From nicheant at gmail.com Sun Oct 4 23:27:01 2009 From: nicheant at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?TmlzaGFudCB8IOCkqOCkv+CktuCkvuCkgeCkpA==?=) Date: Sun, 4 Oct 2009 23:27:01 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters Message-ID: <4439ee330910041057r11ac4292u50c1f066762e88bf@mail.gmail.com> There is an interesting set of comments and the author's answers at the source of the article: http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2009/06/How_a_Microsoft_veteran_learned_to_love_Linux_and_why_it_matters_48542167.html. ------------------------------------------ How a Microsoft veteran learned to love Linux, and why it matters by Keith Curtis on Thursday, June 18, 2009, 9:28am PDT [Editor's Note: Reprinted with permission from "After The Software Wars," a new book in which former Microsoft employee Keith Curtis explores the intersection between the worlds of proprietary and free software. The full book is available for purchase (http://www.amazon.com/After-Software-Wars-Keith-Curtis/dp/0578011891/) and download (http://www.lulu.com/content/4964815).] I first met Bill Gates at the age of twenty. He stood in the yard of his Washington lakefront home, Diet Coke in hand, a tastefully small ketchup stain on his shirt, which no one had the courage to point out, and answered our questions, in-turn, like a savant. As a college summer intern, I had planned for a potential encounter and I approached him with questions that interested me but which would be arcane to non-computer mortals. His answers demonstrated that he was one of the top software experts on the planet and convinced me that I would be very wise to start off my career at Microsoft. I joined Microsoft in 1993 when it was hitting its stride. It had recently released Windows 3.1 and Windows NT, setting itself on the path of more than a decade of dominance in the PC operating system market, and the many other markets that flow from it. I worked as a programmer for 11 years in various different groups — on databases, Windows, Office, MSN, mobility, and research. One day it just hit me — I should quit. There were no big reasons, only a lot of little ones. I had just launched v1 of the client and server side of the Microsoft Spot watch, and while it contained sophisticated technologies, I didn’t really believe it would take off in the marketplace. I had gained lots of knowledge yet only understood the Microsoft world. I was making decent money, but had no time to enjoy it. Though my boss was happy with me, I was losing motivation to just keep doing the same thing I had been doing for over a decade. When I looked around the company I saw a lot of ancient codebases and unprofitable ventures. Like many of my fellow employees, I was only vaguely familiar with free software when I left and decided to try Linux on a lark. At Microsoft, I got all the software I wanted for free, and I always thought free software would be behind proprietary software. For 15 years I had made it a priority to learn about many aspects of Microsoft technologies, and my office contained rows of books on everything from Undocumented Windows to Inside SQL Server. When running Windows I felt as comfortable as Neo in the Matrix, without the bullets and leather, so while I was willing to look around, I was half-forcing myself and didn't want this little experiment to mess up my main computing environment. Every technical decision was big for me: which version of Linux should I try? Should I get an extra machine or can I try this dual-boot thing? Can I really trust it to live on the same hard drive as Windows? I got some tips and assurance from a Microsoft employee who had already tried Linux, and with that, and the help of Google, I proceeded with the installation of Red Hat's Fedora Core 3. While I came to not be all that thrilled with Fedora itself, I was floored merely by the installation process. It contained a graphical installer that ran all the way to completion, it resized my NTFS partition — which I considered a minor miracle, setup dual boot, and actually did boot, and let me surf the Web. I didn’t have a clue what to do next, but the mere fact that this all worked told me more about the potential of Linux than anything I had read so far. You cannot, by accident, build an airplane that actually flies. However, as I dug deeper, I also started to realize that while Linux had a tremendous amount of potential and is doing well on the server and other specialized scenarios, it was not on a trajectory to take over the desktop, which is the most important use of computers, and this book will discuss its remaining challenges. The Linux Kernel The kernel of an operating system (OS) is the central nervous system of a computer. It is the first piece of software that the computer executes, and it manages and mediates access to the hardware. Every piece of hardware needs a corresponding kernel device driver, and you need all of your drivers working before you can run any of your software. The kernel is the center of gravity of a software community, and the battle between free software and Windows is at its lowest level a battle between the Linux and Windows kernels. Microsoft has said that it has bet the company on Windows, and this is not an understatement! If the Windows kernel loses to Linux, then Microsoft is also lost. The Linux kernel is not popular on desktops yet, but it is widely used on servers and embedded devices because it supports thousands of devices and is reliable, clean, and fast. Those qualities are even more impressive when you consider its size: printing out the Linux kernel's 8,000,000 lines of code would create a stack of paper 30 feet tall! The Linux kernel represents 4,000 man-years of engineering and 80 different companies, and 3,000 programmers have contributed to Linux over just the last couple of years. That 30-foot stack of code is just the basic kernel. If you include a media player, web browser, word processor, etc., the amount of free software on a computer running Linux might be 10 times the kernel, requiring 40,000 man-years and a printout as tall as a 30-story building. This 40 man-millennia even ignores the work of users reporting bugs, writing documentation, creating artwork, translating strings, and other non-coding tasks. The resulting Linux-based free software stack is an effort that is comparable in complexity to the Space Shuttle. We can argue about whether there are any motivations to write free software, but we can't argue that it's already out there — so there must be some! One of the primary reasons I joined Microsoft was I believed their Windows NT (New Technology) kernel, which is still alive in Windows Vista today, was going to dominate the brains of computers, and eventually even robots. One of Bill Gates' greatest coups was recognizing that the original Microsoft DOS kernel, the source of most of its profits, and which became the Windows 9x kernel, was not a noteworthy engineering effort. In 1988, Gates recruited David Cutler from Digital Equipment Corporation, a veteran of ten operating systems, to design the product and lead the team to build the Windows NT kernel, that was released as I joined in 1993. Windows has become somewhat popular for servers and devices, but it never achieved the dominance it did on desktop PCs. Perhaps the biggest reason is that its code wasn't available for others to extend and improve upon. The Linux kernel took off because there is a huge number of people all over the world, from Sony to Cray, who tweaked it to get it to run on their hardware. If Windows NT had been free from the beginning, there would have been no reason to create Linux. However, now that there is the free and powerful Linux kernel, there is no longer any reason but inertia to use a proprietary kernel. Excerpted from "After the Software Wars" (http://www.amazon.com/After-Software-Wars-Keith-Curtis/dp/0578011891/) by Keith Curtis. From pranesh at cis-india.org Fri Oct 9 12:12:37 2009 From: pranesh at cis-india.org (Pranesh Prakash) Date: Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:12:37 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Osaka High Court rules in favour of P2P software creator Message-ID: <4ACEDB5D.8040401@cis-india.org> Dear all, This seems to have been a very interesting case in which the decision of the trial court to fine the creator of P2P software that allowed anonymity to a tune of 1.5 million yen (~USD 17,000) was overturned by the Osaka High Court. Apparently, the trial court acknowledged the technological neutrality of P2P software, but accepted the argument that the strong anonymity that was built-in was to promote copyright infringement. The HC reversed that decision. More details from the Mainichi Daily News: . [snip] "Merely being aware of the possibility that the software could be abused does not constitute a crime of aiding violations of the law, and the court cannot accept that the defendant supplied the software solely to be used for copyright violations," Presiding Judge Masazo Ogura said. [/snip] Would anyone have more details about this case? -- Pranesh Prakash Programme Manager Centre for Internet and Society W: http://cis-india.org | T: +91 80 40926283 -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 197 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20091009/d03d8d22/attachment.bin From aravali at india.com Fri Oct 9 09:36:54 2009 From: aravali at india.com (Aravali Institute of Management) Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 21:06:54 -0700 Subject: [Commons-Law] Fwd: Humanizing Management : An appeal Message-ID: <20091008153212.31076.qmail@ws5-1.us4.outblaze.com> Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 01:19:18 -0700 (PDT) From: "Prof. G..P. Rao" Subject: Humanising Management : An appeal. To: aryav at sancharnet.in, satish at winsomegroup.com, bmljain at gmail.com Cc: amitasrivastava123 at yahoo.com HUMANIZING MANAGEMENT : AN APPEAL This is an appeal to philanthropreneurs and others involved and interested in the orientation of values in management education and profession. This appeal emanates from a small group of industrial organizations, management institutions and individuals constituting Spandan, an NGO wedded to propagation and inculcation of select human values as integral to work ethics and culture in an organization. The assumption and experience is that such an integration enables the organization achieve an optimal balance between Results and Relations. Such an integration over a period of time leads in developing, what can be called as, Functionally Humane Organization, with due emphasis being accorded to Results (Functionality) and Relations (Humaneness). The role of an institution like Spandan, it is submitted, is to facilitate the institutions and their management develop themselves as functionally humane human systems. Spandan has happened to evolve over a period of time a process and an approach to address the issue. The process is called 3 D Process of Inculcation of Values comprising Diagnosis, Discovery and Development as the three basic components of the process. The Values are, however, anchored to the Mission of the organization and suitably dovetailed with other functional areas and social fabric of the organization. The approach is called Spandan approach. 'Spandan', a word in Sanskrit, denotes 'heartbeat', 'vibration', 'pulsation' and 'echo'. The message is that a manager should develop such sensitivity towards his work group, organization and human beings in general. Such sensitivity emanates only from a set of beliefs and assumptions a person has towards others. One such belief a person must possess is in the innate divinity, basic goodness and intrinsic altruism in human beings. The role of institutions like Spandan, as mentioned, is to facilitate the management and organizations go through the process of humanizing by themselves. The task is important. We have, however, come to believe that the task of propagation and inculcation of values in management through interface between management education and profession is formidable enough to call for cooperation and support from like minded institutions and individuals in general and philanthropreneurs in particular.. Hence, this appeal. What exactly we are looking for is an institutional framework, support and base for carrying out the task at hand. The essential components for the said framework are: A. Infrastructure - academic and administrative; and, B. A team of facilitators to be identified, inducted, trained and made part of the Spandan Core Group. "A" could be made available. But investment on human capital in the form of Facilitators "B" is a must. These are ideas which are understandably only suggestive. Depending upon the responses of cooperation, support and/or proposals for partnership, further discussions and deliberations can follow. I do hope that this appeal generates comments, feedback and suggestions for furthering the noble cause undertaken by Spandan. Looking forward for favourable responses to the appeal, Cordially, G. P. Rao Founder Chairman Spandan, Noida, India (Mobile: 0-93502-47866.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20091008/0f7ee994/attachment.html From philippe.langlois at gmail.com Fri Oct 9 17:37:00 2009 From: philippe.langlois at gmail.com (Philippe Langlois) Date: Fri, 9 Oct 2009 14:07:00 +0200 Subject: [Commons-Law] SARD : French attempt at finding another solution for artist income and free creation on the Internet Message-ID: <77F774E7-13A9-4C11-9630-94C29B3DAF77@Gmail.com> SARD in french mean "Society for Acceptation and Repartition of Donations" and is a solution where internet users and organizations donate voluntarily some money to one artist or a group of artist (through this SARD). The SARD takes care of splitting the money between several artists if needed, process the payment and offer Artist a central point for collecting donation money. There is a monopoly in France to the SACEM organization and other same organizations (called SPRD) which forbids any other entity of collecting rights fees for artists. Thus, that forbids new business model and new income models for artists. SARD is not at all managing rights or collecting money for them, but is based on the more Internet-like notion of "gift" and "donation". This way, SARD does not fall in the monopoly of these SPRDs and creates a new avenue for many other SARD-like entities to be created. We're in the process of building this SARD, you can follow it (mostly in french) on: http://www.sard-info.org/ Best, Philippe. -- Philippe Langlois Email: Philippe.Langlois at Gmail.com PGP Key: 8DAEE244 http://www.eGPL.org http://www.xlrmx.org http://www.OLPC-France.org http://www.tmplab.org From siddharth.narrain at gmail.com Tue Oct 13 17:38:40 2009 From: siddharth.narrain at gmail.com (siddharth narrain) Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:38:40 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Meeting in the Memory of K. Balagopal- Fri 16th October (5 pm) at Ashirvad In-Reply-To: References: <1773a06d0910130427t2ada08ableaddb229ce592b41@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1773a06d0910130508o23b1e98cqf4d135d32f051e0a@mail.gmail.com> Dear All, There will be a meeting in memory of human rights activist and lawyer, K. Balagopal. Balagopal, who was an inspiration to many in the civil liberties and human rights movement in India, died of a cardiac arrest on October 8th. Balagopal was the founder member of Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee (APCLC) and later of Human Rights Forum. ,He was also an advocate who fought several cases to obtain justice for the poor without charge. Known for his principled stands and sharp legal mind, he lived and worked with utmost simplicity and commitment—a comrade and a friend whose loss is irreparable. Balagopal was known across the country for his profound scholarship and, more than that, fearless activism in the arena of human rights covering a wide range of issues. Please forward this email to others who might be interested in coming. There will also be a screening of a short film put together by Deepa Dhanraj from interviews conducted with Balagopal over the years. *Venue*: Ashirvad, no. 30, St Mark's Road Cross *Date*: October 16th (Friday) *Time*: 5pm to 7pm (tea will be served at 4:30 pm) In solidarity, Siddharth -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20091013/a4b99112/attachment.html From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Tue Oct 20 07:21:25 2009 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:51:25 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] Over 11,000 obscene call complaints Message-ID: <908adbd0910191851s362b75bbnacf83450c6d48d62@mail.gmail.com> http://www.thehindu.com/2009/10/20/stories/2009102059010400.htm Back New Delhi Over 11,000 obscene call complaints New Delhi: Delhi Police has received over 11,000 complaints from women that they have got objectionable calls or SMS in the last ten months. A total of 11,027 calls were received at the ‘Anti-Obscene Calls Cell’ set up by Delhi Police’s Crime Branch between December 20, 2008 and October 15 this year. “Of these complaints, action has been taken in 10,130 cases,” Delhi Police Commissioner Y. S. Dadwal told reporters here. Women can complain about such calls on a toll-free helpline 1096 or call 011-27894455. They can SMS the complaint to 0-9911135446, fax to 011-27292523 or email to acp-sit-dl at nic.in. © Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Fri Oct 23 07:19:14 2009 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:49:14 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] =?utf-8?q?=E2=80=9CLiving_people_declared_dead?= =?utf-8?b?4oCd?= Message-ID: <908adbd0910221849w5fe27dd0v574e49778f43640@mail.gmail.com> http://www.thehindu.com/2009/10/23/stories/2009102359660300.htm Back Other States “Living people declared dead” Reveals RTI query in Uttar Pradesh Lucknow: One man’s Right to Information (RTI) application has led to the Uttar Pradesh land consolidation department admitting on Thursday that living people were declared dead in its records due to irregularities. The matter came to light when Lal Bihari, a man who had been declared dead, sought the records through the RTI Act. “I was declared dead in the records and all my land was grabbed by the influential people of my village using forged documents,” Mr. Bihari, a native of Hardoi district, said here. “After making numerous efforts to prove myself alive, I decided to file an RTI application to expose the scam.” However, Mr. Bihari was provided details of only 20 such ‘dead’ people. “I had asked for the details of all such living ‘dead’ people in the state, but the department only provided me the details of 20 people in 10 districts,” Mr. Bihari said. “There are thousands of such cases across the state and the department has just completed its formality by providing me the details of only 10 districts,” Mr. Bihari claimed. Deputy director of the Chakbandi Department Ashok Chandra said, “We have provided Mr. Bihari with the details of Unnao, Hardoi, Lucknow, Azamgarh, Muzaffarnagar, Siddharthanagar, Kannauj, Barabanki, Faizabad and Rampur districts. “There may be more such cases and we are looking into the matter.”- IANS © Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu From nicheant at gmail.com Fri Oct 23 08:26:12 2009 From: nicheant at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?TmlzaGFudCB8IOCkqOCkv+CktuCkvuCkgeCkpA==?=) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:26:12 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Groups urge EU to block Oracle's plan to buy Sun Message-ID: <4439ee330910221956o67b88cb9m7f7680b5c6aca3d5@mail.gmail.com> Groups urge EU to block Oracle's plan to buy Sun BRUSSELS, Oct 20 (Reuters) - EU regulators should block Oracle Corp's (ORCL.O) plan to buy open source database MySQL via its takeover of Sun Microsystems Inc (JAVA.O), as Oracle may hinder MySQL's development, two technology and consumer groups said. The European Commission, which polices competition in the 27-country European Union, is probing world No. 2 software maker Oracle's $7 billion takeover of Sun, with a decision expected by Nov. 19 on whether to approve the deal. [ID:nL3508980] The EU executive said last month it was concerned the acquisition could hinder competition in the database market and it wanted to make sure alternatives would continue to be available to users. In a letter to Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes dated Oct. 19, digital civil liberties organisation Open Rights Group, non-governmental intellectual property organisation Knowledge Ecology International and software developer Richard Stallman said they shared the same concerns. "If Oracle is allowed to acquire MySQL, it will predictably limit the development of the functionality and performance of the MySQL software platform, leading to profound harm to those who use MySQL software to power applications," they wrote. They said Oracle was likely to protect its core product, the Oracle proprietary database, from losing market share and shrinking licensing fees at the expense of MySQL. Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) is an independent legal organisation that lobbies for free software in government, open access for the Internet and social issues. Stallman is the creator of GNU, a widely used free operating system. MySQL creator Michael Widenius urged Oracle on Monday to commit to selling MySQL in order to resolve antitrust concerns.[ID:nLJ715578] MySQL, which competes mainly against Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O) SQL Server, is used to run websites operated by companies including Google (GOOG.O), Facebook and Amazon.com (AMZN.O). Its main customers are small and mid-sized businesses. Analysts said the regulatory delay could hurt Sun, the No. 4 maker of computer servers, as rivals Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ.N) and IBM (IBM.N) offer incentives to woo Sun customers. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLK36840720091020 From nicheant at gmail.com Fri Oct 23 08:42:59 2009 From: nicheant at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?TmlzaGFudCB8IOCkqOCkv+CktuCkvuCkgeCkpA==?=) Date: Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:42:59 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Open source software can save India $2 bn Message-ID: <4439ee330910222012q555a4a87na0c23050ab252863@mail.gmail.com> Open source software can save India $2 bn [http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/open-source-software-can-save-india-2-bn/369858/] Leslie D`Monte / New Delhi September 12, 2009, 0:18 IST As Indian consumers and enterprises evaluate the option of upgrading to Microsoft’s much-touted operating system (OS) Windows 7, to be officially launched on October 22, the free and open source software (FOSS) community has fired yet another salvo at proprietary software. In the year 2010, if FOSS is adopted at 50 per cent levels across the economy, India can save around $2 billion (around Rs 9,800 crore), suggests a study conducted by the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore. Even a very conservative estimate, notes the study, pegs the cost savings for use of FOSS on servers as an operating system or as an application at Rs 138 crore in 2010. Moreover, anti-virus software sales in 2010 is likely to touch Rs 2,000 crore. This entire amount is a cost that can be avoided if FOSS products are adopted. For instance, based on the projected sales of personal computers (desktops and notebooks), the study indicates that even if 50 per cent desktops are fitted with a FOSS operating system, the savings will be Rs 985 crore; if 70 per cent have FOSS, the savings will rise to around Rs 1,380 crore. The study, done with help from professors of the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, covered 20 organisations that have adopted FOSS. Examples of cost savings with FOSS abound in the Indian context, asserts Prof Rahul De of the IIM-Bangalore who conducted the study. For instance, the Life Corporation of India, which — with an IT infrastructure of 3,500 servers and 30,000 desktops — saved about Rs 42 crore by adopting FOSS. Intangible benefits include ability to experiment with new technologies, says De. The IT at School project of Kerala replaced Windows software with FOSS on 50,000 desktops in schools across the state. Tangible benefits amounted to Rs 49 crore. “The study indicates that FOSS is now mainstream, and being used successfully by commercial enterprises,” notes De. He maintains that the study was conducted independently, though it was sponsored by Red Hat — a commercial Linux vendor and competitor of Microsoft. Pallavi Kathuria, director, server business group of Microsoft India, counters that the total cost of ownership (TCO) is lower for its software products. “IDC in its study estimates that, on an average, 68 per cent of a three-year TCO consists of staffing and training costs, and another 15 per cent of TCO consists of expenses related to downtime. Acquisition costs for software turn out to be just a fraction of TCO, averaging only about 7 per cent of the total cost over three years,” explains Kathuria. A study by Wipro Technologies, notes Kathuria, reveals “...that servers running Windows are 13-33 per cent less costly and require 29-56 per cent less IT labour to patch than similar systems running open source software”. According to internal research, she adds, “...almost 60 per cent of open source-related vendors are utilising traditional commercial licensing strategies to generate revenue from open source software”. Prof De does not agree. He insists that “...it's the initial acquisition cost that makes a difference”. The IIM-B study has only highlighted the debate of open source software versus proprietary software. It was only late last month that 64 educational institutes across Maharashtra, including the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) and the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, protested against the state government’s MoU with Microsoft India, wherein the software major will set up three IT academies and train government school teachers on ICTs. “It is against basic pedagogical principles to hand over these basic educational processes of teacher professional development and curriculum design, to a private technology vendor (read Microsoft) whose core competency is in writing software products and whose main interest is in creating mass markets for its software products,” read the protest letter which was addressed to the Government of Maharashtra. “If we take up IT literacy programmes, we can only teach software that we know. I do not see anything wrong in this,” counters Kathuri, adding: “We do not compete with open source but with commercial open source vendors,” insists Kathuria. But the debate refuses to die. It was only this July that IT majors like IBM, Sun Microsystems and Red Hat shot letters to industry bodies — Nasscom (for software) and MAIT (for hardware) — and the Department of Information Technology, protesting over the inclusion of clauses which allow for ‘multiple standards’ and ‘royalty on software’ versus a ‘single’ standard and ‘free’ software. And there has never been a more intense global industry debate over ‘open standards’. On the one hand is Microsoft’s Office Open XML (OOXML) file format backed by Apple, Novell, Wipro, Infosys, TCS and Nasscom. On the other is the Open Document Format, supported by the likes of IBM, Sun Microsystems, Red Hat, Google, the Department of Information Technology, National Informatics Centre, CDAC, IIT-Mumbai and IIM-Ahmedabad. States such as Delhi, Kerala and others from the North-East are heavy adopters of ODF file formats which are open and free (excluding maintenance and support). India recently maintained its earlier stance of ‘No’ to the software major’s OOXML (but which has been accepted by the International Organisation for Standardisation as an international standard). ODF proponents oppose OOXML on the grounds that 'multiple standards' are not good, while Microsoft argues that OOXML — a recognised standard by ECMA International too — is a response to evolving technology formats in line with continual evolving technology systems. The debate, conclude analysts, appears to be a proxy for product competition in the marketplace. From jeebesh at sarai.net Tue Oct 27 12:59:42 2009 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:59:42 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Tinker.Solder.Tap: A Graphic Novel Message-ID: <8997F711-B930-466A-825B-F13B74CF7C2F@sarai.net> http://www.sarai.net/publications/occasional/tinker-solder-tap (Free Download) We live in a tumultuous media environment. There is widespread confusion, uncertainty and awe at the inventiveness of the thousands of people in media networks who innovate, copy, tinker, recycle, produce, remix and relay. The protagonists of Tinker.Solder.Tap bring alive the ways in which the relationship between life and the media has been re-scripted in the various neighbourhoods of our cities. The story begins in the mid-80s, when a man returns home with an object called a VCR. The chain of effects that follows transforms irreversibly the social life of the neighbourhood and its reverberations can be felt all over the world. Produced and Designed at the Sarai Media Lab Text: Bhagwati Prasad Graphics: Amitabh Kumar Translation and Editing: Shveta Sarda Additional Research: Rakesh Kumar Singh, Lokesh Pencilling sequential comic pages: Raja Pocket Books (Raj Comics) Design and Cover: Amitabh Kumar Published by The Sarai Programme Centre for the Study of Developing Societies 29, Rajpur Road, Delhi 110054, India Tel: (+91) 11 2394 2199 Fax: (+91) 11 2394 3450 Email: dak at sarai.net www.sarai.net Delhi 2009 Any part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the prior written permission of the publishers for educational and non-commercial use. The authors and publishers would, however, like to be informed. This work is part of the project, “Social and Material Life of Media Piracy” of Sarai-CSDS and Alternative Law Forum (Bangalore) supported by International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada . ISBN 9788190585316 Published by the Director, CSDS. Printed by Impress, New Delhi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20091027/12e0ed12/attachment-0001.html From prashantiyengar at gmail.com Wed Oct 28 06:51:52 2009 From: prashantiyengar at gmail.com (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:21:52 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] Amended IT Act comes into effect Message-ID: <908adbd0910271821y767c6b82nb4a1bfd0b00d9ec0@mail.gmail.com> http://www.business-standard.com/india/printpage.php?autono=374538&tp= Amended IT Act comes into effect BS Reporter / New Delhi October 28, 2009, 0:37 IST Aimed at tightening procedures and safeguards to monitor and intercept data to prevent cybercrimes, the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008, became effective today. The Act was passed by both the Houses of Parliament in December last year and was notified in February this year. Besides monitoring and interception, the amended Act also deals with the appointment of Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, which deals with computer security and situations arising from cyber attacks. “A rapid increase in the use of computer and internet has given rise to new forms of crimes like sending offensive emails and multimedia messages, child pornography, cyberterrorism, publishing sexually explicit materials in electronic form, video voyeurism, e-commerce frauds like cheating by personation etc. So, penal provisions were required to be included in the Information Technology Act, 2000,” the government said in a statement today. When floated for public feedback this May, the draft amendments (particularly Section 69A) had stirred up a hornets’ nest. Critics argued that the amendments gave the government blanket power to block news portals and other sites for ‘offensive’ content and could be abused. The government, under Section 69A of the amended IT Act, can “block public access of any information generated, transmitted, received, stored or hosted in a computer resource” in the interest of sovereignty or integrity of India; defence of India; security of the state; friendly relations with foreign states; public order; and to prevent incitement to the commission of any cognisable offence relating to the above. These orders will be carried out by government-appointed officers, not below the rank of a joint secretary. Critics, however, argue that these rules could end up violating the rights of internet users and companies if not implemented in a “fair and just” manner. “With the advent of these rules, authorised agencies within the government now have greater administrative power. However, adequate due process should be followed in ensuring that exercise of such power does not impinge on privacy or freedom of speech and expression of citizens,” said Suhaan Mukerji, principal associate of law firm Amarchand & Mangaldas. “It is a comprehensive Act and lawyers will now have to learn and use technology. Besides, it will also open a lot of litigation and the rules will decide the litigation. Moreover, crime that was not taken seriously will get court redressal,” said Vijay Mukhi, e-security expert and consultant at DSK Legal. The Information Technology Act was enacted in 2000 with a view to provide legal recognition to e-commerce and e-transactions, to facilitate e-governance and prevent computer-based crimes. “However, because attack vectors are changing everyday, the IT Act can’t be static,” added Mukhi. “There would be certain security practices that are prescribed by the rules. The adjudicating officers can only decide on the civil issues,” explained Data Security Council of India Chairman Shyamal Ghosh. The government, under Section 70B of the IT Act, has appointed ICERT to monitor offences under the Act. From asmahajan2003 at yahoo.co.in Fri Oct 30 11:43:15 2009 From: asmahajan2003 at yahoo.co.in (Anand Mahajan) Date: Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:43:15 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Commons-Law] A literary piece for your magazine Message-ID: <442196.82127.qm@web7706.mail.in.yahoo.com> To, The Editor, Literary magazine Quirk Dear editor, I send here a new work for your magazine. I have been  publishing short literary pieces since 2005, in Muse India, Chowk, and International Journal of Post colonial Literature. Some of my significant works are - A Star Manqué (in Chowk, US) - The Shattered World. (In Chowk) - The Disappearances of a Woman (in Chowk) - The Recluse (in Chowk) - Superseded (in Muse India, India) - Sons of the Soil (in IJPCL, India ) - The Second Immersion (IJPCL) - The Third View (Selected Short Stories from Indo-Anglican Literature, India)   I hope this work, with its new style and highly magnetic literary contents, will be found fit to find its way to the readership of your magazine. Thanking you, Yours truly,   Anand Mahajan 102./23, Silver Oak apartments, DLF phase 1, Qutab enclave, Gurgaon-122002 , India  25/10/09 Cell : 9711415112     FESTIVAL OF A WITH DRAWER   An engineer, scientist, inventor and academic man, after 26 years of active life, was at this moment decidedly preparing to delete all his credentials and identities from the e- world, to step into an average profile settled life. He was terminating his betterment pursuits that continued for years on end, so this day he was decidedly sitting in the Internet cabin. He then started withdrawing his data from various national and international job sites one by one. He removed his ids, passwords, and resumes in his mixed pain and reinforced determination as these details being erased had 20 years old roots; the software would repeatedly ask “ Are you sure?”,  he would overlook and press yes. In about an hour or so, he had withdrawn himself from the e- world; impeccable blocks of his identity fell off the e sphere as cancelled tickets. Had the Internet services been manned, the operators would have remembered this event and watched for few days the voids created by claiming back the now unusable superior material of his data. Have you ever travelled in Bombay locals if you been to Bombay? Commuters of a compartment know all others in their vicinity as they have been seeing the same faces for decades together. It is hard for them to believe that certain seats in front of them occupied by same so well familiar people for decades of their train travel are going vacant for initial few stations now for the last few days. Then they gradually believe that the seats have been permanently vacated.   He had done the above after a long hunt for ensconcing nicely in his profession. During these months of unbroken efforts, he would see blankly aged people and people about his own age. These moments of blank observations would send chills in his heart. He would envy people in seventies and would become scared as well at sight of people in fifties. He would envy old men because like them, he had no enthusiasm to linger till his fragile old years. He would be afraid of younger men because his average, hackneyed   resources and loneliness would torment him if he lived beyond a limit. He would sit at a bench at the solitary railway station of this town of Himachal, and would look at two taps of drinking water. One of the taps, faulty, would remain open all the time. Adjacent tap was OK. People would come and ignoring faulty tap would open the good one with their filthy hands. The one open all the time was better off that way, he would think. Sooner or latter the all time open tap would run dry; but it would never be turned by filthy hands.     He tired of his unsuccessful attempts in Metros, had been living in this Himachal town for last two months. This time monsoon had deceived the hopes of everybody.   The monsoon months had gone dry this year as never before; complete absence of rains  had killed crops, mounted costs of food grain; unfading  heat had infused disability into the systems of cities, towns, and villages to maintain supply of basic needs like drinking water and electricity. Then there was global slowdown already inflicting stings on life to drain away energy. Masses would think that it was all set for the doomsday. So human beings had now resigned and approved sickness of nature and fate. Then without a hint, the life on this part of earth negotiated a U turn and there were rains allover. Rains- softening, overflowing, cooling, inundating, raising hopes for next plantation, solving problems of water and electricity. Like an American science fiction, forces to destroy and sicken nature were overcome. Gods of nature like the medics awakened  at a last moment were trying medicine after medicine in the form of continued downpour without caring for stock and variety.  They had to cure this sick part of the earth, come what may.   He would be woken out of his sleep at nights because of his dreams. He would sit recovering for sometime; but little would he gain. Then he would read his Hanuman Chalisa and let the words of the powerful prayer sink into his scared soul; as if he were falling down a precipitous cliff and the words of the potent prayer would each become a redoubtable spring which would take the impact of his fall.   This night he was feeling much better after the prayer. He came near the front room’s window and sat there. The downpour could still be heard that had continued into 3rd unabated rainy day on this day. Sometimes dry monsoon and sometimes this!   Then at 4 AM, the rains had stopped a bit but the valley was allover laden with white clouds. The white invisibility outside was suddenly broken by loudspeaker of a temple somewhere down in the well of the valley. It was, however, something tangible. The prayer’s words pervaded the entire white ether of clouds in a split second, like a rolled carpet covers in acceleration the entire cleaned up white tiled floor of a big room in a jiffy.   Not all the time he had suffered here. This was a large flat, and only 1 or 2 % of the space was covered with his belongings. Earlier he used to live clumsily in his flats with floor space covered mostly by the furniture and machines.  He turned on the sports TV channel. A F1 speed car race was being shown. Presently a tyro rich rider rammed the high cost car into the bulwark running along the race track as if it were not a race of professionals. The car was reduced to unusable scrap with everything destroyed. Rescue team people rushed to the spot and remained bent examining the fate of the rider. After some 5 minutes of their examination, the rider-totally unhurt- rose in complete ease and stepped outside the confused mass of metal. Not even a scratch appeared bothering him with any pain. He recalled the boy next door who in his wrath over some denial by his parents tore his text book vigorously. He tore it repeatedly and could destroy all pages but one that had hard plastic reinforcement.   This day- one day past Diwali festival - he returned to Himachal to say his goodbye to the hilly town he had been living in for the last three months. He was in professional line for 26 years now and each year a dull Diwali came which he sometimes not even celebrated. Now he was at the end of his career with all dreams of a big career having been curtailed. He was sick, withered and wilted from tragedies and only now here was this coveted Diwali in this hilly town. The hill town people, mostly shopkeepers had spent no efforts to make the already beautiful hill town remarkably enchanting at extents with colorful lighting and expensive fireworks he had never seen before. The town looked like a hilly lass stepping into most beautiful year of her youth and wearing ornaments that won’t look more beautiful on any other women on earth. He, in his hardest time, enjoyed Diwali for the first time in years. I know a man who lived all his life in city flats that had shining big diameter expensive pipes in his Kitchen. Never had a forced discharge of soft and fresh water come in those taps of his kitchen. Then when he switched into a small house in a hilly town, there he found gushing crystal clear water into small sink of his kitchen from the thin capillary like pipeline that descended in a serpentine route from somewhere and opened into the sink of his kitchen.    He was traveling in the toy train this day to exit these idyllic  hilly swathes weaved  with clumps of variety of unbelievable  pulchritude in their natural symmetry. He had penned only a part of it and got it published for reading of people allover the outside world but there was a lot more undone; and he was leaving it incomplete. It appeared the hilly swathes, the small towns with tiny houses perched on hillocks, the streams of crystal clears water, the drifting pieces of clouds just next to the trundling train were all looking at him with blaming eyes for his shying away from his work to describe all of  them  to the world of business and concrete away from here. Swaying  of the trees threw little volumes  of cold fresh air inside the windows of the train, and he, tired by traveling from Delhi to Himachal,  snoozed a bit. By a whistle of the train, his snooze and his dream were both broken in the same moment ; in the dream he saw a lad who had practiced a lot at breaking piles of hard bricks by hand to take part in a tournament; in the tournament however, he could not go beyond the second round; there were so many bricks in the pile in the third round to be broken by hand; the lad had broken only two of them with the ones below the top two intact.  Now, send attachments up to 25MB with Yahoo! India Mail. 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