Tag Archives: FOSS

Jottings on education…

There are 3 trends I notice when we talk about Education and FOSS in the same sentence. Especially when it comes to conferences and workshops in India. These are:

  • FOSS in Education (FiE) – in all probability this can be the one aspect that is quickly done. There exists a curricula and content, and, the aim in this workflow is to ensure that the needs of the curricula are met via FOSS tools and technologies. A pretty much on-topic example could be consumption of Fedora Electronics Lab (FEL) towards teaching the content. Or, using parts of the GNU ToolChain when teaching programming and development.
  • FOSS for Education (FfE) – reworking the focus and direction of the curricula and courses towards giving it either a neutral shape (thus allowing easier FiE) or, going full-throttle and making change happen. Since curricula creation has a lot of traditional (and, sometimes unusual) stakeholders, FfE is a game of constant flux, push-n-pull. For obvious reasons, it is also the place where a large amount of community involvement is required. Changes need catalysts. Community participation and direction provide that bit of spark which starts getting_things_done.
  • Open Content in Education (OCiE) – have heard a lot of discussions around this but, am yet to see any University or College take this up seriously. Making the entire course content (syllabus, reading, references – the works) open and available for re-distribution or, re-use is something that Universities need to consider seriously. The era of classical education being driven through ‘red-brick’, ‘government funded’ institutions is close to being over. There are multiple ways to reach out to the potential learners as opposed to just waiting for the students to come in and enroll themselves. Re-thinking about content and breaking out from the mould of ‘elitism’ is something most educational institutions are not accustomed to doing. And, it requires careful handholding. Both in terms of the ‘coming out’ as well as the legal aspects of putting out the content. I would be interested in knowing about institutions in India that have managed to put this as part of a practice.

A gathering of the Fedora faithful

I spent a day and a half at the Freedom in Computer Technology 2008 convention on 26th and 27th of this month. Susmit has already blogged about it. Some pictures are:

People waiting to get the Fedora mediaThe stall

more pictures are available at the usual location. I missed out taking a group picture of the volunteers and the stall before we went into business. My bad. Noted that down as a mandatory picture for next time.

For various reasons it had been a while I have been at a stall, so the “buzz” at seeing folks lining up to hear about F10, L10n and getting their media was exciting enough. Somewhat strangely, not many questions were around the proprietary codec stuff (read: “I want to play mp3”). Having the GLUG-NIT,Durgapur (and, I met Debayan as well) at the next stall meant that we had converging streams of interested audience. It is always a good feeling to finally meeting up with a lot of names from IRC and mailing list. The F10 artwork got rave reviews 🙂

A big round of “Thank You” to all the volunteers (Gopal+his student, Dipanjan, Sarbartha, Ravi, Susmit and Indranil) who made time over the weekend to turn up, tirelessly stand around and answer questions with a big smile. A sizeable quantity of the media and leaflet/handouts were given away. Names of those interested to be on the list have been taken down and Susmit plans to get back in touch with them. Another good thing that came out was the ad-hoc sit down with the colleges who desire to have some “Activity Day”.

I had a small talk on the “Community Model” and how FOSS businesses should begin by looking at getting their act together on it. Had a couple of questions. However, given the audience profile, most questions were around FOSS software and licensing vis-a-vis “freeware”.

Would have been really nice to have network so as to show-off a few stuff – well next time perhaps. The LiveUSB station also got some love 🙂 so I guess that made up for the trouble taken to set it up. The next time IOTA organizes a convention like this it would be good to have a segment for Workshops as well as an Expo area for stalls to be set up. Casting the net a bit more wider in the industry does help in getting stuff being talked about.

ps: I don’t know if the Stallman speech would be having a transcript available, but it would be good to have

pps: Was nice to know that Gopal’s student has been using Fedora since F7 and is proficient with a Linux desktop. It was obvious in the way he helped manage the stall at times.

…and here we go again

In an article on l10n and i18n published in this month’s edition of LinuxForYou (the article isn’t available online), Kenneth Gonsalves makes a statement as (italics are mine):

The vast majority of applications today are internationalised – the need of the hour is to provide translations in Indian languages. Except for some major applications, very little work is being done in this field. I don’t know whether it is because people are not aware of the need, are too lazy or they do not know how to!

This thought seems to be the new black. Adding on to the pre-existing notions of:

  • translations are very easy to do
  • translations are for hobbyists

On some days I am surprised about why such perceptions prevail. If any language team/community works on

  • a single distribution
  • two desktop environments
  • a browser
  • a mail client
  • an office suite
  • web-site content translation
  • release notes translation

then, assuming that most projects end up following a 6 month release cycle, it leaves folks with around 3+ months (on an optimistic schedule) to work with. In fact with “string freeze” (or, the time when the developers hand off the English versions to the translators) the effective window to actually translate is around 1 month. And, I have seen that for whatever little translations I have done for GNOME and OLPC.

And, the fact that schedules are tight can be seen on the mailing lists during desktop environment release times. So, if we can assume that the teams aren’t lazy and they know what they are doing, adding any more applications to be translated (and localized) would require capacity to be added. Which means that those who do go about FOSS evangelism and FOSS advocacy have to comprehend the following:

  • translation is not easy. Idiomatic English does not lend itself easily to translations and more importantly, message strings are sometimes not well constructed to be translated. For example, read this blog entry.
  • translation is not for hobbyists. It is a process of ensuring newer applications and releases are available in the local language. Thus, it means that teams working on translations improve quality of existing translations, check for consistency and still manage to work on newer releases. It is a serious business and folks take pride in a job well done.

If there are more applications that require translations/l10n, it would be a good effort to start coordinating with the language teams (via the IndLinux mailing list perhaps) rather than assuming that teams don’t know about such applications or, are lazy.

A quick meeting at SICSR,Pune

On the 11th I was at the SICSR (any of these two URLs) to meet with some students. The ‘pitch’ (as they say) was simple. Use participation in FOSS projects to gain skills that will complement their knowledge gained via academic training. Since this batch of students also arrange GNUnify, I guess it was a bit more easier to convey the message. There were some interesting moments. However, I did come back with the feeling that somewhere along the way, I wasn’t too forceful or compelling in putting across the need to learn FOSS culture and gain skills towards becoming better developers. Time will tell.

Singularity

The Law of Singularity states that the most important aspect of a brand is its single-mindedness. What is a brand? A singular idea or concept that you own inside the mind of the prospect. It’s as simple or as difficult as that.

The wonderful folks at FOSS.IN have a promotional video out. And, as Shreyas puts it – this year it is about doing ‘big’ things. This year, and, possibly for the coming years, it is about developers and development and doing things that are used by an ever growing section of folks.

If you still haven’t registered for the event, you haven’t really taken a look at the schedule.

Cobbling some thoughts together

  • My last blog post has had a surge of comments. Good to know. It hasn’t done what I was expecting it to do. And, frankly, I don’t think there would be GNOME-y stuff happening at FOSS.IN this year. I would have loved to see some Performance Testing stuff and bits of GNOME Mobile. So, either those folks are talking off-list and submitting proposals or, they don’t intend to turn up. So much for a few mails that I received gushing about ‘doing GNOME‘ at the event. Stop gushing and start doing is something I should make into a signature.
  • I started using duplicity to back up stuff. Wonderful piece of software and a nifty utility. Thanks to Rahul/mether for pointing that out to me. Being the GUI weenie that I am, it would be wonderful to have a GUI wrapped around it.
  • FOSS.IN this year would perhaps be less of a ‘conference’ and more of a ‘summit’+’WorkOut’. In case, you are presenting or intending to talk about stuff at the event, please take care to give your slides some love. Presenting doesn’t really mean that you would [i] be reading huge chunks of text off the slides or, [ii] be deviating from the slide content into something orthogonal. I saw both of that happening. The presentation/talk is a story and it would be good to spend some time during the run-up to the event to practise narrating without the slides. Lots of things can happen and thus, preparing an interesting narration isn’t a bad idea.
  • Interesting proposals for WorkOuts and Project of The Day being discussed on various project mailing lists and IRC channels. To be part of them, hop on to the nearest friendly IRC channel (#fedora-india, for example) and start participating.
  • Wrapped up reading An Indian Odyssey – quick read and a good one too.
  • This article (from the Online WSJ) kind of sums up the situation around ICICI for a quick read. The television media coverage related to ICICI has been all-over-the-park. Half baked statements, grapevine gossip being palmed off as ‘breaking news’ and a steady attempt to sensationalize the facts without an underlying comprehension. Senior media personnel haven’t been performing up to the mark. The global meltdown and the unheard-of-before statements from various world leaders would eventually walk their way to India. However, it isn’t an excuse for the private media channels to go all out and start adding rumors to the dismay of already shaky indices.
  • To all those who have contributed to the page on Subprime mortgage crisis – a round of thanks for keeping the English simple and easily understood.
  • If you have missed it earlier, don’t forget to take a look at the EKG Reports.

I wonder if…

  • … there is any study that attempts to connect the dots in the statement ‘participants in FOSS projects tend to stick because they end up liking their collaborators as opposed to having strong emotions about the projects’
  • … Linux Foundation would provide a good set of reasons for me to fork out 49 USD and become a member
  • … I’m getting old since at the end of a fairly long mail trail on a mailing list, I ended up feeling bad about the need to get involved in the first place
  • … I need to see a doctor for the odd bouts of fever, shivers and chills I get each time the temperature swings towards “being cold”
  • … reading ‘Three Cups of Tea’ slowly would mark a new way of reading books
  • … I’ll be there at foss.in this year, I’ve missed GUADEC and OOoCon already

A post of no importance

In recent times I have blogged about ‘non community based approach to l10n‘ (mail from Gora Mohanty). There is a particular mail on the gnome-i18n mailing list that provides some inputs towards formulating a plan on avoiding such repeat incidents. To quote:

CDAC is a government funded agency and takes up projects from
Government which are based on deadlines which are sometimes strict and
harsh. We work towards deadlines and are answerable to the funding
agency on things we commit. Localisation activity happens to be one of
them.

I tend to hold on to the theory that both the distributions in essence (BOSSLinux and Baishakhi Linux) should be no different that other Linux distributions who work ‘within‘ the community in harmony and collaborate to innovate. Expanding on what I already wrote about working with existing L10n communities, a means to make this possible is to have a release plan available for public view. All the major distributions have a release schedule available in public and an immediate effect of this is that it makes it possible for potential contributors and existing communities to comprehend how the pieces fit in.

Having a release schedule also makes it easy to assess how much work would be required to be put into localization of a particular language, since the components of the distribution in terms of GNOME/KDE/Xfce etc would be targeting a particular release of the desktop environments. The bits that are specific to the distribution viz. installer, configuration toolkits can then be done by the team in charge of the distribution or, the community around the distribution. Taking an example nearer to home, there is much to learn from how to work ‘in’ the community if one takes a long hard look at how Fedora operates.

The reasons that the community got lumped with a huge load of translated files was that there was a lack of communication and synchronization with the folks doing L10n and there was a lack of transparency in the infrastructure that produces the distribution. These are not insurmountable problems, but these are required to work within the community and collaborate to produce high quality of Free Software.

Here is an organisation which is willing to make crucial contributions
to the community at its own defined speed. I would want to believe
that this is one of the larger contributions any government agency has
made to the localisation efforts. Government has its interest in the
effort and so has its own temporal goals. We need to meet those goals
and so sometimes we need to take a path which satisfies our funding
agency.

Every distribution has its own defined velocity of releases and logic of cherry picking components from upstream to integrate. Taking a path to satisfy the funding agency should not be at odds with the community at large within whose framework the work is being undertaken. If, they are at odds, it is the onus of the Program Manager for the distribution to talk with both the funding agencies and the community towards providing accurate and transparent communication.

Should a major chunk of contribution go unnoticed just because we did
not satisfy the egos of those in ‘power’?

In the realm of FOSS, contributions are not merely contributions of code or content. Contributions define the nature of the group that is contributing, and, whether they desire to learn about the civic rules into which they desire to integrate themselves. Through learning comes awareness and via awareness one transforms into a good citizen in the FOSS world.

It only gets funnier…

I had mentioned Baishakhi Linux in passing in an earlier post. So, today a few of us received an interesting mail from Prof Anupam Basu of IIT-Kharagpur. The original mail is here for ready reference as it is at here. And I have a few points to make which are below. I will abbreviate Prof Anupam Basu as PAB and my responses as SM.

However, at the outset, let me state that it seems that the team working on the project can do well to buy copies of Karl Fogel’s excellent work Producing Open Source Software.

PAB: The release was on the 8th of September and it was planned to make the source code
available upstream, within a few days as is expected of open-source activities.
Please keep your weather eyes open on the SNLTR site.

SM: I recall asking twice about this and, this is the first time we hear about plans
to make source code available upstream. However, it isn't upstream source code that I'd be
interested in. I'd be interested in having access to the source of the distribution itself.

PAB: Mr. Toshi Kubota (mail cc'd to him) is a pioneer in Open-Source and Linux related
movements in Japan. We will ensure that all gpl requirements are adhered to in accordance
with his guidance. Please note that the inauguration was only day before yesterday !!!!

SM: This is what is generally called a straw-man argument. If you note, at no point have
any aspersions been cast on the level of expertise, or, competence of Mr Toshi Kubota.
Instead, what has been asked is a simple question - why have the translator credits been
mangled in the headers (that have been obtained from the .mo files) ? For instance, I don't
recall Promathesh Mondal following any of these steps.

PAB: I know ( because Indranil Dasgupta himself told me on the first day we were discussing
and demonstrating a prelim version of Baishakhi Linux) that the existing Linux versions,
printout of complex Bengali scripts through Firefox was not possible - thanks to Indranil -
this problem is not there in Baishakhi Linux.

SM: If you could point to a suitable sample of such complex scripts I'd be more than glad to
test it out on Fedora9 or rawhide -> Fedora10. As on date, I am yet to see on the Firefox
bugzilla a bug from your team that provides specimen cases that drive home the point that the
complex script rendering is an issue on Linux.

PAB: The contributions may be incremental, (as suggested by Sayamindu - a one line code), but
that is there now. Baishakhi Linux need not make tall claims, it was a very low budget effort
and the spirit should be to contribute more by pointing out bugs and improving on it.

SM: I read two things from this: [i] the distribution does include the one line code that
Sayamindu points out ie. it isn't materially new and [ii] none of the fixes that Baishakhi
claims to be 'features' have the patches attached to the already existing bugs in upstream
bugzilla(s).

PAB: I am pained because my invitations to some of the Open-Source groups to join hands in
these activities was met with absolute silence.

SM: 'Let us be objective first' (quoting you) - who are these 'some of the Open-Source groups' ?
And, when you invited them, did you point out the mode to join and contribute ?

In short Prof Anupam Basu, we met around a year plus back at the ‘Bangla in e-Governance’ meeting and even then I had taken time to ask you to work with our group to push all the work you do into upstream. Not surprisingly, it hasn’t happened. I don’t expect it to happen as well – but your mail was something of a surprise. More so, since you chose to include Sayamindu’s mother in cc: – what were you thinking ? 🙂

Sayamindu has a response as well.