lunatechian (lunatech-ian)

Last week, I had gone to GNUnify, a conference organized by Symbiosis(SICSR), Pune. I had spoken on webservices together with Gopalv and Premshree.

An interesting event we organized was a Birds of a Feather (BoF) meeting on "Why you should be a FOSS programmer" that we had with the students there. My first observation during the BoF was that most of the students had no idea what FOSS is. One of them actually thought that FOSS was a programming language. Most of them had been absolutely brain washed by MS propaganda or maybe they had been brainwashed by their teachers. Not may of them had used any of the P languages (Perl, PHP, Python). I asked them this question - "will you like to work for Yahoo!, Google or Amazon or will you like to work for another IT sweat shop? If you want to work with the big names, then you have to know the P languages". Gopalv, Premshree, Pankaj and Philip spoke about their respective projects, how they had gotten into free software and how it had helped them in getting jobs. Gopalv pointed out how our education system is flawed when it comes to exams and assignments. In a class, you have to beat the others to be called a achiever. In the real world, you have to work with others to come up with something good. Working with FOSS allows you to collaborate with others and have a taste of how things work in the real world.

Our main aim in organizing this BoF was to get even 2 students interested in FOSS. Sadly, I am sure we failed to do that . However, we told the students about the mailing lists and irc channels that they could use to find help. I hope some of them eventually turn up there.

Danese was one of the speakers in this conference and she gave a good presentation on how to get into open source. Answering the audience questions on how to make money with Open Source, she said that Open Source allows you to make money by offering services, and India understands the service model well. This rankled me quite a bit. There aer ways to make money by selling FOSS products too - MySQL and SugarCRM being the prime examples. However, in India, you don't have any companies which make products. Lots of companies outsource their development work here, but except Tally (a closed source accounting software), I don;t know of any Indian companies making products. I am not sure why this is the way things are - one reason might be that product development is inherently a risky business. On the other hand, the payoff from a product is quite high.

I also met a bunch of people whom I knew only in the online world. We went to this amazing restaurant called "Horn OK Please". Even though we had to wait a bit to get the tables, it was really worth it. If you are in Pune, try out that restaurant.

All in all, I will say that this experience was really good. The students did excellent work in organizing the event, though I would have been happier if they participated in the event instead of just being a volunteer in it.

A discussion was going on in the Linux Gazette's The Answer Gang about a post by RMS on harry potter book. Ben Okopnik, an all-round nice guy and a perl guru, made the following observation -

> If the injunction really orders them not to read the books they have 
> purchased, that strikes me as wrong, but hey, we all know the law is an ass, 
> even in Canada. If I'd bought a book and got an injunction like this, I'd 
> still read it, I just wouldn't tell them 

...and if we extend that line of reasoning just a bit further, it brings
us to (what I think is) RMS' original point. How much of a right do we
grant to our governments to declare arbitrary actions illegal, no matter
how trivial or harmless?

The cynic in me says that governments love having their citizens buy
into a belief that they (the citizens) are guilty of something; people
with something to hide are likely to keep their heads down and be good
little sheep lest they be noticed and shorn. As the saying in Russia
went, "nobody ever asks 'why' when the KGB takes them away." The KGB, of
course, had a matching expression: "if we have the man, we'll make the
case."

If the government is allowed to control trivial aspects of people's
lives, then they will do so. Not in all cases, but... oh, the
"opportunities" that arise. Perhaps this case is not as black-and-white
as it could be, but I surely do see it as a very steep and well-greased
slippery slope - with its entry point just under a hidden trap door.


 Ben Okopnik  Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette  http://linuxgazette.net 

I agree with his sentiments completely. Most people assume the government to be all knowing and always correct entity. What they forget is that the government is not an amorphous mass, it is made of people - who might have no clue. Anyone has just to look at the Indian government's blunderings in the IT LAW to learn how clueless it is.

This weekend I had gone to Goa. One of the good points of living in Bangalore is that it is only 12 hours bus journey to Goa. Here are my notes from the visit

• Take the sleeper seat in the bus - The Paulo Travels runs luxury buses from Bangalore to Goa. They have two choices of the seats - sleeper and sitting. We had the misfortune to get the sitting seat and could not sleep a wink for the whole journey. The guy sitting behind us was snoring quite a lot and added to our discomfort.
• Hire a scooter/bike when you get down at Panjim - We did not hire a two wheeler when we got down at Panjim. We reasoned that we would get a bike from the hotel where we were staying. This would make it easier for us to return the bike when it was time for us to leave. However, it was a bad decision. Most buses pass through Panjim when returning to Bangalore. It would have been far easier to return the bike at Panjim and then board the bus to Bangalore.
• Stay away from the autorickshaws if you can - They overcharge a lot. A lot. If you know where you want to go, it is far more easier to get a bus (but remember that the bus service stops at 7:00 PM). The people there are quite friendly and you can ask almost anyone to give you directions. It is even more convenient to hire a two wheeler if you plan to move around a lot.
• Watch the sun set over the sea - It really is a site to behold.
• Eat the sea food and Goan cuisine - If you are a North Indian, give up the desire to eat the chicken tikka and chicken tandoori while you are at Goa. Get your hands on the excellent seafood offered by the restaurants there. Not only is it cheaper, most restaurants make very tasty dishes.
• Try to get a room in the GTDC hotels - Goa Tourism Development Corporation (GTDC) hotels are government maintained, somewhat clean, comfortable and cheap. We stayed at Calangute Residency (Annexe).

I have been thinking on how to distinguish between Private spaces and Public spaces. Let me clarify a bit by what I mean by Public space. Again the Wikipedia has come to my rescue. Wikipedia defines Public Space as

One definition of public space or a public place is a place where anyone has a right to come without paying an entrance or other fee. Typical examples are most roads, including the pavement, and public squares and parks. Typical differences between e.g. sitting on a public bench and sitting on a seat in a pavement cafe:

• the first costs nothing
• there is no time limitation
• one can consume brought-along food and drinks (for alcoholic beverages the law prohibits this sometimes; this may even be the case if it is allowed in a pavement cafe)
• a pavement cafe may have a dress code such as a prohibition of being shirtless, while in a public space only general law applies

Going by this definition, Private Space can be defined as its exact opposite.

There has been a lot of malls springing up in Delhi and nearby areas these days. The general population considers them to be a Public Space .. i.e anyone can come into the mall, browse around and generally hang-out. However, the homogeneity of the crowds at these places (teens with branded clothes, mobile phones, and generally with an I don't care but am conscious of your stare) leads me to think there is something wrong with it. I don't find this same homogeneity when I go out for a walk in my colony's road .

I have come up with a test to see whether a space is really private or public. The test is Does the place allow beggars and street urchins to come into it ? If yes, it is a public space. The roads and park in my locality cleanly qualify as a public space. At least the external grounds of Priya cinema hall, PVR Saket cinema hall, Dilli Haat qualify as public space. However, the malls like Ansal Plaza, 3Cs fail to qualify this test.

My reasons for choosing beggars and street urchins for my test is simple. Most people dislike being around them. To put it bluntly, their voice is the easiest and the first to be censored. Hence, if you want to test censorship, test whether the entity(in this case the owner of the mall) censors them. Now start extrapolating their censorship. Will these mall owners allow protesters protesting, let us say, the increasing private school fees. I doubt it. Will these protesters be disallowed from waving their placards and sitting on a hunger strike at the Jantar Mantar ? I doubt it.

Places which portray themselves as public spaces are not necessary so. Just some random musings on a Saturday afternoon while I was feeling sleepy at work

I must write this before I am drowned in "armchair activism".

Armchair Activism refers to efforts to influence socio-political change through the ineffective use of e-mail and Web sites, ignoring safer, more effective means of advocacy. Armchair Activism comes in two basic flavors: the e-petition and the boycott chain. Both are typically poorly designed, misguided and pitifully ineffective.

(Taken from Break the chain)

A few days back I received an email asking me to sign an online petition protesting against the move to have reservation for SC/ST in private sector companies. Of course, I did not sign the petition. Anyone can create a online petition and any one can sign it. If you really want to support a cause, then break into your piggy bank. Put your money where your mouth is. Seriously, if you care about something, is creating a petition on PetitionOnline.com the best you can do ? If you want to see some change in the way the system works, you have to exert yourself. We live in a real world, where decisions are not changed because some minister receives an email with hundreds of signatures (none of which can be verified). Emails can be deleted and forgotten about. However, it is hard to delete the articles in the newspapers, it is harder to ignore the criticisms on the TV and it is even harder to ignore people protesting on the streets or sitting on a hunger strike or a Public Interest Litigation filed against a government decision.

This is really good new if you have following the Satyendra Dubey whistle blowing case. The CBI has said that it would "look into each and every allegation and complaint made by Satyendra Dubey.". The CBI has also registered a case against two of the men accused in the letter sent by Satyendra Dubey.

Indian Express story.

I am no fan of sending HTML mail. I have configured my mail client, Thunderbird to send out only plain text messages. However, today I needed to send out an article which contained lots of link. It turns out that you can always shift-click the "Write" button in Thunderbird and it will allow you to compose HTML mail.

Where I found this tip and a knowledgebase for mozilla products (a bit outdated, but still good)