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Asia Commons: Asian Conference on the Digital Commons, being held in the Thailand capital of Bangkok in early June 2006, aims to bring together participants from Asia-Pacific and around the world to discuss, explore and collaborate around three key themes:

http://asia-commons.net/ has some interesting perspectives, and their ideals flow in close parallel to the Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement. We reproduce some of their ideas and arguments below:

Copyrights and patents are forms of Intellectual Property (IP). Copyrights grant exclusive rights on expressed forms of ideas and information for a limited time, while patents, specifically software and business process patents, grant exclusive rights on processes for a limited time.

Asia Commons: Asian Conference on the Digital Commons aims to bring together participants from Asia-Pacific and around the world to discuss, explore and collaborate around 3 key themes:

Asia Commons: Asian Conference on the Digital Commons aims to bring together participants from Asia-Pacific and around the world to discuss, explore and collaborate around 3 key themes:

Resources: From AsiaCommons

Many resources exist on the conference themes.

del.icio.us Links

Del.icio.us is a public collection of web resources which anyone can contribute to. Resources added (or 'bookmarked') in del.icio.us have been 'tagged' by their contributors to describe the resource's content.

Participants are encouraged to contribute resources of interest through del.icio.us using some of the tags above in order to discover new resources shared by other del.icio.us users. Using del.icio.us is easy, simply register for del.icio.us.

Copyright and Access to Knowledge - Consumers International Reports

Consumers Intenational Asia Pacific Office has produced a research report: Copyright and Access to Knowledge as well as two country level studies for Thailand and Indonesia. They are available at: http://www.ciroap.org/a2k

Yale's Access to Knowledge (A2K) Conference

Copy/South Dossier

"Issues in the economics, politics, and ideology of copyright in the global South"

http://www.copysouth.org/ P2P Foundation Encyclopedia Resources

The P2P Foundation is building an encyclopedia with many topics related to the conference themes: http://p2pfoundation.net/index.php/Category:Encyclopedia

The context of the encyclopedia is the recognition that the new forms are value are derived from human cooperation:

All the concepts below should fall in one or the other of these paradigms:

COUNTRY SPOTLIGHT: TAIWAN [Based on a presentation by Ping Yeh]

National Taiwan University's adjunct assistant professor Ping Yeh -- who is also a co-founder of the Taipei Open Source Software User Group -- recently put together (for the Asia Open Source Software Symposium) a fascinating presentation on what's happening on the FOSS front at Taiwan, the island in East Asia with a population of 23 million.

Taiwan is located off the coast of mainland China, south of Japan and north of the Philippines. Also known as Formosa (Portuguese sailors called it Ilha Formosa, which means "beautiful island"). The island comprises of steep mountains covered by tropical and subtropical vegetation.

Taiwan has had a "traditional" and "closed source" trend since the 1980s. But the government's five-year programme 2002-07 has a theme of "establishing the Free Software industry". It has been investing over 100 million NT a year, and the emphasis is on training ("nothing can be done without highly-skilled people") , standards and compatibility ("make sure things work together"), and legal issues ("reduction or removal of Free Software-unfriendly regulations and laws").

Interestingly, this programme has some clear goals. These include, building a friendly environment for Free Software development, having an internationally-active Free Software development community, high-value Free Software products, and encouraging a large-scale Free Software industrial chain.

There are some useful government-funded programmes too: a Linux Compatibility Test & Certification Center; an Open Source Software Application Consulting Center; the recursively-named OSSF Supports Software Freedom; standard operations procedure for open source softwares; Free Software Research & Development; and embedded Linux R&D.

Linux Compatibility Test & Certification Center, or the LCTCC, aims to test the compatibility between hardware and various flavors/versions of GNU/Linux distributions. A useful idea in a country that is into the deep end of excellence in the hardware world. It is run by the Taiwan Linux Consortium, and in 2004 had 279 database entries, six promotion events, and contacts with the Free Standards Group for setting up the LSB/OpenI18N certification. See http://linux.tca.org.tw/linux-test/

SOP for OSS is a Standard operating procedures for open source softwares. It is run by the Chinese Open Systems Association. By late 2005 it had completed SOP documents for installing and configuring Fedora core 2, webmin, apache, sendmail, mysql, samba, phpnuke, tomcat, openwebmail, firewall and OpenOffice.org. Each SOP has a detailed report (in PDF) and an associated flash live demo.

OSSACC (Open Source Software Application Consulting Center) is an attempt by Taiwan's Ministry of Education's push to diversity in IT education in elementary schools. It is funded by the MOE, and executed by Software Liberty Association of Taiwan. It's mission? To train elementary school teachers to use free softwares and provide support to them. It has offered more than 1500 trainees courses on Linux, OpenOffice, PHP, zope, etc. Besides, it has made and distributed the EZGo CD, a collection of free softwares on Windows and training materials. http://www.ossacc.org/

OSSF stands for "OSSF Supports Software Freedom", and is led by the Institute of Information Science, Academia Sinica. (The Academia Sinica, headquartered in the Nangang district of Taipei, is the national academy for Taiwan.It is deemed a primary research centre for the nation. It supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from mathematical and physical sciences, to life sciences, and to humanities and social sciences.) This project focuses on infrastructure building for free software development. It offers a foundry, similar to sourceforge.net, for local FOSS developers to interact in local languages.

There's also technical, operational and legal assistance. Legal analysis of OSS licenses is provided to assist developers to choose the most suitable license. http://www.openfoundry.org/

OpenFoundry.org is the repository of OSSF. It has some 321 projects, 1753 registered users as of Sept 3, 2005. Some well-known projects emerging out of this Taiwanese experiment include OpenWebMail, OpenVanilla, Kwiki, Pugs See http://openfoundry.org/

License Wizard of OSSF helps maintainers and authors of Free Software projects to choose a license they like best. You need to answer a few questions such as, and then you're prompted to the suitable license. This process is available only in Traditional Chinese so far.

Meanwhile, the F.S. R&D programme is funded by Taiwan's National Science Council, and encourages two kinds of Free Software R&D -- that needed by industry, and that which can be used as software components. It is conducted by universities and research institutes via a "call for proposal" mechanism. Some 133 proposals approved for 2003 and 2004 combined.

Embedded Linux R&D Programme is a strategy to combine GNU/Linux technology with Taiwan's local strength in IT hardware. Its target market is embedded products, it emphasises on GNU/Linux wide-scale security systems, and its major participants are the Taiwan Linux Consortium and its member companies, the Industrial Technology Research Institute and Institute for Information Industry.

Apart from all this, there's spontanous initiatives and volunteer-driven projects -- from the research, educational, industrial sectors and the GNU/Linux community. "This is not an exhaustive report," says Ping Yeh modestly.

Taiwan Linux Consortium has been promoting GNU/Linux since 2000. Linux Expo is held every summer together with Computex, the second largest computer exhibition in the world.

Taiwan Linux Forum is active too. There's the Golden Penguin Award (annual since 2003) -- a distinguished contribution award that goes out to the best application of the year, nd the best innovation of the year. This was scheduled to be extended to greater China recently.

Not to say that the educational sector is lagging behind in initiatives. School Free Software (SFS) has been run since 2003. It's a Web-based school administration portal, PHP+MySQL (LAMP). It's modular, with more than 100 modules. Developers are teachers in elementary schools. More then 500 schools in three counties are using it. http://sfs.wpes.tcc.edu.tw/

Dr. Geo, on the other hand, is an interactive software for teaching geometry. It's now part of the global Freeduc project, which takes Free Software to school. There's also the Freeductw project, aimed at promoting Freeduc softwares in Taiwanese primary schools.

In the research sector, informs Ping Yeh, there are many projects, some funded by the NSC and some spontaneously growing. These include the DRBL (Diskless Remote Boot in Linux) which has one boot server, multiple diskless clients, and is seen as being particularly well suited for computer classrooms. More than 200 installed sites (6000 PCs) are in schools, hospitals, NPOs, government orgs, small & medium sized businesses.

There's a Sourceforge mirror run out of the NCHC Tainan, which has been online since March 2005.

On the community front, other initiatives have come up. There's the Software Liberty Association of Taiwan. It's a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of Free Software. Donations are tax-deductible. This network holds an international FOSS conference annually since 2001. It offers community awards every other year, and interleaves with a technology competition which is also held in alternative years. It runs OSSACC for the Ministry of Education. http://www.slat.org/

User group activities include: Taiwan linux user group (forum), Tainan linux user group (talks), Tainan county network center, Taiwan Debian user group (wiki, irc), PCManX, OV-IME, and others Fedora Taiwan (forum), Fedora LiveCD, OS X chat (irc, blog), OpenVanilla, Taipei open source software user group (talks, mailing list), Mozilla Taiwan (forum), Localisation Sayya.org (bbs), and other volunteering individuals work on Gentoo, Ubuntu, *BSD, etc.

Some names you ought to be linking to Taiwan, when you hear of them in the future: Pugs, implementation of Perl 6 in Haskell, led by Autrijus Tang. http://www.pugscode.org/

svk: decentralized version control system that works with all major code repository systems, led by C.L.Kao. http://svk.elixus.org/

PCMan: cross-platform BBS client with graphical user interface, led by "pcman"

OpenVanilla: cross-platform input method framework, led by Dane Liu. http://www.openvanilla.org/

OV-IME: input method editor for OpenVanilla on Windows, led by Kanru Chen

SDL-im: enabling input method in SDL (Simple Directmedia

Layer, a game development library), led by L.Y.C.

Some names that helped in collating the content of this presentation, and could be helpful contacts to finding out more: Ping Yeh (National Taiwan University & Tossug +886.913.165.100 ping@pingyeh.net) and Tinli Lin (OSSF), K.C. Chen (OSSACC), Mike Lin (TLC), Tzu-Chiang Liu (OSSF), Fred Cheng (NICI), Hong-Sheu Wu (COSA), James Chen (ITRI), Steven Hsiau (NCHC), T. H. Chang (NSC), Ying-Kuang Chen (SFS), Chao-Kwei Hung (Freeduc), Jing-Chun "jserv" Huang (Debian Taiwan), Chuan-Te Ho (RDEC).

Links to Taiwanese organisations:

Chinese Open System Association: http://www.cosa.org.tw/ Taiwan Linux Consortium: http://taiwan-linux.tca.org.tw/ Software Liberty Association of Taiwan: http://www.slat.org/

Links to Taiwanese projects:

Chinese Linux Extension: http://cle.linux.org.tw/ OSSF Supports Software Freedom: http://openfoundry.org/

Links to Taiwanese communities:

Taiwan Linux User Group: http://www.linux.org.tw/ Tainan Linux User Group: http://tnlug.linux.org.tw/ Tainan County Network Center: http://freesf.tnc.edu.tw/ Taipei Open Source Software User Group: http://tossug.org/ Debian: http://debian.org.tw/ Fedora Taiwan: http://www.fect.com.tw/ Mozilla Taiwan: http://moztw.org/ OS X Chat: http://osxchat.blogspot.com/ Dream Software List: http://wiki.debian.org.tw/index.php/WishList2005 Sayya BBS: telnet://bbs.sayya.org/

Acronyms of government agencies:

NSC: National Science Council MOE: Ministry of Education IDB: Industry Development Bureau of the Ministry of Economy Affairs NICI: National Information and Communications Initiative RDEC: Research, Development and Evaluation Commission

GNU/LINUXlocallanguages

NEPAL FINDS ITS SOLUTIONS: From simplified Nepali typing... to an OS is an article by Bal Krishna Bal, published in April 2006 on the Association for Progressive Communications blog. Bal tells the story where it starts: "Somebody rightly said, 'Necessity is the mother of invention'. Had it not been for the necessity felt by Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya(MPP) for the electronically cataloging of its collection of books some four years back, which was then not possible with the help of the existing fonts of Nepali like Preeti and Kanchan, there are doubts that MPP, a principal archiving house got involved in developing software in Nepali." And what they achieved was something quite unexpected. Check it out. http://blog.apc.org/en/index.shtml?x=4956277 Also see NepalLinux http://NepalLinux.org

FROM THE MEDIA

JAPAN: Controversial David software is out in Japan http://news.inq7.net/infotech/index.php?index=1&story_id=60585

PHILIPPINES: Open source better for those school PCs By Behn Fer. Hortaleza http://www.sunstar.com.ph/static/pan/2006/03/09/oped/behn.fer..hortaleza.html

BANGLA, AND BANGLADESH: Omi Azad ecently wrote about FOSS in the weekly Ekattor magazine of Bangladesh. See the article (in Bangla) at http://www.ekushey.org/files/ICT_Report-FOSS-9th.pdf Omi is a contributor to the Bangla Computing and Localization Projects including Ankur: http://www.ankurbangla.org and Ekushey: http://www.ekushey.org For an active LUG related to Bangladesh, see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bdlug/

LINUX, A MILITARY GROUND VEHICLE AND SOUTH ASIA: See the article "Linux powers autonomous military ground vehicle" (http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS5782785656.html). Interesting to see LynuxWorks CEO Inder Singh has South Asian connections. iRobot used embedded Linux to build an autonomous unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) aimed at military scouting, guarding, and hauling applications. The "R-Gator" is based on John Deere's diesel-powered, 658cc M-Gator military utility vehicle platform, with control, navigation, and object-avoidance systems based on BlueCat Linux from LynuxWorks. http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS5782785656.html

DISTROS... LINKED TO ASIA Source: http://lwn.net/Distributions/

ARABIAN: Arabian Linux, also known as arl, is a bootable CD with a compilation of GNU/Linux software, Full support for Arabic/English languages and automatic hardware detection. This Arabic live-CD uses KDE as the default GUI, and has Arabic language enabled in consoles, pre-compiled ready-for-use softmodem drivers and a control panel in both Arabic and English. Arabian is recommended for beginners. Version 0.6 (Brick in the Wall) was released April 17, 2006. http://arabian.arabicos.com/

CHINA: Chinese 2000 Linux: Chinese 2000 Linux comes from Hong Kong. http://chinese2000.sniic.com/index.php

Hiweed GNU/Linux: Hiweed GNU/Linux is a Chinese Linux distribution, based on Debian GNU/Linux. Its features include preconfigured Chinese applications, such as Chinese input method, Chinese-English and English-Chinese dictionaries, and Chinese true-type fonts. The Server edition is a pre-configured Debian-based server with Apache, PHP, MySQL, mail, DNS, and FTP. See http://linux.hiweed.com/ or http://freshmeat.net/projects/hiweed/

Red Flag: Red Flag also claims to be the leading Linux OS provider in China. http://www.redflag-linux.com/

Sun Wah Linux: Sun Wah uses Linux in servers, embedded devices and other products. The compay has joined the Debian Core Consortium. Sun Wah Linux released the RAYS ES, a Debian-based commercial Linux server platform, August 2005. Rays LX 1.5 desktop was released March 29, 2006. http://www.sw-linux.com/en/scripts/main/index.php

Tom Linux: Distribution and website are in Chinese. http://www.linuxaid.com.cn/

XTeamLinux: Distribution and website are in Chinese. http://www.xteamlinux.com.cn/

CHINA/HONG KONG: ThizLinux: ThizLinux Labratory Ltd., home of the ThizLinux distribution, is based in Hong Kong. Products include Thiz Linux Desktop, Thiz Office, and Thiz Server . All products are localized for Hong Kong users. http://www.thizlinux.com/

INDIA: Ankur Bangla Live. The Ankur Bangla Project is working toward supporting the Bangla (Bengali) language on the GNU/Linux operating system. The project has created a Morphix-based Live CD with GNOME 2.4, localized into Bangla. http://www.bengalinux.org/ https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=43331

PunLinux: PunLinux is localized in the Punjabi dialect. http://punlinux.sourceforge.net/

Utkarsh: Utkarsh is general desktop distribution localized in the Gujarati Language. Based on the IndLinux Milan version of Morphix, Utkarsh is live CD distribution. http://www.utkarsh.org/

IRAN: Karamad. Karamad means Efficient in Farsi (Persian). Karamad is built at DPI (Data Processing of Iran-ext IBM). The Live CD also functions as an installtion media. It can show and play most sound & video files. Other software includes OpenOffice, Firefox, KDE 3.4, Persian Help, an English to Persian Dictionary, and more. http://www.karamad.com/

Parsix GNU/Linux: Parsix GNU/Linux is a live and installation CD based on Kanotix and Debian Sid . It is a complete GNOME-centric desktop. Parsix GNU/Linux supports Persian keyboard and users can switch to Persian (Farsi) with Alt+Shift keys. You can install and use Parsix GNU/Linux as your PC's operating system. Also included is the xFarDic multilingual dictionary and Persian free fonts from the FPF project. Parsix GNU/Linux 0.76 was released February 7, 2006. Parsix GNU/Linux 0.80-BETA-1 was released May 25, 2006. http://www.parsix.org/

Sharif Linux: Sharif Linux is a bilingual English/Persian operating system maintained by Sharif FarsiWeb. It is based on GNU/Linux and is customized for the computing requirements of Iran and the Persian language, specially for enterprise-level and educational uses. http://www.farsiweb.ir/wiki/Sharif_Linux

ISRAEL: Boten GNU/Linux is intended for home users and provides a fully-localized GNU/Linux environment in Hebrew. It's especially made for those new to Linux, though aimed to please all users, experts and newbies alike. http://www.mpthrill.com/peanut/ http://freshmeat.net/projects/bgl/

ISRAEL: Ehad Linux is based on Mandriva Linux. A single installation CD contains a useful assortment of Mandriva-compatible applications designed for Hebrew speakers (English is also fully supported). Ehad 2006 was released March 26,2006. http://linux.ehad.info/english

JAPAN: Berry Linux is a bootable CD Linux with automatic hardware detection and support for many graphics cards, sound cards, SCSI and USB devices and other peripherals. If you have network devices, auto-configure DHCP and you can use Internet. You will also find OpenOffice, GIMP and other free software applications. Berry Linux can be used as a Linux demo, educational CD or rescue system. It is not necessary to install anything on the hard disk, but installation is possible. Berry Linux is based on Fedora Core 5 and Knoppix. Version 0.70 was released May 19, 2006. http://yui.mine.nu/linux/eberry.html http://berry.sourceforge.jp/

HOLON Linux is aimed at mass consumers. It is developed by HOLON Inc. (in Japan). They did a TV commercial, which was (and is) an unprecedented promotion in Japan. Their server version received a "Good Design Award" by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry in Japan. Their desktop version product includes 2.8GB of commercial and multimedia applications. http://www.holonlinux.com/

LASER5: Originally based on Red Hat Linux. http://www.laser5.co.jp/

Linux MLD: There appears to be a full distribution from Media Lab. There is also a mini-distribution, as well as other Linux products. Version 7.0 was released August 14, 2003. http://www.mlb.co.jp/

Miracle Linux: Miracle Linux is a high reliability, scalability and availability server OS for the enterprise market, according to Miracle Linux Corporation the developer of the distribution. Miracle Linux Corporation was originally founded by Oracle Corporation Japan. (Currently Oracle Japan owns about 60% of Miracle Linux.) They offer not only "Miracle Linux with Oracle," but also "Miracle Linux for Samba" and "MIRACLE LINUX for PostgreSQL." http://www.miraclelinux.com/

Momonga Linux: Momonga Linux is the successor to Kondara. This general purpose distribution is developed mostly by Japanese programmers, but it supports English just as well and the Momonga web site provides English content, together with English-language mailing lists. One nice thing about Momonga is its support for 8 different Japanese input method servers, a selection of which is available directly from the GDM login screen. Best of all, these input servers work nicely even if you choose to keep your user interface in English (or any other language). http://www.momonga-linux.org/

Nature's Linux: Nature's Linux was developed by IP Telecom to provide IP network managers with an easy to use operating system that reduces the total cost of ownership of maintaining IP networks. http://www.n-linux.com/

Omoikane GNU/Linux: This appears to be a Debian based distribution translated to Japanese. http://www.omoikane.co.jp/ogl.html

Plamo Linux: This is a Slackware based distribution. http://www.linet.gr.jp/~kojima/Plamo/

Vine Linux: "The Supreme Linux Distribution with Integrated Japanese Environment for Your Desktop PCs and Notebooks." Multiple platforms seem to be supported. Vine Linux 2.5 was released April 15, 2002. Vine Linux 3.2 was released September 17, 2005. http://www.vinelinux.org/index-en.html http://www.vinelinux.org/index.html

SOUTH KOREA: Haansoft Linux: Haansoft is an Asianux partner, offering both server and desktop distributions localized in Korean. Haansoft Linux 2006 Workstation was released March 2006. http://www.haansoftlinux.com/

WOWLinux: The current WOWLinux release appears to be dated May 26, 2005. http://www.wowlinux.com/

NEPAL: NepaLinux. NepaLinux is a live CD it can also be installed on the hard drive. The work for the installation process has been facilitated through the European Commission supported Bhasha Sanchar Project which is led by the Open University (UK). The first version features a 2.6.12 Linux kernel and a GNOME desktop localized in Nepali and lots more Free Software, released December 19, 2005. http://www.nepalinux.org/

PHILIPPINES: Bayanihan: Bayanihan Linux is a single-CD, desktop-oriented, Debian-based distribution developed in the Philippines. The current stable version is 3.1. BL4 Beta was released April 21, 2006. http://www.bayanihan.gov.ph/

TAIWAN: B2D Linux: B2D is a Debian-based Linux distribution developed in Taiwan, with user environment and read/write support for traditional Chinese. Version 20060502 was released May 2, 2006. http://b2d.tnc.edu.tw/

Linpus Linux: Linpus Professional Linux Services has created an embedded distribution, originally based on uClinux. Linpus Linux 9.3 seems to be the most recent release (as of November 2005). Thailand. http://www.linpus.com.tw/

GrandLinux: GRANDLINUX 5.0 seems to be the most recent version (as of March 2004). They are an IBM Business Partner. Website text in Thai. http://www.grandlinux.com/

THAILAND: LinuxTLE: The OpenTLE (Thai Linux Extension) seems to be a good place for finding open source applications localized in Thai. LinuxTLE 5.5 (Samila) was released February 4, 2004. Linux TLE 5.5 Live CD with Gnome 2.6 was released April 26, 2004. Previews of v5.6 ("AowThai") became available October 12, 2004. LinuxTLE Lite 7.0.1 was released May 18, 2005. http://www.opentle.org/

Phayoune Secure Linux: Phayoune-Desktop 0.0.11 was the most recent version when it was added to list July 8, 2002. The site appears current as of November 2005, with a firewall, web server, thin clients and embedded Linux products. http://www.phayoune.org/ http://freshmeat.net/projects/phayoune/

TURKEY: Pardus: Pardus funded and developed by the Scientific & Technological Research Council of Turkey. Version 1.0 features a KDE 3.5 desktop localized in Turkish. http://www.uludag.org.tr/eng/

MISCELLANEOUS: Arabeyes Project: Arabeyes is a Meta project that is aimed at fully supporting the Arabic language in the Unix/Linux environment. It is designed to be a central location to standardize the Arabization process. Arabeyes relies on voluntary contributions by computer professionals and enthusiasts all over the world. http://www.arabeyes.org/

Asianux: Asianux is a joint effort by Japan's Miracle Linux and China's Red Flag Linux. Korea's Haansoft Inc. joined the project before the 2.0 release. Developed at Oracle's China Development Center in Beijing, the Asianux system is an effort to develop and standardize a common Asian Linux kernel, libraries and packages. The Asianux partnership also acts as a certification body for hardware and software that is intended to run on the new Asian Linux kernel. Asianux partners will use this core for their latest releases, bundling Asianux with localized features for each particular market. http://www.asianux.com/

Chinese Linux Extension: The CLE website is mostly in Chinese. Localized versions of several distributions are available, along with pointers to sites like LinuxChineseHowto, and Chinese Linux Documentation Project. http://cle.linux.org.tw/

IndLinux: The Indian Linux Project was formed with the goal of creating a GMILinux distribution that supports Indian Languages at all levels. This Indianisation project will strive to bring the benefits of Information Technology down to the Indian masses. We want to make technology accessible to the majority of India that does not speak English. Efforts are underway in Hindi, Punjabi, Oriya and Telugu, with more teams working on Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi and Tamil. A Rangoli live cd 1.0 beta was released early in 2006. http://www.indlinux.org/

LINKS TO OTHERS

INTERESTING REPORTS... GOVERNMENTS, GOING ONLINE, AND MACAU

FROM MACAU, REPORT SAYS, "GOVERNMENTS GO ONLINE -- WITHOUT WINDOWS": Inter Press Service had this interesting report on March 26, 2006.

Electronic governance promises to cut corruption and improve transparency, and open source Latest News about open source software offers a way to break South Asia's technological dependence on industrialized countries, experts say.

Open source software such as Linux is non-proprietary, less complex, more efficient and freely available to anyone -- unlike Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows operating system, says Mike Reed, director of the United Nations University International Institute for Software Technology (UNU-IIST), based in Macau, China.

"Linux is now the fastest-growing software and powers eight of the 10 fastest supercomputers in the world," Reed said.

Open source software like Linux is embedded in many types of electronic devices, like mobile phones and cameras. Open source is also starting to cut into the near complete domination of the personal computer market by the Windows operating system, he said.

"Developing countries can't afford to buy Windows-based software. The basic Windows operating system costs a year and half salary for the average Vietnamese citizen," he noted.

That's led to rampant theft or illegal copying Latest News about illegal copying of Microsoft software. However, such software cannot be modified or customized to meet local needs. Companies and governments have no other choice than to commission expensive custom programming from California's Silicon Valley.

Open source, on the other hand, is easy to customize and not particularly difficult to learn, says Reed.

Access to computers is one major problem in the developing world, and so is the lack of local programming projects so that programmers can learn, says Reed.

Reducing Corruption

Vietnam is one exception. A few years ago, Vietnam launched an ambitious effort to modernize, developing its own version of Linux called Vietkeylinux, partnering with the computer chip Latest News about computer chips manufacturer Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) Latest News about Intel and moving to electronic governance (e-governance).

"Vietnam has more things online than the U.S. government," Reed said.

Isolated Vietnamese villages now have public computer kiosks where citizens can conduct business with the government online, such as registering for birth certificates.

"That reduces mid- to low-level government corruption, because it's easier to keep track of paperwork and everything is visible and public," he said.

Government services are easier and cheaper to provide electronically. Plus, such an electronic/information infrastructure and expertise in these areas is crucial for a country like Vietnam to successfully participate in the global economy.

South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore are successful examples of countries with low levels of corruption and high levels of economic activity that other Asian countries are hoping to emulate, Reed said.

The information revolution has been slow in reaching two-thirds of the world, according to Darrell West, an e-governance researcher at the Center for Public Policy at Brown University in Providence, R.I.

"Many countries don't have the money, and some don't see the benefits or have the desire to make the public sector open and transparent," West told IPS.

Major Motivator

In an exhaustive survey of the e-governance capabilities of 191 countries, West found that it is practically nonexistent in most African countries, as well as those in the Middle East. While money is the main problem in the former, the latter are dominated by "rich monarchical governments that have a very different view of public service and are not interested in e-governance," he said.

In the long term, West is optimistic. "Countries are beginning to see the benefits and the cost reductions of e-governance," he said. However, launching such initiatives isn't easy and requires technical expertise, financing and political leadership, Reed added.

It required a major two-year effort in the UNU home base of Macau, on the coast of China. Among the most difficult parts of moving to e-governance is getting government departments to open up, share their information and cooperate with each other, he said.

"It used to require permissions and licenses from 10 different agencies to start a business in Macau. Now, there is just one online form," the researcher explained, and it took a strong leadership that insisted government officials make it happen.

The impoverished country of Nepal was on the verge of achieving a good level of e-governance until the current political strife erupted a year ago. Nepal's high level of literacy and good mathematical education made it possible to develop Nepalese programmers who, with UNU training and US$2 million in outside funding, built an open source e-governance infrastructure.

Government Resource

E-governance in Nepal is effectively on hold now, said Reed.

To assist these e-governance attempts and to help other countries get started, the UNU has established an interactive information clearinghouse on the Internet that it calls UneGov.net.

In addition to having instructional how-to materials online, the portal will make available software and research papers, as well as contact information for others who have or are setting up e-governance in their own countries.

The World Bank is among funding agencies being approached. Already, Vietnam is sharing some of its experience with Nigeria, Reed said.

"People love to share their success stories," he concluded.

NEWS FROM HERE AND THERE

LPI CERTIFICATION IN NORTH-EAST ASIA... AND JKC: Linux News Desk reported on May 30, 2006 that the Linux Professional Institute (LPI) is hosting certification events and "exam labs" within the North East Asia region (China, Japan, South Korea) to promote Linux and Open Source professionalism. These include upcoming certification testing events at LinuxWorld Conference & Expo - Tokyo, Japan May 31 - June 2, 2006 and LinuxWorld Conference & Expo - Seoul, Korea June 5 - 7, 2006. LPI has also recently sponsored a successful exam lab at LinuxWorld Shanghai, China on May 24, 2006. Jim Lacey, President and CEO of LPI, noted the growing importance of Japan, Korea, and China (JKC) as part of the organization's new global strategy: "North East Asia or JKC best demonstrates our Regional Enablement Initiative: draw upon the stability of long time affiliates like LPI-Japan, search out innovative new partners, and explore opportunities for growth." http://www.linuxpr.com/releases/8750.html

UNEGOV.NET, PROMOTING FOSS IN EGOVERNANCE: Established by the U.N. General Assembly in 1973, United Nations University is an international community of scholars engaged in research, advanced training and the dissemination of knowledge related to pressing global problems. The University operates a worldwide network of research and post-graduate training centres, with headquarters in Tokyo. UNeGov.net is also actively promoting the use of open source software for e-Governance through its schools and courses by teaching open source technologies and tools. It will also provide a rich collection of open source frameworks and tools for building e-Governance applications through its portal. http://www.unegov.net/

INTEL COMMITS BIG MONEY TO THIRD WORLD PROJECT: Nestor E. Arellano reports in ITWorld Canada (12 May 2006) that Intel hopes to gain a head start on untapped markets in the Third World by launching World Ahead, a global program that will pour US$ 1 billion over the next five years to promote computer training and Internet use in developing countries. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company recently unveiled its five-year project plan, which includes extending broadband access to one billion users and training 10 million teachers on the use of technology in education. A component of the program is the development of a $400 mobile personal computer, dubbed Eduwise, that will run on Microsoft Windows or the Linux operating system. The World Ahead program will also push adoption of WiMax wireless technology that allows high throughput broadband connections over long distances. Chan said the computer markets in Japan, U.S. and Western Europe are mature, registering only a modest 12 per cent growth in 2005 compared to 24.5 per cent for the same period by the so-called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) regions. http://www.itworldcanada.com/a/Daily-News/8318ae8c-3170-49e4-906c-f959add22722.htmls

LINKS FROM AROUND ASIA: Open Source in Singapore: LUGS is maintaining a list of Free and Open Source contribution, usage and companies that support this in Singapore. These can be in any area that supports the concept and philosophy of open source. http://wiki.lugs.org.sg/

IndLinux BLOG REPORTS ON AN ENGLISH-TELUGU DICTIONARY ONLINE (May 30, 2006): Swecha team has put up a web interface for English Telugu Dictionary at http://www.swecha.org/dict The interface is in Telugu Unicode unlike most other online dictionary lookup services. It is based on Charles Philip Brown English-Telugu Dictionary, available under GPL at http://ltrc.iiit.net/onlineServices/Dictionaries/Eng-Tel-DictDwnld.html

FROM MALAYSIA, INTERESTING NEWS: Open source is spreading beyond the operating system market and is being utilised in other areas, such as database and customer relationship management (CRM) software. About 53% of Malaysian software is based wholly or partly on open source, according to Wilvin Chee, IDC Asia Pacific software research director. In his presentation, Direction O6 Open Source Software: Its Impact to the Marketplace, he said the Linux operating system would make up 15% of the overall server market this year. Source: http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2006/5/2/itfeature/14076084&sec=itfeature

NEW FOSS CENTRES OF EXCELLENCE: In order to address the growing information and technological needs of the Asia and Pacific region, the International Open Source Network (IOSN) has established three new Centres of Excellence - IOSN ASEAN+3, IOSN PIC (Pacific Island countries), and IOSN South Asia. Together, these Centres will continue the research and development, networking, institutional strengthening, and training undertaken by IOSN over the last three years to advance the adoption of free/open source software, open standards, and open content across the region. For more http://www.apdip.net/news/opensourcecentres

WINNER FROM SINGAPORE: Congratulations to Ricky Lee of Chevalier Singapore for winning the Asia Pacific's RHCE (Red Hat Certified Engineer) of the Year title. Red Hat would like to thank all RHCEs for their submission. Ricky has won himself a sponsored trip to the Red Hat Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, and will be presented with the RHCE of the Year plaque. Red Hat | Asia Pacific News | Vol. 10 From Red Hat info@info.redhat.com

RED HAT AND IIT BOMBAY (INDIA) Deliver New Education Opportunities for Open Source Programming: Indian students can now keep up with fast-moving open source development. A Red Hat India and IIT Bombay collaboration, under the Red Hat Scholarships 2006-2007 program, provides open source education including mentorship from the community, software downloads, and project participation to engineering colleges and other educational institutions. http://info.redhat.com/a/tBEanWfAUfRoFAe-DgSAVHSdmvQ/apac46

WHOM IS THIS COMING FROM? If you'd like to know more about the work of the compiler of this newsletter (FN) or would like to explore possibilities for FOSS-style collaborative working (specially in the information and mailing-list area), the check out http://wikiwikiweb.de/FrederickNoronha You can also find a link to a report that gives a snapshot of Free/Libre and Open Source Software in many Asian countries circa 2003, at http://www.maailma.kaapeli.fi/asia.html/

COMPUTERS, SCHOOLS AND GOA: A Spanish volunteer from Catelonia, working for the Goa Schools Computers Project (Knowledge Initiatives Trust), put together this interesting collection of software suitable for use in schools. Check it out at FlossInSchools. http://wikiwikiweb.de/FlossInSchools

RED HAT'S FOSS SCHOLARSHIP IN INDIA: Writes Mayank Sharma in an interview in Newsforge, "There is no dearth of IT talent in India, but for a country that churns out thousands of IT students every year, the number of Indian contributors in the open source software (OSS) world is disproportionately low, due in part to a lack of proper mentoring. To encourage more students to go into OSS development, the Kanwal Rekhi School of Information Technology (KReSIT) at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay partners with Red Hat for an open source scholarship challenge each year. Participants, mentored by OSS leaders, get the opportunity to work and collaborate to solve a real-world problem, and the winners get a share of the Rs. 1 million (about $22,000) prize." To check the full-text of the published interview, with Venkatesh Hariharan, head of Open Source Affairs at Red Hat India and coordinator of the challenge, see http://business.newsforge.com/business/06/05/18/1459236.shtml?tid=35

PARTNERSHIPS WITH ASIA: Enterprise Open Source News Desk reported on March 19, 2006: Covalent Technologies, a trusted source for complete enterprise open source solutions, has announced it has entered into strategic partnerships with a number of technology companies based in England, Germany, India, and the Philippines. These new partnerships bolster Covalent's ability to deliver commercial support and service offerings for popular open source projects out of the Apache Software Foundation on a global basis, namely the Apache Web Server, Apache Tomcat Application Server, Apache Axis Web Services Framework, and the Apache Geronimo Application Server, and complement existing Covalent partnerships already in place in Japan, Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom. http://opensource.sys-con.com/read/224587.htm

MESSAGING SOLUTION FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM COMPANIES, NOW IN THE PHILIPPINES: AXIGEN Mail Server is now available for the Philippine market as a result of the distribution agreement signed between local company GEN Automation and Gecad Technologies (Romania). AXIGEN Mail Server calls itself "a fast, scalable messaging solution, perfectly adaptable to the communication demands from both small and medium companies and Internet services providers." Launched by the last fall, during Linux World Expo in London, AXIGEN says it "succeeded until nowadays to manage e-mails from over 300.000 mailboxes and to be distributed worldwide through 10 valued partners." It reached version 1.1 and operates on both Linux and FreeBSD. AXIGEN Mail Server has been designed and created from scratch by Gecad Technologies developers. Gecad Technologies has a five-year history of expertise in technology research, information security, project management and messaging solutions. See AXIGEN Mail Server website – http://www.axigen.com [Source: http://www.prleap.com/pr/34866/ }

NOTES FROM MALAYSIA -- FOSS SPREADING ITS WINGS: OPEN source is spreading beyond the operating system market and is being utilised in other areas, such as database and customer relationship management (CRM) software. About 53% of Malaysian software is based wholly or partly on open source, according to Wilvin Chee, IDC Asia Pacific software research director. In his presentation, Direction O6 Open Source Software: Its Impact to the Marketplace, he said the Linux operating system would make up 15% of the overall server market this year. http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2006/5/2/itfeature/14076084&sec=itfeature

COMMUNITY CORNER: LUGS SINGAPORE

http://www.lugs.org.sg - The main LUGS web site. Includes links to * LUGS Mailing List - Please subscribe and join in the discussion on the LUGS mailing list. * LugsProjects - A place to document current and future LUGS projects. * LugsVolunteers - If you can volunteer on a LUGS project then put your contact details here. * LugsCommittee - Information about the current LUGS Committee. * LugsTalkTopics - A list of potential talk topics for future LUGS meetings. * LugsPresentations - Pointers to slides from previous LUGS meetings. * LugsWikiEditors - Notes for editors of the LUGS Wiki. * Open Source in Singapore LUGS is maintaining a list of Free and Open Source contribution, usage and companies that support this in Singapore. These can be in any area that supports the concept and philosophy of open source. We have created the following 3 initial categories: * AdvocacyResources - Global and Local Success stories, External Resources, Lies, damned lies and analysis reports... * OpenSourceCompanies - Companies in Singapore providing support services or products based on Linux or open source software. * OpenSourceUsers - Singaporean Companies, Government departments and educational institutions using Linux and Open Source software. * OpenSourceContributions - Singapore based OSS projects or global projects contributed to by Singaporean companies, government, educational institutions or individuals. * Linux Resources * LinuxResources - Pointers to useful Linux related resources on the web. * LinuxCompatibleHardware - Hardware available in Singapore that is Linux compatible.

QUOTE... UNQUOTE

FROM BHUTAN, NEPAL, SRI LANKA AND MORE: This is the first time that Red Hat is doing such a program of this nature anywhere in the world. In the first two years, we started with India because this is a vast geography to cover. The third year's program has been expanded to the Indian subcontinent, and we have received project submissions from Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and more. -- Venkatesh Hariharan, on the South Asian scholarship challenge. http://business.newsforge.com/business/06/05/18/1459236.shtml?tid=35

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR SOMETHING YOU BELIEVE IN... WRITES Khairil Yusof in MyOSS Community of Malaysia: Let's be clear. MyOSS community consists of students and developers. Hard pressed for time and other resources. Every now and again, somebody comes up and says that the community ought to do something. They've done a lot already: * http://my-opensource.org see http://www.my-opensource.org/oss-faq.html * http://myoss.iosn.net/ * http://foss.org.my Of course these students and developers should give up what little personal time they have left to do what other people tell them to do. I take this personally, because whenever this comes up, it usually comes down to a few people (aizat, ditesh, nsh) who do real things (papers, presenting at conferences and talks, organising meetups). It's unfair to ask any more of them. This won't be the last time we hear such requests, but what I would like to see next time is something along the lines, "I want to do this guys, and have spent some time doing it and would like the community to help me out." Taking responsibility for something you believe in is a much better attitude, then just throwing it to the "community". http://www.iosn.net/Members/kaeru/blog/being-involved

USEFUL LINKS

Q8LINUX.NET: Welcome to the Kuwait Linux User Group (KLUG) " مجموعة لينكس الكويت" that's dedicated to talk about Linux, BSD, and the use of open source/free software specially for Kuwait community & others as well -- beside encouraging them to use it. email: q8linux @ gmail.com http://www.q8linux.net/

GNU/LINUX USERS GROUPS WORLDWIDE: This is the homepage of the Linux Users Groups WorldWide (LUGWW) project. The LUGWW project is part of the Linux Counter. You can find the registered Linux Users Groups in the Group listing. If an entry has not yet been verified you may find it in the holding area. Individuals are urged to use the person registration. Perhaps it would be a good thing to notify your group once in a while about the Linux counter project. http://lugww.counter.li.org/

IRAQI LINUX GROUP PORTAL: This site is currently under heavy development and refactoring. Our primary aims in this site are: * educate Iraqis and iraqi businesses on the principles and benefits of open source * cultivate IT culture in Iraq to join the global outsourcing community * provide patterns for Schools, College, and University IT setups * provide programming resource covering mainly patterns, java, C++, and web technologies * provide patterns for SME (Small to Medium Enterprise) IT setups * provide registration of people and organisations "inside" iraq for consultancy and services * news of interest * repository of information, software, and links to latest linux, arabic linux and open source components * open education and distance learning. Some of our initial founder team members and their home links are: Inside Iraq: Hasanen, Ashraf, linnuxxy, and Bassam. Outside Iraq Hakim, Hassan, Amir (UK), Nabil (Canada), Mahdi (Netherlands), Max (Sweden), Alidj, FreeEagle (Germany) there is also a discussion mailing list managed by Ashraf apart from our discussion forum. We can be contacted by email on: group1 at iraqilinux.org http://www.iraqilinux.org/

ASIA OPEN SOURCE SYMPOSIUM: The 7th Asia Open Source Software Symposium was in KL Malaysia, March 6-8, 2006. http://7aoss.asiaosc.org/

bdlug · BANGLADESH LINUX USERS' GROUP : This is an informal forum where Linux users, fans and followers can meet and exchange information. * Members: 851 * Category: Bangladesh * Founded: May 10, 1999 * Language: English

IOSNFOSSAsia is a newsletter compiled by Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org and supported by the International Open Source Network in Bangkok, Thailand. IOSN.net offers you tools and space to promote Free/Libre and Open Source Software in your part of Asia and the Pacific. Please visit http://iosn.net for more details. If you would like to have Asia-related news about FOSS included in this newsletter, please email fred@bytesforall.org Reproduction of the contents of this newsletter is encouraged, provided acknowledgement of the source(s) is made.

From: "Diabolic Preacher" <pintooo15@...> Date: Sat Jun 3, 2006 5:44 pm Subject: Latest LUG posts from India and Asia diabolic_pre... Offline Offline Send Email Send Email Invite to Yahoo! 360º Invite to Yahoo! 360º

Dear members,

there exists many LUG (Linux User Groups) and FSUG (Free Software User Groups) which have publicly available feeds of their message archive. However the number of user groups/communities are not only very large...it's hard to find out which ones have online mailing lists...which among these have opened their message archive for public preview (i.e. a visitor can read the messages without joining the group)...and finally, what might be the URL's of those mailng lists?

One simple answer is http://feeds.goa-india.org/

members of various LUG's, FSUG's etc. of India (and some more countries of Asia) appearing in reverse chronological order (in simple words you get the latest news first and stale old news buried deep within. You can expand a subject line to read the summary (the default abstract that a website exposes through it's RSS/Atom channel) and also read the full article by clicking on the appropriate link.

than a week...it serves as the perfect LUG newspaper. You get to see all the news, links, software from such a wide variety of sources and yet at the same time, they are guaranteed fresh..thanks to the RSS technology...umm format actually. :)

sometimes not only necessary (to get in touch with a community of people better geared towards answering queries in certain fields of open source/linux) but also encouraged (to volunteer your help to more people than just those in your own user group / community.

http://feeds.goa-india.org. ;)

constructive way of enjoying leisure time.. :)

Ciao. -- Diabolic Preacher As Is Join ILUG - Ponda ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ilug-ponda ) Blog: http://pintooo15.livejournal.com/ Bookmarks: http://del.icio.us/dpreacher/ Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/dpreacher/

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