta # 3 is out in the open. Sayamindu had this announcement to make which was posted to possibly all places we could think up:

From: "Sayamindu Dasgupta"
To: ; ;
Cc: ; ; ; ; ;
Subject: [Ankur-distro]The Ankur Bangla Live CD version 1 beta3
Date: Sunday, November 16, 2003 9:19 AM

Announcing.....

******************************************
The Ankur Bangla Live CD version 1 beta3
******************************************

"HiJibiJbiJ"
==========

"keno haaschhi shunbe? mone koro prithibiTaa Jadi chyaapTaa hoto, aar shob jol goRiYe DaangaaY eshe poRto, aar Daangar maaTi shob ghuliYe pyaachpyaache kaadaa hoye Jeto, aar lokgulo sab taar modhye dhopaadhop aachahaR kheye poRto, ta hole - Hoh Hoh ho"

....

"mone koro ekjon lOk aashChe , taar ek haate kulpi boroph, aar haate saajimaaTi, aar lokTaa kulpi khete gie bhule saajimaaTi kheye pheleche - Hoh Hoh, Hoh Ho, Hah Hah Hah ha"

....

"aamaar naam HiJibiJbiJ. aamaar bhaaiYer naam HiJibiJbiJ, aamaar baabaar naam HiJibiJbiJ, amaar pisher naam HiJibiJbiJ"


This is HiJibiJbiJ - from Sukumar Ray's "hojoborolo".

..and the last beta of version 1 of the Ankur Bangla Live CD is named after this fantastic, "ever laughing" (if I may put it in that way) character.

This release features a major upgrade in the core system (Morphix base), which should solve many problems related to hw detection, bootup and other misc stuff. Also, a large number of additions, enhancements, tweaks, fine-tuning, bug fixing has gone into the Ankur Bangla Live CD v1b3; see the Changelog below for the details. There should be an overall enhancement in performance for machines with less RAM (128 MB), especially in the Multimedia segment. Moreover, people using this CD can connect to the Internet now - please see the Changelog for details.

However, in my opinion, one of the most significant enhancements in this release is the inclusion of the "Ankur Bangla Chhar Poka Naashok". ;-) Of course, there are many who disagree with me - my message for them, well....

HUMBUG!!
;-)

This tool helps users to gather debugging information in case the CD does not work properly. After the information has been collected, it is dumped onto a floppy disk, so that it can be later sent to the
developers of the Ankur project. To use this tool, while running the CD, switch to console mode by
pressing Ctrl-Alt-F2, and issue the command 'charpoka' (without the quotes), and the wizard will guide you through the process.
Screenshots of this tool are available at http://clai.net/sayamindu/index.php?m=20031113

The ISO image can be downloaded (approx 380 MB download) from
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=43331&release_id=197316

Bugs should be reported at http://www.bengalinux.org/bugs

Mailing list for people interested in the LiveCD is at http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bengalinux-distro

Screenshots are available at http://www.bengalinux.org/screenshots/gnome/

I would like to thanks the developers of the Ankur Bangla team for the great work they have done over the past one year.

A round of special thanks goes out to Indranil Dasgupta and Malay Mitra for helping in the production of the CD.

Also, the people who have been most helpful in the Live CD project are the beta testers - and a HUGGGEEE thanks goes out to them - you all rock!!

(..and thanks also to Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay - for carrying out the hard work of distributing the Live CD to the beta testers who don't have a high speed internet connection).

-happy bug hunting to all-
-cheers-
Sayamindu Dasgupta
(on behalf of the Ankur Bangla Team)


PS: The Ankur Bangla Live CD v1 beta2 has been downloaded 149 times since it was first uploaded to sourceforge.net (not bad for a large ISO...)
:-D

*****************************************************************************

Known issues in this release
----------------------------

* The time is not displayed correctly
* The disk mounting system is somewhat flaky
* The system does not shut down automatically once you exit X (This is
intentional - and will be removed in the final version)
* The sound volume in Totem and in the GNOME mixer are both set to zero
initially, please increase the sound volume once you are logged in.
* GNOME Terminal does not work (no prompt)


Changelog for Version 1.0 beta-3 (HiJiBiJBiJ)
---------------------------------------------

* The core system (which handles the bootstrap process) has been upgraded to Morphix 0.4.1
* The boot failure issue for most machines should be resolved.
* Most of the packages in GNOME were updated.
* GNOME Games is more or less completely translated now (3 cheers for Progga!).
* XFree86 4.3.0 has been patched to the latest version and hand compiled.
* ATI Radeon users should experience increased stability due to the upgrade mentioned above.
* Freetype2 has been upgraded to version 2.1.5
* Some patches from Ximian Desktop 2.4 beta has been incorporated into the stock GNOME install.
* On machines with less than 96 MB RAM, a dialogue now pops up during the boot process, asking if the user would like to create a swap file in an existing DOS partition. This feature has not been tested very extensively - I expect reports from people on 64 meg boxes.
* A network config tool has been added to the Live CD. This tool can handle normal ethernet configurations, and has support for wireless devices. I have not tested the wireless support as I do not have the required hardware setup. Feedback expected on the wireless support thingy.
Screenshot of this tool at http://clai.net/sayamindu/images/network_config.png
* WvDial has been included for modem users (I am still searching for a *stable* GTK2 based dialup tool - if anyone finds one, please let me know).
* The disk mounting subsystem is undergoing a restructuring, and is expected to be unstable - please mail me and let me know if the harddisks/extra cdroms/floppies mount correctly in your system.
* A new tool has been added - called Ankur Bangla Live CD Chhar Poka Nashok. This tool collects debugging and system info and dumps them on a floppy, so that the user can send the info to the development team later.
* The Live CD now supports both the (semi)phonetic Probhat Layout and the Inscript Layout. Also included is a document on how to write Bangla in the Ankur Bangla Live CD.
* Some sample pictures have been added to the "aankibuki" folder on the Desktop
* An OGG file (under the Open Music Green license) has been added to the "gaan baajnaa" folder.
* The Bangla Literary archive has been updated.
* Some blurb on Ankur has been added (still incomplete).
* The file selector originally used in the LiveCD has been removed - it was having some performance issues.
* The buttons on the modified GTK file selector from Ximian work properly now.
* Mozilla has been updated to version 1.5
* Xine lib updated to version 1-rc2
* NVidia drivers updated to version 1-4496
* Support for the integrated ethernet device in Nforce/Nforce2/Nforce3 based motherboards has been added.
* The PCIUtils packages has been added.
* Support for the graphics card (GeForce 4 MX) integrated with NVidia Nforce2 motherboard has been improved (now it uses the nvidia drivers instead of the generic VESA driver).
* General hardware support is also improved now, as I have integrated the latest version of the database used by the hw recognition system to the core.

--
Sayamindu Dasgupta
[ http://clai.net/sayamindu ]

The Illiterati Programus Canto 1:
A program is a lot like a nose: Sometimes it runs, and sometimes it blows.

IndLinux's Milan has yet to touch 80 (the last time it was AnkurBangla (122) - IndLinux (49)) and it sure makes the cockles of one's heart warm to learn and absorb this fact.
The LiveCD is, in Armstrong's immortal phrase 'one small step for mankind'. The CD was created as an announcement of the technical competence and delivery capability of the developer group. Unlike most others involved in Indic L10n efforts, this is till date a completely non-funded, volunteer driven global effort and the results have been outstanding.
Some more work remains to be done. One of the important sister projects remain to be touched upon - The Bangla Gutenberg. In fact, I tend to feel that why call it Gutenberg ? The Gutenberg Printing Press and the related technology was a wonder as it brought the power of words to the common populace. Now if we could only honor the person who created the Bangla type that ensured an equitable distribution of power - that would really be something. A thought line but perhaps a fruitful one...
An interesting project has been identified by near perfect workaholic Progga - a Bengali text to speech program that enhances the accessibility of the Project. This forms one crux of the aim that AnkurBangla stands for - Empowering People. The true merit of a FLOSS project could be measured as an index by the number of socially relevant development paths it can generate. And in an L10n project the possibilities are limitless. More on this later...

- posted by sankarshan @ 11/17/2003 06:44:00 AM 0 comments

 
In a strange twist of events, North Bengal is a seething cauldron of civic unrest while recent events at Assam have shaken up a lot of people. It is a strange twist of fate that the proper heartland more often than not seems to be oblivious to the general sentiment of the people in those particular regions of the nation.
Runa Bhattacharjee has begun (perhaps) an insightful look into the situation 'Through Myopic Eyes'. Having had an extensive experience of the locale, it seems that the snippets might turn out to be interesting enough. The hyperlink to her blog is available on the sidebar.
The Telegraph on Sunday (16/11/2003) carried an article about the 'Bookseller of Kabul' - a book that is mired in legal wrangles. The report barely touches upon the issues and the analysis is skimpy to say the least (and this is a malady that afflicts all the leading dailies - what does this mean ? people are too keen to receive the digest version ?) but it does cover an important issue. For far too long, locale perspectives have distorted and provided biased opinions of national issues and this is far more glaring in case of foreigners writing about 'happening news' with a sensationalist bent of mind. Is this based on the premise that anything that is ethnic and unusual will appeal to a global population ? Or is it simply a failure to understand the human dynamics and thus arriving at bewildering conclusions ?


- posted by sankarshan @ 11/17/2003 06:42:00 AM 0 comments