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[DS-discuss]minutes of the meeting - 22nd, March, 2003
From: |
Suraj Kumar |
Subject: |
[DS-discuss]minutes of the meeting - 22nd, March, 2003 |
Date: |
Tue, 25 Mar 2003 17:19:20 +0530 |
PS: Somehow this mail didn't reach this mailing list when I posted
this msg on the sunday. It bounced back only today and hence I'm
reposting this stuff. Hope this gets through.
-Suraj
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Minutes of the address@hidden meeting - 22nd March, 2003
After nearly two months address@hidden met. Not merely Mr.Raman and
Suraj attended this meet. :) There were 6 people in total (in the
order of appearance):
1. Mr.Raman
2. Mr.Baskar
3. Suraj
4. Mr.Bharathi
5. Karra
6. Mohanakrishnan
Of these two are new to the meetings. One, Mr.Baskar, happens to work
at LocoWorks and Mr.Bharathi, the infamous IndLinux man. :)
The following were discussed:
1. INFITT and what address@hidden can do regarding this
2. Sankara college demo
3. random M$ stuff (sponsored by Mohan)
1. INFITT and address@hidden
--------------------------
INFITT is a non-profit Tamil Computing group which aims at
popularising computing in tamil. Although Free Software is not at the
core of INFITT's mind, INFITT, beign a non-profit, would be happy to
use Free Software just because Free Software is also
cost-effective. INFITT wants a team of volunteers in TamilNadu to help
it teach tamil computing to the "masses". although on the broader
sense, INFITT refers to the general junta as the masses, the picture
narrows down to 'students' when it is presented to address@hidden
With not a very clear picture about what "exactly" INFITT wants[1] it
was decided that we would follow up with Mr.Venkat and arrange for
meeting Prof.AnanthaKrishnan[2]; get a more clearer picture of the
requirements and *then* decide what we can do. (see also [3])
2. sankara college demo
-----------------------
Mohan, the person-in-charge of the sankara college demo, explained
that we can all be "rest assured" that this demo will be through. :)
The principal of sankara, it seems, wouldn't be happy with just one
session of talks. [s]he wants a series of lectures, possibly technical
ones, which help their students in some aspect. also [s]he wants
address@hidden to setup/administer their college network[4].
3. random M$ stuff
------------------
Mohan explained how M$ is trying to get ppl off Free Software by
offering mind-blowing offers to educational institutions, like his own
college. It seems M$ offers all software for Rs.40000/- and lets the
students also take a copy of it and use it in their homes for
gratis. Also M$ promises gratis software updates, gratis this, gratis
that (and this 'this and that' includes pizza and $COLA too). in
return M$ demands all the software in a given 'blast radius' to be
only M$ software and not any third party software, which means all our
efforts will be in vain if a college decides to shell out 40000/- for
the sake of buying things for gratis.
... and the watchmen started chasing the junta that lurked in
GMandapam, address@hidden being no exceptions to it, had to wind up.
Bharathi revealed that tamil-mode was already added to GNU Emacs[5a]
by the IndLinux team. ([5b])
... and a convoy of Amma's cars forced us to find a quick and peaceful
way of getting back home. :)
-Suraj
--NOTES--
[1] Although Mr.Venkat, in his original post[1-1], explains that
INFITT wants to get a group of teachers who teach to teachers, INFITT
staff and students about localised Free Software on a regular basis,
we weren't sure if INFITT wants only a series of technical lectures
about Free Software OR was it to do with other things about which we
"may" not have the domain knowledge. secondly there are only a handful
of volunteers of whom very little do tamil computing. If we commit
ourselves, will we be able to keep up with the requirements?
[1-1] -
http://mail.nongnu.org/archive/html/demo-schools-discuss/2003-03/msg00018.html
[2] - Vice Chancellor, Anna University.
[3] Initially it seemed as though getting along with INFITT may stray
us away from our goal - To bring Free Software developers to the
community by teaching them the necessary values and techniques at the
right age. Will we be, in any way, reaching our goal by taking up this
INFIT work? While everybody would be glad to help INFITT, the lack of
necessary man power is for sure a hurdle to go a bit out of the way
and help other efforts in progress.
[4] at the end of the meeting, people "advised" mohan that he should
tell the college that address@hidden would be glad to help *create*
sysadmins who can manage their networks and that we may not be able to
administer their network.
[5a] it seems, the GNU Emacs tamil-mode isn't into the main Emacs
source tree... Karra was suggesting that this can be done so that
there can be a good deal of recognition for the IndLinux project.
[5b] too nice.. too nice.. suraj was just thinking of picking up some
funda on localization and mule and write a tamil-mode for GNU Emacs...
he can do other work now... :)
--
+--------------------------------------------<address@hidden>---+
| A mind in fear holds no fortress dear; complacent |
| indifference never finds goodness in a chance |
| (guarding against complacency - 4), Thirukkural |
+---<http://symonds.net/~suraj/>-----------------------------------+
- [DS-discuss]minutes of the meeting - 22nd, March, 2003,
Suraj Kumar <=
- Re: [DS-discuss]minutes of the meeting - 22nd, March, 2003, Rahul Sundaram, 2003/03/25
- Re: [DS-discuss]minutes of the meeting - 22nd, March, 2003, Bharathi S, 2003/03/25
- Re: [DS-discuss]minutes of the meeting - 22nd, March, 2003, V. Venkataramanan, 2003/03/25