From shohini at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in Wed Aug 1 20:59:09 2001 From: shohini at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in (Shohini) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 08:29:09 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] Yes, please Message-ID: <000501c11aa1$69b1c780$3e74c8cb@shohini> Please include my name in your reader list and allow me to post. Shohini Ghosh -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010801/a07dfa35/attachment.html From joe_tantine at yahoo.com Wed Aug 1 13:42:53 2001 From: joe_tantine at yahoo.com (Joe Joe Harding) Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 01:12:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Membership in reader list Message-ID: <20010801081253.2927.qmail@web14408.mail.yahoo.com> Dera Sir/madam I would like to be a member in the sarai reader list. If it is not too much of trouble. Thank you. Joe Joe Harding __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ From joe_tantine at yahoo.com Thu Aug 2 15:40:37 2001 From: joe_tantine at yahoo.com (Joe Joe Harding) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 03:10:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Net activism and rules of the new actonomy Message-ID: <20010802101037.27610.qmail@web14401.mail.yahoo.com> Jeebesh writes: >This is a very intriguing problem. >Post second world war we witness a rapid increase in the intensity of >production and also one sees a phenomenal growth in the apparatus and >rationalization of surveillance. So at one level we can say that >increase in productivity is directly linked with surveillance (at >least on the shopfloor and transportation areas). i.e if you relax >this level of surveillance the productivity will fall. This argument >connects surveillance with resistances and maps the invisible hidden >transcript of resistance by the level of surveillance. >But one can also argue that surveillance and legality are the two >sides of the same coin and would underpin most acts of control and >productivity. The orange metaphor explains this best. Agreed this is an intriguing problem. But the dice of evidence is loaded on the 'orange squeezing' metaphor. But let this problem remain were it stands or rather limps. >The question remains: How do we negotiate the complex web of >surveillance and legality at an everyday level? and will not these >negotiations be contingent and provisional and thus difficult to >bring under the question of "whys"? The negotiation of the web of surveillance and legality is performed by everyone on a routine basis. That is the knee jerk reaction. And this constitute the hidden transcripts of resistance. But if the resistance is to take a cohesive form, than it needs to have a why. There lies the importance of theorization and linkages, virtual or real. Resiantance always was, is, always will be. All thoughts of resistance has an attempt towards cohesion. And that is the basis of dialogue and conversations. An attempt towards a more free world, say. The tentativeness of whys can give rise to a cohesive, or collaboratice or concordant why. Joe Joe Harding __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ From raju at linux-delhi.org Thu Aug 2 19:16:56 2001 From: raju at linux-delhi.org (Raju Mathur) Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2001 19:16:56 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Reader-list] Is this what NASSCOM is assisting? Message-ID: <15209.22992.508982.249501@mail.linux-delhi.org> Truce or dare By Michael R. Zimmerman, eWEEK The BSA's Truce Campaign is giving businesses fits, causing some to consider alternative products for the first time. If you're a small or medium-size company, there's a good chance you've heard from the Business Software Alliance about getting your software compliant with its licenses. If not, you probably will. The group is well into a nationwide letter and radio campaign to do just that. But what you probably don't know is that, like so many of the companies that stuff your mailboxes with junk mail, the BSA, which represents such software giants as Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news), Adobe Systems Inc. (NasdaqNM:ADBE - news) and Apple Computer Inc. (NasdaqNM:AAPL - news), has no intention of following up on its letters-regardless of how threatening and personal they may seem. It won't phone. And it won't pop in for a surprise audit. Full story at: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20010730/tc/truce_or_dare_1.html Regards, -- Raju -- Raju Mathur raju at kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ From geert at basis.desk.nl Fri Aug 3 03:27:11 2001 From: geert at basis.desk.nl (geert) Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 07:57:11 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] some comments on hardt&negri's empire Message-ID: <00c201c11b9f$28ac1200$c900000a@bigpond.com> From: "Juan Diaz Fariña" To: "Empire" Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 1:03 AM Subject: [generation_online] Preface My reading/commentary of Preface Two concepts 'EMPIRE' and 'MULTITUDE' and One Propose 'TOOLSET'. Settin' concept: Empire is a concept (in terms of political economy or historic materialism), its not an metaphor. (thats means is out of place historical, etymological, linguistic, emotional..., approachs) 1.- Empire(=new global order) is now materializing (that's means, process not finished yet.) So nobody can expect a whole descriptions of ALL its uniqueness. Empire is the political subject that regulates the global exchanges, cultural and economics. Empire is a new Sovereignty = (Political Power). Is composed of a serie de national and supranational organism UNITED under a single logic of rule Imperialims vs Empire Nation-estate sovereignty vs Global sovereignty Bounderies vs Deterritorializing Territorial centers of power vs Decentered Channels and Barriers vs open realms national identities vs hybrid identities Formal hierarchies vs flexibles hierarchies Self´determinate vs networs of command national market vs global market Industrial factory labor vs Comm, coop & afect National Limitations in Law/Rules terms vs No limits regulates human interactions vs regulates social life and human nature A) Dont resist glabalizacion REORIENTED IT b) No more cries 'bout old national dominations forms 2.- Multitude. those that subvert and contest Empire Multitude not limited to any geographical regions but in the imperial terrein Multitude those will have to invent new democratic forms and a new constituient power Propose of the book: 1 Set a general teorical framework 2 Toolbox of concepts for theorizing (the combat into the realms of ideas) and acting (the practical combat). SO, THIS IS A MILITANT BOOK MAKE IT TO BE A GUIDE IN THE ACCION (INTELLECTUAL AND PRACTICAL) From joy at sarai.net Fri Aug 3 11:57:58 2001 From: joy at sarai.net (Joy Chatterjee) Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 11:57:58 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] alternative medical practice Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010803115443.00a24dd0@mail.sarai.net> Medicine is one of the most controversial issues in present day world. Actually like any other business medical is also a very profitable and flourishing business. Thus making medical treatment expensive and inaccessible. But for last few years lots of people are looking for alternative medical practices and therapy. I am trying to collect information about alternative indigenous forms of medical practices. Specially happening in South East Asia. Like in West Bengal there is a doctor who practices in a village and he has very interesting method of treatment. He prescribes Ilish macch bhaja (Hilsa fish fry) to a cholera patient and many such things! Effect of these medical practices can be explained in two ways. Either by scientific explanation or by collecting data of outcome of such practice which does not have explainable scientific procedure. If anybody can give me such information or tell me where I can get such information, that will be of great help. Actually I had been thinking of creating a freely available online database of such information but due to laziness could not initiate. I think this mail will push me to materialise my plan. Joy From joy at sarai.net Fri Aug 3 12:20:18 2001 From: joy at sarai.net (Joy Chatterjee) Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 12:20:18 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Employers Maintaining Vigilance in the Face of Layoff Rage Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010803121014.00a261d0@mail.sarai.net> Employers Maintaining Vigilance in the Face of Layoff Rage By EVE TAHMINCIOGLU The New York Times on-line August 1, 2001 Juval Aviv, a private investigator in New York, had lunch in April with a man he suspected of sabotaging one of his client's computer systems, causing up to $20 million in damage and indefinitely delaying a long-planned public stock offering. Mr. Aviv, whose client was a New Jersey chemical company, told the man, the company's former manager of information- management systems, that all the evidence pointed to him and that he was there to help him make things right. After a few hours and many cups of coffee, the 56-year-old former employee, whose name Mr. Aviv would not disclose to protect the identity of the company, confessed his guilt. The man was one of 50 people laid off from the company in February, and he had known another executive's computer password and had used it after he lost his job to tap into the company's computer system from home and delete critical inventory and personnel files, Mr. Aviv said. What caused this company veteran, who had been making $186,000 a year and who had a wife and three children, to crack? An anonymous note that he wrote to the president of the concern before he was caught sheds some light on his motive. "I have been loyal to the company in good and bad times for over 30 years," he wrote. "I was expecting a member of top management to come down from his ivory tower to face us with the layoff announcement, rather than sending the kitchen supervisor with guards to escort us off the premises like criminals. You will pay for your senseless behavior." As the economy continues to stagnate and layoffs proliferate, workplace experts say, it is becoming more important than ever for employers to display vigilance against possible retaliation by the people they are letting go. For one thing, workers seem to be angrier these days when the ax falls, said Beverly Smallwood, a Mississippi psychologist who does workplace consulting for businesses. Many workers have put in endless hours and sweat for the promise of hefty stock options that never materialized. "I don't recall at any time in my history, and I've been in this for 30 years, where the degree of destruction was quite as high," said Linn A. Hynds, a Detroit employment lawyer. Since December, he has advised companies in 10 factory and office closings and layoffs involving 1,500 workers in southeastern Michigan. At the same time, the people doing the dismissals at many companies — especially dot-coms — are younger and more inexperienced than their predecessors in the last big layoff binge of the early 1990's. In their overzealousness, some of them make the mistake of bringing in security guards in inappropriate settings, increasing the victims' resentment and making retribution more likely. The New Jersey chemical company committed two classic faux pas in handing out its pink slips, in the view of Mr. Aviv, who is president and chief executive of Interfor Inc., a private investigation firm. First, it was unduly harsh toward a high - level executive who was accustomed to being coddled and who was familiar with the ins and outs of its computer network. And second, it failed to maintain a backup filing system to protect its crucial documents against sabotage. The worker was arrested and is out on bail, but may avoid jail time, he said, because the company does not want to look stupid and is considering settling the case to hush up the matter. Two of the most common acts of revenge are theft of company property and breaches in the company's computer network, according to an annual survey of Fortune 1000 companies by Pinkerton Inc., the Chicago security firm. Ray O'Hara, Pinkerton's vice president for the Western region, estimates that employee retaliation occurs in only 1 percent of dismissals, but could be as high as 5 percent at companies that do not handle layoffs well or that have a hostile corporate culture. The electronic workplace, while making businesses more productive, has also created a situation that enables employees to bring a company to its knees with just a few keystrokes. That reality was brought home five years ago when Timothy A. Lloyd, a computer programmer, was accused of hiding a software "time bomb" to delete critical files in his company's computer system after being fired. The case, which is still making its way through the courts, involved Omega Engineering Inc., a temperature components maker in Bridgeport, N.J., which asserts that the damage could eventually cost it $10 million in sales and contracts. Mr. Lloyd has denied any wrongdoing. Moreover, with the growth in telecommuting and the spread of Internet-capable hand-held devices, it has become easier for dismissed workers to wreak havoc outside the company premises. Companies are also beginning to install wireless networks in offices and factories that go through walls and have a range of 300 feet. That means employees can potentially tap into company databases via a laptop computer from right outside their former workplaces. As a result, security experts suggest cutting off employees' connections to the corporate networks before letting the employees go. "Every new wave of technology introduces new security exposures," said Richard Hunter, managing vice president at Gartner Inc. (news/quote), a research firm. "Clamp down and take away pass codes," he advised. "If people who have a reason to be upset have access to your system, then they have the means. The remaining question is: Do they have the motivation?" A disgruntled employee at an East Coast service company certainly did, according to Jay Ehrenreich, a senior manager for the cybercrime unit of PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York. The employee figured out how to alter product prices on the company's Web site and fouled up a month of bills, Mr. Ehrenreich said. The sabotage, which occurred during a company reorganization and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage, was never linked to a specific employee because the process for assigning identification numbers for access to the network was so "messed up" the worker was able to obtain a bunch of ID's and hide his or her identity, he said. The company called in Mr. Ehrenreich to fix the problem. Even if they are cut off from the company's computers, disgruntled workers have found that the Internet makes it easy to take their frustration out by spreading false information in chat rooms or sending out fake news releases. And they can always engage in the low-tech practice of just bad-mouthing their former employer — and there is not much a company can do about that. Amazon.com (news/quote) tried to convince 1,300 of the workers it laid off this year to sign an agreement that included a clause to not disparage the company in return for more lucrative severance deals, but backed off from enforcing the clause under pressure from union organizers and also fear of a public reaction. Old-fashioned theft also remains a staple of worker retaliation. The average company loses approximately 6 percent of its gross revenue to employee fraud and abuse, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners in Austin, Tex. "We classify it as ex-rage," said Daniel D. Thaxton, manager for document security at Standard Register, a maker of business forms in Dayton, Ohio. One common blunder is to leave open boxes of company checks in unsecured rooms, he said. But with computers infiltrating every corner of businesses today, from the head offices to the manufacturing floor, even blue-collar workers are potential cybersaboteurs, Mr. Thaxton says. For example, he says, an angry assembly line worker can now sabotage a computer system, bringing down an entire line. "While some people on the floor are much more likely to take a hammer to a piece of machinery, we have had people reprogram systems and mess the manufacturing processes up," he said. "Most of the cases we have seen involved robotic equipment, such as a robotic arm." Often it takes two to three days to figure out what is wrong with such a system, Mr. Thaxton said, and in the age of just-in-time manufacturing, that can mean the loss of contracts. In another example of employee mischief, Mr. Hynds, the Detroit lawyer, says he knows of several cases in which fired workers have stuffed their office computer in the cardboard box they are given for personal belongings and have tried to walk out with it. Sometimes, they were merely trying to protect their private files, not steal company secrets, he says, as in the case of a married company vice president who tried to spirit out his computer because it contained love letters to and from his girlfriend. But the fact remains that former employees can end up with valuable company information at their disposal. To avoid that, he suggests letting dismissed workers download or erase personal files under strict company supervision. It is not just the laid-off workers who pose a threat. Employees who survive a layoff can also vandalize company property to avenge their departed co-workers. Arthur May, operations manager at the Kimberly-Clark (news/quote) mill in Hendersonville, N.C., recalled a time at another paper plant that a wrench jammed a machine and shut it down. "When people feel they've been dealt with unfairly, `ghost' things just start to happen," he said. To be sure, most employees are honest and tales of sour-grapes subversion can be overblown. Jonathan L. Alpert, a labor lawyer in Tampa, Fla., who represents workers, said dismissed employees could be easy scapegoats to blame for run-of-the- mill computer problems or even management missteps. Most dismissed workers "are shell-shocked," Mr. Alpert said. "Their main concern," he added, "is figuring out how to get their lives together, not masterminding some sort of retaliation." -------------------------------------------------------------------- Link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/01/business/01SABO.html?ex=™7690377&ei ==1&en=U07feacbbfa29b8 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010803/41cf53bf/attachment.html From geert at xs4all.nl Sat Aug 4 04:52:31 2001 From: geert at xs4all.nl (geert lovink) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 09:22:31 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Shaping the Network Society: Call for Submissions Message-ID: <008f01c11c7d$eed96980$c900000a@bigpond.com> From: "Doug Schuler" -------> first CALL FOR DIAC-02 SUBMISSIONS /// Please forward to interested people, lists, newsgroups. Thank you! Shaping the Network Society: Patterns for Participation, Action, and Change http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/diac02/ May 16-19, 2002 Seattle, Washington, USA Tomorrow's information and communication infrastructure is being shaped today. But by whom and to what ends? Researchers, community workers, social activists, educators and students, journalists, artists, policymakers, and citizens are all concerned about the shape that this new infrastructure will take. Will it meet the needs of all people? Will it help the citizenry address current and future issues? Will it promote democracy, social justice, sustainability? Will the appropriate research be conducted? Will equitable policies be enacted? Symposium Aims A "public sphere" where people learn about, discuss, and deliberate on important issues, such as increasing economic disparity, militarization, environmental degradation, racism or sexism, is critical to our future. Clearly, information and communication technology--and the uses to which it is put--is central to any effort that helps empower people to effectively look at and resolve our collective concerns. At the same time, giant media conglomerates and computer companies are rapidly increasing their control of the information and communication infrastructure upon which this public sphere depends. Governments, too, are often part of this problem; instead of promoting access and two-way access to this infrastructure, they actively or passively discourage civic sector uses. Civil society is responding in a million ways. The opportunities and challenges offered by a global "network society" are too great to be ignored. The Shaping the Network Society symposium is designed to aid in these efforts by providing a forum and a platform for these critical issues. And, through the use of "patterns," we hope that this conference will help inject organization, motivation, and inspiration into the evolution of an information and communication infrastructure that truly meets today's -- and tomorrow's -- urgent needs. Please join us in Seattle (and beyond) in May 2002 for this exciting and important event! DIAC-02 This event will be the eighth biannual Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing (DIAC) symposium. A variety of events are planned ranging from invited speakers, panel discussions, and pattern presentations to numerous opportunities for informal working sessions -- both planned and spontaneous -- on various topics. Also, as with previous DIAC symposia, we will do our best to provide a few surprises ... Pattern Orientation To promote bridge-building, we are soliciting "patterns," instead of abstracts, that will be developed into full papers for this symposium. A "pattern" is a careful description of a solution or suggestion for remedying an identified problem in a given context that can be used to help develop and harness communication and information technology in ways that affirm human values. The information contained in patterns is similar to that in traditional abstracts or papers, but it is arranged in a common structure in order to inspire scholars and practitioners to think about their work in terms of social implications and actual social engagement; build networks that include research, practice, and advocacy; and facilitate the integration of all submitted patterns into a coherent network of patterns, or "pattern language," that will form a useful and compelling knowledge structure which can help spur additional research, solutions, and activism. As a result, individual patterns are exciting because each is, in essence, a small theory about some part of the communication and information universe. In addition, since the individual patterns will be stored in an online database, the overall strategy opens myriad possibilities that will allow us as a community to synthesize the patterns into a collectively constructed body that creates new opportunities for collaboration and deliberation. We believe that the "pattern" orientation will be beneficial and thought-provoking for all participants. If you are tempted to submit a pattern, we encourage you to do so. Although this approach may require different thinking, we believe that it will be worth the effort. Patterns can be submitted for consideration for presentation at the Shaping the Network Society conference, or simply to be published on the web site and as a contribution to the knowledge structure. Developing and Submitting Patterns Patterns are SOLUTIONS to PROBLEMS in a given CONTEXT. Patterns can be observable actions, empirical findings, hypotheses, theories, social or media critiques, case studies, or "best practices"; indeed, any template or crystallized or distilled knowledge in some area that will help people in the field--researchers, practitioners, journalists, policymakers, artists, citizens. Patterns exist at all levels; they can be "global" as well as "local," theoretical as well as practical. Patterns are the springboard for discussion, research, and activism. The primary elements needed to develop a pattern for submission are: - The name or TITLE of the pattern (brief, one-ten words). - A succinct statement of the essence of the PROBLEM in one or two sentences. - A DISCUSSION section (300-600 words) that describes the background of the problem, evidence for its proposed solution, and the range of ways that the solution can be applied. - The SOLUTION to the problem is presented in a summary form that describes the field of physical and social relationships which are required to solve the stated problem, in the stated context. - An optional descriptive image can be used to provide a visual representation of your pattern and/or an optional summary image can show a pictorial representation (diagram) of the solution. Although these IMAGES are an optional element, we encourage you to include them to supply useful information that is difficult to provide in words and to make your pattern page more attractive and consistent with other patterns. Complete details on pattern submission, including example patterns, are available for further clarification at the symposium web site: http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/diac02/ The preferred way to submit patterns is through the pattern intake site, which can be accessed from the symposium site or directly at: http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/diac02/pattern.cgi. If you cannot access the intake site, please send your pattern as email text (no attachments) to docrod99 at hotmail.com. Please consult the help page, http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/diac02/patterns/help.html, for guidance on an e-mail submission. Important Dates December 1, 2001 Deadline for pattern submission for conference consideration January 15, 2002 Feedback to conference pattern submitters (accept/reject decision) March 15, 2002 Full papers (based on accepted patterns) due April 15, 2002 Last day to submit patterns for database inclusion only May 16-19, 2002 Shaping the Network Society Symposium Sponsors Public Sphere Project of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) National Communication Association Task Force on the Digital Divide Program committee Abdul Alkalimet (US), Alain Ambrosi (Canada), Ann Bishop (US), Kwasi Boakye-Akyeampong (Ghana), Rod Carveth (US), Andrew Clement (Canada), Fiorella de Cindio (Italy), Peter Day (UK), Susana Finquelievich (Argentina), Mike Gurstein (Canada), Harry Hochheiser (US), Toru Ishida (Japan), Susan Kretchmer (US), Brian Loader (UK), Geert Lovink (Netherlands, Australia), Richard Lowenberg (US), Peter Mambrey (Germany), Peter Miller (US), Kenneth Pigg (US), Scott Robinson (Mexico), Partha Pratim Sarker (Bangladesh), Doug Schuler (US), David Silver (US), Sergei Stafeev (Russia), Erik Stolterman (Sweden) and Peter Van den Besselaar (Netherlands). Other invaluable assistance Noriko Okazaki (graphics), Robin Oppenheimer (advisor), Scott Rose (web technology). From jeebesh at sarai.net Sat Aug 4 10:44:39 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 10:44:39 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Net activism and rules of the new actonomy Message-ID: Joe Joe Harding writes > Resiantance always was, is, always will be. All thoughts of >resistance has an attempt towards > cohesion. And that is the basis of dialogue and conversations. An >attempt towards a more free world, > say. I would not quite agree that an attempt towards cohesion is the only basis of dialogue and conversations. It may be for some (although i would not place them hierarchically above those who do not have such an urge) but for others a simple desire to share experience and to act-in-inspiration can provide for interesting beginnings, for reasons to start dialogues. Even the simple act of sharing of experience is premised on politics and poetics of recognition, trust, suspicion, memory/shared memories and so many other unknowable motivations. Whether these conversations or actions gravitate towards a focus or disperse to many (diverse and at times contradictory) directions is dependent on flows much beyond these conversations or actions. > The tentativeness of whys can give rise to a cohesive, or >collaboratice or concordant why. I would think that it may be more productive to see this connection in reverse. Actions, practices and conversations cluster or colesce to pose many micro tentative 'whys'. Connections between these 'whys' may be drawn up by others and continued by still others. But to expect a `big decisive why` as a decisive moment will make us not see the movement within and between various small unsure 'whys'. (These days it is so easy for us all to agree the ubiquitous everdayness of resistance or insubordination etc, but let us not forget that two decades back the concept `silent majority` was taken as a transparent truth!) I think the following quote (to in a sense return to where we started from - so that we can travel again!) evokes or describes the present in a way that allows for a productive engagement with the emerging constellation. "We suspect: current forms of activism attempt a redefinition of sabotage as social practice, but not in the usual destructive sense, rather in a constructive, innovative and creative practice. Such a constructive approach results in a movement without organs or organisation. In a variety of perspectives - self-determined cybernetic thinking, that spurs on different approaches and connections; that refers to a social antagonism refers to the level of production; and that is constituting a collective process of appropriation of knowledge and power." - NEW RULES OF THE NEW ACTONOMY By Geert Lovink & Florian Schneider In anticipation of the last international! Cheers Jeebesh -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010804/1a5e0f13/attachment.html From patrice at xs4all.nl Sat Aug 4 11:10:50 2001 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (Patrice Riemens) Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 07:40:50 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] HAL2001 'polemics'... (fwdfye) Message-ID: <20010804074050.B15748@xs4all.nl> It all started with the 'no connectivity' policy at the Slackers Salon, geeks raising to - what they thought was a - technical challenge (GSM jammers etc), the use of possible illegal devices, hacks, police politics etc., all this with Rop Gonggrijp's now famous sKrIpT kIDdiE piece in the background. Nice post by Paul W., proving himself once again the CIE (Chief Ideological Engineer) of the hippiesfromhell movement... ;-) NB: 'staatsgevaarlijke anarchisten' = anarchist enemies of the state. ----- Forwarded message from Paul Wouters ----- Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2001 23:41:41 +0200 (MET DST) From: Paul Wouters To: Subject: Re: We won't have that to 'protect' the Slackers Salon... On Fri, 3 Aug 2001, Reinoud van Leeuwen wrote: > and next: the jammer might be an excuse for some ppl that we *know* > will be present at HAL to have an axcuse to arrest somebody and score > big in the media Why do all people around me think that the authorities can actually afford it to "score" HAL. They can't. Not for something as silly as testing a gadget, pingflodding whitehouse.gov, taking a pill, dancing to loud music, or baring their breasts in the sun. First of all, how will they entertain 3500 people who are all hacking wildely to "defeat censorship of the facist Dutch police" after getting their party disrupted? I think the police learned a lesson when they told people on Queensday that they couldn't take a train at Amsterdam CS. The police doesn't want to face a HAL mob. Second, if you overuse a law, it becomes less effective. Just like Dimitri's arrest has majorly hurt the DMCA, the computercrime law won't be used to cut off HAL. And don't get me wrong, the BEST thing for HAL would be to have its connection cut. And don't whine you want to have internet at HAL. Instead of checking your email, you could like, attend one of the talks about our threatened freedoms. The link at HAL is meaningless, it is as another hippie called it, "luxury". Arrest the Klaphek for "hacking" the ABN-AMRO, and the next day there will be OpenBanking, Forbid playing movies you own on some software, the next day there is DeCCS. Governments always tolerate the petty crime, even if they write laws that cover illegal sneezes. Third, with all the journalists around, who witness the happy innocent people having fun with tech gadgets, talks, music and sun, do you think the police will look good at the 8 o'clock news when these friendly people try to explain why there were censored or arrested? Because our government thinks system administrators are staatsgevaarlijke anarchisten? Entire trains and busses are destroyed by holligans, and still the game will start. And one scriptkiddie will ruin our connection? House parties now have small stands which advice on how to safely use drugs, a few pills of xtc at HAL won't be enough to justify a campus raid. And downloading a few MP3's won't get us killed either. In a normal situation you wouldn't get away with that, and now we even have most of the NL's active freedom of speech people there who are used to talk to the press there available for the journalists. Operation Footbullet if you ask me. The *most* stupid thing the police could do is to kill the event while it is in progress. They've had their change to kill it before it started, and they failed. By now it is too late. Invasion of the sympathetic staatsgevaarlijke anarchisten. Hackers are cool, police is not hip. People seem more concerned about their precious three day party then about the real meaning and content of this event. And to get back to the topic, the GSM jammer. HAL will be the best connected place in the NL, that even has its own first aid teams around. There will be landlines, porto's, and a truckload of people, including security. If there is a little spot where GSM's wont work, it won't hurt anyone. We're not banning the swimming pool either you know, and I've never heard of a company that went bankrupt because one of its employees missed a call or because a GSM cell went dead. As for rights to have coverage, who has given you the right to radiate my body for your coverage to begin with? :) Gosh, is everyone jumpy or what? Paul -- Brian: "You are all individuals!" Crowd: "Yes! We are all individuals!" Lone man: "I'm not." --- Life of Brian, Monty Python ----- End forwarded message ----- From jskohli at fig.org Sun Aug 5 00:43:29 2001 From: jskohli at fig.org (Jaswinder Singh Kohli) Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2001 00:43:29 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Just another Spying case after RealPlayer Message-ID: <3B6C4959.1AC38DD1@fig.org> Creative Labs accused of spying Irate customers are accusing Creative Labs, the maker of digital-audio players and sound cards, of spying on them. The dispute revolves around a piece of software called newsupd.exe, installed with the software that comes with most Creative products. A number of customers say the software is connecting them to the Internet without their authorization and relaying data secretly back to Creative servers. People also say newsupd.exe installs itself on the sly. Creative admits the feature needs tweaking, but says it is basically there to help consumers. For details....................... http://two.digital.cnet.com/cgi-bin2/flo?y=hBtZ0BA1Pc0V0clQ0AC -- Some time ago Real.com 's realplayer was doing the same thing after searching the users disk for mp3 and other types of music the software upon connecting to NET sends secretly to the real server..... -- Regards Jaswinder Singh Kohli jskohli at fig.org :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The Uni(multi)verse is a figment of its own imagination. In truth time is but an illusion of 3D frequency grid programs. From sam at media.com.au Sun Aug 5 08:56:01 2001 From: sam at media.com.au (s|a|m) Date: Sun, 05 Aug 2001 13:26:01 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] New List - //surveillance// - Please join if interested... Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.0.20010805125755.03551ec0@hutch.com.au> > newlist surveillance The //surveillance// list is for posting and receiving information, news and ideas about the broad field of surveillance. Posts about technologies, implementations, implications and responses are all welcome. Lurking is fine too! This list is less of a discussion list and more of an information distribution list. However, discussion and personal points of view will be not be moderated out and will form an important part of the list content. Surveillance is occuring in various forms - with and without our consent at many levels in all of our societies. The aim of this list is to provide a space for gathering what surveillance is doing - intentionally or indirectly - on your self, in your bedroom, around the corner and around the world. To join - send an email to surveillance-request at lists.myspinach.org with the word 'subscribe' in the subject field. Or visit http://lists.myspinach.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/surveillance Please join - your agency is encouraged... Please forward to others who may be interested. There is a plan being developed to hold a Surveillance Festival (which would include a forum, amongst other activities) some time around mid-2002 in Melbourne, Australia. This list would inform the structure of this Festival. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010805/4ca1dd60/attachment.html From raju at linux-delhi.org Sun Aug 5 09:27:04 2001 From: raju at linux-delhi.org (Raju Mathur) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 09:27:04 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Reader-list] India's West Bengal Plans Microsoft Tie-Up Message-ID: <15212.50192.441147.977416@mail.linux-delhi.org> India's West Bengal Plans Microsoft Tie-Up CALCUTTA, India (Reuters) - India's communist ruled eastern state of West Bengal plans to tie up with Microsoft Corp in an electronic governance project, an official said on Saturday. The Indian province plans to establish a state-wide computer network connecting the government secretariat and districts' headquarters to facilitate more transparent and effective governance with the U.S. software giant's help. ``We will sign a memorandum of understanding with Microsoft for our e-governance plans on August 16,'' Manab Mukherjee, West Bengal's Information Technology minister, told Reuters. [End extract] Some people just don't learn, do they? Full story at: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010804/tc/india_microsoft_dc_1.html Regards, -- Raju -- Raju Mathur raju at kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ From patrice at xs4all.nl Sun Aug 5 13:25:05 2001 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (Patrice Riemens) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 09:55:05 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] India's West Bengal Plans Microsoft Tie-Up In-Reply-To: <15212.50192.441147.977416@mail.linux-delhi.org>; from raju@linux-delhi.org on Sun, Aug 05, 2001 at 09:27:04AM +0530 References: <15212.50192.441147.977416@mail.linux-delhi.org> Message-ID: <20010805095505.A14586@xs4all.nl> &^%#@*&*+%$*^@!!!!!!! A long discussuin has raged on nettime-nl (Dutch language list) about the same sort of tie-up with The Hague municipality. Of course all politicos concerned were blissfully unawares of M$'s background, objectives, and modus operandi and behaved as if they were dealing with some sort of giant but responsible corporate citizen. And all this as the French (and other, eg Mexico, Spain) authorities had made a clear case for Open Source programming & Linux based systems - against Micro$oft. Looks like they're just as clueless (or worse, and I mean in *both* places...) in Writer's Building as they are inside the 'Residence's' Enzo Piano designed glass structure... cheers, patrice & Diiiino! From raju at linux-delhi.org Sun Aug 5 12:23:59 2001 From: raju at linux-delhi.org (Raju Mathur) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 12:23:59 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Reader-list] Re: WB Govt ties up with MSFT In-Reply-To: <1143.192.168.0.2.996942864.squirrel@mail.archeanit.com> References: <000c01c11cf7$2c04daa0$0cc96565@dreammachine> <1143.192.168.0.2.996942864.squirrel@mail.archeanit.com> Message-ID: <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> Here's a prototype letter which can be sent to any State government which plans to tie-up with MS for e-governance. I am making it as general-purpose as possible so that more people are willing to sign it: this is not a time for family squabbles. I'd appreciate any additions/enhancements which can be made to this letter. URL's highlighting the points discussed would also be a great idea. Not being an activist, I cannot suggest the proper methods for getting this letter signed and circulated to the right authorities. Dear We, the Free Software, Open Source and Electronic Freedom proponents in India are deeply distressed to learn about your Government's plans to base your complete e-governance infrastructure on a single foreign company's products. The history of Microsoft has shown that it has very little regard for serving any objectives except its own, which does not augur well for the future of in particular and our country in general. We request you to kindly consider the following points before making this relationship permanent: 1. Security. Microsoft products have time and again demonstrated a regrettable lack of basic security features. Recent incidents which have affected a sizeable portion of Microsoft-based servers and client systems on the Internet have served to highlight the fact that Microsoft makes Insecure Products. The Code Red worm (computer virus) infected millions of servers on the Internet in June 2001 and coordinated them (without their administrators consent) to simultaneously attack the US White House web site. The worm is still alive though dormant and no one knows exactly where and when it will strike again. Needless to say, this worm only affects computers running Microsoft's most popular web server. Only a few days after the infamous Code Red attacks (on August 5, 2001), another worm which infects Microsoft-based web servers has been discovered and is at the time of writing being analysed to discover its potential to disrupt the world's computing and networking infrstructure. The SIRCAM virus which replicates itself using e-mail as the medium has been deemed such a major threat to computing infrastructure that Microsoft and the FBI have taken the unprecendented step of releasing a joint warning notice against it to all computer users in July 2001. Again, the SIRCAM virus only affects e-mail users who use Microsoft's products -- all other software is immune to this threat. These are but two symptoms of the general malaise that Microsoft's products suffer from. Each time a product is fixed using patches from Microsoft, new security holes in the product are uncovered, leading to another wave of infection. In fact, there have been cases of a problem fix from Microsoft uncovering older (previously-fixed) problems and making them active again; there are no signs that these issues will ever be completely resolved. 2. Total cost of ownership (TCO) The Total Cost of Ownership of Microsoft's products is much higher than that of other, equivalent, better technologies. With their new licensing model, Microsoft has ensured that those unfortunate enough to invest in their products keep paying for the product, not only at purchase time but throughout the lifetime of the product on an annual basis. We believe that it is possible to save this outflow and redeploy it in other areas in the state which need investments. In addition hardware requirements for running Microsoft are substantially higher than those of competing products from other sources. In many cases a computer running a competing product will cost half of and handle ten times the load that a computer configuration running Microsoft products would. 3. Internal security Microsoft is a company owned by American citizens, having its base of operations in the USA and subject to US laws. A clear effect of this was evidenced in 1999 when it was discovered that some of the security and cryptography functions built into Microsoft's operating systems were subject to be used by the US National Security Agency (NSA) without explicit permission from either Microsoft or the user of the software. This is one lone ``feature'' of Microsoft software which came to light due to the vigilance of a concerned individual. However it is quite possible (indeed, likely) that there are other ways in which Microsoft products are designed and constructed to permit illegal access by US security agencies. As concerned Indians, we would wish to be secure in the knowledge that the software handling our critical information about Government and individuals will not permit foreign Governments to spy upon, or, even worse, arbitrarily modify it without the consent or knowledge of our elected representatives and the Government machine. 4. Flexibility India being a unique country it is very likely that we will wish to adapt the software managing our Government information flows to our specific requirements from time to time. With Microsoft products it will not be possible to do this in any sort of time-bound manner, if it is possible at all. For instance, we may want to create cheap Intel 486-based computers for members of the bureaucracy which they can use to access their e-mail. Building such a low-cost computer with Microsoft software would be impossible since the building blocks of the software (the ``source code'', which is the blueprint for the software) is only available with Microsoft. As users, we will not be able to customise and modify the software to our requirements. To take another example, Microsoft is subject to US Government rules which prohibit the export of some forms of strong data encryption and decryption (scrambling and descrambling) technologies to India except under special conditions. As long as we are using Microsoft products, these technologies will not be available to us and we will be forced to use sub-standard, easily breakable techniques to protect our critical data. 5. Alternatives Given these facts, we strongly urge you to consider alternative technologies and sources for software for mission- and government-critical functions like State e-governance. The GNU/Linux operating system (sometimes also called just ``Linux'') suffers from none of the defects of Microsoft operating systems and applications detailed above and is already the fastest-growing server operating system in the world today. Some of the features of GNU/Linux which make it a viable and desirable component of any Government infrastructure are: - GNU/Linux has not to date been subject to any virus attacks anywhere near the severity of the worms and virii which are infecting Microsoft systems on a nearly daily basis. - The operating system itself and all the applications required to build a safe, secure and efficient infrastructure are available free of cost and can even be downloaded from the Internet. The hardware configuration of systems required to run GNU/Linux is much lower than that of corresponding systems required to run Microsoft products. There is no fee at all -- neither one-time nor recurring -- for using GNU/Linux. - The source code for the operating system and applications is available for perusal and modification. Using GNU/Linux, the Government can be assured that there are they are not at the mercy of any foreign government which can arm-twist Microsoft into putting hidden back-doors into their products. The Government can also give this assurance to the electorate. - Since the source code (i.e. the building blocks) of GNU/Linux is generally available, the Government can, if it so chooses, modify, extend and customise the software for its specific requirements. For instance, it is quite feasible to replace existing encryption techniques in GNU/Linux with those certified by the DRDO, leading to much better and auditable levels of security. Such enhancemente are not possible with Microsoft software. - Many national governments have blacklisted Microsoft products and specifically selected GNU/Linux to host applications managing and monitoring State and Central functions. We request you to critically consider any decision to purchase Microsoft products in the light of the information given above, and to give serious consideration to using alternative technologies which have a much lower cost, are more reliable and secure, and can be easily enhanced to fit in with our national objectives. >>>>> "Satyakam" == Satyakam Goswami writes: Satyakam> FSF wake up this news comes at a bad time there are Satyakam> efforts from different directions to make WB a Free Satyakam> Software State. Can we all make a presentation on this Satyakam> immediately at least the board members can write Satyakam> somethin to this senior official in WBEIDC and explain Satyakam> them that they are getting a one way ticket. Satyakam> A senior official at the West Bengal Electronics Satyakam> Industry Development Corp (Webel) said the deal with Satyakam> Microsoft would help the state woo investments in the Satyakam> information technology sector. Satyakam> the closest contact info i could get was the following. Satyakam> http://www.wbidc.com/contact.htm Satyakam> the Westbengal.com site did not list email id's of Satyakam> Ministers and the CM, they had phone numbers listed what Satyakam> a ridiculous thing to do. Satyakam> I urge we should have a strong presentation from FSF on Satyakam> the follwing issues Satyakam> 1)Investment Promises which never come, tell them to Satyakam> learn from the mistake of others. 2)You have to help Satyakam> yourself there will be nobody else helping you. Satyakam> 3)How,Why and where Free Software can help achieve there Satyakam> objectives. 4)Who is making $$ in this SLACK phase?? Satyakam> cheers S.Goswami >> WB Govt ties up with MSFT >> http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010804/tc/india_microsoft_dc_1.html >> >> One would think they would be better off tying up with RedHat >> or SuSE or the FSF >> >> Who wants a government that has to be patched every week....? -- Raju Mathur raju at kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ From bauke at freiburg.nl Mon Aug 6 01:01:40 2001 From: bauke at freiburg.nl (Bauke Freiburg) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 12:31:40 -0700 Subject: [Reader-list] Just another Spying case after RealPlayer References: <3B6C4959.1AC38DD1@fig.org> Message-ID: <005b01c11de5$40cabfb0$9600000a@mediaserver> Hi, I've heard that the very populair Napster alternative Kazaa, installs 5 spyware programs on your computer and sends information about the computer and users direct to commercial advertisers...that's even worse then Real and Creative... source: planet multimedia (dutch) http://www.planet.nl/pmm/0,1674,101_1498_152386,00.html Regards, Bauke Freiburg bauke at freiburg.nl ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jaswinder Singh Kohli" To: "Reader-list" Sent: Saturday, August 04, 2001 12:13 PM Subject: [Reader-list] Just another Spying case after RealPlayer > Creative Labs accused of spying > Irate customers are accusing Creative Labs, the maker of > digital-audio > players and sound cards, of spying on them. The dispute > revolves > around a piece of software called newsupd.exe, installed > with the > software that comes with most Creative products. A number > of > customers say the software is connecting them to the > Internet without > their authorization and relaying data secretly back to > Creative servers. > People also say newsupd.exe installs itself on the sly. > Creative admits > the feature needs tweaking, but says it is basically there > to help > consumers. > For details....................... > > http://two.digital.cnet.com/cgi-bin2/flo?y=hBtZ0BA1Pc0V0clQ0AC > > -- > Some time ago Real.com 's realplayer was doing the same thing after > searching the > users disk for mp3 and other types of music the software upon connecting > to NET > sends secretly to the real server..... > > > -- > > > Regards > Jaswinder Singh Kohli > jskohli at fig.org > :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: > The Uni(multi)verse is a figment of its own imagination. > In truth time is but an illusion of 3D frequency grid programs. > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > From Steef at CwaC.nl Sun Aug 5 17:28:09 2001 From: Steef at CwaC.nl (Steef Heus) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 13:58:09 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Microsoft licenses and Dutch government In-Reply-To: <15212.50192.441147.977416@mail.linux-delhi.org> Message-ID: As I posted recently Microsoft won contracts in several European countries for developing E-Goverment solutions (a.o. the city of The Hague in The Netherlands). But this week I read an article that will put some pressure on MS: The introduction of Office XP and its license policy has a great impact on the IT costs of local authorities in The Netherlands. The IT managers platform of the Local Authorities Association made a statement that they will delay/cancel upgrade to XP in order to avoid an estimated increase of operational costs of 50%. They also announced that they will undertake actions to become less dependent on MS's products only and will do a serious study on the availability and usability of alternatives, like StarOffice and other Operating Systems. Also the MS license contract with one of the ministeries is expiring. They sent out a tender to the industry and did not silently sign a new contract with MS as in the past. The above is in line with developments amongst IT managers associations of the Commercial industry in The Netherlands. The opposition towards the dominant position of MS and their arrogant licensing policy opens the door for serious alternatives. They will be looked at more seriously by organisations and for vendors it becomes more attractive to develop them. The more dominant MS thinks it is, the more arrogant their pricing/licensing policy will become, thus creating lots of windows of opportunities for other initiatives. Just give it a few years. Steef From Steef at CwaC.nl Sun Aug 5 17:33:36 2001 From: Steef at CwaC.nl (Steef Heus) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 14:03:36 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Just another Spying case after RealPlayer In-Reply-To: <005b01c11de5$40cabfb0$9600000a@mediaserver> Message-ID: See for english article: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/08/02/parasite_capital/index.html > -----Original Message----- > From: reader-list-admin at sarai.net [mailto:reader-list-admin at sarai.net]On > Behalf Of Bauke Freiburg > Sent: zondag 5 augustus 2001 21:32 > To: reader-list at sarai.net > Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Just another Spying case after RealPlayer > > > Hi, > > I've heard that the very populair Napster alternative Kazaa, installs 5 > spyware programs on your computer and sends information about the computer > and users direct to commercial advertisers...that's even worse > then Real and Creative... > > source: planet multimedia (dutch) > http://www.planet.nl/pmm/0,1674,101_1498_152386,00.html > > Regards, > > Bauke Freiburg > bauke at freiburg.nl > > > From menso at r4k.net Sun Aug 5 17:45:49 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 14:15:49 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: WB Govt ties up with MSFT In-Reply-To: <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org>; from raju@linux-delhi.org on Sun, Aug 05, 2001 at 12:23:59PM +0530 References: <000c01c11cf7$2c04daa0$0cc96565@dreammachine> <1143.192.168.0.2.996942864.squirrel@mail.archeanit.com> <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> Message-ID: <20010805141549.K5855@r4k.net> On Sun, Aug 05, 2001 at 12:23:59PM +0530, Raju Mathur wrote: > 1. Security. > > Microsoft products have time and again demonstrated a regrettable lack > of basic security features. Recent incidents which have affected a > sizeable portion of Microsoft-based servers and client systems on the > Internet have served to highlight the fact that Microsoft makes > Insecure Products. > > The Code Red worm (computer virus) infected millions of servers on the > Internet in June 2001 and coordinated them (without their > administrators consent) to simultaneously attack the US White House > web site. The worm is still alive though dormant and no one knows > exactly where and when it will strike again. Needless to say, this > worm only affects computers running Microsoft's most popular web > server. The patch for the Code Red worm was already available a long time before the worm started to spread. If one would have followed the IIS 5 Security checklist the server wouldn't have been vunerable in the first case. This checklist got released I think at the same time as IIS 5 got released. So then, is this a problem in "Microsoft software"? I think not. The list for patches that comes for Unix/Linux systems is quite as long, bugs in bind, sendmail and apache would not make anyone happy either. The situation is comparable to finding a bug in linux, releasing a patch and then not running this patch. The same would happen as happened now with the Code Red worm. In fact, the first worm ever written, back in in the days, targetted Unix machines. I do not find this a convincing argument. > Only a few days after the infamous Code Red attacks (on August 5, > 2001), another worm which infects Microsoft-based web servers has been > discovered and is at the time of writing being analysed to discover > its potential to disrupt the world's computing and networking > infrstructure. Making use of the same hole? The problem here is not so much the security hole as the 'smartness' of the person who wrote the worm. Especially now that the world is hanging together on fiber and data travels fast it is a matter of hours before the world is infected. > The SIRCAM virus which replicates itself using e-mail as the medium > has been deemed such a major threat to computing infrastructure that > Microsoft and the FBI have taken the unprecendented step of releasing > a joint warning notice against it to all computer users in July 2001. > Again, the SIRCAM virus only affects e-mail users who use Microsoft's > products -- all other software is immune to this threat. I had a discussion about email virusses once before on the nettime mailinglist. I then argued that a virus such as this could just as easily been written for linux systems for example yet that it is a bit more hassle there to get the user to actually execute the virus. In Outlook people just click and pray for the best, with linux/unix systems one would have to save the file by hand first and then give it execute permissions. The person doing this is most likely also the person that reads through the file first before doing so. The problem as I see it is not as much with the Microsoft software which contains as much bugs as any operating system out there, but with the level of knowledge on the operating system a user uses. For some reason people find that they should not read any books on computer subjects since "everything just works". With an out of the box install of Windows this is mostly the case and this works fine in a non-networked world. However, it still remains the responsibility of the user in my opinion to take appropriate security meassures once they hook up their system to a hostile environment such as the internet. People who lack to do so get what they deserve and sysadmins who lack to do so get the same. When huge amounts of rogue traffic travels across the network, the network will have problems with this, whether this is a 'virtual sit-in' *cough* or a virus trying to spread itself. Both are bad. In the end it's all a matter of knowing what you're doing, whether you run a Linux server or a Windows 2000 or own a Windows 95 desktop machine. The problem is, unfortunately, that not a lot of Windows users seem to know what they are doing. It is the job of the sysadmin to prevent misuse then by setting up the network in a correct way and installing virus scanners on the network. Unfortunately, with Code Red, we have also seen that there are a lot of sysadmins out there who do not understand there job. And that, my friend, is the origin of the problem. Menso -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery --------------------------------------------------------------------- From raju at linux-delhi.org Sun Aug 5 20:37:58 2001 From: raju at linux-delhi.org (Raju Mathur) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 20:37:58 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Reader-list] Re: WB Govt ties up with MSFT In-Reply-To: <20010805141549.K5855@r4k.net> References: <000c01c11cf7$2c04daa0$0cc96565@dreammachine> <1143.192.168.0.2.996942864.squirrel@mail.archeanit.com> <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> <20010805141549.K5855@r4k.net> Message-ID: <15213.24910.468767.287405@mail.linux-delhi.org> Hi Menso, I agree that security is the user/administrator's responsibility and it doesn't matter how many patches MS releases unless the admins are clued in enough to download and install them. OTOH, we must also consider the following: 1. MS seems to have perennial problems with buffer overflows. One would have thought that after the first 100 or so they'd have the decency to sit down and audit their complete code base and remove all the buffer overflows they can find, but their attitude seems to be (and it's valid, from a twisted perspective) that if they deploy the same engineers in creating new code they can get (buggy) products to market faster and make more money. I have nothing against buggy software. I /am/ strongly against a corporation which puts the security and stability of its users and clients second to anything at all. 2. The Code Red worm was caught early, but there have been other ones (and will continue to be more) which have slipped in before anyone in the MS or security communities saw them. These will continue to wreak havoc with the world's computing infrastructure. 3. MS' own policies deter a propagation of equally effective, competing products. Make a Pine/Mutt/Elm/VM/GNUS/Kmail worm and you hit maybe 10% of the Linux community. Make an Outlook Express bug and you hit 99% of Windows users. Similarly, due to the open nature of the environment there are many competing browsers on Linux but only one feasible one on Windows. Thus MS' policy of stifling competition indirectly contributes to the ease with which virii and worms propagate on MS platforms. For a more fascist way to handle the dumb sysadmin problem, please see my (tongue-in-cheek) article Standardise and be Damned: http://www.linux.com/newsitem.phtml?sid=93&aid=8568 Regards, -- Raju >>>>> "Menso" == Menso Heus writes: Menso> On Sun, Aug 05, 2001 at 12:23:59PM +0530, Raju Mathur Menso> wrote: >> 1. Security. >> >> Microsoft products have time and again demonstrated a >> regrettable lack of basic security features. Recent incidents >> which have affected a sizeable portion of Microsoft-based >> servers and client systems on the Internet have served to >> highlight the fact that Microsoft makes Insecure Products. >> >> The Code Red worm (computer virus) infected millions of servers >> on the Internet in June 2001 and coordinated them (without >> their administrators consent) to simultaneously attack the US >> White House web site. The worm is still alive though dormant >> and no one knows exactly where and when it will strike again. >> Needless to say, this worm only affects computers running >> Microsoft's most popular web server. Menso> The patch for the Code Red worm was already available a Menso> long time before the worm started to spread. If one would Menso> have followed the IIS 5 Security checklist the server Menso> wouldn't have been vunerable in the first case. This Menso> checklist got released I think at the same time as IIS 5 Menso> got released. Menso> So then, is this a problem in "Microsoft software"? I think Menso> not. The list for patches that comes for Unix/Linux systems Menso> is quite as long, bugs in bind, sendmail and apache would Menso> not make anyone happy either. Menso> The situation is comparable to finding a bug in linux, Menso> releasing a patch and then not running this patch. The same Menso> would happen as happened now with the Code Red worm. In Menso> fact, the first worm ever written, back in in the days, Menso> targetted Unix machines. I do not find this a convincing Menso> argument. >> Only a few days after the infamous Code Red attacks (on August >> 5, 2001), another worm which infects Microsoft-based web >> servers has been discovered and is at the time of writing being >> analysed to discover its potential to disrupt the world's >> computing and networking infrstructure. Menso> Making use of the same hole? The problem here is not so Menso> much the security hole as the 'smartness' of the person who Menso> wrote the worm. Especially now that the world is hanging Menso> together on fiber and data travels fast it is a matter of Menso> hours before the world is infected. >> The SIRCAM virus which replicates itself using e-mail as the >> medium has been deemed such a major threat to computing >> infrastructure that Microsoft and the FBI have taken the >> unprecendented step of releasing a joint warning notice against >> it to all computer users in July 2001. Again, the SIRCAM virus >> only affects e-mail users who use Microsoft's products -- all >> other software is immune to this threat. Menso> I had a discussion about email virusses once before on the Menso> nettime mailinglist. I then argued that a virus such as Menso> this could just as easily been written for linux systems Menso> for example yet that it is a bit more hassle there to get Menso> the user to actually execute the virus. Menso> In Outlook people just click and pray for the best, with Menso> linux/unix systems one would have to save the file by hand Menso> first and then give it execute permissions. The person Menso> doing this is most likely also the person that reads Menso> through the file first before doing so. Menso> The problem as I see it is not as much with the Microsoft Menso> software which contains as much bugs as any operating Menso> system out there, but with the level of knowledge on the Menso> operating system a user uses. Menso> For some reason people find that they should not read any Menso> books on computer subjects since "everything just Menso> works". With an out of the box install of Windows this is Menso> mostly the case and this works fine in a non-networked Menso> world. However, it still remains the responsibility of the Menso> user in my opinion to take appropriate security meassures Menso> once they hook up their system to a hostile environment Menso> such as the internet. People who lack to do so get what Menso> they deserve and sysadmins who lack to do so get the same. Menso> When huge amounts of rogue traffic travels across the Menso> network, the network will have problems with this, whether Menso> this is a 'virtual sit-in' *cough* or a virus trying to Menso> spread itself. Both are bad. Menso> In the end it's all a matter of knowing what you're doing, Menso> whether you run a Linux server or a Windows 2000 or own a Menso> Windows 95 desktop machine. The problem is, unfortunately, Menso> that not a lot of Windows users seem to know what they are Menso> doing. It is the job of the sysadmin to prevent misuse then Menso> by setting up the network in a correct way and installing Menso> virus scanners on the network. Unfortunately, with Code Menso> Red, we have also seen that there are a lot of sysadmins Menso> out there who do not understand there job. And that, my Menso> friend, is the origin of the problem. -- Raju Mathur raju at kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ From menso at r4k.net Mon Aug 6 00:20:13 2001 From: menso at r4k.net (Menso Heus) Date: Sun, 5 Aug 2001 20:50:13 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: WB Govt ties up with MSFT In-Reply-To: <15213.24910.468767.287405@mail.linux-delhi.org>; from raju@linux-delhi.org on Sun, Aug 05, 2001 at 08:37:58PM +0530 References: <000c01c11cf7$2c04daa0$0cc96565@dreammachine> <1143.192.168.0.2.996942864.squirrel@mail.archeanit.com> <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> <20010805141549.K5855@r4k.net> <15213.24910.468767.287405@mail.linux-delhi.org> Message-ID: <20010805205013.L5855@r4k.net> On Sun, Aug 05, 2001 at 08:37:58PM +0530, Raju Mathur wrote: > Hi Menso, > > I agree that security is the user/administrator's responsibility and > it doesn't matter how many patches MS releases unless the admins are > clued in enough to download and install them. OTOH, we must also > consider the following: > > 1. MS seems to have perennial problems with buffer overflows. One > would have thought that after the first 100 or so they'd have the > decency to sit down and audit their complete code base and remove all > the buffer overflows they can find, but their attitude seems to be > (and it's valid, from a twisted perspective) that if they deploy the > same engineers in creating new code they can get (buggy) products to > market faster and make more money. I have nothing against buggy > software. I /am/ strongly against a corporation which puts the > security and stability of its users and clients second to anything at > all. I agree with this, yet it is fact that it does not happen. So far I have not seen any major consequences of situations like these where a patch was not made readily available. > 2. The Code Red worm was caught early, but there have been other ones > (and will continue to be more) which have slipped in before anyone in > the MS or security communities saw them. These will continue to wreak > havoc with the world's computing infrastructure. I have not yet seen them. I think persons who write these worms get their info from the mainstream security lists, I find it quite unlikely that a person would find a new hole and then write a worm for it. The people that have the brains to do this usually also have the ethics to not do these things yet I agree that this does not mean it will never happen. > 3. MS' own policies deter a propagation of equally effective, > competing products. Make a Pine/Mutt/Elm/VM/GNUS/Kmail worm and you > hit maybe 10% of the Linux community. How do you come up with this figure? If it has to do with the fact that there is more manual work for the user to launch an actual virus than I would say it is correct. If 'viewing' a file in these mailers would be equal to executing them however, the percentage would be as high as on any operating system. The 'error' is in the fact that the default behaviour for a .vbs file is "Execute" instead of "Edit" in Windows. This is, however, nothing that a little registry editting script can't fix :) > Make an Outlook Express bug and > you hit 99% of Windows users. Similarly, due to the open nature of > the environment there are many competing browsers on Linux but only > one feasible one on Windows. Hahaha, although this is an entirely different discussion I would argue that currently there *is* only one browser, being Internet Explorer. The rest crashes to often, isn't up to date, doesn't support standards, doesn't show HTML but translates it to console (like lynx) etc. I am speaking from experience with browsers on a wide variety of platforms being Windows, FreeBSD, Macintoshes and Linux. Netscape 'sometimes' works but in my opinion, too often does not. Also, it is a bitch to code for (no, not because we don't write nice code but because the parser is fucked up as any webdesigner/programmer can tell you). Lynx is nice if you do not have more requirements (such as graphics, duh!) > Thus MS' policy of stifling competition > indirectly contributes to the ease with which virii and worms > propagate on MS platforms. It is not so much sitfling competition. I would also not argue that because programs such as Outlook and IE come with the OS the user doens't try anything else. Windows Media Player comes with my OS but I prefer Winamp, as do most people I know. Where are the windows versions of the earlier mentioned programs? Why would I want to install an entire unix environment on my machine (cygwin) before I can run one simple mail program? What makes a program succesful or not is a measurement for the user between the ease of use and the features a program offers. When one compares the ease of use between GUI programs such as Outlook and of say, mutt, it becomes quite an easy choice, especially if the user is used to working in a graphical environment in the first place. Now, when the requirements of these users grow, such as mine did, they might consider using screen and running all there stuff on one dedicated machine so that they can check their email always and from everywhere. However, the problem might lie in this ease of use too, since it becomes very easy to run malicious code :) This is, again, the job of the sysadmin imho. Menso -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyway, the :// part is an 'emoticon' representing a man with a strip of sticky tape across his mouth. -R. Douglas, alt.sysadmin.recovery --------------------------------------------------------------------- From geert at xs4all.nl Mon Aug 6 03:17:19 2001 From: geert at xs4all.nl (geert lovink) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 07:47:19 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] ICT and Development Conference (Bangalore, May 2002): Call for Papers Message-ID: <008801c11dfa$7597d9c0$c900000a@bigpond.com> Indian Institute of Management Bangalore Bangalore, India May 29-31, 2002 http://is.lse.ac.uk/ifipwg94 CALL FOR PAPERS ICTs and Development : New Opportunities, Perspectives & Challenges Early encounters of developing countries with ICTs were characterized by uncertainty of meeting with an unfamiliar or alien tool and were distinguished by rare successes and apprehensions of increasing the developmental divide. Subsequently, as greater consensus emerged on the potential of these technologies, the focus was one of localizing associated methodologies and work practices. Increasingly, however, the potential for enablement and participation in new economic and governmental systems is visible. Some of these have been in terms of opportunities for developing countries provided by new economies for which the conference city of Bangalore with its cluster of software service providers and global software companies is a well-publicised example. At a micro level, ICTs are providing opportunities for individuals and small firms to participate in economies at a local or larger scale. ICTs, in addition, provide the unique potential to enable and sustain communicative participatory processes at global and local levels. Increasing access to information and communication media has often enabled small groups and individuals to be heard on global debates and forums. They have enabled small cultural and ethnic groups to overcome disadvantages of physical distance. At a more local level they are enabling creation of a virtual 'public place' wherein effective democratic processes of public participation can take place. For instance, in many developing countries, local government authorities are actively considering using ICTs as a means to catalyse initiatives towards democratic decentralization and the empowerment of citizens to participate in the process of design and delivery of civic services. These attempts of using ICTs are part of a broader agenda of democratic reform in local governance and typically include a number of other initiatives such as the formation of decentralized committees, reforms in systems of administration and privatization of civic services. On the other hand, many of the old challenges in terms of inappropriate focus and resource allocation remain. The cost of missed opportunities is also increasing. Limitations of existing structures and decision making processes at higher levels in conjunction with greater demands placed on them increase the risk of a reverse spiral of enlarging deprivation. Addressing these challenges is an essential part of the ongoing debate. We aim to address these issues and also the evident tension that exists for developing countries as they try to balance global and local priorities through the adoption and use of ICTs. This conference, therefore, aims to examine the new opportunities, perspectives and challenges provided by information and communication technologies for developing countries in terms of the following sub themes: Participation in global economic activity o What are the factors influencing the development of high- technology industrial activity in developing countries? How have companies in developing countries used ICTs to participate as vendors of goods and services in the global marketplace? What have been the constraints in realising this opportunity? o What occupations and skills are driving the IT industry, and what skills are no longer sought? o To what extent does participation in new economic systems provide spin offs for the domestic user base within developing countries, for example in the public sector? o How might the influx of venture capital in developing countries alter the geographic profile of the Internet economy? o How to theorise about the relationship between IT-led global economic activity and socio-economic development within the developing countries? Emergence of new organisational types o What have been the experiences of individuals and small groups like NGOs advocating developing country point-of-view in using new infrastructures to access global platforms? o To what extent are Internet-based organisations characterised by the specific culture and context in different developing country settings? o To what extent have new technologies enabled individuals and non traditional groups to participate in governance at local and national levels? o How to theorise about impact of these new organisational types which rely on information technology and networks on social and political systems in developing countries? Local governance and socio-economic development o How can we characterise new local governance structures emerging in many parts of the developing world? What is the role of the private sector in these structures? o What has been the experience of non-governmental organisations in mediating between citizen groups and structures of governance? o In what ways have these technologies enabled improvements in availability of health services, education and economic opportunities to economically disadvantaged areas and groups? o In what ways are communities and social interactions changing in response to innovations in ICTs? Are there any measurable changes? o How can we theorise about the tension facing planners in developing countries as they try to mediate between the need to participate in new economic systems and socio-economic priorities? SUBMISSION We are interested in receiving research papers, research-in- progress reports, case studies and proposals for tutorials and panel discussions, which fall within one or more of the conference themes. IMPORTANT DATES Deadline for receipt of full papers: 31st August 2001 Notification of acceptance of papers: 31st December 2001 Camera Ready manuscript due from authors: 28th February 2002 Formatting Requirements Documents to be in Microsoft Word, single spaced with a text length less than 5000 words ( excluding Abstract, diagrams, tables and references). Cover page should have: Title, Author's names with affiliations and identification of address for correspondence (indicating an email id) along with an Abstract of not more than 500 Words. Please do not specify author names anywhere else other than the cover page. Camera Ready copy may be requested after acceptance. Submissions should be sent to either of the two Conference and Programme Chairpersons: S. Krishna, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. E-mail: skrishna at iimb.ernet.in S. Madon, London School of Economics & Political Science. E-mail: S.Madon at lse.ac.uk PROGRAMME COMMITTEE Chrisanthi Avgerou, London, UK. c.avgerou at lse.ac.uk Abiodun O. Bada, Manchester, UK. a.o.bada at mmu.ac.uk Jorn Braa, Oslo, Norway. jbraa at ifi.uio.no Subhash Bhatnagar, Ahmedabad, India. subhash at iimahd.ernet.in Gert-Jan de Vreede, Delft, The Netherlands. gertjanv at sepa.tudelft.nl Neki Frasheri, Albania. nfra at inima.al Roger Harris, Sarawak, Malaysia. roger at mailhost.fit.unimas.my Richard Heeks, Manchester, UK. richard.heeks at man.ac.uk Krisana Kitiyadisai, Bangkok, Thailand. Krisana.K at Chula.ac.th Mikko Korpela, Finland. korpela at messi.uku.fi Renata Lebre La Rovere, Brazil. larovere at gbl.com.br Esselina Macome, Mozambique. macome at nambu.uem.mz Jonathan Miller,Cape Town,SA. jonmil at icon.co.za Eric Monteiro,Trondheim, Norway. eric.monteiro at idi.ntnu.no Sundeep Sahay, Oslo, Norway. sundeeps at ifi.uio.no Lucy Suchman, Lancaster, UK. l.suchman at lancaster.ac.uk Natalia Volkow, Mexico. nvolkow at pres.inegi.gob.mx Geoff Walsham, Cambridge, UK. g.walsham at jims.cam.ac.uk From ravis at sarai.net Mon Aug 6 11:42:42 2001 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 11:42:42 Subject: [Reader-list] workers in silicon valley Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20010806114242.00992ee8@mail.sarai.net> This is from nettime, sorry for cross-postings ravi ----------------------- From: Soenke Zehle To: Sender: nettime-l-request at bbs.thing.net Reply-To: Soenke Zehle dear all, geert suggested this might of be of interest. don't nail me for bumpy writing (yet) - i'll rework this asap. my interest: i'm trying to get an "e-journal for ecopolitics" (www.oikopolis.de) off the ground and would like to invite contributions for an issue on the topic of electronics & ecopolitics (e-waste, ecology & media crit and the like). contact me off the list if you have suggestions/contributions (goal: bring together media crit, media practicioners, eco-justice folks, worker organization in one issue on that topic). soenke Ecopolitics at the Site of (Virtual) Production: Environmental Justice Organization in Silicon Valley Soenke Zehle Hybrid Spaces: Theory, Culture, Economy (New York: Transaction; Hamburg: LIT, 2000) Among those coming to terms with the implications of the virtual revolution at the heart of the "new economy," few have adopted an explicitly ecopolitical perspective. Instead, many cyberenthusiasts marginalize questions of production in their embrace of the "clean industries" and their promise of "dematerialization through technology." An ecopolitical perspective might, then, take as its point of departure a core site of virtual production: the high tech sweatshops in which the elements of a new information and communications infrastructure are made and assembled. Long considered the "dirty little secret" of Silicon Valley, these archaic forms of labor organization reveal the inglorious base of the "new economy" as well as the toxic materiality of a virtual revolution whose tremendous ecological costs are suffered not only by immigrant sweatshop workers but everyone involved in the cycle of electronics production, use, and disposal. The Challenge of Cold War Worker Organization The electronics industries rose in the 1950s on a wave of governmental subsidies, in an aggressively anticommunist period that saw the growth of a national security state as well as the fragmentation and dismantling of many labor unions. Committed to the economic and political orthodoxies of postwar anticommunism, major union leaders worked to purge their federations of radicals, eliminating the specter of rank-and-file militancy along with hopes for union democracy and a broader vision of social transformation. One of the organization affected by this struggle was the union founded to organize workers in the electrical and communications industries - the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE). Along with a few other unions, UE had already succeeded in organizing workers at General Electric (GE) and Westinghouse, the corporate giants of the electrical industries, which soon grew into multipurpose engineering firms with a stake in the postwar military production of computers and electronics. Lead by socialists and communists, UE quickly found itself expelled from the federations representing organized labor, its members raided by rival unions and its leaders called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (Schatz 1983). Politically sensitive military production, widespread suspicion of autonomous worker organization, and an unprecedented pace of technological change turned the new electronics industries into "laboratories for developing personnel-management techniques for maintaining a union-free environment" (Bacon 1997a). While official labor leaders had abandoned the electronics industries as unorganizable, UE recovered outside the AFL-CIO and began to target semiconductor plants in the 1970s. Traditional US organizing campaigns focus on certification elections supervised by a National Labor Relations Board in which workers declare that they wish to be represented by a union, which is then recognized as partner in collective bargaining by the corporation. The longer the campaign, the more vulnerable it is to attrition and company interference; more recent campaigns (especially those organizing sub-contractors) have relied less on labor law and pressured (parent) companies directly, through boycotts and media attacks on corporate brands and images. Amy Newell, later one of the first high-ranking women officers of UE, was an early member of the UE Electronics Organizing Committee and knew that isolated workplace efforts would have to be supported by community outreach: "It's hard to imagine organizing any of the plants without a much larger movement among workers in the industry as a whole, and in the communities in which the workers live" (Bacon 1997a). Romie Manan, one of the Filipino organizers, remembers the secretive atmosphere: "A few of us were aboveground, to give workers the idea that the union was an open and legitimate organization, but most workers were not publicly identified with the union" (ibid.). By the early 1980s, the Committee had grown to a membership of over 500 workers, distributed 5,000 copies of its Union Voice a month (published in three languages: English, Spanish, and Tagalog), won cost-of-living raises, held public hearings on racism and firings in the plants, and campaigned to expose the dangers of working with numerous toxic chemicals, without having won either an election or a contract. The last UE campaign in 1982 tried to mobilize opposition to the industry's policy of moving production out of Silicon Valley. Many UE members were ultimately fired as electronics corporations singled out activists, ending a first wave of organizing campaigns which had received no support from official representatives of organized labor and did not survive the advent of the Reagan Era. While the Committee dispersed, some members left to work with new organizations they had helped establish, including the Santa Clara Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (SCCOSH) and the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC), on worker health and safety issues. On the WWW LaborNotes http://www.labornotes.org/ Stories & Photographs by David Bacon http://www.igc.org/dbacon/ UE http://www.ranknfile-ue.org Alliance UE-FAT (Frente Autentico del Trabajo) http://www.ueinternational.org/ Santa Clara Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (SCCOSH) Amanda Hawes, one of the founders of SCCOSH, reflects on the emergence of toxics organizing in Silicon Valley: Compared to hazards of traditional fruit processing in our Valley of Heart's Delight - repetitive motion injuries, finger lacerations, heat stress, and slips and falls - conditions in Silicon Valley's "clean industry" looked good, especially to workers laid off after years of back-breaking seasonal work in the canneries (Hawes 1997). Workshops held by the new ECOSH (Electronics Committee for Occupational Safety and Health) were met with skepticism by the occupational nurses, engineering students, labor, environmental and religious leaders in attendance. When a UC researcher needed volunteers for a study on TCE (trichloroethylene), ECOSH agreed to recruit them, suspecting that TCE might be carcinogenic. After hundreds of workers responded with stories on TCE and toxic workplaces, ECOSH recognized the need for a center to gather and disseminate health hazard information to electronics workers and advocate for improved working conditions in what most had considered "clean industries." Founded in 1978, SCCOSH has become the main educational resource for Silicon Valley workers fighting to protect their health on the job. Across the country, a network of over 20 additional centers has emerged, making occupational health and safety one of the most active areas of worker organization. While ECOSH continued its work into the early 1980s with a campaign to ban TCE, SCCOSH received a federal grant from the US Labor Department for its Project on Health and Safety in Electronics (PHASE) which ran a confidential "hazard hot line," researched chemicals and processes used in electronics and semiconductor manufacturing, and developed hazard fact sheets and other materials to aid workers interested in protecting their health (PHASE monies were immediately cut by the Reagan Administration). Other early SCCOSH projects included the Injured Workers United, a support group for workers already affected by chemical exposures, trying to secure fair compensation, decent medical care, and retraining. During the 1980s, SCCOSH continued to raise issues of chemical safety, stressing concerns for workers of child-bearing age in campaigns to phase out specific toxics. Contrary to the mythology of the virtual industries, electronics manufacturing is a labor-intensive industry. Many manufacturing workers are Asian: the workforce mirrors the immigration history of the area, as Vietnamese, Filipino, Korean, Ethiopian, and most recently South Asian women and men of all ages have joined a Latino working community. Filipino SCCOSH members Raquel Sancho and Romie Manan have begun to organize them into HealthWATCH (Workers Against Toxic Chemical Hazards). Both Sancho and Manan are veteran organizers, with roots in the anti-Marcos movement in the Philippines. Sancho, hired by SCCOSH in 1994 to direct its campaign against glycol ethers, was an organizer in Manila's women's movement and still recruits U.S. supporters for Gabriela, a left-wing women's organization in the islands. Organizing workers in the US nevertheless proved difficult: "It was hard getting immigrant workers to picket the plants without having a long period of involvement with them around this issue" (Bacon 1997b). To build a base of workers, Sancho went to karaoke bars, malls, and was soon invited to picnics and family occasions. Romie Manan was a unionist in the Philippines, in what Bacon considers one of the most militant and turbulent labor movements in Asia during the 1970s ­ yet another irony of post-cold war labor organization, since the AFL-CIO had continued to back the official pro-Marcos labor federation. Manan had to leave after martial law was declared by then-dictator Ferdinand Marcos and immediately began recruiting his Filipino coworkers into the Electronics Organizing Committee of the United Electrical Workers when he found a job in Silicon Valley. Unlike Bacon, who was active in the UE Organizing Committee until it was dissolved in the early 1980s, Manan has been able to continue to work in electronics manufacturing despite his involvement in virtually all organizing drives. Although unions are very popular in the Philippines where a much higher percentage of workers is organized than in the US, Manan cautions that while immigrant Filipino workers are generally interested in worker organization, many members of the same family often get jobs in the same plant, making them reluctant to take risks (Bacon 1997b). Discussions at HealthWATCH meetings have nonetheless convinced many of them to become active, and when a worker affected by toxics exposure asked for support, they launched a campaign to pressure the company for an investigation, wore ribbons and buttons on the job to express solidarity, and cooperated with the surrounding African American and Latino community which had already organized a council of neighbors concerned about their proximity to a toxic waste site. While an investigation by the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration (CalOSHA) found numerous violations, the company was ultimately allowed to settle with minimal fines. HealthWATCH members concluded that immigrant workers would continue to be exposed to chemicals at home and in the workplace until a union contract provided some leverage to hold companies accountable and possibly allow workers to define their own standards for health and safety protection; WATCH hopes to offer initial organizing experience, SCCOSH publishes Chemical Exposure Guidelines to educate workers about the toxicity of chemicals and safe exposure levels. However, even union contracts may not be able to challenge the fundamental structure of the electronics industries. HealthWATCH member Raj Jayadev reminds readers of the rank-and-file monthly Labor Notes that the position of immigrants and their exposure to toxins are structural features of the new economy: "low-wage assembly and manufacturing has been the anchor of technological and economic growth. Perhaps explaining its rather hushed existence, it is a labor niche which has been created and reserved for immigrant workers of color" (Jayadev 1999). While low-wage temporary work proves paradoxically permanent in that there are neither "good assembly jobs" which would compensate for years of exposure and abuse nor unions that might be able to establish them, a small portion of South Asian engineers and business people have ascended into "Silicon Valley royalty," a phenomenon duly observed by community and media trained to expect no less than the fulfillment of the model minority myth. For Jayadev, this visibility has obscured the Third World reality of the South Asian majority, whose situation should serve as "an alert to animate the collective South Asian American consciousness" and focus energy on "dissolving the separations between labor and community organizing" (ibid.). Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) At the outset of the Cold War, the US military supported the creation of an institute to conduct applied industrial research at Stanford University, which soon announced the development of a high tech industrial park nearby. Since new semiconductor companies were hailed as "clean industries," electronics quickly became the industry of choice for municipalities interested in expanding their industrial tax base. Rising sales of computer parts provided taxes in abundance and supported tremendous growth: over the next decades, the county of Santa Clara would grow from the agricultural paradise known as "Valley of Heart¹s Delight" to become Silicon Valley, the mythical center of the high tech industries with the highest density of electronics firms of any county in the US. Today, Santa Clara has more toxic cleanup sites than any other county in the US, most of them caused by the high tech electronics industry. Since the early 1980s, severe groundwater contamination has emerged as the most common form of chemical pollution at production sites of IBM, Fairchild, AMD, HP, and Siemens: volatile toxic chemicals like chlorinated solvents, used in the process of turning an ingot of silicon into a highly conductive wafer, are often stored in underground storage tanks which leaked to permanently contaminate entire aquifers and continue to threaten the wetlands of San Francisco Bay. Similar pollution was found at local chemical manufacturing, waste disposal and recycling facilities (SWOP 1995). In a state experiencing a severe drought cycle about once every decade, groundwater contamination is a catastrophe. Much of the available water in California is distributed via complex pipeline systems from the fertile Central Valley of the Sacramento River Delta, which receives water from the rivers and reservoirs in and around the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Santa Clara receives much of its water via these projects as well. Since any decrease in groundwater availability can only increase the ecological and political pressure on the already overburdened delta, a fragile ecosystem threatened with an increase in salinity if more water were to be extracted, Santa Clara is likely to become more and more dependent on local, reliable water sources, and therefore to conserve and keep them free from contamination through tighter regulation ­ yet another reason for resource-intensive industries like wafer (chip) fabrication to locate new facilities outside of the Valley. In fact, a global search has already begun for communities willing (or forced) to offer the combination of subsides, tax exemptions, and the promise of a streamlined regulatory process that has become associated with the costly bidding wars that pit countries, states and cities desperate to attract economic development against each other. The Silicon Valley Toxics Project (SVTC), another SCCOSH project, has done much to alert communities to the toxicity of the electronics industries. SVTC was founded by local activists in 1982 in response to the discovery of substantial groundwater contamination. SVTC succeeded in the passage of a community right-to-know law and accompanying Hazardous Materials Model Ordinance, the first law in the country to regulate leaking underground storage tanks by requiring secondary containment and strict monitoring. Gaining national recognition when it helped place the toxic waste sites in Santa Clara County on the National Priority List (Superfund) of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ensure adequate clean up, SVTC also exposed the enormous contribution of electronics industries to CFC emissions, promotes the clean-up and conversion of military bases and defense contractors, and now serves as an information center on the electronics industries for communities and organizations elsewhere. Current efforts include a Sustainable Water Campaign, a multi-year effort to clean heavy metal contamination from the streams and groundwater of the South San Francisco Bay area, a Clean Computer Campaign to reduce hazards from the disposal of junk electronics and encourage recycling of materials found in obsolescent computers, and an International Campaign for Responsible Technology (ICRT). Through ICRT, SVTC not only tracks the global expansion of the electronics industries to alert potential host communities, but supports (encourages ratification, implementation, and enforcement) of transnational legislative efforts like the 1989 Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste, a new EU Directive on Waste from Electronic and Electrical Equipment, the 1998 Aarhus Convention (United Nations Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making, and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters) and the World Health Organization-Europe Environment & Health Ministerial Declaration (London 1999). Their database (IHEAL, Interactive Health Ecology Access Links) is an international network created by non-governmental organizations to support implementation of these conventions and international right-to-know provisions (in an ironic and powerful extension of their very first successes: as pollution moves across boundaries, so does grassroots organization). IHEAL is an amazing example of the complex mutual articulation of locality and globality: by providing web-based maps of pollution releases, NGOs can engage in public information campaigns and integrate IHEAL information into local ecopolitical activity (monitoring, technical assistance in community monitoring of toxic releases, the management of riparian and watershed data, and development of regional sustainability indicators). IHEAL aims at the establishment of communication standards for environmental information so that "environmental health & sustainability information will become as widely reported as the daily national weather forecast." Each computer is a complicated assembly of more than 1,000 materials, many of which are highly toxic, such as chlorinated and brominated substances, toxic gases, toxic metals, biologically active materials, acids, plastics and plastic additives. Short product cycles ensure that little is known about the individual, additive and synergistic effects of often exotic substances: many of them have not been tested for carcinogenicity, fewer still for reproductive toxicity, fewer still neurotoxicity, immunotoxicity or potential impacts to the endocrine system. After the trend toward product obsolescence was greatly accelerated by concern over Y2K compliance, the US alone is expected to accumulate 315 million used computers by the end of 2004. Because computers contain so many toxins, recycling itself remains a dangerous process, exposing workers to hazardous substances much like the manufacturing process itself. Given that only 6% (compared to new computers sold) were recycled in 1998, most of these are likely to be stored in hazardous waste landfills or incinerated, a dangerous process which releases vast amounts of highly toxic chemicals such as dioxins and benzene (SVTC 1999). Because the export of waste has long been a way in which the industrialized world has avoided expensive disposal and costly production alternatives, the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste for Final Disposal was established in 1989 to keep OECD nations from dumping their waste on less developed countries. The US has declined to sign the Convention, another indicator that the imminent waste crisis is likely to be solved through waste export, following the current (international) practice of waste incineration in China. In 1999, the European Union drafted a directive in response to concern over waste from electronic and electrical equipment, the main source of contamination by heavy metals and halogenated substances in municipal waste streams, overwhelming treatment facilities and threatening widespread contamination of drinking water. The WEEE Directive will require manufacturers to improve the design of their products in order to avoid the generation of waste and to facilitate the recovery and disposal of electronic scrap. Its ultimate aim is to close the loop of the product life cycle so that producers, who manufacturer the product in the first place and who are ultimately in charge of designing the product, get their products back and assume full responsibility for life cycle costs. By ensuring this feedback to the producer and by making them financially responsible for end of life waste management, producers will have a financial incentive to design their products with less hazardous and more recyclable materials. This change in the market economics ­ in effect the internalization of costs that are currently passed off to the general public ­ will encourage the design of products for repair, upgrade, re-use, dismantling and safer recycling (ibid.). Through ICRT, SVTC promotes transborder grassroots cooperation, working on WEEE with a broad coalition of environmental NGOs organized in the European Environmental Bureau. The US, encouraged by the powerful American Electronics Association (AEA), has announced to challenge this directive at the World Trade Organization (WTO) ­ it is, after all, contrary in its aim to the very spirit of the "new economy." On the WWW BAN (Basel Action News, Basel Convention on Toxic Waste) http://www.ban.org EEB (European Environmental Bureau, docs on toxic-free electronics) http://www.eeb.org/publication/general.htm IHEAL http://mole.utsa.edu/~matserv/iheal/ SVTC http://www.svtc.org SWOP (South-West Organizing Project, eco-justice campaigns against INTEL incl. grassroots monitoring systems) http://www.swop.net/intel_info.htm Asian Immigrant Women Advocates (AIWA) While is widely known that textile and garment manufacturing occurs in sweatshops abroad and at home, the enormous contribution of electronics sweatshops to the virtual revolution has long remained one of Silicon Valley¹s dirty little secrets. After Asian Immigrant Women Advocates (AIWA) was founded in 1983, it focused on women in garment manufacturing and won significant victories that have led many to regard AIWA as a model workers center in the tradition of radical institutions more committed to organizing unskilled and immigrant workers than the labor movement at large. AIWA¹s campaigns are widely discussed as organizing models and examples of an emerging Asian American feminist movement among Asian American women activists and an (increasingly diverse) Asian immigrant community (Lowe 1997, Shah 1997). Recently, it launched several campaigns to support workers in electronics sweatshops. AIWA offers language and citizenship education courses, workshops on domestic violence, and was able to establish confidential hotlines in several workplaces ­ an important service for workers whose immigrant status makes them more vulnerable to interference by management and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) than ordinary workers. In cooperation with other anti-sweatshop organizations, AIWA pushed for regulation of the sweatshop economy through an Underground Economy Bill which forced legislators to not only acknowledge that these archaic workplaces are indispensable to the "new" economy, but agree to regulation and oversight. Although the current political and cultural climate is far removed from the anxiety motivating early exclusion acts restricting Chinese and Japanese immigration, anti-miscegenation laws prohibiting interracial marriage, and widespread concern over a "Yellow Peril," the dominance of an equally problematic "model minority myth" leaves room for a few success stories while obscuring what HealthWATCH members Jajadev terms the "Third World Reality" of most Asian immigrants. AIWA also shows that grassroots labor and toxics campaigns among immigrants may not be possible through traditional forms of worker organization; while Filipino immigrants support unionism, many of the women organized by AIWA, suspicious of organized labor in part because of the role played by state-sponsored labor federations in their home countries, do not. These efforts highlight the challenges and contradictions of grassroots work in Silicon Valley and the new economy at large. Although organized labor has returned to the electronics industries, many unions are unprepared to address the complex situation of immigrant workers at odds with the history and organizational culture of a US labor movement only beginning to confront a legacy of business unionism, trade union colonialism, and a "possessive investment in whiteness" (Roediger 1999, Lipsitz 1999). In a climate characterized by hostility toward immigrants, suspicion of worker organization, and official enthusiasm for multilateral trade agreements that encourage ecological irresponsibility, grassroots organizing proceeds at an excruciating pace - workplace by workplace, toxin by toxin, neighborhood by neighborhood. The struggle against high tech corporations and their industry associations, exciting, innovative, and quite possibly the harbinger of a new (transnational) politics built on the joint efforts of labor, ecological, and ethnic movements, is nonetheless not to be romanticized: every now and then a (legal) battle is won, but without a fundamental change in the way the "virtual revolution" is theorized and, ultimately, organized, immigrant workers as well as all those affected by extraction, production, and disposal of the "remainder" of the virtual, rendered invisible by the metaphorics of technological transcendence, will continue to bear its cost. Works Cited Bacon, David (1997a). "Organizing Silicon Valley's High Tech Workers" http://www.igc.apc.org/dbacon/Unions/04hitec0.htm Bacon David (1997b). "Silicon Sludge: Immigrant Filipino Workers Fight Toxic Working Conditions in Anti-Union Silicon Valley." http://www.igc.apc.org/dbacon/Imgrants/10rodrig.html Hawes, Amanda (Spring 1998). "SCCOSH in the Early Years: A Founder's Recollections" San José, CA: SVTC News. http://www.svtc.org Lipsitz, George (1998). The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Benefit from Identity Politics. Philadelphia: Temple UP. Lowe, Lisa (1996). Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics. Durham: Duke UP. Jayadev, Raj. (10/1999). "Electronics Assembly for Poverty Wages." Detroit: Labor Notes. http://www.labornotes.org/archives/1999/1099b.html Roediger, David (1999). The Wages of Whiteness. 2nd ed. New York: Verso. Schatz, Ronald W. (1983). The Electrical Workers: A History of Labor at General Electric and Westinghouse, 1923-1960. Chicago: U of Illinois P. Shah, Sonya, ed. (1997). Dragon Ladies: Asian American Feminists Breathe Fire. Boston, MA: South End P. SWOP (1995). Sacred Waters: Life Blood of Mother Earth (Four Case Studies of High-Tech Water Exploitation and Corporate Welfare in the Southwest). Albuquerque, NM: SouthWest Organizing Project. SVTC (1999): "Just Say No to E-Waste: Background Documents on Hazards and Waste from Computers." San José, CA: Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. http://www.igc.org/svtc/cleancc/eccc.htm # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net From joy at sarai.net Mon Aug 6 12:31:17 2001 From: joy at sarai.net (Joy Chatterjee) Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 12:31:17 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] (no subject) Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010806123108.00a26570@mail.sarai.net> I was aware of this MS deal long back but I never found it necessary to post it and make fuss about it. Corporates and states are made for each other. I don't think that we need and able to compete with corporates. I have checked few organisations in West Bengal with whom we can start dialogue regarding uaage of linux. And I think language is an ideal problem and solution to counter this corporate attack to some extend. Linux need to get in to indian language scenario that might help it to grow in indian society(not market). Let the states and corporates do what they are doing. Linux should not get into power politics corporate manupulation. Joy From prakash at gnu.org Mon Aug 6 12:48:58 2001 From: prakash at gnu.org (Prakash Advani) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 12:48:58 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: [LIG] Re: WB Govt ties up with MSFT In-Reply-To: <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> References: <000c01c11cf7$2c04daa0$0cc96565@dreammachine> <1143.192.168.0.2.996942864.squirrel@mail.archeanit.com> <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> Message-ID: <01080612485801.00795@krishna> Dear Raju, This is execellent if everyone can send out this document to their respective state goverments. I hope modifications to the documents are allowed and encouraged GPL ? ;-) I would also recommend you add something about localisation issues. In case of Proprietory operating systems localisation is decided by the company only if they see $$$$ coming in not in the interest of the people. Where as in case of GNU/Linux anyone can add the Indian Language layer depending on the needs. In fact all the localisation efforts so far have been started with Goverments funds (CDAC/NCST). By putting their efforts GNU/Linux they funds would be better utilised. Regards Prakash On Sunday 05 August 2001 12:23, Raju Mathur wrote: > Here's a prototype letter which can be sent to any State government > which plans to tie-up with MS for e-governance. I am making it as > general-purpose as possible so that more people are willing to sign > it: this is not a time for family squabbles. I'd appreciate any > additions/enhancements which can be made to this letter. URL's > highlighting the points discussed would also be a great idea. Not > being an activist, I cannot suggest the proper methods for getting > this letter signed and circulated to the right authorities. > From joy at sarai.net Mon Aug 6 14:00:37 2001 From: joy at sarai.net (Joy Chatterjee) Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 14:00:37 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: [LIG] Re: WB Govt ties up with MSFT In-Reply-To: <01080612485801.00795@krishna> References: <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> <000c01c11cf7$2c04daa0$0cc96565@dreammachine> <1143.192.168.0.2.996942864.squirrel@mail.archeanit.com> <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010806134757.009fc060@mail.sarai.net> "Where as in case of GNU/Linux anyone can add the Indian Language layer depending on the needs." Its all theory but in reality MS Office has a hindi version but any Linux software do not have any hindi version, Quark Express is also working on a hindi version but Linux doesn't even have any publishing software like QuarkExpress (and also web designing software), forget about Indian versions. It is more over frustrating to see that there is no alternative of server end bitstream technology for easy viewing of indian web pages in Linux. But truth is IE has! So I don't know how Linux people claim that Linux has more scope in Indian language, where as proprietary models are already working on it !!! Joy At 12:48 PM 8/6/01 +0530, Prakash Advani wrote: >Dear Raju, > >This is execellent if everyone can send out this document to their respective >state goverments. I hope modifications to the documents are allowed and >encouraged GPL ? ;-) > >I would also recommend you add something about localisation issues. In case >of Proprietory operating systems localisation is decided by the company only >if they see $$$$ coming in not in the interest of the people. Where as in >case of GNU/Linux anyone can add the Indian Language layer depending on the >needs. In fact all the localisation efforts so far have been started with >Goverments funds (CDAC/NCST). By putting their efforts GNU/Linux they funds >would be better utilised. > >Regards >Prakash > >On Sunday 05 August 2001 12:23, Raju Mathur wrote: > > Here's a prototype letter which can be sent to any State government > > which plans to tie-up with MS for e-governance. I am making it as > > general-purpose as possible so that more people are willing to sign > > it: this is not a time for family squabbles. I'd appreciate any > > additions/enhancements which can be made to this letter. URL's > > highlighting the points discussed would also be a great idea. Not > > being an activist, I cannot suggest the proper methods for getting > > this letter signed and circulated to the right authorities. > > >_______________________________________________ >Reader-list mailing list >Reader-list at sarai.net >http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list From cvr3 at focalimage.com Mon Aug 6 08:13:40 2001 From: cvr3 at focalimage.com (Rajagopal C.V) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 08:13:40 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Reader-list] Re: [FSF India] Re: WB Govt ties up with MSFT In-Reply-To: <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> Message-ID: On Sun, 5 Aug 2001, Raju Mathur wrote: : We, the Free Software, Open Source and Electronic Freedom proponents : in India are deeply distressed to learn about your Government's plans : to base your complete e-governance infrastructure on a single foreign : company's products. The history of Microsoft has shown that it has : very little regard for serving any objectives except its own, which : does not augur well for the future of in particular : and our country in general. : : We request you to kindly consider the following points before making : this relationship permanent: : : 3. Internal security : : Microsoft is a company owned by American citizens, having its base of : operations in the USA and subject to US laws. A clear effect of this : was evidenced in 1999 when it was discovered that some of the security : and cryptography functions built into Microsoft's operating systems : were subject to be used by the US National Security Agency (NSA) : without explicit permission from either Microsoft or the user of the : software. : : This is one lone ``feature'' of Microsoft software which came to light : due to the vigilance of a concerned individual. However it is quite : possible (indeed, likely) that there are other ways in which Microsoft : products are designed and constructed to permit illegal access by US : security agencies. As concerned Indians, we would wish to be secure : in the knowledge that the software handling our critical information : about Government and individuals will not permit foreign Governments : to spy upon, or, even worse, arbitrarily modify it without the consent : or knowledge of our elected representatives and the Government : machine. The FSF-India should immediately respond to this challenge posed by the MS in placing the WB people in a software trap. Since the FSF India has its office in Trivandrum where a lot of Central Committee members of the Communist Party of India are also staying, the FSF office bears can meet these top party functionaries and explain the points raised in the Raju Mathur's letter to them. The party leaders, I hope, will definitely prevail upon the left government in West Bengal and persuade the latter to desist from its latest move. Most of the politicians are totally unaware of the threats a proprietary software can pose to the public. If need be the FSF-India can immediately convene a press conference to alert( or enlighten) the press on the points highlighted by Raju Mathur. -- Rajagopal CV ____________________________________________________________________ GPG - Fingerprint: 87CF B2EE BE47 A69E 97F4 F891 96C2 90D4 F568 438A GPG - public key http://www.river-valley.com/gpg/cvr3.gpg ____________________________________________________________________ From prakash at gnu.org Mon Aug 6 14:16:23 2001 From: prakash at gnu.org (Prakash Advani) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 14:16:23 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: [LIG] Re: WB Govt ties up with MSFT In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20010806134757.009fc060@mail.sarai.net> References: <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> <5.1.0.14.2.20010806134757.009fc060@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <01080614162300.01831@krishna> MS Office Hindi version is MS Office with Hindi font. The menus, documentations, error messages, etc are all English. The support is very primitive and only support 3-4 popular Indian languages. If you just want a hindi font on Linux you can do it today itself but the idea is to have everything Menus, documentations, error messages, etc translated into Linux. We are trying to complete support for Indian Languages on Linux for all the languages. see our project www.indlinux.org Regards Prakash On Monday 06 August 2001 14:00, Joy Chatterjee wrote: > "Where as in case of GNU/Linux anyone can add the Indian Language layer > depending on the needs." > Its all theory but in reality MS Office has a hindi version but any Linux > software do not have any hindi version, Quark Express is also working on a > hindi version but Linux doesn't even have any publishing software like > QuarkExpress (and also web designing software), forget about Indian > versions. It is more over frustrating to see that there is no alternative > of server end bitstream technology for easy viewing of indian web pages in > Linux. But truth is IE has! > > So I don't know how Linux people claim that Linux has more scope in Indian > language, where as proprietary models are already working on it !!! > > Joy > From chaiyah at hotmail.com Mon Aug 6 11:19:24 2001 From: chaiyah at hotmail.com (m emily cragg) Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 11:19:24 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Reader-list digest, Vol 1 #127 - 2 msgs Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010806/edcc815e/attachment.html From joy at sarai.net Mon Aug 6 18:08:00 2001 From: joy at sarai.net (Joy Chatterjee) Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 18:08:00 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Reader-list digest, Vol 1 #127 - 2 msgs In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010806173254.009fc160@mail.sarai.net> First of all, I am talking about India, not US and what US is I am least interested to know. And who carries what; caste and race; work intensity&work culture; my country/your country these are many debatable issues, lets not get into it. I think to fight evil one should not go back to evil and complain against another evil. I think that is more than stupidity and shallowness. "Free" software people should have clear idea what freedom is. Freedom of knowledge will be of no use till "Beer(Beer for product not drink)" is free. Who will make it free for them? US or Indian state? I teach a bunch of kids who live in such a place where poverty, disease and death live together. What freedom of information will do to them? And who will provide them the freedom of living? So I meant, talk of community when I said "that might help it to grow in indian society(not market)". Let MS and State dance around the market let us think about the society which has nothing to do with the market because they don't have money to participate the party of market econony. Joy At 11:19 AM 8/6/01 +0000, you wrote: >Joy Chatterjee, you appear not to be aware of where you are. This is the >United States, NOT INDIA. Yes, it's perfectly permissible for worker >exploitation to exist in India. That culture supports a CASTE system. But >not here. NOT HERE. Toxic chemicals do not belong in the ground water. >Workers do not NEED to have to carry toxic chemicals home with this. > >The United States has a history of DEALING WITH labor issues. We are not a >complacent, docile, stupified people---not COMPLETEly and not YET. > >Please put aside your complacency. It is not appropriate in Ameican >society, and if you want to assimilate you have to learn to do your share >of identifying Evil and doing something about it. > >And then you wonder why native Americans have a grudge against >immigrants! This is WHY--this kind of self-satisfied smugness! > >Yich. > > > > > > > >Message: 2 > >Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 12:31:17 +0530 > >To: Reader List > >From: Joy Chatterjee > >Subject: [Reader-list] (no subject) > > > >I was aware of this MS deal long back but I never found it necessary to > >post it and make fuss about it. Corporates and states are made for each > >other. I don't think that we need and able to compete with corporates. > > > >I have checked few organisations in West Bengal with whom we can start > >dialogue regarding uaage of linux. And I think language is an ideal problem > >and solution to counter this corporate attack to some extend. Linux need to > >get in to indian language scenario that might help it to grow in indian > >society(not market). Let the states and corporates do what they are doing. > >Linux should not get into power politics corporate manupulation. > > > >Joy > > > > > > > >--__--__-- > > > >_______________________________________________ > >Reader-list mailing list > >Reader-list at sarai.net > >http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > > > > >End of Reader-list Digest > > >---------- >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com >_______________________________________________ Reader-list mailing list >Reader-list at sarai.net http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010806/f5dc82c7/attachment.html From joy at sarai.net Tue Aug 7 00:27:06 2001 From: joy at sarai.net (joy at sarai.net) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 18:57:06 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] free-software or e-governance?? Message-ID: <200108061857.UAA28697@mail.intra.waag.org> I posted the following mail in FSF mailing list but I am posting it in reader list as well as I thought it will be useful for reader list members also. Joy ----------------- The story about Linux in Korea is interesting but it looks like another product or company, which have won over another company. This is a matter of concern for me. The philosophy of free software is never reflected in the story. I am least bothered whether Linux accepted by governments or not, I am more concerned about the philosophy of freedom. Many humanist and socialist organisations have ended up in to proprietary control freak institutions. And no government in present world has any positive intention for any social upliftment, say west or east, left or right. One should think twice before run in to such hasty decision of constructing relation with state. I think more free software keep away from politics more it is good for it. It should try to construct independent user base community. There are endless small business organizations, self employed computer users with whom free software people make relation. Anyway, I have put my opinion as per my experience. But if FSF still thinks of doing e-governance for state it can do it but they should know what e- governance is and what relation it has with the word freedom. The draft writer of the mail to governments, Mr. Raju Mathur in a meeting said governments are gone mad for e-surveillance. He should think whether he wants to help the government in doing surveillance or what he should do. Joy Raj Singh said: > Free Software in Korea: Part One -- The Microsoft Connection > (Oct 4th, 06:05:46 ) > > By Randy Leganza, Special Korea Correspondent for Linux Today > > When Dwight Johnson of Linux Today asked in late July if I'd consider a > doing an article on Linux in Korea, I had no idea the amount of time or > the countless e-mails it would require. Even though there had been several > recent stories in the Korean English press and the government's announced > support for Linux in July, I grossly underestimated the "Linux in Korea" > story. > > When the Korean government's Ministry of Information and Communication > announced in late July that it would "provide government support for the > development and proliferation of Linux," it was not only one of the first > official endorsements by a national government of the free operating > system but one of the largest defeats ever for Microsoft. > > To appreciate the Microsoft connection to the Korean government's > embracing Linux requires relating events extending over two years. In the > end, despite its best efforts, Microsoft Korea would not only fail to > dominate the local word processor market it had targeted, it would suspend > its "campus license" program and see its president suddenly resign. > > These days hardly a week goes by without Microsoft's local ventures being > mentioned in the English language Korean dailies. But Microsoft's interest > in Korea extends back at least 15 years with a partnership agreement in > 1984 and a branch office opening in 1992. Over the years, Microsoft > developed relationships with numerous Korean companies. > > Bill Gates has traveled to Korea several times. In 1994 Gates traveled to > Korea to sign a source code licensing agreement with the Korea Advanced > Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST). Then in June 1997 he traveled > to Korea again to address the CIO Forum, a support group for Korea's CIOs > organized by the Federation of Korean Information Industries. > > Microsoft's trouble with the Korean government first began to surface in > October 1997 when the Korean Fair Trade Commission announced an > investigation into Microsoft's business practices. This investigation > mirrored that of the U.S. Department of Justice. (No resolution of this > investigation has yet been seen in the local English language press.) > > While Korea was struggling in May 1998 to recover from its worst financial > crisis in history, Steve Ballmer, then a Microsoft vice president, > announced a $77 million software donation to Korean schools and > institutions. > > Although Microsoft's gift was graciously accepted, some thought it mostly > an attempt to get Korean students on the Microsoft gravy train. When > queried at the time about making an investment comparable to those made by > Hewlett-Packard and Intel, Ballmer reportedly said, "We think that an > investment in knowledge is more important than any factory." Little did > Korea know then what was up Ballmer's sleeve, nor did Ballmer then suspect > that Microsoft would end up with egg on its face. > > At the time of Ballmer's announcement, the maker of the country's only > indigenous word processor, Hangul and Computer Company (H & C), was nearly > bankrupt because of the bootleg software market for its product, Hangul. > Microsoft negotiated a bailout plan for the ailing company -- in exchange > for a Microsoft investment, H & C announced it would cease development of > the Hangul word processor and end support for it a year later. > > Only a month after Ballmer's announcement of the software gift, the deal > was scheduled to be closed when, according to the plan, Bill Gates would > fly in for a two day promotional tour. > > But as soon as it was announced, there was an immediate public outcry and > the deal ran afoul of both the Korean populace and the Korean Fair Trade > Commission. Suddenly Koreans saw Microsoft's offer for what it was -- an > attempt to monopolize the local word processor market. They took it as an > assault on their national pride, a sort of "cultural colonization". > > The Koreans had more than just their ire for Microsoft's business tactics > on their side. The indigenous Hangul word processor could correctly > display more than 11,000 combinations of the Korean language's phonetic > characters, as contrasted with Microsoft Word's 2,500. And the Korean word > processor could display western fonts as well. > > Bill Gates still flew in but left empty handed after a meeting with the > Korean President. > > A grass roots fund raising campaign quickly began to revive H & C. The > Korean Venture Business Association (KVBA) offered $7.3 million to save > the company. Approximately two thirds of the investment would come from > association members, and the remaining one third would come from > contributions by Korean individuals. The company accepted the KVBA offer, > wisely created a limited license version with a slashed price to encourage > paying customers and called for the Korean government, itself a flagrant > violator, to began a campaign against bootleg software. > > H & C survived and in September 1998 announced its plan to raise $7.3 > million dollars in a public stock offering. > > Facing mounting opposition, but not to be out done, Microsoft continued > with its aggressive drive to inundate Korean educational institutions with > artificially cheap software. In August 1998, Microsoft released a Korean > version of Windows 98 to an eager, but often disappointed, public and > reported 27,000 copies sold within only the first four days, a figure > comparable to Windows 95's sales. > > Although Microsoft had not been able to buy out its chief word processing > Korean competitor, its marketing machine was undaunted. It vowed to > improve the Korean Microsoft Word's ability to display the older Korean > characters and began to hype its Korean Microsoft Word 2000 in January > 1999. > > But Microsoft made a disastrous marketing miscalculation. While the > schools and universities were getting bargain basement discounts to entice > students onto the Microsoft gravy train, individual software buyers were > still paying full price. > > In early 1999, local software resellers, squeezed mercilessly from both > sides, denounced Microsoft's pricing strategy. The Korean retail > marketplace is still mostly a mom and pop operation. These small chains > and individual stores could not turn enough volume to warrant the large > discounts that retail giants and OEMs obtain. In addition, these resellers > were the target of a crackdown on bootleg software. They objected to > Microsoft's alleged entrapment of bootleg resellers, a charge denied by > Microsoft. The resellers went so far as to hold a rally to protest > Microsoft's pricing policy. > > Then in mid May, the Korea Times published the results of a survey which > reported that "87.2 percent said the Windows operating system is > ``unsatisfactory'' but that they have no choice but to use it." > > The May 1999 resellers anti-Microsoft protest was accented when Hangul and > Computer charged that Microsoft was "dumping," selling its wares at 10% of > its market price. > > To this accusation, Microsoft responded (according to the Korea Herald), > "We introduced the site license program, in which we sell our software > package at cheap prices, to the Korean market to help spread the use of > genuine software products among students." Microsoft also countered that H > & C was guilty of its own accusations because they had slashed their price > to less than $10 for their one year license version. The government said > it would investigate. > > Microsoft finally relented and withdrew its "campus license" policy > pending a final decision by the Korean government. Microsoft Korea had now > suffered its second setback in its drive to dominate the Korean word > processor market. > > Amidst all this negative attention, in June 1999, Microsoft released its > Korean Microsoft Office 2000. As an answer to H & C's discounted one year > license version of Hangul, Microsoft offered the Korean Microsoft Word > 2000 with an annual subscription option of under $10. A Korea Herald > article claimed it could now process 11,172 Korean syllables, 1.6 million > old Korean characters and 27,000 Chinese characters. > > Meanwhile, the Korean government continued its crackdown on bootleg > software. Even though government agencies were as guilty as everyone else, > the crackdown on bootleg software was hurting Korea's schools far more > than the government. Many schools were forced to suspend computer classes > because they could not afford the software license fees. > > The Korean government was under pressure from all sides. Consumers and > resellers complained that Microsoft's products were too expensive and that > there was no alternative to Windows. The software industry wanted its > license fees -- yet this unbudgeted expense was a monstrous burden on both > small business and the educational system. Koreans wanted Hangul and > Computer to survive -- yet they didn't want to appear anti-Microsoft and > alienate another foreign business when their economy badly needed foreign > investment. > > The logical alternative seemed to be software without burdensome license > fees -- enter Linux! > > In July 1999, the very same day the Korean Ministry of Information and > Communication announced it had formed a group to discuss support for > Linux, the JoongAng Ilbo reported Microsoft Korea's President Kim Jae-min > had abruptly resigned. Microsoft said the resignation was voluntary but > some believed that he was held responsible for Microsoft Korea's failures > over the past year. The government soon confirmed its support for Linux > saying it would promote its use in public organizations. > > Ironically, hard on the heals of this announcement came the release of a > Federation of Korean Industries' survey picking Microsoft as the number > one business role model, followed by General Electric and Ford. > > Was it merely a coincidence that Microsoft Korea's president resigned at > the same time the government announced its interest in Linux? No one is > saying. Regardless of the government's motivation for supporting Linux, > the support is there. Linux and Free Software in Korea is on the move. > > ----------------------------------- > > Free Software in Korea: Part Two -- The Linux Side (Conclusion) Oct 10, > 1999, 07:15 UTC > > By Randy Leganza, Special Korea Correspondent for Linux Today > > Korean Government Support for Linux > > A most promising development for the free software movement in Korea is > the government's Ministry of Information and Communication announcement in > late July that it will "provide government support for the development and > proliferation of Linux." The Korea Herald, among others, reported that the > ministry "will establish a Linux consultative body composed of software > experts from the government, academic and industry sectors to standardize > Korean versions of Linux and develop a variety of programs based on the > operating system." > > At the forefront of the Korean government's support for Linux is the > Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI). According to > Kim Hae-jin (family names are first in Korean), who is heading the ETRI > Linux project, ETRI's plan is to "provide a highly scalable, highly > available, single system server image cluster [technology]... adaptable > from Internet [servers] to [the] mission critical enterprise." > > A non-profit organization called the "Linux Council" has been established. > Four committees within the Council have been designated: > > 1. Standardization -- standardize Linux's Hangul terminology and > documentation. > > 2. R & D -- promote research in and development of Linux software. > > 3. Supply and Support -- support Linux in end-user markets, schools and > government offices. > > 4. Education and Training -- promote Linux education and training. > > Kim adds that they will also sponsor more Linux forums like a recent one > held in July 1999, which was attended by Linux International's John > "maddog" Hall. > > A Long History of Free Software Use > > Korea has been involved with the free software movement for over twelve > years. An obscure reference on the GNU web site reveals that in April of > 1987, Richard Stallman visited the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and > Technology (KAIST) in Taejon. > > More recently, in May of this year, Tim Ney of the Free Software > Foundation visited Korea with a Massachusetts Software Delegation and "met > with a number of young software start-up companies..." According to Tim, > "many of the companies [he] saw were predominantly writing software for > the Windows platform, yet responded quite positively when [he] spoke about > free software and opportunities with GNU/Linux." > > Free Software Projects > > Ongoing free software projects in Korea include: > > * Hanterm 3.1 from the KAIST, a Korean language (Hangul) xterm > > * OpenHWP, reported to be an almost defunct Korean free word-processor > > * And a team of at least four package maintainers contribute to the Korean > Debian Project. The Korean Debian project has members from both the > academic and business communities. Park Chu-yeon, current leader of the > project, is working on the Korean Debian Bible with other project members. > They maintain nearly 50 Korean Debian packages. > > Linux is not the only project associated with the free software movement > in Korea. FreeBSD also has a following. Choi Jun-ho is the leader of both > the Korea FreeBSD Users Group and the GNU Free Translation Project. Choi > reports that he first used GNU/Linux in 1993, then moved to FreeBSD in > 1995. > > Korean Companies That Market Linux Products > > WebDataBank > > Choi is developing a unique Linux distribution, qLinux, at his company, > WebDataBank. According to Choi Jun-ho, qLinux will be bootable from a > large ext2 file image on an existing Windows FAT partition via a loop-back > device. He says qLinux will also be able to "utilize" the Windows Registry > to configure X Windows, network cards, etc. WebDataBank is in the Linux > Internet server hosting and groupware development business. They will soon > release a Korean version of TurboLinux 4.0. > > MIZI Research > > Another Korean company, MIZI Research markets MiziOS, its own Linux > version and HWPX-R4, a Linux/Unix Hangul word processor that is a close > cousin to Hangul and Computers (H & C) Hangul Windows version (Hangul > means the "Korean written language"). MIZI's head, Seo Young-jin, was the > UNIX HWPX-R4 team leader at H & C before H & C decided to drop the UNIX > version in 1997 and focus on their Windows version. Seo then licensed > HWPX-R4's source code and started MIZI. > > Microsoft's subsequent failed attempt to shut the H & C Hangul word > processor out of the Korean market was a pivotal event in the rise of free > software in Korea. See Free Software in Korea: Part One -- The Microsoft > Connection. > > HWPX-R4 is included on the MiziOS CDs, as either a demo version or an > official bundle. > > MIZI also supports the Free Software movement with: > > * ManIM, which enables Hangul fonts in Netscape on X > > * a Hangul font server > > * some document viewers that will soon fall under the GPL > > * four Korean TrueType fonts under the BSD license > > MIZI's decision whether to publish under the GPL or a commercial license > is level-of-effort based. According to Seo Young-jin, "Some software is > attractive and fun and others [requires] endless maintenance. The latter > [we license] commercial." > > Under commercial licensing, MIZI is currently working on an architectural > CAD application that will be available in Hangul and English. Seo said > that he hoped to "shareware" the English version, explaining that part of > the code was licensed from another company and MIZI needed to recover the > cost. > > Zion Systems > > Zion Systems develops Accel, a Korean distribution based on Red Hat. In > developing Accel, Zion Systems uses the latest kernel version and > libraries, builds their packages optimized for Pentiums and is working on > a Korean GUI installation package. > > In partnership with Samsung, Zion Systems markets a line of high > availability Alpha and Xeon SMP servers that can support clustering and > further plans to market a sub $1,000 Linux PC in October. Currently Zion > is working on GPLing their audio drivers and high availability management > software. > > Zion is also setting up an "after service" center for its product line. > > 3R Soft > > 3R Soft produces MailStudio, a Linux/Unix Web-based e-mail server. > MailStudio's user interface runs inside the Web browser, like Netscape and > Yahoo's mail servers. MailStudio is compatible with Sendmail, SMTP, POP, > and qPopper. In their upcoming 3.0 version, 3R Soft plans to offer IMAP, > LDAP, and spell checking support. While 3R Soft does not produce any GPL > software, they are compatible with Red Hat, Caldera, TurboLinux and > Apache. > > Other Korean Linux Companies > > At least three other Korean companies produce seperate Korean versions of > Linux: > > * Linux Korea markets the Power Linux distribution and the Netspirit 2000 > and 3000 Linux-based servers. > > * Korea Linux sells the Alzaa Korean version of Red Hat. > > * ClassData offers the Class 6.0 Enterprise Linux distribution, which has > an interesting glass bottle logo and the catchy slogan, "stop paying your > Bills." > > In addition, Informix Korea has a series of Korean pages devoted to Linux, > including links to downloads. > > Linux Use Growing Rapidly According to Denis Havlik: > > "I have been witnessing an enormous growth of "registered Linux users" in > Korea for quite some time. (Take a look at "the Linux Counter", under > "Denis Havlik's report"...) The growth is not so dramatic any more, but > still rather fast: 156% annually." > > "Registered users" probably account for less than 1% of the Linux user > base(*) -- currently there are more than 3,000 registered users. > Therefore, my estimate is "more than 300,000 Linux users in South Korea" > today. Greater than 500,000 would not surprise me, either." > > The Fight for the Linux Trademark > > Sadly, all the positive news about Linux in Korea is not without its > controversy. The last week of August, a fight broke out over the Linux > trademark, when a lawyer for Kwon Yong-tae, who holds a Korean trademark > for 'Linux', demanded that the Kyobo Books bookstore stop selling books > with Linux in the title. Three days later, the incident became a hot topic > on Korea's popular Linux bulletin board and it made the English Linux news > sites the following weekend. > > Allegedly, the trademark was applied for in 1995 and granted in 1997. > Korean publishers, business and other interested parties are still working > to resolve the issue. For those interested, Lee Kyong-ho is maintaining an > event time line at the bottom of his Web page on the problem, with a link > to an English version of a petition. > > --------- > > Randy lives in Taegu, Korea and is on his third, most fun and least > stressful career. He's the QA/Test guy on a small team supporting a large > Solaris WAN integration project, with a few Linux boxes scattered about. > He gets to play with computers all day and intentionally break them -- > then complain about it, and usually see things get fixed. When he can, he > likes to fly airplanes, lift weights, hunt and fish. > From joy at sarai.net Tue Aug 7 13:23:18 2001 From: joy at sarai.net (Joy Chatterjee) Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 13:23:18 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Real Estate in Moon Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010807132004.00a13050@mail.sarai.net> WE THE LUNAR EMBASSY, are the only recognized world authority for the sale of Lunar and other Planetary Real Estate (including Mars). Please be advised, that any others are copy cat companies without authority, soliciting your money for unauthorized products. And...regardless of what you may have heard...it's all true: Here you can really buy a property on the Moon! OK, this sounds good. Does it cost the Earth? The price for a one acre parcel is: Only $15.99 + Shipping and handling of $10.00 http://www.moonshop.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010807/15d911a9/attachment.html From jeebesh at sarai.net Tue Aug 7 14:12:33 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 14:12:33 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] FW: free the public theatre caravan Message-ID: Genoa fallouts. do mail in solidarity mails on to the website (not to this list!). cheers jeebesh > http://www.noborder.org > info at noborder.org > > WED 1 AUG 2001 > > FREE THE PUBLIX THEATRE CARAVAN! > > On Monday July 24, the Publix Theatre Caravan, an > international multimedia performance group was stopped by > police in Recco, a small city near Genoa. 25 persons from > Australia, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Slovakia and the US > were arrested. > > For several weeks the Publix Theatre Caravan was travelling > along and across borders: From refugee camps to > nobordercamps and counter-summits. Artists, actors and > experimental theatre activists staged performances, played > music and shot videos. On leaving Genoa the Publix Theatre > Caravan on their way to the nobordercamp in Frankfurt was > stopped and arrested by italian police. At the moment they > are held in imprisonment on remand, awaiting a trail within > the next six months. > > The accusations levelled against them are as absurd as they > could possibly be: The artist group is accused of vandalism > and endangering public safety. The court acts on the > assumption that the Publix Theatre Caravan is the core of a > so called "black bloc"! > > Not only do we worry about reported and confirmed violations > of basic human rights. But we also suspect, that it did not > happen by accident, that a group of artists and independent > media activists is purposely being targeted as a scapegoat > for the violence in Genoa. > > We urgently demand the immediate release of the participants > of the Publix Theatre Caravan! > > Please spread widely information about the fate of > participants of the Publix Theatre Caravan! Sign this > statement! Create, upload and download banners! Link to the > websites and disseminate the content and the work of the > Publix Theatre Caravan! Police forces may be able to arrest > individuals, but they can not break down the resistance of > the multitudes. > > > Helpful links: > > [publix theatre caravan] > http://www.no-racism.net/nobordertour/index_uk.html > > [sign the "free publix theatre caravan call"] > http://www.noborder.org/noprison.html > > [download the banner] > http://www.noborder.org/images/noprison.gif > > [streaming video from the caravan] > http://www.noborder.org/camps/slo/video.html > > [noborder network] > http://www.noborder.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010807/f83bc1c5/attachment.html From kshekhar at bol.net.in Mon Aug 6 00:38:47 2001 From: kshekhar at bol.net.in (Mumbai Study Group) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 00:38:47 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] 11.8.2001: Migration to Mumbai Message-ID: Dear Friends: In our next meeting, we welcome Dr SUDHA DESHPANDE, Senior Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Human Development, New Delhi, who will discuss with us emerging demographic trends in the context of the city's recent growth, in her presentation on "Migration to Mumbai: Problems and Policies". Dr Deshpande is the author of numerous reports and studies of the Bombay labour market and its changing economy, and the dynamics and conditions of urban growth and expansion. She has been a consultant with the World Bank, the International Labour Organisation, and the Bombay Municipal Corporation, and has held positions as Reader in Demography at the Department of Economics, University of Bombay, as well as Visiting Professor at the University of Derby, U.K. and the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. This session will be on SATURDAY 11 AUGUST 2001, at 10.00 A.M., on the SECOND FLOOR, Rachna Sansad, 278, Shankar Ghanekar Marg, Prabhadevi, Mumbai, next to Ravindra Natya Mandir. Phone: 4301024, 4310807, 4229969; Station: Elphinstone Road (Western Railway); BEST Bus: 35, 88, 91 Ltd, 151, 161, 162, 171, 305 Ltd, 355, 357, 363, to Ravindra Natya Mandir. ABOUT THE GROUP The MUMBAI STUDY GROUP meets on the second and fourth Saturdays of every month, at the Rachana Sansad, Prabhadevi, Mumbai. Our conversations continue through the support extended by Shri Pradip Amberkar, Principal of the Academy of Architecture, and Prof S.H. Wandrekar, Trustee of the Rachana Sansad. Conceived as an inclusive and non-partisan forum to foster dialogue, discussion and criticism on urban issues, we have since September 2000 held conversations about various historical, political, cultural, social and spatial aspects of Mumbai in the context of globalisation. Our discussions are open and public, no previous membership or affiliation is required. We encourage the participation of urban researchers and practitioners, experts and non-experts, researchers and students, and all individuals and groups in Mumbai to join our conversations about the city. The format we have evolved is to host individual or panel-based presentations in various arenas of urban theory and practice, and have a moderated and focussed discussion from our many practical and professional perspectives. Among others, our previous sessions have hosted the following presentations: * Kalpana Sharma, Associate Editor of The Hindu and author of the recently published Rediscovering Dharavi (Mumbai: Penguin Books, 2000), spoke about slum-dwellers, citizenship, and representations of the poor and unhoused in the mainstream media. * Kedar Ghorpade, Senior Planner at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, presented on the business of managing cities, the history of urban planning attempts in Mumbai, and the challenges of planning in an expanding mega-city. * Dr Marina Pinto, Professor of Public Administration, retired from Mumbai University, and author of Metropolitan City Governance in India (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000), discussed with us urban administration in the major cities of the country, and the structure and functioning of the Bombay Municipal Corporation. * Dr K. Sita, Professor of Geography, retired from Mumbai University and former Garware Chair Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, spoke about the changing economic functions of the city historically, and geographical and social implications for planners. * Dr Arjun Appadurai, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, Director of Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research (PUKAR), Mumbai, and the author of Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Univ of Minnesota Press, 1996), presented on the questions of cities and globalisation: the changing social ecologies of consumption, new market cultures, and the multiple loyalties and identities being formed by these global processes in local contexts in Mumbai. * Rahul Srivastava, Lecturer in Sociology at Wilson College, spoke on the Neighbourhood Project, an ethnographic initiative he has conceived through encouraging his students to look at their own localities in the inner-city areas of Central Bombay, through textual and visual media. In a discussion of the changing contexts of urban identity formation, we noted the value of using the city as a pedagogical device for students. * Sandeep Yeole, General Secretary of the Pheriwala Vikas Mahasangh, along with several colleagues from various unions of street vendors and hawkers in the city, made an overhead presentation and interacted with us on issues of hawkers self-organisation, social consumption and street commerce in Mumbai. * S.S. Tinaikar, former Municipal Commissioner of Bombay, Sheela Patel, Director of the Society for Protection of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), and Bhanu Desai of the Citizens' Forum for the Protection of Public Spaces (CFPPS) joined us for a round-table discussion on the Maharashtra Government's new Slum Policy 2001 and the competing interests in the process of policy formation on urban issues. * Shirish Patel, one of India's leading engineers and part of the planning team which designed New Bombay, chaired a discussion and presentation on Mumbai's built environment in the wake of the earthquakes in Gujarat, where we heard from Pramod Sahasrabuddhe and Abhay Godbole, both structural engineers with long-standing practices in Mumbai. * Dr Anjali Monteiro, Professor and Head, and K.P. Jayashankar, Reader, from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences Unit for Media and Communications, Mumbai introduced their film "Saacha", about poet Narayan Surve and painter Sudhir Patwardhan, both of whom were part of the landscape of Left cultural activism in Mumbai. The film was followed by a discussion with Sudhir Patwardhan about the changing face of Mumbai. * Dr Sujata Patel, Professor and Head, Department of Sociology, University of Pune, spoke on politics, identities and populism, on the basis of her ongoing project on culture, consumption practices, and the Shiv Sena and her forthcoming edited anthology, co-edited with Jim Masselos, titled Mumbai: Bombay's Future?. This will be the third volume in the series, co-edited with Alice Thorner, of which the first two volumes were Bombay: Metaphor for Modern Culture, and Bombay: Mosaic of Modern India (both Oxford University Press India, 1995). * Dr Mariam Dossal, Head, Department of History, Mumbai University, spoke on nationalist architecture and the Bombay School of Architecture in the colonial and postcolonial periods. Dr Dossal is the author of Imperial Designs and Indian Realities: The Planning of Bombay City 1845-1875 (Oxford University Press India, 1991). * B. Rajaram, Managing Director of Konkan Railway Corporation, and Dr P.G. Patankar, former Chairman of the Bombay Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking (BEST) and currently with Tata Consultancy Services joined us for a panel discussion on public transport alternatives for Mumbai: the Sky Bus and Underground Metro. * Ved Segan, Vikas Dilawari, and Pankaj Joshi, three noted conservation architects, featured in a panel discussion on the social relevance of heritage and conservation architecture in Mumbai. * Debi Goenka, of the Bombay Environmental Action Group, and Chandrashekhar Prabhu, architect and environmental and housing activist, joined Professor Sudha Srivastava, Dr Geeta Kewalramani, and Dr Dipti Mukherji, of the University of Mumbai Department of Geography, for a panel discussion on the salt pan lands in Mumbai, the politics of land use and the Coastal Regulation Zone Act. * Sucheta Dalal, business journalist, author, and Consulting Editor, Financial Express talked to us about institutional finance in the city. Dalal has co-authored with Debashis Basu The Scam: Who Won, Who Lost, Who Got Away, about the Harshad Mehta scam, a story which she broke; she is the biographer of A.D. Shroff, financial expert and founder of the Forum of Free Enteprise (Viking Press, 2000). * Dr Arvind Rajagopal, Associate Professor of Culture and Communications at New York University, presented on "The Pheriwala as Encroacher-Entrepreneur: The Aesthetics and Politics of Recent Debates on Hawkers in Mumbai". Dr Rajagopal is also the author of Politics After Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Indian Public (Cambridge University Press, 2001), which examines the impact of the screening of the Ramayana serial on Doordarshan on Indian society in the nineties, and the interface between economic liberalisation, the rise of Hindutva, and the role of the mass media. * Dr Gyan Prakash, Professor of History at Princeton University, and member of the Subaltern Studies Editorial Collective, presented on Indian modernity and the idea of Bombay, part of his ongoing research on imaginary histories of the city. Dr Prakash is the author of Bonded Histories: Genealogies of Labour Servitude in Colonial India (Cambridge University Press, 1990), Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (Princeton University Press, 1999), as well as several articles on colonialism and historiography, and is has edited several volumes on colonial history. These broad concerns have been the impetus for our conversation. We feel that it is through marrying such general discussions to a focussed engagement with the many aspects of urban life, that we can promote quality debate and discussion on urban theory and practice in Mumbai. Almost any issue deemed "urban" has numerous dimensions -- legally, politically, economically, spatially, historically -- and the Mumbai Study Group is meant as a multi-disciplinary forum for discussion and mutual criticism by professionals in their respective fields of urban practice: whether as architects or planners, lawyers or journalists, academics or activists.Through such a conversation, we hope to build an inclusive community of urban citizens, which while grounding itself in the practices of professionals also has a clear critical perspective, situating Mumbai in the theories and practices of urbanism globally. We invite all urban researchers, practitioners and other interested individuals to join us in our fortnightly conversations, and suggest topics for presentation and discussion. For any more information, kindly contact one of the Joint Convenors of the Mumbai Study Group: ARVIND ADARKAR, Architect, Researcher and Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, Phone 2051834, ; DARRYL D'MONTE, Journalist and Writer, 6427088 ; SHEKHAR KRISHNAN, Coordinator-Associate, Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research (PUKAR), 4462728, ; PANKAJ JOSHI, Conservation Architect, Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, and PUKAR Associate, 8230625, . From kshekhar at bol.net.in Tue Aug 7 10:48:32 2001 From: kshekhar at bol.net.in (Mumbai Study Group) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 10:48:32 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Migrant as Scapegoat Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010807/4cf89428/attachment.html From jeebesh at sarai.net Tue Aug 7 15:08:29 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 15:08:29 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: WB Govt ties up with MSFT In-Reply-To: <20010805205013.L5855@r4k.net> References: <000c01c11cf7$2c04daa0$0cc96565@dreammachine> <1143.192.168.0.2.996942864.squirrel@mail.archeanit.com> <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> <20010805141549.K5855@r4k.net> <15213.24910.468767.287405@mail.linux-delhi.org> <20010805205013.L5855@r4k.net> Message-ID: It is important to recognize that the explosion and expansion of computers in India has happened because of thousands of small entrepreneurs and technicians. These people through innovation and `illegal sharing` or `restricted copying` have helped the community of computer users to grow. I think if the `free software users and activists` recognize this and act with respect towards this vast section, make available easy GUI documentation, installations and information then GNU/Linux or other `free` alternatives will flow in streets and lanes. Due to the peculiar spatial concentration of vendors (e.g Nehru Place), information and utilities spread really fast - also people are innovative and are tired of NASSCOM threats! All this talk about 'e-governance' should be taken with a pinch of salt. We have very few rights in terms of accessing information from the State and all this talk about e-governance is a smoke screen to create a new legitimacy for itself. They are not serious about it and OS freedom is the least of the problem! Has anyone in the list gone through computer books and CDs supplied to schools these days? Lots of people are making lots of money and our poor students are struggling to remember by rote paragraphs on the mouse, scanner, printer, hard disk etc., etc.! Actually it would be quite funny if it wasn't so pathetic... Cheers Jeebesh From jskohli at fig.org Tue Aug 7 17:24:41 2001 From: jskohli at fig.org (Jaswinder Singh Kohli) Date: Tue, 07 Aug 2001 17:24:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Illegal Prime no....... Message-ID: <3B6FD701.15A5F6A4@fig.org> This may be the first known illegal prime. What folks often forget is a program (any file actually) is a string of bits (binary digits)--so every program is a number. Some of these are prime. When written in base 16 (hexidecimal), this prime forms a gzip file of the original C-source code (sans tables) that decrypts the DVD Movie encryption scheme (DeCSS). See Gallery of CSS Descramblers (and its Steganography Wing) for more information. It is apparantly illegal to distribute this source code in the United States, so does that make this number ( found by Phil Carmody) also illegal? [Caldwell] 4856507896573978293098418946942861377074420873513579240196520736 6869851340104723744696879743992611751097377770102744752804905883 1384037549709987909653955227011712157025974666993240226834596619 6060348517424977358468518855674570257125474999648219418465571008 4119086259716947970799152004866709975923596061320725973797993618 8606316914473588300245336972781813914797955513399949394882899846 9178361001825978901031601961835034344895687053845208538045842415 6548248893338047475871128339598968522325446084089711197712769412 0795862440547161321005006459820176961771809478113622002723448272 2493232595472346880029277764979061481298404283457201463489685471 6908235473783566197218622496943162271666393905543024156473292485 5248991225739466548627140482117138124388217717602984125524464744 5055834628144883356319027253195904392838737640739168912579240550 1562088978716337599910788708490815909754801928576845198859630532 3823490558092032999603234471140776019847163531161713078576084862 2363702835701049612595681846785965333100770179916146744725492728 3348691600064758591746278121269007351830924153010630289329566584 3662000800476778967984382090797619859493646309380586336721469695 9750279687712057249966669805614533820741203159337703099491527469 1835659376210222006812679827344576093802030447912277498091795593 8387121000588766689258448700470772552497060444652127130404321182 610103591186476662963858495087448497373476861420880529443 A Perl program for extracting the source code from this prime number was written by Jamie McCarthy. Link---> http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/Stego/mccarthy-prime-decoder.txt Site http://www.utm.edu/research/primes/curios/48565...29443.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Regards Jaswinder Singh Kohli jskohli at fig.org :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The Uni(multi)verse is a figment of its own imagination. In truth time is but an illusion of 3D frequency grid programs. From klak at giasbm01.vsnl.net.in Wed Aug 8 09:27:56 2001 From: klak at giasbm01.vsnl.net.in (Khuzaima A. Lakdawala) Date: 08 Aug 2001 09:27:56 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: [FSF India] Re: WB Govt ties up with MSFT In-Reply-To: <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> References: <000c01c11cf7$2c04daa0$0cc96565@dreammachine> <1143.192.168.0.2.996942864.squirrel@mail.archeanit.com> <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> Message-ID: <86y9ovkxtn.fsf@home.this-is-not-a-domain.in> Raju Mathur writes: > Here's a prototype letter which can be sent to any State government > which plans to tie-up with MS for e-governance. I am making it as > general-purpose as possible so that more people are willing to sign > it: this is not a time for family squabbles. I'd appreciate any > additions/enhancements which can be made to this letter. This otherwise well-crafted draft letter is incomplete if it does not mention the most important point about Free Software, namely FREEDOM. After all, it is being written to a democratically elected State Government and the "Right to Freedom" is a fundamental right enshrined in our Constitution; in particular, article 19, Freedom of Speech and Expression. The letter must impress upon the Government how proprietary software takes away our freedom. It must also advise the Government to ask its legal department to go through the notorious MS "End User License Agreement" to see if it is legal for a democratically elected Government to accept such a horrendous agreement on behalf of its people! As for the rest of the points which lucidly explain all the technical and monetary benefits of Free Software, let us not be naive and forget that we are up against a huge corporation which has a well-oiled and highly efficient marketing machine at its disposal. They can effectively come up with a point-by-point rebuttal of all these points which might look very convincing to a non-tech-savvy civil servant. However, when we talk about FREEDOM, they have no answer! Even their Head Honcho, who may be otherwise a very intelligent man, starts blabbering childishly and incoherently (words like "pacman," "un-American" etc come to mind) when confronted with the freedom argument. Without stressing on Freedom, we have very little chance. The first point of the letter should be Freedom. -- Khuzaima A. Lakdawala From joy at sarai.net Wed Aug 8 13:55:15 2001 From: joy at sarai.net (Joy Chatterjee) Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 13:55:15 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd:"Dear Diary" FROM "US ka IT savvy Desi" Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010808135402.009f2d90@mail.sarai.net> January 2000 Love my new job in Silicon Valley. My salary is 30% higher! I have stock options! The temperature outside is 65F in winter! California is the best place on earth!!! I love America!! Sure glad I moved out here. America is Paradise February Still looking for an apartment. Freeways everywhere to take you places. Love California! March Found a 1-bedroom apartment for $1900/mo. California is a bit more expensive than I thought. Life is good in US. April Gas hit $2.29/gal. Somebody stole the gas from my car. That sucks.... May A small earthquake! And this is what everyone was so worried about? Almost didn't feel it. June A wild forest fire and a mud slide near LA. Who cares, that is far away from me! July A big earthquake... Spent 4 hours in my bathtub. Boy, that was scary. Glad we didn't have no stinking earthquakes where I grew up. August Drought! They turn on the water once a day. This sucks big time! Somebody stole the water from my car's radiator. Why did I come to California? September Decided to buy a house. Found a 2-bedroom fixer-upper for $800K. Borrowed against my stock options for down payment. Freeway traffic is worse. Today it took nearly two hours to get to and from work...each way. October My startup fired 90% of the work force, including me. The stock lost 98% of its value. My options are underwater. November Had to sell my house. Couldn't make the payments. Found a studio apartment for $2300/mo. The traffic is unbearable December Problems with electricity. They turn the electricity off several times a day. It's called "rolling blackouts." Somebody stole my car battery...what do I do now? January 2001 I'm typing this, stuck in an elevator, in complete darkness. The battery of my laptop is dying. Silicon Valley is no more. Angry hordes of former dot-commers are looting in the dark. It was fun while it lasted. February Trying hard to get H1B Sponsorer. No body is ready to sponsor me. Everybody says they will sponsor me once if I get project. Interviews are happening but no result, or no budget or Project is on hold. March No money to pay rent, car loan and cell phone bills, managed to pay bills with creditcards. Took some cash advance from creditcard companies and bought ticket to India. Taking new credit cards as lot of promotions and every credit card company wants to give me credit card. So why not take it. April Did lot of shopping with credit cards, the day of my returning to home has come, I went to airport and called Car Finance Co (DCU) to repossess their car which is parked in airport as I cannot pay loan any more. I put the phone down before they were about to tell something. Sat down in the flight and what a relief. May Back in Hyderabad, Sent resume with US in Bold letters and went job hunting. Couple of companies who advertised for jobs has clearly written in Bold letters "Applicants with US Experience will NOT be considered for this position" June No job. Getting frustrated. Today morning I woke up and my mind is very fresh. I have decided to do what my father asked to do 6 Years back i.e to take care of them and take care of the buffaloes in my village !! I can be reached at: 73, Santosh Towers, Lokhandwala, Andheri (W), Bombay-53 98202 29317 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010808/24d715ec/attachment.html From joy at sarai.net Wed Aug 8 16:13:23 2001 From: joy at sarai.net (Joy Chatterjee) Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 16:13:23 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: [FSF India] Re: WB Govt ties up with MSFT In-Reply-To: <86y9ovkxtn.fsf@home.this-is-not-a-domain.in> References: <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> <000c01c11cf7$2c04daa0$0cc96565@dreammachine> <1143.192.168.0.2.996942864.squirrel@mail.archeanit.com> <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010808141539.009fdd20@mail.sarai.net> >This otherwise well-crafted draft letter is incomplete if it does not >mention the most important point about Free Software, namely >FREEDOM. After all, it is being written to a democratically elected >State Government and the "Right to Freedom" is a fundamental right >enshrined in our Constitution; in particular, article 19, Freedom of >Speech and Expression. Few examples of freedom: Freedom of expression Attack on media Author: Barun Sengupta, Publication: BJP Today Date: September 16-30, 2000 Venting anger against the scribes - more often than not, in the most violent and abusive ways- is nothing new in this country. West Bengal is no exception in this regard and inspite of taking pride for an above-average political maturity, it has a long record of misconduct with the media. In my early days as a journalist, I experienced one such worst incident. At that time, CPM was deadly opposed to Anandabazar Patrika. The party chieftains were calling for a mass boycott of Patrika and at different places, the selling of the newspaper was forcefully being restricted. The final eruption occurred in Jadavpur on an early morning, when the delivery van of Anandabazar Patrika was attacked and set to fire by the CPM activists. Among the several staffs locked inside the ill-fated van, one succumbed to death. The whole state was shell-shocked at the viciousness of the attack. Even staunch supporters of CPM had to hide their faces at that incident. In 1953, it was the police who did it all against the journalists. In an attack on the agitators protesting against the hike in tram fares, even the journalists were not spared. 18 newsmen got injured, two of them serious and six others were roughed up in police headquarters. The then minister-in-charge of the police department, himself had to rush to the Lalbazar police headquarters and apologise to the journalists. Arrangements were made for the treatment of the injured ones. Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, the then Chief Minister, personally spoke to the management of the Patrika and Yugantar and tendered his apology. A retired judge of Calcutta High Court S.K.Ghosh was appointed to inquire into the incident. The entire journalist community in Calcutta raised its voice against the police brutality. Even the employees of the daily "Janasevak", the mouth-piece of Congress in West Bengal, whose editor was none else than Atulya Ghosh, participated in the rally. In 1969 I was working in Anandabazar Patrika, when our office came under a severe attack by the red-eyed marxists. It was during the United Front regime and Ajoy Mukherjee was the CM. Subodh Banerjee, whose SUCI was a member of the government, came to our office and condemned such violence. Noted CPI leader Somnath Lahiri strongly criticised this attack in a U F rally, which was also attended by Harekrishna Konar and Jyoti Basu. What an irony! The upsurge of the Naxalite movement in Bengal further added to the plight of journalists. Rakhal Naha, the Howrah correspondent of Anandabazar Patrika, was brutally murdered by the bloodthirsty ultra lefts. However, I had always had an opinion, that, the Naxalites never wanted to target the entire journalist community. Otherwise, I would never have been spared, inspite of writing against them for so many times. However in my entire life as a journalist, one incident will always stand as a nightmare. Jyoti Basu was the deputy chief minister at that time One day we got a tip that Jyoti Basu would be having a private meeting with the noted industrialist B. M. Birla. But we knew neither the time nor the venue. So the moment his car came out of the Assembly, we decided to follow him. However, after a certain point, his car managed to shake us off. Next morning an angry Jyoti Basu lambasted the reporters and said that he could have easily asked the local hoodlums to teach the journalists who had followed him a lesson. Even a left- minded scribe like Bhawani Chowdhary of the Statesman, was dumb-struck by the audacity of Jyoti Basu. The first major confrontation between the journalists and the administration after the left front came into power happened in 1981. Police had just mounted a major operation against the refugees from East Bengal, who were trying to settle down in Marichjhanpi, near Calcutta. While returning from there after covering the event, journalists were arrested. The state government justified this arrest by saying that Marichjhanpi being situated in the reserve forest area, these journalists had entered a prohibited area without proper permission. Even in 1990, the press had to suffer the wrath of the ruling marxists, while covering the Calcutta civic polls. The reports and photographs of open movements of arms and massive rigging during the election, were the reasons of such an anger. On 7 January 1993, Ms Mamta Banerjee was virtually grabbed and thrown out of Writers Building, when she went to meet the CM along wit h a deaf and dumb girl who had been tortured. Several reporters were there and were beaten up. The very night the press corner of Writers Building was demolished. The most organised and venomous attack on newspapers was during the emergency and there was a regular effort to disrupt publication and circulation of newspapers. Indira Gandhi and her henchmen left no stone unturned to make the lives of newspersons miserable. In West Bengal , it was the tenure of Sidharth Shankar Ray, a man who could stand no criticism from the media when the emergency was imposed. Many journalists were detained under the MISA act. Anandabazar Patrika had to suffer the most and I too was arrested and taken to Presidency jail from where I was shifted to Alipur jail and was offered immediate release if I would promise to write in favour of the Congress government. On my refusal they shifted me to Purulia jail and then to Bankura jail. Currently the CPM is facing a decline in its mass base which is visible in the recent electoral results. Today, television has exposed the booth-jamming, false-voting and many other electoral malpractices which confirm what the print media has been writing for the last few decades. The fear of getting exposed in front of a television camera has created a genuine panic among the party and the outcome is attack on TV crews and the expected silence of the police. During the Congress regime, CPM leaders were always vocal against any attack on the journalists which is missing now. Rather some politicians are fueling the outrage. In the days to come, the anti-left wave is going to gather momentum in West Bengal. Hence, the media will be taking a much stronger tone of criticism against the left government. But, that will definitely expose it to a more violent and turbulent treatment in the days to come. (Barun Sengupta, the founder and the editor of Bartaman, the virbrant Bengali daily) Freedom of living Mamata attacks state-police conspiracy By A Staff Reporter http://www.netguruindia.com/news/apr01/30/cal4.html April 29: Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee has alleged that the police are not allowing thousands of homeless supporters of her party to return to their homes in Midnapur district, sources said today. "Apart from threatening thousands of our supporters against returning to their homes, the police are also working against our election campaigns at Garbeta East, Keshpur, Pingla, Sabang and Pataspur constituencies," Banerjee alleged at an election campaign in Midnapur on Saturday. "After out candidates came out in flying colours in the last Lok Sabha elections, CPI (M)'s 'gunmen' in coordination with the police drove our supporters out of their homes in Midnapur by means of largescale violence and terror. The state government and the police minister are the masterminds of those attacks on Trinamool supporters," Banerjee said. Chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee is also the state police minister. Strongly urging her 'mothers and sisters' not to vote in favour of the 'terrorist' CPI (M), the TC supremo said, "They are trying to kill me. But I am whirling around the state without caring a damn about that. Fear will reach us nowhere. Without being killed 365 days, give the CPI (M) a befitting reply to its terror on 10 May (the day the state will go to the Assembly polls). If you cast your vote in favour of any party, that will mean you are casting it in favour of the CPI (M). for God's sake, don't commit that mistake." ---------- Note: On the 1st August 2001 (much after the election) Ananda Bazar Patrika (Bengali Newspaper) carries a news that the Chief Minister of West Bengal has promised to help Trinamul Congress supporters to go back to their villages. This actually confirms Mamata Banerjee's allegation. Freedom of teaching MONKS DEFY DIKTAT ON TEACHERS BY MITA MUKHERJEE Calcutta, Aug. 7: The telegraph The government move to teach the Ramakrishna Mission schools a lesson or two about recruiting teachers has set the stage for another showdown. Three years ago, the government had stopped providing financial assistance to two Mission-run primary schools in Calcutta after the monks had refused to discontinue the teaching of English or allow the government the right to appoint heads of such schools. This time, the education department has directed the Mission authorities to “fill vacant teaching posts with candidates recommended by the school service commission”. The monks have opposed the fiat, labelling it a government move to pack their schools with “Left Front faithfuls”. In a demonstration of defiance, the Mission authorities have conveyed to the government their decision to fill vacant teaching posts in their Baranagar school with candidates from the employment exchange. “We have just been made aware of the government’s decision, which is not in tune with the system we have been following for years. We have asked our superiors at Belur Math to take it up with the government. This decision calls for wider discussions among the heads of institutions,” said Swami Sanatanananda Maharaj, secretary of Baranagar Ramakrishna Mission, on Tuesday. “It is not possible for us to allow the Ramakrishna Mission schools to recruit teachers through the employment exchange. Like all other schools, they will have to go to the commission. They cannot claim to be the sole beneficiary of a special system,” retorted school education minister Kanti Biswas. The education department “underwrites” the cost of salaries of teachers of all Mission schools, along with those of their counterparts in other institutions. Also, the Act governing the school service commission precludes any institution availing of government funds for meeting the teachers’ wage bill from following an “exclusive system” of recruitment. “The Act was formulated by our law-makers. There is no such provision in the Act by which we can allow the Mission schools to enjoy this benefit,” added Biswas. “Only schools in the defined category of minority institutions can follow an exclusive teachers’ recruitment system. But the Mission schools have ceased to be in that category following a Supreme Court directive.” The monks are “completely against” the government move, as they believe teachers recruited through the school service commission, who are “often just graduates”, will make it difficult for them to “maintain high academic standards” in the long run. The state school service commission was set up in 1999 to recruit teachers for state-funded schools. The Mission-run institutions have, however, continued to recruit teachers through employment exchanges. Education department officials have confirmed that the option of stopping assistance, in terms of teachers’ salaries at Mission schools, is being looked at. “We have written to the RKM authorities regarding this,” an official said. Freedom of health A GENERATION LOST TO LEAD FROM FUEL FUMES BY KUNAL SENGUPTA Calcutta, Aug. 7: The telegraph Calcutta’s children, especially those studying in schools located on busy streets, are suffering from “very high lead content in their blood”. The contamination is being squarely blamed on the leaded petrol used by automobiles. A study, concluded in March 2001, has chronicled a toxic profile of the blood collected from 310 city children. The findings of the survey, sponsored by the state environment department and conducted by the Regional Occupational Health Centre, are alarming. The World Health Organisation (WHO) safe range of blood spans from 0.5µg/dL (micrograms per decilitre) to 1.0 µg/dL. In Calcutta, a significant percentage of the sampled children had blood-lead levels up to 15 µg/dL and more. Research indicates that blood-lead levels of 10 µg/dL in children result in “lowered intelligence, reading and learning disabilities, impaired hearing, reduced attention span and hyperactivity”. It can also cause anaemia and affect the nervous, endocrine, renal and reproductive systems, besides causing cause respiratory problems, especially in winter. The aim of the survey was to target children studying in schools located near “busy traffic intersections” in the city. The authorities of eight city schools — three each in central and north Calcutta and two in south Calcutta — and three in Howrah agreed to let the researchers collect blood samples. In Calcutta, 310 blood samples taken from children aged between 10 to 12 years. In the three rural schools of Howrah, 161 samples were collected and the blood lead level average was pegged at 6.6 µg/dL. The blood samples were sent to the National Institute of Occupational Health in Ahmedabad, which is the WHO reference laboratory for lead monitoring. The alarming results were made available recently. Even though the switchover to unleaded fuel was officially made in January 2000, the damage has already been done. Experts feel that more than 90 per cent of the lead-contamination of blood came from petrol before the makeover. The state environment department plans to run a similar survey a few years later to gauge the impact of the makeover to lead-free petrol. In the United States, the switch to lead-free petrol was completed by 1995. Consequently, average blood-lead levels in children dropped from 16.5 µg/dL between 1976 and 1980 to 3.6 µg/dL between 1992 and 1994. The United States, as a whole, saw a decline of 78 per cent. Blood lead continued to remain in America’s children as contamination comes from deteriorated lead paint and through drinking water contaminated by pipes and fixtures containing lead. In India, however, lime-based, rather than lead-based, paint is more commonly used. Also, drinking water pipes are made mostly of iron and polymers nowadays. So, leaded petrol is where the problem lies. Freedom of privacy CAMERAS PLAY MONITOR IN CLASSROOMS BY MADHUMITA BHATTACHARYYA Calcutta, Aug. 7: The telegraph He knows when you are sleeping He knows when you’re awake He knows when you’ve been bad or good So be good, for goodness sake! Not Santa Claus, this time. City schools are adopting the Big Brother approach to “improve academic services and security”. Salt Lake’s St Francis Xavier’s School and North Point Senior Secondary Boarding School in Teghoria have installed sophisticated surveillance camera networks on campus. St Francis Xavier’s, a co-educational school, has opted to instal a close-circuit television system to “improve the school’s results”. Twenty-three cameras, with an audio set-up for public address, have been installed by Vijay Eleks Corporation on an “experimental basis” in classrooms, corridors, playground and even the staff room. “We want to keep a closer watch on students. This way, we can see which children are inattentive or if classes are being disrupted.” It provides the added function of “ensuring syllabi are completed and taught in the correct fashion,” says principal Sheela Chopra. “Last year’s ICSE results were very disappointing, with a failure rate of around 24 per cent. This surveillance system should help us improve,” school administrator G. C. Bahuguna adds. The camera in the staff room is being removed, following “objections” from some faculty members. But the kids seem least bothered about being watched. “If this improves results, we are happy,” smiles Class X student Abhilasha. “It has reduced the amount of cheating during tests, too,” chips in Vinay. While students have become “more cautious” in the classroom, they “ignore” the bubble-lens when on the playground. North Point has fitted eight cameras in the main school building and three in the hostel. The network is monitored from the office of founder-secretary Meena Sethi Mondal. “It helps to control the school, with 1,200 students from Lower Nursery to Class XII, in a more disciplined manner,” she feels. “The reaction has been very positive... When we have such technology at our disposal, why not use it?” -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010808/e6276427/attachment.html From jskohli at fig.org Wed Aug 8 17:45:39 2001 From: jskohli at fig.org (Jaswinder Singh Kohli) Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2001 17:45:39 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] NETBSD and Dolby labs Message-ID: <3B712D6B.8656CC84@fig.org> Mycroft writes: "There's a new entrant into the open source DVD legal battle: Dolby Laboratories. The NetBSD Project received this letter demanding that links to the open source ac3dec package be removed. What's next?" Probably what's next are yet more letters sent to every other project which enables decoding of content on platforms unsupported by the format licensors. Remember, you don't buy anything anymore -- you license it. ( Read More... | 288 of 443 comments | BSD ) Yesterday on Slashdot -- Regards Jaswinder Singh Kohli jskohli at fig.org :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The Uni(multi)verse is a figment of its own imagination. In truth time is but an illusion of 3D frequency grid programs. From geeta.patel at verizon.net Wed Aug 8 23:36:05 2001 From: geeta.patel at verizon.net (Geeta Patel) Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2001 14:06:05 -0400 Subject: [Reader-list] hi Message-ID: <004501c12034$cba71ec0$6401a8c0@inteva> I would like to subscribe. Thanks! Geeta Patel Associate Professor of Women's Studies Wellesley College Wellesley MA 02481 781 283 3335 508 753 8615 (fax) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010808/91a298da/attachment.html From mw35 at nyu.edu Thu Aug 9 16:01:03 2001 From: mw35 at nyu.edu (McKenzie Wark) Date: Thu, 09 Aug 2001 15:31:03 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] A Hacker Manifesto Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20010809153103.007c4dd0@mail.sarai.net> Dear friends, colleagues, comrades... I'm writing to invite your thoughts and comments on a new text I am working on, called A HACKER MANIFESTO. The text is at: http://www.feelergauge.net/projects/hackermanifesto/version_2.0/ There is a guestbook for comments, (click the 'discussion' button) and I would greatly value your thoughts on this still-tentative attempt at 'thinking through the present'. We all saw it on TV, and in the papers and on our favourite web sites. Hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets, again and again, in a wave of resistance to that highly emotive, if not always terribly clear adversary, 'globalisation'. The Genoa demonstrations against the G8 in particular prompted me to sit down and try to clarify my rather mixed feeling about the anti-globalisation movement. After the Genoa police shot Carlo Giuliani in the face, it seemed especially urgent to me to respond to this violence by trying to advance some concepts with which to grasp what is going on all around us. I leave it to others of more robust constitution and far more brave than I to decide what is to be done on the streets. It is at the conceptual level that it seems to me that there are difficulties to which I could better apply myself. And those conceptual difficulties are formidable. It is not at all clear to me that anyone has yet worked out a consistently progressive concept of a politics that might emerge out of the antiglobalisation movement. This movement clearly contains both progressive and regressive elements, but might also contain the seeds of a politics that escapes some of the old antinomies, as I argue in A HACKER MANIFESTO. I look forward to your thoughts on it. http://www.feelergauge.net/projects/hackermanifesto/version_2.0/ McKenzie Wark From jeebesh at sarai.net Thu Aug 9 15:45:55 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 15:45:55 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] first statement from the imprisoned theatre activists Message-ID: Fallout Genoa : Prison Dairy. please spread it around. cheers, jeebesh *** http://www.noborder.org/noprison info at noborder.org this is a text written in the jail in alessandria. its autorized from all the imprisoned aktivists of the PublixTheatreCarwan in the jails of alessandria and voghera .... please spreed out widley - put it on websites and mailinglists thank you florian schneider NoBorder - NoNation - NoPrison http://www.no-racism.net/nobordertour Cultural stiff 01 29/07/2001 "freedom of movement" is the main concern of the european NOborder-network and the Publixtheatrecaravan - Volxtheaterkarawane which is embedded in the network in the summer of 2001. We are on tour from Nickelsdorf over Salzburg, Lendava (Slo), Eisenkappel (A), Genova (I) to Frankfurt/Main (D), where we never arrived because of our arrests after the G8-summit in Genua. Tourdiary: http://www.no-racism.net/nobordertour So far we felt like air castles builder, cyberartists, jugglers and scrutinizing nomads. As a theatregroup we feel obliged to the tradition of improvisation and we dont let put ourselves in costumes which try to knit makeup out of woolen hats. About our arrestment:  3 hours in front of shtoguns and MG4's pointing on us - finger on the trigger  records about us were made by the italian police - hittings, kickings and humiliations  no sleep (under threats) Later (after 30 hours) in prison: - no telephone calls - until now nearly no contact to lawyers - bad interpreters (during the time while they proved the reasons for our arrestments) - no access to media - for six days nothing to write - nektor, z nas nemali ziaden kontakt s konzulatum - nothing to read or juggle Although we have been split - without reason - from the arrested women, from the outside world and therefore from information we try to take a stand with following demands: - Our protest and our political claim - no matter which time and which place - will carry our specific cultural expression which we will develope - we demand to stop the classification of people in "wanted" and "unwanted" and the stop of the restriction of the freedom of the movement like f.e. the duty of residence for people seeking for asylum or the producing of lists about political unwelcomed people. - we demand the stop of all proceedings concerning the G8-protests and the freedom for all prisoners who were arrested because of G8-protests and the solving of the happenings in Genua in particular the death of Carlos Giuliani and the storming of "Scuola Diaz" - we want to leave the prisons together with our dog Pogo, with our theatre props, our kitchen, our vehicles, computer, cameras and our stinkin' socks. We are not swedes, australians, americans, slovacians, germans, austrians - we are Publixtheatrecaravan We work out a play in which we take a stand to everything that happened during our tour. For us theatre is an important political expression. This play should help to clear and digest all the happenings we are confrontated with now. Working title: Genova Premiere: uncertain PS: Greetings to the bordercamp at the airport in Frankfurt/Main and to all people outside there who declared their solidarity! Abolition of internment and deportation - worldwide NOborder - NOnation - NOone is illegal The Imprisoneds of the PublixTheatreCarawan Ö in the jail of Alessandria From monica at sarai.net Thu Aug 9 15:29:35 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 15:29:35 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] New Book on Multi-media Message-ID: For further details email Ken Jordan --list admin. MULTIMEDIA: FROM WAGNER TO VIRTUAL REALITY edited by Randall Packer and Ken Jordan foreword by William Gibson published by W.W. Norton, 400 pp., $27.95 publication date: July 23, 2001 (US), Sept 19 (UK) "This book is one start toward a different sort of history.... I recommend this book to you with an earnestness that I have seldom felt for any collection of historic texts. This is, in large part, where the bodies are buried. Assembled in this way, in such close proximity, these visions give off strange sparks." - from the foreword by William Gibson MULTIMEDIA: FROM WAGNER TO VIRTUAL REALITY presents the untold history behind the interfaces, links, and interactivity we all take for granted today. This groundbreaking work traces a fertile and fascinating series of collaborations between the arts and the sciences, going back to the years just after World War II -- and even further, to composer Richard Wagner, whose ideas about the immersive nature of music theater foreshadowed the experience of virtual reality. Among the essential articles gathered in the book are the Futurists' 1916 manifesto on cinema, which declared that the new medium would unite all media and replace the book; Vannevar Bush's 1945 Atlantic Monthly essay that leads directly to the hyperlinks in today's multimedia; J.C.R. Licklider's groundbreaking idea in 1960 that people and computers could collaborate in creative work; Nam June Paik's 1984 essay proposing that satellite technology would encourage a global information art; Tim Berners-Lee's 1989 proposal for a document-sharing network, which became the basis of the World Wide Web; and William Gibson's discussion of how he came up with the word "cyberspace." With an insightful introduction to the volume and critical commentaries on each article, editors Randall Packer and Ken Jordan lead us through the groundbreaking developments of the multimedia story. The book publication completes a unique hybrid publication project that joins W.W. Norton with Intel Corporation's ArtMuseum.net, to present an untold history of multimedia. The book and the Web site, which was launched in June, 2000, are meant to work in tandem. On-line, MULTIMEDIA: FROM WAGNER TO VIRTUAL REALITY is a dynamic, growing resource featuring hyperlinked texts and a wealth of multimedia documentation. Please visit the site at http://www.artmuseum.net. From monica at sarai.net Thu Aug 9 16:36:22 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 16:36:22 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Tech_2 and its details Message-ID: Some of you might be aware/participating in tech_2, and some of you might want to get there, online or off. Sarai is also sending a couple of people to co-mingle and co-llaborate... Tech_2 Bristol, UK: Independent Infrastructures 18 - 25th August 2001 Tech_2 Bristol is an 8 day gathering of technical and content creating collectives from the UK and around the world creating independent online and offline spaces for independent publishing, community communications, and socially conscious networking. Hosted by Bristol's Cube Cinema despite fire damage at their usual premises, tech_2 spreads itself across various unusual venues and locations across Bristol. They'll be practical workshops and skill sharing sessions, presentations and discussions about initiatives locally and internationally. If you are already involved in setting up and running your own publications, servers or media communication channels, or would like to, then get in touch about getting involved. They'll be day long practical workshops on how to set up networks so that you can share domestic internet connectivity such as ADSL, and your electronic content, with friends and neighbours, and we'll be investigating the possibilities for setting up a block-wide micro-TV station on your housing estate. We'll also be looking at software tools that have been built for particular social contexts, users and situations. The daytime workshops and discussions take place at Windmill Hill City Farm - we're intending to set up a wireless network there so come and work with us among the animals and the plants! The evening events take place upstairs at the Hatchet Pub, which will also be open each night, 21st to 25th for relaxed, lounge style music, visuals and special events from Ambient TV, sulphric [p]lacid, Independent Heroine and more. Participants include people from: Tao (Canada), Octapod, Catalyst Media and Spinach server (Australia), Redbricks (Manchester, UK), i-contact, Planet Easton and Bristle (Bristol, UK), Riseup.net (USA), Protest.net (USA), Sarai Media Lab (India), Redundant Technology Initiative (Sheffield, UK) Irational.org (Distributed) and many others. Stand by for workshops, screenings, wiring experiments and extreme DIY. Ring or check the website for updates on the activity. http://tech2.southspace.org for info email: info at tech2.southspace.org ring: 07946 378905 Tech_2 Days Name: Rubbish to Router Date: Tuesday 21st August 2001 Time: 12:00:00 PM town: Bristol place: Windmill Hill City Farm room: Upstairs room Description: Rubbish 2 Router is a practical workshop on how to build a fully functional local area network with full internet connection from salvaged and scrap components using open source software such as linux and domestic connectivity such as adsl. Bring tools, computer components, reference books and ideas. If you want to, or are already sharing connectivity and/or content with friends and neighbours, then this one is for you. All levels of technical knowledge is welcome! Name: Towerblock TV Date: Wednesday 22nd August 2001 Time: 12:00:00 PM town: Bristol place: RING FOR DETAILS - somewhere near Dove STreet room: tbc Description: Tower blocks are normally thought of as failed modernist housing solutions terminating in isolation, non-communities and social division. Highrise flats, membranes of life and social strata are fed by an array of services: water, power, entertainment. Imanent in the cable tv feed is the action of self-transmission; residents stations where the paranoid glance of the entrance cctv image is replaced by a self-programmed array of home made and user managed audio, video and text information presentations. In this workshop we'll explore how to run a residents micro TV station from your own flat using the existing shared wiring systems. Bring video material, video players, tools, and programming ideas. Name: Finishing off workshops and special presentations Date: Thursday 23rd August 2001 Time: 12:00:00 PM town: Bristol place: Windmill Hill City Farm room: tbc Description: A chance to finish up the workshop tasks, and address any new questions that have come up during the previous days. Plus a walk round the wirelss LAN and a cryptography workshop. Ring for details. Name: Open Content, Open Tools Date: Friday 24th August 2001 Time: 13:00:00 PM town: Bristol place: Windmill Hill City Farm room: Craft Room Description: If you know a task or a community well, you might be the best person to design software to make it run... the day starts with a discussion that takes the Sarai Media Lab "Cybermohalla" project as a starting point. This is a progamme develop a computing culture within non-elite social spaces, including the development of software for specific contexts. Plus other examples including Indymedia's Active code, the Irational toolkit and Mongrel's Linker. Followed by a practical workshop introducing software languages and applications such as PHP, mySQL and PERL that can help you build your own tools. All levels of technical knowledge welcome. Name: Community News Day Date: Saturday 25th August 2001 Time: 12:00:00 PM town: Bristol place: The Hatchet room: Upstairs Lounge Description: An invitation will be made to all the community news providers in Bristol, asking them to come and bring their publications. We'll have some discussions relating to issues such as legal, financing and in particular, to the potential to repurpose content from paper to on-line adn vice versa. ending with (4pm to 5pm) a discussion about a potential community news server for Bristol. Tech_2 nights Offshore Cube: Upstairs at the Hatchet Pub, Bristol (Evening events), and August 21-25 Tuesday August 21st 8PM Tech_2 introductions from arts labs, community media and activist orgs Spinach and Octapod (Australia), Riseup.net and Protest.net (USA), Irational.org [Distributed], Indymedia [UK/USA], Sarai [India], Redbricks (Manchester). media infiltration from Ambient TV - Department for the Unexpected. VJ by Manu, DJ by Mukul [Anokha] Wednesday August 22nd 8PM sulphric [p]lacid Thursday August 23rd 8PM Films from India selected and presented by Monica Narula from Sarai media lab and the RAQS documentary film collective; "In the Eye of the Fish" and "Present Imperfect Future Tense", by RAQS, plus "Satya"(1988) a feature film by Ram Gopal Verma about Bombay and its underworld life. Friday August 24th 8PM Technical Heroine Night from the Cube's Independent Heroine. WIth Jessica Abel of cult Fantagraphics comic ARTBABE interviewed live from her N.Y pad. Plus Amp from Amp minizine and ampnet.co.uk presenting communities and Technics Heroines on the decks (2catz + others). Special feature film starring technical heroines to be announced. Saturday August 25th 8PM Tech_2 Closing Night to shutdown tech_2 in Bristol. Video night with game hacks, automated grafiti writers and mad billboard attacks from Institute for Applied Autonomy, Eddo Stern, I-Contact and others. Tech_2 day workshops will run all week at the Windmill Hill City Farm. Expect plants, animals, wireless networking and socially conscious computing. FULL PROGRAMME AT http://tech2.southspace.org for info email: info at tech2.southspace.org ring: 07946 378905 Look out also for the Tech_2 Leeds programme in September/October 2001. Tech_2 is funded by the Arts Council of England National Touring Programme Organised by Media Art Projects with the Cube. -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From shuddha at sarai.net Thu Aug 9 17:33:59 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 17:33:59 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] WB Government ties up with Microsoft Message-ID: <01080917335902.01711@sweety.sarai.kit> I am writing this in response to the recent postings on the list regarding the issue of petitioning the West Bengal government to consider free software as an alternative to Microsoft. Let us suppose that the honourable minsiters and bureaucrats who run the Government of West Bengal made a deal to run Linux instead of Microsoft, on their 'e governance' projects, would this make a difference to the quality of life of the citizens and subjects of west bengal, and would it make a difference to their 'freedom' . If this be the case, then the people of Mexico and China (whose governments enthusiastically push Linux) would have felt 'freer' than in the era when microsoft products were used in government computers. Reports from Mexcio and from China do not indicate a significant increase in the well being and freedom of the inhabitants of Mexico or China in the 'post Linux' era. Free software happens to run more cheaply and in many cases, more efficiently than propeitary software, which is why it makes sense for state governments to go in for it. But this is not a socially adequate reason , in my opinion, for free software activists to be in bed with state governments. IF they decide to do so, then it must be seen as an expression ofthe (legitmate) self interest of free software programmers, to advance their expertise and their skills to a big client, not in the interests of society at large. These two (the implications of free software for the particular interests of programmers and the general interests of society must be seen as distinct) The philosphical and ethical case for free software rests in its contrariness (not always opposition) to the commercial imperative and to any restrictions on knowledge. In inisisting that code, be something that is not bough, sold or imprisoned, the practitioners of free software suggest the possibility of building new (non commodified) relationships of exchange between ourselves and the products of our labour, as well as a new configuration of the meaning of value. That is a lot, but that is also all there is to it. The state on the other hand, rests on the protection that law gives to some to extort more value from the labour of others. At the heart of each organ of the state is its impilcit recognition that force must maintain the unequal relations of labour and those that benefit from labour. To give an example, if tomorrow, those who run a particular state decide that the free exchange of code is an offence that denies it of revenue and corporation X of profit then there is nothing that any free software activist can do about this. It will carry with it the force of judicial violence and the fiction of the will of the people.This protection has the force of socially legitimized violence (also known as the police, the military and state paramilitaries and the prison system) behind it, and the manifest fiction of representative democracy as a screen in front of it. (thats the deal - the market is the milk from which the cream of revenue can be skimmed by the strong man who controls the thugs with sticks who police the fairground - the strong man and the men with sticks are the state and the fairground is the market. The market men need the state to ensure that they can squeeze, buy and sell labour and its products, and the state needs the market men to get to the cream) Will the adoption of Linux machines for e governance carry with it for instance any checks and balances to ensure that freedom of information is not compromised in the state of west bengal, will it bring with it the power to scrutinize how and in which instances the managements of jute mills in the neighbourhood of calcutta resort to police measures to control a restive workforce? Any thing that makes an oppressive machinery run with greater efficiency must be resisted by anyone interested in enlarging the scope of human freedom. The government of west bengal, like any governement anywhere in the world, rests on the daily humiliation of all its citizens and subjects, anything that contributes to its power should be resisted. Whatever is valuable in free software, IMHO, gets immediately compromised when we offer "free software" as the panacea for bad governance. Governance will be governance, no matter what you do it with. The radio for instance, which has a great democratic cultural potential also was the greatest means of fascist propaganda in the twentieth century. The printing press was as instrumental in spreading lies as it was in telling the truth. It all depends on who has the machine and the code in their hands. One of the key functions of the modern state is the centralization and control of information, the creation of databanks and immense registers that track the lives of citizens and subjects. The history of computing and computing corporations is replete with instances in which the computing power of corporations and the computing necessities of the state led to several marriages of convenience, this hallowed list includes IBMs close relationship to the calcualtion requirements for sustaining a system of prison labour in Nazi germany. I am sure others can give other examples. Information in the hands of the state has almost always been dangerous for the citizens, that is why the most sinister organs of state power are given the task of information processing and intelligence gathering. The relationship between Information Technology and the States apparatus has always been one that led to more prisons, more laws, more censorship and more weapons of mass destruction. The liberatory potential of Information Technology can be realised only when it is not reduced to be the ghost in the machine of the state, or the I would argue that proponents of free software do everything within their means to actively encourage the usage of free software in those contexts that are independent of the state and of market forces. Where such spaces do not exist, or are feeble, they must join hands with others to create and sustain such spaces no matter what the cost. Appealing to the state to run on Linux is the easy option of inviting ones own executioner into ones home. The attempt to petition the state in favour of free software carries with it the pathetic baggage of 'urging the state to act in the interests of its subjects' and suggests that the free software movement in India has a long way to go in understanding the dynamics of state power. The state as an instrument of class power is not and cannot be a democratic insturment, no matter how populist its stated agenda. And frankly, I find the search for , more or less, 'patriotic' software, which is 'more' or 'less' suitable for the security of the state, pathetic, to say the least. It is nothing less than totally myopic to suggest that code should serve as the frontier checkposts of nation states. While I am all in favour of constant compaigning and vigilance to ensure that the few paltry liberties of citizens and others in any state are not encroached upon, I find it intriguing to contemplate the spectacle of the champions of liberty and freedom in the free software movement wanting to participate in the further control over peoples lives through 'e governance'. e governance sucks no matter what you do it with - microsoft or linux ! Yours in Dismay Shuddha From raju at linux-delhi.org Thu Aug 9 18:44:30 2001 From: raju at linux-delhi.org (Raju Mathur) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 18:44:30 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Reader-list] WB Government ties up with Microsoft In-Reply-To: <01080917335902.01711@sweety.sarai.kit> References: <01080917335902.01711@sweety.sarai.kit> Message-ID: <15218.36022.150411.900273@mail.linux-delhi.org> Shuddha, I appreciate your point of view about e-governance. However, please appreciate that since I do not appear to have any choice in the matter -- the e-governance article talked about a fait accompli -- I'd prefer to be misgoverned by the Indian Government through Linux than the US Government through MS. This fight has to be carried out at many levels. I'd be glad to fight by your shoulder when I see some concrete application of the ideas expressed in your message. In the meantime, I continue to do what I believe right, alone if necessary. BTW, if you've been waiting for me to draft a letter smashing e-governance in general, let me know :-) Regards, -- Raju >>>>> "Shuddha" == Shuddhabrata Sengupta writes: Shuddha> I am writing this in response to the recent postings on Shuddha> the list regarding the issue of petitioning the West Shuddha> Bengal government to consider free software as an Shuddha> alternative to Microsoft. Shuddha> Let us suppose that the honourable minsiters and Shuddha> bureaucrats who run the Government of West Bengal made a Shuddha> deal to run Linux instead of Microsoft, on their 'e Shuddha> governance' projects, would this make a difference to the Shuddha> quality of life of the citizens and subjects of west Shuddha> bengal, and would it make a difference to their 'freedom' Shuddha> . Shuddha> [snip] -- Raju Mathur raju at kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ From ravikant at sarai.net Fri Aug 10 03:02:13 2001 From: ravikant at sarai.net (Ravikant) Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2001 21:32:13 -0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: West Bengal-MS tie up Message-ID: <200108092132.XAA13469@mail.intra.waag.org> The postings on the WB-MS tie-up have confirmed my fears about the desperation the FS community feels. The desperation emerges from a sense of rootlessness, for the community does not show the vitality its passion should have revealed and generated. I am with Shuddha's critique of the state, with Joy's frustration about the lack of linux efforts in the language domain, with Jeebesh's appeal to refresh the roots and Steef's futuristic optimism with regard to MS collapsing under its own weight. And Raju's gesture makes me sad. Here is why: While pointing fingers at others' amnesia and refusal to learn from history, we must recall our own. Knowledge and Power have been inextricably linked, colonialism should have taught us. Look at what happened to the communities that relied too much on the state. Sanskrit was never a people's tongue, nor was Persian. So, perehaps language can be seen as inhabiting a community and Hindi language is another case in point. The real estrangement of the language from the people did not come in the pre-independence period, though the effort was made even then to gain access to the royal corridors. Hindi becomes laughable only when it becomes the Rajbhasha (literally, the language of the state). It looses characters like Malaviya who constructed a whole university out of begging from the community. It looses its sense of purpose, the will to freedom, and the sense of diversity and dignity. It becomes dependent on the grants from the state in the guise of various Academies and Rajbhasha Vibhags (depts). It creates a vocabulary nobody uses, a canon everybody abhors, and a university pedagogy that has no more value than a pastime. The reason why it survives is that there is a community of users outside the narrow and wooden prisonhouse called nation-state. In the films, for example. Or, in the numerous local, short-lived yet always proliferating, world of small magazines (even after the big corporates like TOI and HT withdrew their publications). With the net and the web it has found a new energy, has witnessed an explosion of diverse creativity: the popular is writing the code, as it were, with passionate discussions and a self- consciously inclusivist mode of refashioning against the English-dominated odds of the computer world. It could be true of other Indian languages. The point is that the cyber-moment does provide an opportunity to disentangle technology from the close historical association it has had with the state, so much so that the two have been synonymous in popular memory. It was, and still is, in the Free Software philosophy and history to rehabilitate technology amongst the people, where it began its journey: remember the early artefacts of the pre-state days? Or the origins of domestication of plants and animals? When the state came and started owning technology, it created machines of mass destruction. Needless to say,it also destroyed Freedom. -- Ravikant Sarai, CSDS 29, Rajpur Road, Delhi From prakash at gnu.org Mon Aug 6 12:48:58 2001 From: prakash at gnu.org (Prakash Advani) Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 12:48:58 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: [LIG] Re: WB Govt ties up with MSFT In-Reply-To: <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> References: <000c01c11cf7$2c04daa0$0cc96565@dreammachine> <1143.192.168.0.2.996942864.squirrel@mail.archeanit.com> <15212.60807.40311.662078@mail.linux-delhi.org> Message-ID: <01080612485801.00795@krishna> Dear Raju, This is execellent if everyone can send out this document to their respective state goverments. I hope modifications to the documents are allowed and encouraged GPL ? ;-) I would also recommend you add something about localisation issues. In case of Proprietory operating systems localisation is decided by the company only if they see $$$$ coming in not in the interest of the people. Where as in case of GNU/Linux anyone can add the Indian Language layer depending on the needs. In fact all the localisation efforts so far have been started with Goverments funds (CDAC/NCST). By putting their efforts GNU/Linux they funds would be better utilised. Regards Prakash On Sunday 05 August 2001 12:23, Raju Mathur wrote: > Here's a prototype letter which can be sent to any State government > which plans to tie-up with MS for e-governance. I am making it as > general-purpose as possible so that more people are willing to sign > it: this is not a time for family squabbles. I'd appreciate any > additions/enhancements which can be made to this letter. URL's > highlighting the points discussed would also be a great idea. Not > being an activist, I cannot suggest the proper methods for getting > this letter signed and circulated to the right authorities. > _______________________________________________ Linux-india-general mailing list Linux-india-general at lists.sourceforge.net http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/linux-india-general From joychatterjee at yahoo.com Sat Aug 11 00:29:11 2001 From: joychatterjee at yahoo.com (Mrityunjoy Chatterjee) Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 11:59:11 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] freesoftware v/s freedom Message-ID: <20010810185911.90170.qmail@web13903.mail.yahoo.com> I find the argument of American state and American company very funny. This patriotic pretension can act as boomerang to FSF as it is also a US based organization and Mr. R(s.)ichard $tallman is also an American. Rather some one can say this American organization is conspiring to destroy Indian IT industry and its market, which free software is actually capable of. So FSF people should be careful if they try to use patriotism as marketing strategy. If we see the present IT condition of India and the position of its labour force one can easily find that there are many more jobless Visual Basic programmes and NT network experts than Linux programmers and Apache experts. And for this reason Linux programmers are earning much more than average VB programmers. So if Linux programmers try to pose themselves as underdogs they are lying. So it can easily be said that future of millions of VB programmers and NT experts will be doomed if Linux becomes prime platform. Thus FSF people are actually depriving Indian computer workforce. Thousands of rupees are spent by young students to learn VB or NT and I wonder if any company teaches �free software� at free of cost organization (this can be a illustrious alternative which Mr. Raju Mathur should start now), so that those who already have spent loads of money need not to spend again. Thus by propagating Linux they are betraying the people of India. As already there is dearth of job in IT market, so only thing that Linux can do is replacing existing VB programmers with Linux programmers. It means it will only construct a community against an existing worker community in the IT market. It means it will increase social violence because lot of people will loose their job. How one can do such an immoral act?? As some one can say my arguments are faulty, similarly argument of U$ govt. and U$ company is equally faulty. West Bengal government is not directly dealing with Microsoft. It is dealing through WEBEL, NIIT and IBM. What FSF think about these companies, and other Indian companies which are working for Microsoft or partner of Microsoft? FSF should contest with them on patriotic issue rather than programming concepts. By the way, what about Intel, Red Hat, Corel Linux and other non-Indian commercialized �free software� and hardware? What will happen with them, will FSF keep them or throw them away? As far as alternative is concerned I have already mentioned one. Just by writing a �free software� and communicating with programmers in mailing lists does not mean formation of community it actually ends up as formation of caste or class. Community also exists outside the professional horde. If intended there many things which are need to be done other than e-governance. Actually there are not education institution for learning Linux. Theoretical and practical education is very much needed. Workshops and training sessions are required. Softwares in Indian language, books on Linux in Indian languages are badly required. Funds can be raised for all these things from private institutions, NGOs, and even state. Main thing is intension. If some one is intended to do non-authoritative work s/he can easily find one. There are many people who choose to do basic community oriented work leaving back their status and career. Actually every thing depends upon person's intension and priority. Otherwise Mr. Raju Mathur also admits that e-governance should be smashed. J __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/ From prabhatmuhurta at yahoo.co.in Sat Aug 11 09:13:29 2001 From: prabhatmuhurta at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Prabhat=20Kumar?=) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 04:43:29 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] F$F v/s free software Message-ID: <20010811034329.57842.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> In support of Chatterjee’s mail I would like to add few more words. NIIT and WEBEL are not only doing e-governance but also setting up community based low cost education and training centers and information kiosks. On the contrary due to lack of £inux education and training programmes, actually the knowledge is controlled by very few programmers. They enjoy certain monopoly in the field of £inux programming. Open source acts as very good cover up as most of the people are not able to write programmes. Thus control automatically remains in the hand of organization like F$F. If one observes closely, F$F works against freedom. It has no programme of expansion of knowledge base. It entirely works with the pretension of “free” as free market, where every person is free to use free software provided that person has his own ability to use free software. Programmes are shared but not the know-how. It is like giving away the house without the key. The key of knowledge is in control of very few. More over, documentation and programmes are available on net, and in India luxury of downloading documentation and programme is only available to very few corporate giants. Most of the company stuffs work on dial up connection, which is used only under the control of manager and company requirement. Staffs hardly get opportunity to use internet for their own purpose. In most of the cases they are not even allowed to see their personal e-mails. Lets not talk about those people who have no internet connection. For them thinking of £inux is day dream. Unfortunately, in India freedom in free software is more than fallacy. Though F$F is new but £inux is used in India for a long period of time. But there is not a single effort seen by the £inux sects, though almost every city has a £inux User Group, to share the knowledge in the society. Building the community based on sharing as the philosophy of free software claims is only thing, which is not seen in their activity. In India £inux User Groups are seem to be only interested in monopoly, corporate marketing/servicing and e-governance, basically making big money by the holy name of freedom! Prabhat ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send a newsletter, share photos & files, conduct polls, organize chat events. Visit http://in.groups.yahoo.com. From raju at linux-delhi.org Sat Aug 11 11:00:47 2001 From: raju at linux-delhi.org (Raju Mathur) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 11:00:47 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Reader-list] F$F v/s free software In-Reply-To: <20010811034329.57842.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> References: <20010811034329.57842.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <15220.49927.972989.64786@mail.linux-delhi.org> Hi Prabhat, Fascinating thoughts! My comments under... >>>>> "Prabhat" == Prabhat Kumar writes: Prabhat> In support of Chatterjee’s mail I would like to add few Prabhat> more words. NIIT and WEBEL are not only doing Prabhat> e-governance but also setting up community based low cost Prabhat> education and training centers and information kiosks. Umm, so the fact that NIIT and WEBEL are helping the community exonerates MS from all its sins? That's a new way of looking of things... lateral, at the very least. Prabhat> On the contrary due to lack of £inux education and Prabhat> training programmes, actually the knowledge is controlled Prabhat> by very few programmers. They enjoy certain monopoly in Prabhat> the field of £inux programming. Open source acts as very Prabhat> good cover up as most of the people are not able to write Prabhat> programmes. Thus control automatically remains in the Prabhat> hand of organization like F$F. I fail to see your point here. Are you saying that Open Source (or Free Software) are actually closed because not enough people have the skill to write programs? By your logic, Pfizer should be damned tomorrow if it opens up the process of making an anti-AIDS drug since 99.999999% of the people in the world have no way of manufacturing drugs. Any author who makes his/her works public is damned because most of the people in our country are illiterate. This /mailing list/ is damned because it's an elitist tool available to only a small fraction of a percent of people in our country. If you're so concerned about this putative community that you keep referring to in your message why aren't you spending your time working for their upliftment instead of playing intellectual games using elitist media? How is this going to help them? Prabhat> If one observes closely, F$F works against freedom. It Prabhat> has no programme of expansion of knowledge base. It Prabhat> entirely works with the pretension of “free” as free Prabhat> market, where every person is free to use free software Prabhat> provided that person has his own ability to use free Prabhat> software. Programmes are shared but not the know-how. It Prabhat> is like giving away the house without the key. The key of Prabhat> knowledge is in control of very few. More over, Prabhat> documentation and programmes are available on net, and in Prabhat> India luxury of downloading documentation and programme Prabhat> is only available to very few corporate giants. Most of Prabhat> the company stuffs work on dial up connection, which is Prabhat> used only under the control of manager and company Prabhat> requirement. Staffs hardly get opportunity to use Prabhat> internet for their own purpose. In most of the cases they Prabhat> are not even allowed to see their personal e-mails. Lets Prabhat> not talk about those people who have no internet Prabhat> connection. For them thinking of £inux is day dream. The Free Software movement has many goals. Making Free Software is one of them. Disseminating it another. Documenting it is a third. What I read from your message is that since the Free Software movement has not setup community training centers for free to make information about Free Software available to the masses it has no right to exist or to have any say in any matter of importance. I find that more a failure of corporates who're in bed with MS than of Free Software itself. If you'd looked around a little bit before you wrote your message you'd have found oodles of information about FSF software, including information on how to extend it, how to modify it, how to strip it down to work in minimal environments; that you consider these aspects of control indicates... never mind :-) You may also like to pick up a copy of recent magazines which give Linux CD's for free along with the magazine. Come to a Linux-Delhi meeting where you can pick up copied Linux on CD for Rs 20 (the cost of a blank) or for nothing if you know how to turn out your empty pockets. Install Linux on a 100 computers from a single CD. Make as many copies of the CD as you want for just the cost of copying and distribute them to to the ``community'' and all those deprived office staff who never get to see the Internet. Prabhat> Unfortunately, in India freedom in free software is more Prabhat> than fallacy. Though F$F is new but £inux is used in Prabhat> India for a long period of time. But there is not a Prabhat> single effort seen by the £inux sects, though almost Prabhat> every city has a £inux User Group, to share the knowledge Prabhat> in the society. Building the community based on sharing Prabhat> as the philosophy of free software claims is only thing, Prabhat> which is not seen in their activity. Prabhat> In India £inux User Groups are seem to be only interested Prabhat> in monopoly, corporate marketing/servicing and Prabhat> e-governance, basically making big money by the holy name Prabhat> of freedom! Ah, I presume that you're an active member of many User Groups and Linux/GNU-related mailing lists in India to be in a position to make such a definitive statement. You are, aren't you? The fight for freedom has to be fought at many levels. I have no issues with your approach; don't damn my method just because it's different or doesn't fit into whatever -ism is the flavour of the month today. Closed minds are the biggest hurdle to individual freedom, and I grieve to see that those whom I considered my peers suffer from the same malaise that has kept this country from achieving anything except grandiose words and ideals in the past 5 1/2 decades. Anyway, let's all talk a bit more about this, since talking's just about the most productive activity that we seem to be capable of. Regards, -- Raju Prabhat> Prabhat -- Raju Mathur raju at kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ From joy at sarai.net Sat Aug 11 12:28:57 2001 From: joy at sarai.net (Joy Chatterjee) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 12:28:57 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] F$F v/s free software In-Reply-To: <15220.49927.972989.64786@mail.linux-delhi.org> References: <20010811034329.57842.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> <20010811034329.57842.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010811120226.00a06040@mail.sarai.net> >Umm, so the fact that NIIT and WEBEL are helping the community >exonerates MS from all its sins? That's a new way of looking of >things... lateral, at the very least. I think Prabhat is talking in the context of my mail so let me say that SFS-India is also sponsoring RMS. So who is sinner lets not get in to it. >I fail to see your point here. Are you saying that Open Source (or >Free Software) are actually closed because not enough people have the >skill to write programs? By your logic, Pfizer should be damned >tomorrow if it opens up the process of making an anti-AIDS drug since >99.999999% of the people in the world have no way of manufacturing >drugs. Any author who makes his/her works public is damned because >most of the people in our country are illiterate. This /mailing list/ >is damned because it's an elitist tool available to only a small >fraction of a percent of people in our country. > >If you're so concerned about this putative community that you keep >referring to in your message why aren't you spending your time working >for their upliftment instead of playing intellectual games using >elitist media? How is this going to help them? If some one opens up certain part of the production process knowing that other part is never be available for the community to replicate that is crook. >The Free Software movement has many goals. Making Free Software is >one of them. Disseminating it another. Documenting it is a third. >What I read from your message is that since the Free Software movement >has not setup community training centers for free to make information >about Free Software available to the masses it has no right to exist >or to have any say in any matter of importance. I find that more a >failure of corporates who're in bed with MS than of Free Software >itself. > >If you'd looked around a little bit before you wrote your message >you'd have found oodles of information about FSF software, including >information on how to extend it, how to modify it, how to strip it >down to work in minimal environments; that you consider these aspects >of control indicates... never mind :-) Prabhat never said that Linux should not exist. He is saying it is existing as a monopolised form of knowledge. And it has never shown any interest to share in the community at large. He is complaining against the strategy of Linux users to keep it under their control. I had been working in a Linux environment for quite a time now, I never saw any information available outside Linux community and internet. >You may also like to pick up a copy of recent magazines which give >Linux CD's for free along with the magazine. Come to a Linux-Delhi >meeting where you can pick up copied Linux on CD for Rs 20 (the cost >of a blank) or for nothing if you know how to turn out your empty >pockets. Install Linux on a 100 computers from a single CD. Make as >many copies of the CD as you want for just the cost of copying and >distribute them to to the ``community'' and all those deprived office >staff who never get to see the Internet. Sorry to say that in Sarai in spite of having Linux experts we find it difficult to install and use Linux. People are very much here who volunteered to become gini pig of Linux but with time they are regreting. So just availablility of Linux CD without any support is same as providing lock without key. >Ah, I presume that you're an active member of many User Groups and >Linux/GNU-related mailing lists in India to be in a position to make >such a definitive statement. You are, aren't you? > >The fight for freedom has to be fought at many levels. I have no >issues with your approach; don't damn my method just because it's >different or doesn't fit into whatever -ism is the flavour of the >month today. One thing can never be achieved by fighting is freedom, so isms and foundations should break down and disseminate in larger community. >Closed minds are the biggest hurdle to individual freedom, and I >grieve to see that those whom I considered my peers suffer from the >same malaise that has kept this country from achieving anything except >grandiose words and ideals in the past 5 1/2 decades. Anyway, let's >all talk a bit more about this, since talking's just about the most >productive activity that we seem to be capable of. That is true so Linux people should stop nagging about MS and do some constructive work for the community !! Joy From monica at sarai.net Sat Aug 11 13:17:55 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 13:17:55 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] On the ReaderList Message-ID: Dear Readers, It would be great if you all could have a read, and respond. ABOUT THE READER LIST If you have been on this list for a while like some of us at Sarai have been, then your mailbox will have piled up with a lot of stuff by now. Perhaps it exasperates you at times, perhaps you are enraged by some of the stuff that you have read and perhaps sometimes a posting has really made your day. But whatever be the case, we have by now come to have a certain feeling for and affinity to this list and we think that it makes a lively space to be in and post to. It has been six months since the Reader List began, partly to serve as a platform for online discussion on the themes that emerged in the Sarai Reader 01, and partly to create a lively community that discusses and debates key issue in new & old media practice and theory and reflects on the experience of the everyday, as well as technology, culture and politics in city spaces. The Sarai Reader's concern with the theme of the Public Domain also meant that the list was especially open to reflections on what the nature of a free public space, in our cities, and in our various practices might come to mean. The people who began posting on the list included telecommunications engineers, social theorists, activists, filmmakers, artists and software programmers. LOCATING THE LIST For those who are new to the list, it is administered out of Sarai in Delhi, on a server located in Amsterdam, and we now have now around a hundred and sixty members, spread over many parts of the world, with strong concentrations in Delhi, Mumbai, Amsterdam, Bangalore, Lahore, Kathmandu, Berlin, Chicago, the eastern Atlantic seaboard (including New York), Brisbane, Sydney and London. So you could say that the List is beginning to be truly reflective of the dispersed nature of internet culture. But we definitely need a lot more people from places that are nearer (in geographic terms) and perhaps more distant (in virtual terms). It would be great to get postings from Calcutta, Dacca or Ahmedabad... A lot of people have logged on to the list by reading the sticker that describes it and gives the url for it on the inside back cover of the reader, and a lot of people joined in because they heard about it (by word of mouth - the oldest internet tool known to humanity). LURKERS AND POSTERS As in all lists, (and especially new lists) the majority of subscribers are also lurkers, (everyone who has ever been on an online discussion has lurked for some time - there is nothing wrong with lurking as long as it does not last for ever). I am sure that you would agree with me that we are now able to recognise the personalities and quirks of regular posters, and that we even look forward to our personal favourite correspondent who has been silent for some time. DIRECTION(S)? But we at Sarai who have been involved with the list on a day to day basis feel that it is time that a directions (or directions) for the list began to emerge from the community of subscribers. To this end, we propose that we spend some time discussing the list itself and how best to make it as lively and convivial as possible, how best to maintain a provocative edge so that there is always room for fresh and new perspectives, and how to ensure the broadest possible participation, so that the list does not become subject to anyone's private agenda, but a true digital commons, very much in the 'public domain', where everything that is relevant to cities, media and the flows of information, culture, knowledge and power can be discussed and talked about. WHAT SHOULD THE LIST DISCUSS So far, there has been a tendency on the list to have a great deal of discussion on computer technology, (especially free software) the internet, online surveillance, privacy, even water. Even though these strands may look quite disparate, interestingly enough, a common binding principle has been reflecting on public access to resources. Some of these may have seemed to speak to and from specialists, but we are sure that most people got the gist/essence of the discussion, although we urge all posters that they try and make their postings sufficiently accessible to non-technical people. The habit of using metaphors and experiences from outside one's immediate discipline and experience is a good one, it connects people with 'idea bridges' and the more 'idea bridges' there are the more walking across can be done, Anyway, what we do realize is that it is not necessary for these issues to dominate the list to the exclusion of all other issues. TECHIES AND TALKIES The reason for all this is not that there are too many postings by techies. The enthusiasm of the techie community on this list is something that all of us can learn from.The willingness to enter into an argument, post something that is interesting, and take issue with each other, in a frank and civilised manner that the techies on this list have demonstrated is evidence that we can have a reasonable and interesting online culture of debate. INTER DISCIPLINARY CONVERSATIONS This list is a platform for inter-disciplinary conversation, and that can happen if the techies, artists, activists and the theorists who are on the list realize that they are not talking to people of their own kind alone. This list is as much about the last film that you saw that made you sit up and think, as much as it is about the last piece of code that challenged your humanity. It is also as much about the delight and the rage of living in a city, and it is especially looking for resonances between urban experiences located in different places. To give but one example, there were some postings (mainly forwards) on the G8 Protests in Genoa, but no attempt by say, someone in Delhi to make sense of how the protests were being covered by the media in India. If that had been done, we could for instance have seen how a global consensus is shaped by the media, even when the events themselves are at a remove. The list needs to have a sustained take on other issues of significance, like the presence of media in urban spaces, the politics of information, spaces of autonomy and freedom in contemporary culture - the aesthetics, ethics and politics of representation - all of these are equally important to us, and we need to start talking about all these as well. GLOBAL/LOCAL What is also important is the ability of the list to have a sustained reflection on what goes on around us in the immediate vicinity of our lives. There has been a reasonably active discussion thread on online surveillance and the politics of information which at times wove in the realities of many places, (esp. Delhi and Amsterdam) onto a complex map of what happens when information and power coalesce, but such discussions have tended to be limited to thoughts on the 'Digital Domain' alone. This skews the list into a mirror of the activity that happens everywhere and a silent, mute bystander to what goes on close to our own offline realities. We all know how easily our sense of what constitutes our reality is defined by the mainstream media. How the filters that are locked into place by the big media also ensure that many things that concern us remain unexpressed, unknown and unarticulated. This is particularly true of the happenings and realities in South Asian cities. This list can then be seen as a space for the free encounters for the ideas, reports and reflections that either slipped out of, or were suppressed by the 'big' (old & new) media. Over time, we could see a whole cluster of lists emerging around the Reader List, with sub-themes, and perhaps with invited moderations, or proposals for discussions on specific topics. All this can happen, and will depend on how much initiative and energy we all put into the list. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE For starters, we have a few suggestions. These are not mandatory, but we would like you all to give them due consideration, as a sketchy roadmap of where we can go from here. 1. That people on the list (veterans and newbies alike) write a paragraph about themselves and their interests and and send this to me (the list administrator). This will help us all get a sense of who we are, and allow many lurkers to have their say. I will prepare digests of these postings and put them back into the list. 2. That topics and threads for discussion be proposed for discussion, within the broad ambit of the interconnections between old and new media practices, city spaces, info-politics and net criticism. 3. That the list spends some time discussing itself, and what direction(s) it wants to take. 3, That we try and ensure that as much material that reflects South Asian realities gets into the list as do news and views from elsewhere. 4. That Original postings constantly keep coming into the list, and that the list does not turn into a cooking pot of 'forwards' and 'announcements' alone. 5. That no one uses the list for spamming, private agendas, propaganda, personal aggrandizement , pet hates and advertising. This has been a long e-mail, but I hope that it can give all of us on the list something to chew (and then post) on. I would welcome any responses, and urge that they be made on the list itself, and I hope that this can spark a thread of discussions on discussion itself. Warm regards, and a welcome to all those who are new on the list. Monica Narula List Administrator -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From raju at linux-delhi.org Sat Aug 11 13:41:03 2001 From: raju at linux-delhi.org (Raju Mathur) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 13:41:03 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Reader-list] F$F v/s free software In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20010811120226.00a06040@mail.sarai.net> References: <20010811034329.57842.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> <5.1.0.14.2.20010811120226.00a06040@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <15220.59543.519630.40562@mail.linux-delhi.org> Hi Joy, My comments under... >>>>> "Joy" == Joy Chatterjee writes: >> Umm, so the fact that NIIT and WEBEL are helping the community >> exonerates MS from all its sins? That's a new way of looking >> of things... lateral, at the very least. Joy> I think Prabhat is talking in the context of my mail so let Joy> me say that SFS-India is also sponsoring RMS. So who is Joy> sinner lets not get in to it. How you can damn the Linux community for being in bed with corporates on the one hand and praising NIIT and Webel on the other is slightly beyond my grasp. If we try to educate the likes of corporates on the benefits of Linux we get mud slung at us from the socialists and communists. If we don't, then MS gets indirectly praised for encouraging low-cost computer access and training through the same corporates. Interesting position to be in... >> I fail to see your point here. Are you saying that Open Source >> (or Free Software) are actually closed because not enough >> people have the skill to write programs? By your logic, Pfizer >> should be damned tomorrow if it opens up the process of making >> an anti-AIDS drug since 99.999999% of the people in the world >> have no way of manufacturing drugs. Any author who makes >> his/her works public is damned because most of the people in >> our country are illiterate. This /mailing list/ is damned >> because it's an elitist tool available to only a small fraction >> of a percent of people in our country. >> >> If you're so concerned about this putative community that you >> keep referring to in your message why aren't you spending your >> time working for their upliftment instead of playing >> intellectual games using elitist media? How is this going to >> help them? Joy> If some one opens up certain part of the production process Joy> knowing that other part is never be available for the Joy> community to replicate that is crook. Uh, have you read what you're saying? People who write openly available documents without teaching everyone to read are crooks? People who make the formulae and processes for life-saving drugs available to the masses without also setting up multi-crore manufacturing plants for each person who wishes to make the drug are crooks? Why not just say that any form of Intellectual Property is worthless and be done with it? Come to think of it, that also means that by contributing to and distributing the Sarai Reader the people who run Sarai are crooks... Wow! >> The Free Software movement has many goals. Making Free >> Software is one of them. Disseminating it another. >> Documenting it is a third. What I read from your message is >> that since the Free Software movement has not setup community >> training centers for free to make information about Free >> Software available to the masses it has no right to exist or to >> have any say in any matter of importance. I find that more a >> failure of corporates who're in bed with MS than of Free >> Software itself. >> >> If you'd looked around a little bit before you wrote your >> message you'd have found oodles of information about FSF >> software, including information on how to extend it, how to >> modify it, how to strip it down to work in minimal >> environments; that you consider these aspects of control >> indicates... never mind :-) Joy> Prabhat never said that Linux should not exist. He is saying Joy> it is existing as a monopolised form of knowledge. And it has Joy> never shown any interest to share in the community at Joy> large. He is complaining against the strategy of Linux users Joy> to keep it under their control. Free software, free documents, tutorials at LUG meetings, mailing lists in which people spend their time and money to answer questions: are these symptoms of a strategy to ``keep Linux under their control''? Please don't try to imply that just because I don't go and teach Linux to a bunch of slum children I'm not a responsible member of society or not working for the general good of the country -- that'd be an unbelievably narrow-minded and blinkered outlook. Joy> I had been working in a Linux environment for quite a time Joy> now, I never saw any information available outside Linux Joy> community and internet. Exactly where else do you want information from? I can't go to NIIT and ask them to start Linux kiosks since that'd be promoting Linux to corporates for my selfish interests. I can't go to state governments and persuade them to adopt Linux since that'd also be promoting Linux for my selfish interests. Circular reasoning and rhetoric, impressive as they sound and fulfilling as they may be to the orator's ego aren't much use in getting things done. >> You may also like to pick up a copy of recent magazines which >> give Linux CD's for free along with the magazine. Come to a >> Linux-Delhi meeting where you can pick up copied Linux on CD >> for Rs 20 (the cost of a blank) or for nothing if you know how >> to turn out your empty pockets. Install Linux on a 100 >> computers from a single CD. Make as many copies of the CD as >> you want for just the cost of copying and distribute them to to >> the ``community'' and all those deprived office staff who never >> get to see the Internet. Joy> Sorry to say that in Sarai in spite of having Linux experts Joy> we find it difficult to install and use Linux. People are Joy> very much here who volunteered to become gini pig of Linux Joy> but with time they are regreting. So just availablility of Joy> Linux CD without any support is same as providing lock Joy> without key. Right, Linux is difficult to install and use if you're illiterate. Or have been turned into an illiterate by our friends in Redmond. When you ran into trouble did you ask questions on any mailing list? Did you refer to the plethora of documents in your computer? Did you search the Internet for answers to your questions? Did you call anyone you know who knows Linux, describe the problem to him/her and ask for a solution? Or did you just sit with hands folded, awaiting the arrival of the magic icon on your screen which you would click to solve all the problems of the world? As far as I can make out you're advocating that every Linux CD be accompanied by a bevy of experts who will patiently and systematically guide the user through all steps of installing and using Linux. While we're dreaming, let's also insist that they be young, warm, willing and wanton -- sounds like the start of a new meaningful movement. I'll be glad to join this one, though it may cause a couple of minor marital problems at home :) Oh wait! now I get it: what you're complaining about is the fact that people like to make money out of Linux. I am a Linux consultant. If I fix Linux problems for my clients I charge them money. You seem to have something against this mode of working: not only must I give my software and my techniques away for free (which I do anyway, but which is meaningless and makes me a crook as per your observations above), I must also spend my whole time supporting Linux and my software for people without charging them any fee. Presumably I can make enough money to survive by cleaning bathrooms in my spare time (but only if I didn't build them first: if I did, I must clean them for the rest of my life for no charge). >> Ah, I presume that you're an active member of many User Groups >> and Linux/GNU-related mailing lists in India to be in a >> position to make such a definitive statement. You are, aren't >> you? >> >> The fight for freedom has to be fought at many levels. I have >> no issues with your approach; don't damn my method just because >> it's different or doesn't fit into whatever -ism is the flavour >> of the month today. Joy> One thing can never be achieved by fighting is freedom, so Joy> isms and foundations should break down and disseminate in Joy> larger community. >> Closed minds are the biggest hurdle to individual freedom, and >> I grieve to see that those whom I considered my peers suffer >> from the same malaise that has kept this country from achieving >> anything except grandiose words and ideals in the past 5 1/2 >> decades. Anyway, let's all talk a bit more about this, since >> talking's just about the most productive activity that we seem >> to be capable of. Joy> That is true so Linux people should stop nagging about MS and Joy> do some constructive work for the community !! Just because you choose to limit your definition of ``constructive work'' doesn't mean that the rest of the world has to toe an arbitrary line of your making. I consider the work I'm doing constructive, and whether you agree or disagree with it doesn't make an iota of difference to me. I could also (though I don't) consider you to be living in a fools paradise, dreaming forlorn dreams and tilting at imaginary windmills -- does that make your existence meaningless? Will you stop doing what you're doing just because other people don't consider it meaningful? If not, please do not advocate exactly that to others. Joy> Joy Regards, -- Raju -- Raju Mathur raju at kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ From joy at sarai.net Sat Aug 11 16:03:03 2001 From: joy at sarai.net (Joy Chatterjee) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 16:03:03 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Big Dams, Contempt of Court and the Narmada Movement Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010811160001.009e7890@mail.sarai.net> I got this from a network of collective e-mail sending and I wanted to share my dismay along with the author at the naked display of power that citizens have to face. best Joy Big Dams, Contempt of Court and the Narmada Movement SALMAN RUSHDIE Nargis, the Indian movie star of the 1950's who later had a career in politics, once denounced the great film director Satyajit Ray for making films that offered too negative an image of India. In her own movies, she said, she had always celebrated the positive. When asked for an example, she replied, "Dams." Big dams have long been an essential part of India's technological iconography, and their role in providing water and power to the nation was for a time unquestioned, even unquestionable. Lately, however, there has been an increasingly confrontational debate about the role that large dams have played in development. One of the biggest new dams under construction is the Sardar Sarovar Project on the Narmada River in the State of Gujarat, with a proposed final height of 447 feet. Among its most vocal opponents is the novelist Arundhati Roy. She and other critics of the project object to the displacement of more than 200,000 people by rising waters, to the damage to the Narmada Valley's fragile ecosystem and to the failure of some big dams to deliver what they promise. (India's Bargi Dam, for example, irrigates only 5 percent of the area promised.) She points out that while the rural poor are the ones who pay the price for a dam, it is the urban rich who benefit: 80 percent of rural households in India have no electricity; 200 million people have no access to safe drinking water. The recent report of the World Commission on Dams, an international agency established by the World Bank and World Conservation Union, largely supports these conclusions in its review of 125 large dams. The report blames big dams for increased flooding, damage to farmland and the extinction of some freshwater fish. Many dams fall short of their targets, and of the 40 million to 80 million people displaced by worldwide dam building, few have received sufficient compensation. Ms. Roy and the Narmada Valley campaigners have long argued that alternative methods are capable of meeting Gujarat's water needs; the world commission report echoes this view, stressing the need to focus on renewable energy, recycling, better irrigation and reduction of water losses. The battle over the Narmada Dam has been long and bitter. However, there has been a surreal new twist. Arundhati Roy and two leading members of the protest movement, Medha Patkar and Prashant Bhushan, were accused by five lawyers of having attacked them during a Dec. 13, 2000, protest outside the Supreme Court in Delhi against the court's decision to allow building work on the Sardar Sarovar project to proceed. Ms. Roy and Ms. Patkar allegedly called on the crowd to kill the lawyers, and Mr. Bhushan is accused of having grabbed one of the lawyers and threatened him with death. Yet all this happened, the accusers contend, under the noses of a large detachment of policemen. Any threats passed unrecorded by the filmmaker Sanjay Kak, who was covering the demonstration with a video camera. And it was subsequently revealed that Mr. Bhushan had in fact been somewhere else at the time of the protest. In spite of the demonstrable absurdity of these charges, however, the Supreme Court decided to entertain the lawyers' petition and served the three activists with criminal contempt notices. In doing so it ignored its own rules and procedures. After being summoned to court, Ms. Roy delivered a characteristically trenchant affidavit in which she said that the court's willingness to haul her and her colleagues up before it on such flimsy charges "indicates a disquieting inclination on the part of the court to silence criticism and muzzle dissent, to harass and intimidate those who disagree with it." Last week, the Supreme Court insisted that she withdraw this affidavit; she refused, and the court is considering new contempt of court charges that could send her to jail. She is, as she told The Guardian of London, "now deeper in the soup." What the Supreme Court of India should realize is that by pursuing Arundhati Roy, Medha Patkar and Prasant Bhushan in this fashion, it places itself before the court of world opinion. Can it be that the Supreme Court of the world's largest democracy will reveal itself to be biased against free speech and be prepared to act at the bidding of a powerful interest group - the coalition of political and financial interests behind the Narmada Dam? Only by abandoning its pursuit of Arundhati Roy and the Narmada Valley campaigners can the Supreme Court escape such a judgment. Salman Rushdie is the author of the forthcoming novel, "Fury." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010811/6462c7b2/attachment.html From Steef at CwaC.nl Sat Aug 11 18:16:22 2001 From: Steef at CwaC.nl (Steef Heus) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 14:46:22 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] F$F v/s free software: Succes will only be achieved by ComAcitivists In-Reply-To: <15220.59543.519630.40562@mail.linux-delhi.org> Message-ID: Joy, In this world never anything has been for free as everyone has to make a living. Even religions and politics only survive as their representatives are able to make a (basic) living out of it one way or the other. So also transformations can only be achieved as people can make a living out of it and if the aimed transormation has benefits for others in terms that they are willing to pay for it. It's just basic economics (look what happened to the Net's free access and services). It is good that changes are (often aggressively) addressed by 'activists'. That wakes up the world. But that often ends in complete non productive fundamentalists discussions. The real transformation is almost always made by people who support an ideal, but also can make a living out of it. I would like to lable them (although I don't like lables, but just for the sake of argument I'll introduce one) as "ComActivists". "Com" representing 'Commercial'. Raju (from what he wrote) is in my view one of them and I know many, many more. They make it actually happen. Professionals addopting new technologies from a point of believe. Actually working on getting things done, overcoming hurdles, bridging gaps, pragmatically solving problems. Learning from their experience. Satisfying customers that are happy with the results and pay them for their services. That is much more productive then endless discussions. I can't think of any reason why these rules should not apply to free (as in open source) software. Ever thought of what would happen if the number of Linux professionals would be equal or double to the number of MS professionals? (just for the example, there are many more hurdles to overcome making a Linux a real success) So, it is my strong believe that in order to make Linux or other software succesfull more people must be commercially involved/interested in it. Talking is good and riskless, doing however and trying making a living out of it is more effective, but also more risky. And that is where one can see the difference between the 'activist' and the 'ComActivist'. Steef From supreet Sun Aug 12 00:54:26 2001 From: supreet (Supreet) Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2001 21:24:26 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] F$F v/s free software In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20010811120226.00a06040@mail.sarai.net>; from joy@sarai.net on Sat, Aug 11, 2001 at 12:28:57PM +0530 References: <20010811034329.57842.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> <20010811034329.57842.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> <15220.49927.972989.64786@mail.linux-delhi.org> <5.1.0.14.2.20010811120226.00a06040@mail.sarai.net> Message-ID: <20010811212426.A545@sarai.net> Hi I don't know I should say anything or not.But 1) Free software community initially was kind of centrallized till late 80's and it started to spread due to linux. 2) I think Richard Stallman is a God and Daemon of free software. Many may disagree. 3) (Prabhats point)Community does provide support in terms of user manuals, Howto's etc. etc. but one of the problems is, often you have to go online to actually see the latest version. sites to visit: www.linuxdoc.org documentation of various linux stuff www.sourceforge.net Projects and programming infrastructure www.freshmeat.net etc etc Big problem here is *nix knowledge base is that, it takes time to penetrate. Like I see here in Ascii tent everybody I mean everbody apart form a Adobe premiere machine is debian linux. Last but not the least Redhat, emacs, python is the best love Supreet From reyhanchaudhuri at hotmail.com Sun Aug 12 19:52:38 2001 From: reyhanchaudhuri at hotmail.com (Dr. Reyhan Chaudhuri) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 14:22:38 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Joining in Message-ID: Dear Members, I am a nosy native wayward wayfarer (if there may be such a thing)on the Delhi roads(mostly South and East)and generally on the luxurious four wheels (unlike some of my maternal ancestors who rode cavalry on the very same zameen ). However many esoteric interests and curiosities induce me to write to you and enquire ,whether I could also be included onto your Readers List.I shall probably not have anything gripping or greatly sensational to share with you but I shall try my best to present the ordinary and even mundane thoughts with some sincerity. Wishing you all suhana safars (vague tansl.:Wellbeing Travels) Reyhan. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From prabhatmuhurta at yahoo.co.in Sun Aug 12 23:07:11 2001 From: prabhatmuhurta at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Prabhat=20Kumar?=) Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 18:37:11 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] freedom v/s freesoftware Message-ID: <20010812173711.94937.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> I have seen all the mails sent by Mr. Mathur and Mr. Chatterjee. LUGs people just love to target Microsoft by whatever means they find. They are so closed-minded. In the context of patriotism I said Indian companies like NIIT and WEBEL are handling the deal so basically logic of patriotism doesn’t work. I think my friend is too innocent to understand such straightforward argument. I think Chatterjee had become unnecessarily emotional so he used the word crook. But I think actually, governments should be cautioned of Linux otherwise they would have to GPL every piece of their secret information about e-governance. If secrecy of government information is legitimate then why not the secrecy of business information is equally legitimate? In the competitive market every company maintains secrecy for its existence, what is wrong about it? What is special about software and Microsoft? My friend was talking about AIDS medicine, is the information about that medicine is freely available? Does my friend have stopped taking medicines, the information of which is not available openly? I don’t understand this half-baked notion of freedom. I think freedom of medicine is more important than freedom of software. Is anybody asking for freedom of medicinal information? Is my friend ready to challenge the sin of secrecy done by state about its information? Logically my friend should reject governments if he is honest about his theory of free information. Yes, fight for freedom should be fought at every level, but nobody is stopping anyone to be consistent in his theory. If Microsoft is a sinner then all companies and institutions are sinner who hides information. So my friend, think deeply what you are saying. Actually, my argument was due to the lack of training programme, even though programmes are open or so-called free; they are in control of very few. By and large people who are working in the market come from lower middle class and lesser academic background. They need some training or guidance to start working. Most of them cannot afford to go to institutions like NIIT. For example, I have asked many network administrators working in small offices why they are not using Apache. The reply I have got that first of all their office doesn’t permit to download and secondly they don’t know where to learn Apache. They didn’t know anything about LUGs. Frankly speaking, LUGs are too culturally coded for large section of people to participate. First of all, though now they are tending to act patriotic for their professional ambition, but they hardly even speak their own mother tongue. Most of them are quite elitist by their behavior if not stinking rich. I think these two are enough reason for society at large to relate with these people. Another important thing is, yes, few books and CDs are available in the market but these books are only for those who have comfort with English, who doesn’t need some one else to explain what is written in the book. Using mailing lists etc. requires some amount of social and cultural confidence along with technical competency. Otherwise, they do lot of unnoticed improvisation (can be called as hacking, thus I feel that LUGs are only celebrating the religion of hacking and true hacking is happening somewhere else) in hardware and usage of software as they have to live with limited resources provided by their shop owner or company unlike most of Linux Users who work in big companies and play with ample amount of resources. When I said free as “free market” I meant that, if some one does not have wealth of English education and cultural confidence then nobody is there to help him out. My friend, society is not only comprised of elites so there is no harm in thinking about poor. And I don’t know when LUGs will realize that elites are there only because of proprietary structure of social formation. It doesn’t take minute to sweep noises like freedom if so is needed. Companies and states are only instruments in that formation. I find it very amusing to see that after seeing cases like BMW, Jessica Lall, NBA etc. LUGs still have lot of faith on copyright and legalities to protect GPL. Wow. Take my word the “freedom” of Linux will only grow if non-elite people are also considered as human being. Otherwise Linux will grow but “freedom” will die its inevitable death. Knowledge never diminishes by sharing, but yes, monopoly and control do, isn’t it? Going to slums is considered as undignified act by many, so I don’t expect my friend to do so but if he had accepted my suggestion of starting a free training school of “free software” that would have caused some reason to respect Linux Users in India. I promise to send as many students as he needs. But I don’t think it is going to happen. I have seen two types of doctors, one is slogging in public hospitals and earning a living, and another is running a private hospital and making money. I respect the first and consider the second as curse on the mankind. As far as I remember I wrote about making big money not earning a living. My friend, twisting waist is appreciable but not twisting words. Commercial activism is quite an amusing concept. It sounds like pushing the car while sitting inside it. I hope the car will move some day!! In absence of social interaction and intellectual awareness, after some time commerce grows and activism vanishes. I have heard that in west hackers participate in hard-core social activism as well. But in India in one hand they mock “communists and socialists” on the other hand they dream to do e-governance for a communist government (West Bengal government). I hope they are just naïve. If people are requesting LUGs not to take dreams about e-governance and think of expanding the user base in non-elite and poor community they are actually expressing their respect for philosophy of freedom and free software. I think any sane person would expect the same. Deaths of good philosophies in the hand of their preachers are nothing new in history but it hurts to see it happening. Somewhere I read that philosophies are like an Egyptian mythical bird, which dies to give birth to an offspring. I sigh and wait. Prabhat ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send a newsletter, share photos & files, conduct polls, organize chat events. Visit http://in.groups.yahoo.com. From raju at linux-delhi.org Mon Aug 13 12:11:31 2001 From: raju at linux-delhi.org (Raju Mathur) Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 12:11:31 +0530 (IST) Subject: [Reader-list] freedom v/s freesoftware In-Reply-To: <20010812173711.94937.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> References: <20010812173711.94937.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <15223.30363.983791.115461@mail.linux-delhi.org> Hi Prabhat, >>>>> "Prabhat" == Prabhat Kumar writes: Prabhat> I have seen all the mails sent by Mr. Mathur and Mr. Prabhat> Chatterjee. Prabhat> LUGs people just love to target Microsoft by whatever Prabhat> means they find. They are so closed-minded. In the Prabhat> context of patriotism I said Indian companies like NIIT Prabhat> and WEBEL are handling the deal so basically logic of Prabhat> patriotism doesn’t work. I think my friend is too Prabhat> innocent to understand such straightforward argument. NIIT/Webel handling the deal will neither make the source code of the software available for audit to the Government nor will it bring any commercial benefit to the buyer. Arguments based on Indian companies being involved in the deal are meaningless until these two happen. Prabhat> I think Chatterjee had become unnecessarily emotional so Prabhat> he used the word crook. But I think actually, governments Prabhat> should be cautioned of Linux otherwise they would have to Prabhat> GPL every piece of their secret information about Prabhat> e-governance. If secrecy of government information is Prabhat> legitimate then why not the secrecy of business Prabhat> information is equally legitimate? In the competitive Prabhat> market every company maintains secrecy for its existence, Prabhat> what is wrong about it? What is special about software Prabhat> and Microsoft? My friend was talking about AIDS medicine, Prabhat> is the information about that medicine is freely Prabhat> available? Does my friend have stopped taking medicines, Prabhat> the information of which is not available openly? I don’t Prabhat> understand this half-baked notion of freedom. I think Prabhat> freedom of medicine is more important than freedom of Prabhat> software. Is anybody asking for freedom of medicinal Prabhat> information? Is my friend ready to challenge the sin of Prabhat> secrecy done by state about its information? Logically Prabhat> my friend should reject governments if he is honest about Prabhat> his theory of free information. Yes, fight for freedom Prabhat> should be fought at every level, but nobody is stopping Prabhat> anyone to be consistent in his theory. If Microsoft is a Prabhat> sinner then all companies and institutions are sinner who Prabhat> hides information. So my friend, think deeply what you Prabhat> are saying. Maybe you're a bit confused between information and software. Information is data relevant to achieving a specific goal. Software is a tool that manipulates data and converts it into information. I'm a proponent of free software. I presume you're referring to some other friend who's advocating free information above. I (and no one else in the Free Software camp) is advocating that corporates open up their private information to the masses. I will not give company information about my clients and projects to my competitors, and nor will I advocate the same to them. Prabhat> Actually, my argument was due to the lack of training Prabhat> programme, even though programmes are open or so-called Prabhat> free; they are in control of very few. By and large Prabhat> people who are working in the market come from lower Prabhat> middle class and lesser academic background. They need Prabhat> some training or guidance to start working. Most of them Prabhat> cannot afford to go to institutions like NIIT. For Prabhat> example, I have asked many network administrators working Prabhat> in small offices why they are not using Apache. The reply Prabhat> I have got that first of all their office doesn’t permit Prabhat> to download and secondly they don’t know where to learn Prabhat> Apache. They didn’t know anything about LUGs. Frankly Prabhat> speaking, LUGs are too culturally coded for large section Prabhat> of people to participate. First of all, though now they Prabhat> are tending to act patriotic for their professional Prabhat> ambition, but they hardly even speak their own mother Prabhat> tongue. Most of them are quite elitist by their behavior Prabhat> if not stinking rich. I think these two are enough reason Prabhat> for society at large to relate with these people. Another Prabhat> important thing is, yes, few books and CDs are available Prabhat> in the market but these books are only for those who have Prabhat> comfort with English, who doesn’t need some one else to Prabhat> explain what is written in the book. Using mailing lists Prabhat> etc. requires some amount of social and cultural Prabhat> confidence along with technical competency. Otherwise, Prabhat> they do lot of unnoticed improvisation (can be called as Prabhat> hacking, thus I feel that LUGs are only celebrating the Prabhat> religion of hacking and true hacking is happening Prabhat> somewhere else) in hardware and usage of software as they Prabhat> have to live with limited resources provided by their Prabhat> shop owner or company unlike most of Linux Users who work Prabhat> in big companies and play with ample amount of Prabhat> resources. When I said free as “free market” I meant Prabhat> that, if some one does not have wealth of English Prabhat> education and cultural confidence then nobody is there to Prabhat> help him out. My friend, society is not only comprised of Prabhat> elites so there is no harm in thinking about poor. And I Prabhat> don’t know when LUGs will realize that elites are there Prabhat> only because of proprietary structure of social Prabhat> formation. It doesn’t take minute to sweep noises like Prabhat> freedom if so is needed. Companies and states are only Prabhat> instruments in that formation. I find it very amusing to Prabhat> see that after seeing cases like BMW, Jessica Lall, NBA Prabhat> etc. LUGs still have lot of faith on copyright and Prabhat> legalities to protect GPL. Wow. Take my word the Prabhat> “freedom” of Linux will only grow if non-elite people are Prabhat> also considered as human being. Otherwise Linux will grow Prabhat> but “freedom” will die its inevitable death. Knowledge Prabhat> never diminishes by sharing, but yes, monopoly and Prabhat> control do, isn’t it? OK, you go ahead and teach Linux/Windows/FreeBSD/OS400/whatever to the underprivileged, non-English-speaking masses if that's your objective in life. It's not mine, and I resent the implication that everyone has to subscribe to your world-view and share your objectives in order to be called a productive member of society. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn about communism, elitism, socialism or capitalism -- I do what I can to help other people in ways which are consistent with my requirements and my ideals, and I give space to other people to do the same and respect them for it. That doesn't seem to be the philosophy in action here, unfortunately. Prabhat> Going to slums is considered as undignified act by many, Prabhat> so I don’t expect my friend to do so but if he had Prabhat> accepted my suggestion of starting a free training school Prabhat> of “free software” that would have caused some reason to Prabhat> respect Linux Users in India. I promise to send as many Prabhat> students as he needs. But I don’t think it is going to Prabhat> happen. No, my friend, you have it all wrong: /you/ start the training classes for slum children and ask me for my help and I'll gladly give it to you. It's part of /your/ mission in life, not mine -- mine is using and advocating Linux and MAKING MONEY OUT OF IT. See? It's simple when spelled out in words of two syllables ;-) Of course, there are some dictionaries in which making money is a taboo phrase, but *shrug* you can't please all the people all the time. Prabhat> I have seen two types of doctors, one is slogging in Prabhat> public hospitals and earning a living, and another is Prabhat> running a private hospital and making money. I respect Prabhat> the first and consider the second as curse on the Prabhat> mankind. As far as I remember I wrote about making big Prabhat> money not earning a living. My friend, twisting waist is Prabhat> appreciable but not twisting words. Commercial activism Prabhat> is quite an amusing concept. It sounds like pushing the Prabhat> car while sitting inside it. I hope the car will move Prabhat> some day!! In absence of social interaction and Prabhat> intellectual awareness, after some time commerce grows Prabhat> and activism vanishes. I have heard that in west hackers Prabhat> participate in hard-core social activism as well. But in Prabhat> India in one hand they mock “communists and socialists” Prabhat> on the other hand they dream to do e-governance for a Prabhat> communist government (West Bengal government). I hope Prabhat> they are just naïve. *Sigh* I consider Rs. 2,00,000 per month to be making a living, you consider it making big money, Ram Jethmalani (a top-notch lawyer in India) considers it being below his poverty line -- who's right? There are no absolute lines drawn between the two terms, so IMHO we should just try to avoid vague and indefinite phrases and stick to facts. Similarly, I'd suggest you don't use terms like ``social interaction'' and ``intellectual awareness'' until you have a certificate signed by God Almighty which announces that you have the One True Definition of those terms. Until then, I consider my interpretation to be as meaningful and valuable as yours, if not more. I had an interesting experience when I sent the letter prototype to the FSF mailing list in India -- the first reaction that arose was towards the inclusion of the term ``Open Source'' in the letter. According to the Free Software proponents, Open Source is a derogatory term, not fit to be spoken in the same sentence with the Holy Grail of Free Software. So don't worry: knee-jerk reactions and programmed responses aren't the personal property of any community; they are shared alike by all. Prabhat> If people are requesting LUGs not to take dreams about Prabhat> e-governance and think of expanding the user base in Prabhat> non-elite and poor community they are actually expressing Prabhat> their respect for philosophy of freedom and free Prabhat> software. I think any sane person would expect the Prabhat> same. Deaths of good philosophies in the hand of their Prabhat> preachers are nothing new in history but it hurts to see Prabhat> it happening. Somewhere I read that philosophies are like Prabhat> an Egyptian mythical bird, which dies to give birth to an Prabhat> offspring. I sigh and wait. For certain values of sanity, possibly. I believe that I can do equally effective work by getting corporates and governments in India to switch to Linux from Microsoft since it'll make India a richer country in the long term. I believe that one NIIT converted to teaching Linux as its main operating system is worth more than teaching 10,000 slum children Linux since the benefits of having competent Linux administrators, programmers and advocates will trickle down to everyone within a short period of time. I believe that having high-class commercial support for Linux will cause its quicker and wider adoption and result in benefits to society as a whole. I'm likely to be damned for holding such heretical thoughts, but it doesn't matter. In the eternal divide between doers and talkers, I see that I'm on the wrong side of the fence, but I still prefer to act rather than sit in my armchair and use big words, high rhetoric, well-written prose and a blinkered mindset to belittle the efforts that others are making. There doesn't seem to be any point in continuing this conversation or remaining on this mailing list, since I can see that I'll never be able to get through the self-imposed limitations I see all around. I'd rather spend my time in some arena which is slightly less inward-looking: where the primary objective isn't mutual reinforcement of identical mindsets and beliefs. Wishing you all the best in your efforts, -- Raju -- Raju Mathur raju at kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ From reyhanchaudhuri at hotmail.com Wed Aug 15 12:40:54 2001 From: reyhanchaudhuri at hotmail.com (Dr. Reyhan Chaudhuri) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 07:10:54 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] (no subject) Message-ID: _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: tokaicv.RTF Type: text/richtext Size: 16777 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010815/37d9f318/attachment.rtx From thescribblerin at yahoo.co.in Wed Aug 15 12:55:42 2001 From: thescribblerin at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Jyotirmoy=20Chaudhuri?=) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 08:25:42 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Emergency!!!!!!! Message-ID: <20010815072542.82990.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> Monica, I was showing my sister, Reyhan how to transfer files through e-mail. I was using my CV as an attachment. Somehow, it got sent to you guys. The hotmail address book stuff is crazy. Technology. Hup! Guys, do not put that up, please. Jyoti ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send a newsletter, share photos & files, conduct polls, organize chat events. Visit http://in.groups.yahoo.com. From reyhanchaudhuri at hotmail.com Wed Aug 15 13:26:49 2001 From: reyhanchaudhuri at hotmail.com (Dr. Reyhan Chaudhuri) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 07:56:49 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Joining in Message-ID: Dear Ms.Narula, I was rather excited to get such a welcoming letter from you regarding the joining.I must also thank you as due to that I managed to look up and learn the meaning of a new word:Peregrinations.I thought it was something to do with falcon hunting and Baaz-Bazi (My father has a patient who does that for a living actually.).Infact quite the contrary ,it's about journeys and imports; Another thing ,some thing really embarrassing has happened regarding my kid brother(don't tell him I called him that) who was educating me about transferring files on the the E.Mail.He was demonstrating with a C.V. copy of his(of all the things~!)This was amidst the noisy cacophony of his two nephews who were chasing each other with mango juice cartons,in pichkari-holi style.His Jaitha was also interrupting in about a veteran swimmers race and the possibilities of middle-aged daughters enrolling.This was all to the background of loud Senegalese music that my brother felt ought to be selected for polygirls at aerobics .It was on audition in other words although not a very desi-swaraj thing to do on our Independence Day. In any case cuttng it short ,somehow the C.V has been E.Mailed to the readers List.He's pretending to be stoic about it but I think he is really embarrassed.If we don't want to see him getting a ghunghat or bhaari pallu to hide his face ,I think you better quickly do something to erase that piece of literature from there. Thanks again for everything. Reyhan. PS:You're more than welcome to call me anytime by my first name. >From: Monica Narula >To: "Dr. Reyhan Chaudhuri" >Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Joining in >Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 12:02:34 +0530 > >Hi Dr Chaudhuri, > >Great to hear that you wish to come on board. I have logged you in. >Soon you should be getting a welcome message and you should then do >as it asks. > >Looking forward to your postings - i am sure that we will really >enjoy hearing about your peregrinations :-) > > >cheers >Monica >-- >Monica Narula >Sarai:The New Media Initiative >29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 >www.sarai.net _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From prabhatmuhurta at yahoo.co.in Wed Aug 15 23:27:04 2001 From: prabhatmuhurta at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Prabhat=20Kumar?=) Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 18:57:04 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] freedom and freesoftware Message-ID: <20010815175704.87500.qmail@web8103.in.yahoo.com> First of all I would like say sorry as Mr. Mathur is willing to leave this mailing list. I didn't expect this to happen. I would like to finish my series of mails. But before that I would like to write few more things without getting into any bitter argument. 1. Free software philosophy is solely based upon the theory of right to information. Otherwise it has no other standpoint. If any form of information is not bound to be open then there is no reason why software should be open and freely available. 2. In India around 70-80% computer workers due to whatever background and reason are dependent on oral communication for learning and usage. They start their learning in small local cost computer courses. Most of the time instructors also come from the culture of oral communication and similar background. They almost never refer any manual or even help topics of the software. But there also one can find network of share as well as secrecy. Expert, ustad, guru etc. are terms they refer to each other. They tend to get stuck when they see unusual difficult reading error massages. Not only software in other technical fields also oral communication is the only mode of sharing and acquiring knowledge for large number of workers. Thus absence of training is same as absence of documentation and mailing list for any Linux programmer. And I don't think any Linux programmer also will appreciate availability of code without any documentation. 3. From the very beginning of market and capital formation there had always been struggles and protests against centralized control over means of production, production process, output and its distribution. And it is still going on. Free software programmers are not the first one to do so. In the case of software and programmes, success was possible to attain because it involves very little tangible stock as investment and output is also intangible. In free time someone can produce a programme and put it on the web but in the case of any other product this is not possible as constant investment is required. Though one can spend personal time and knowledge endlessly but no one can invest resources endlessly to provide a tangible good for free. Even if information about production process is available in some cases but production is not at all possible by society at large. Production is always in the control of investors and investment institutions. It is something like offering big bony meat to toothless tiger, which can appear extremely cruel at times. Thus if free software users think that they are the only one who deserve the right to their means of production and output that is information of the code then they are wrong. When it is said that “free as freedom, not free beer” one forget that to provide free beer the person or community needs freedom on means of production and the product. Market is created on the basis of natural scarcity or artificial scarcity. In many occasions lot of food grains are destroyed due to lack of buyer where as many starve to death. Thus free beer or any free tangible commodity doesn’t mean luxury or favor. It means freedom. Linux users need to understand and express solidarity with those people who are still struggling for freedom of other means of production and output. 4. If some one talks of development of industry, expansion of market and government’s responsibility to implement these, it actually means production process, means of production, output and its distribution should be controlled and scarcity should be maintained. It means imposition of censors, surveillance, policing and judiciary. Proprietorships, copyrights and patents are useless if there is no profit out of it. Hence all mechanisms of maintaining these three might appear to be vestigial to the society. And government might find itself jobless. Criticism not necessarily means negative feeling. So, I would like to request Mr.Mathur not to leave the list. Prabhat ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send a newsletter, share photos & files, conduct polls, organize chat events. Visit http://in.groups.yahoo.com. From geert at basis.desk.nl Thu Aug 16 05:33:08 2001 From: geert at basis.desk.nl (geert) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 10:03:08 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Linux grows up in a hurry Message-ID: <018e01c125e7$625204e0$c900000a@bigpond.com> > Linux grows up in a hurry > 10 years ago this month, Linus Torvalds sent an email to the open-source > software community saying an experimental version of the Linux kernel, the core > technology that would end up embodied in Linux operating systems, was up and > running. Where is it now, and where is it headed? > http://cgi.zdnet.com/slink?127811 From hansathap1 at hotmail.com Thu Aug 16 08:40:39 2001 From: hansathap1 at hotmail.com (Hansa Thapliyal) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 08:40:39 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] on kisses and embraces Message-ID: About the old discussion of where the kiss came to hold so much resonance- Yes the kiss holds a lot of resonance for many. In India tho, one popular culture, at least the cinema of the 70s and 80s, idolized not the kiss but the heavy embrace- the feel feel touch touch stroke stroke with chins buried dizzily into each others shoulders-I do agree with the organic looking for ways to get into each other- the natural instict, suggested by rana dasgupta- That we might have kissed- that we might have embraced, regardless of cinema and song.. We might of course have discovered other permutations and combinations, who knows- At a tangent- not quite about kisses and embraces but the fascination for language and then, the fascination for the thing that it stands for.. "A skinny girl, about 8? 7? 9? walks on a road in a middle class 'nagar' , named prettily after a hindu god or a venerated king from ages ago, in northern India. Spindly legs in trousers, a tight maybe striped tee shirt and a rough mop of hair. She walks ahead of trucks on a dusty road. She listens inside to the mounting sound of a truck, and races- to the next pole, whizzing a furious thought across her synapses- If I don't reach the pole before the truck, I swear- I will- commit- Sui-cide. The delicious excitement of the last word in her head gives her that impetus of terror and chemical madness. She ruuuns (knowing she will win, but - delicious chance, were she to stumble- or not reach or twist her foot just before) She'd SWORN suicide. And she slows a little to extend the play and then race- just behind her the truck- on good days. On other days, the truck would be a little delayed. Another older girl, then older woman- just adding looser thicker skin to the skinny thing that once ran roads- Well. Perhaps some smoothening into curves, early youth and then the pleasant thickening.. So, self same walks, by herself for a changing set of reasons, roads, and a new game- more a new habit, where she just called things to the wind. I love you- Wildly, passionately (well, to the outside world, just a movement of lips - but she would say it, somewhat aloud) I love you Wildly Passionately (Appending a name, from present, from past present, the imagination fillinf out the half truths.) I want to kiss you Will u marry me? Marry me? To try and look at when the game returns would be more worthy of advanced years? Surprising when all it comes, despite the thickened skin and a life that bears more sediment than before- What losses it seeks to fill up, what gaps it can try to cover. Love you love you love you in the head, where the flyover is dark and half constructed and hanging with rusty rods and you know and don't register that people are breaking slowly to make it, And the lights of cars are many and the day has been a series of 'professional ' discussion about the lives of people in a soap, and a lot of talk about plots and people and creating of characters and a clumsy car ride with a stranger who she knows a little because they have talked so much about characters through the day- and that should be revealing. But the abstraction of the tv channel and the saleable story also hangs over those discussions, deciding much of their nature. And she stands suddenly alone in the traffic on a highway midway between going and filling this gap of facing the city with some familiar face. That s when it returns the old habit, of saying- I love you, love you." So, where do these games come from? What conjunction of social concept, adolescent fascination, and jiggling of neurons or whatever chemical somethings there are that jiggle our insides and tickle our beings and make them shout with restless energy . The idea of killing oneself loving helplessly being helplessly loved- what gives these a kick, or Finds resonance inside us? Why do they buffer us- these floating words? And what do they put us in touch with? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010816/6f46af5c/attachment.html From sharan at sarai.net Thu Aug 16 18:28:03 2001 From: sharan at sarai.net (Awadhendra Sharan) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 17:58:03 +0500 Subject: [Reader-list] Proposal for research on representation of labour Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20010816175803.007988d0@mail.sarai.net> Dear all, Please find enclosed a proposal for research on representation of labour, prepared by Prabhu Mahapatra from National labour Institute. Cheers, Dipu Notes on a Research on Representations of Labour 1. The current phase of globalisation has meant unprecedented expansion of the process of commoditisation, conquering ever new spaces of human life. A key consequence has been of course the increasing pace of proletarianisation - i.e. extensive commoditisation of labour power ;not only has proletarianisation increased among the older strata of the population such as the peasantry or artisan groups in developing countries many new groups have been drawn into the process of proletarianisation such as in the burgeoning information and media sectors of the economy. Yet paradoxically, while the visibility of commodities of all kinds have increased manifold it has also been accompanied by the erasure of presence of labour in public life. This has occurred despite massive increase in the mobility of labour ( circulation)Labour worldwide is in retreat in politics, economic and in every sphere of public domain precisely when the numerical expansion of proleterianised strata of population has been the maximum. What explains this relative invisibility of labour in public domain? A dominant economic explanation focuses on the fragmentation and dispersion of production process occurring alongside integration of markets . The Political explanation focuses on the decline of the welfare state, retreat of the state from the sphere of labour relations and the concomitant decline of political clout of organised labour. The numerical dilution organised labour and the growing mass of informal sector labour indicates an astounding reversal of public regulation and public presence of labour. The tendency towards informalisation has been accompanied by privatisation of labour relations and regulations. This however is not historically unprecedented, a careful scrutiny will reveal earlier phase of globalisation being accompanied by similar retreat of labour into the private sphere . This process has often been termed as " deproletariansiation" or "decomposition " or " decollectivisation" of the working class. (That this process has often ended with sudden reversals and massive eruption of labour and working class in public life is also noteworthy. There are increasing signs that the current global slowdown has accentuated the contradictions propelling this phase of globalisation. Mass " anti - capitalist" demonstrations in the metropolitan home of capital is an early indications of a possible reversal of the tendencies mentioned above. ) Increasing individuation of direct relation between labour and capital , disguised forms of employment relations occluded by representation of these as" self employment, and decline of collective forms of working class presence are indicators of this tendency towards privatisation. To sum up this marginalisation of labour in public domain is first of all indicative of a deep crisis in collective representation of labour. This crisis is both and objectively given and subjectively experienced. It is appropriate then to look at this crisis as a historically specific and contingent form thus the need to look at both contemporary and historical forms of rep[representations of labour . This may be an appropriate historical conjuncture to reconceptualise and retrace the processes by which this dialectic of eruption and erasure has been historically played out. The aim being to trace out the emergence of this crisis and possibly recover for the public domain a renewed presence of labour Representations There is almost complete lack of significant literature available on the the question of methods of interrogating the cultural experience of workers. How do we study consciousness? The pitfalls of deriving it immediately from or reducing it to the objective structures are well known . I would like to say that `experience' (a much maligned term and denounced for its implicit psychologism and subjectivism) still retains analytical valence; experience mediates structure and consciousness. Yet experience is not merely the subjective apprehension of structures; it also produces practices that are aimed at representing in Stuart Hall's sense`There is no cultural experience without representations'. Representations are, to put it simply, (i) the images that workers have of themselves and which they wish to convey to others and (ii) the images which others have of them which they contest or seek to change. I would say that the study of such processes is important in getting a handle on the cultural experience of workers. I would broadly think that three categories of such representational practices can be useful for our purpose. Workers self-representations: These range from the autobiographical memoirs of workers, to forms of cultural representations as in processional activities, demonstrations etc. There is an urgent need to collect and study these forms; almost complete absence of studies of workers memoirs renders this task difficult. But one can always make a beginning. Life stories are another way of generating such materials and very good work mainly on women workers lives exists (Janet Salaff), but more needs to be done as well for male workers. - Representations by the State: This would include the study of processes by which the state seeks to represent workers in legal forms, as well as in the state-generated reports and investigations into workers lives. They have to be mined for the facts so much as the way workers subordination is normalised in these works. It might be crucial here to trace out historically important periods when representations of labour figured prominently in discourses emanating from the state. Similarly the processes of marginalisation of labour ( as in legal, environmental and health, urban planning ) could also be studie to provide better insight into the rchanging representational strategies . - Market representations: This is about the way in which workers are represented in mass products targeted at them. An important area of such study would be the way workers and work are represented in media. Finally we can think of representations by the intelligentsia which seek to `represent' or speak for or give voice to workers. Novels dealing with working-class issues are an important source, and also political parties (especially working-class parties) which seek to court and represent workers as their constituency. And then in the end even the historian or the anthropologist who writes `objectively'. These studies can complement each other and provide us with the gamut of representational strategies pursued by workers and others and the contestations that occur between and within each of these categories. *** I would plead that any agenda of research on working class culture and consciousness needs to be self-conscious about the evolutionary/teleological underpinnings. Secondly the tight connection between structure and consciousness needs to be loosened considerably. The relation between them obviously has to be recast and mediated. I would suggest that cultural experience provides the crucial middle term in this relation. Cultural experience of workers is not to be conceived as only purely subjective experience related to individual or group`interiority' or the purely symbolic ordering of norms and values, but rather as a set of practices that are at the same time oriented towards the structure (subjectively) and towards consciousness (objectively). They are as I have tried to argue also co-shaped by representations which workers themselves have and which others have of them. From ravikant at sarai.net Thu Aug 16 18:06:34 2001 From: ravikant at sarai.net (Ravikant) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 18:06:34 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Potu Das and Khasi cinema Message-ID: <01081618063401.01077@jadu.sarai.kit> Dear All, Cinema fascinates everyone. Some are brave enough to even make it. Here is one such tale. Enjoy ravikant A SHORT AND INCOMPLETE GUIDE TO KHASI CINEMA an essay by Daisy Hasan & Tarun Bhartiya The imaginary is that which tends to become real --André Breton 1989 or 1991. Pomu Das is not quite sure of the dates. But he remembers the story... Grand Hotel. Calcutta. A video trade conference organized by Bambino/ Magnum video distributors. Pomu Das, a small town video parlour wallah and representative for the Northeast is having a tough time describing the place he comes from. Is it Ceylon? Oh Shillong - that beautiful place where 'tribals' dwell. "Do they wear clothes there?", an NRI type character lecherously quips. Pomu Das a second generation Shillong Bengali wedded to Mrs. Marjina Kurbah, a Khasi, can barely fulminate his disagreement. It is none other than Mithun Da who rushes to his rescue. "Arre kya Dada apka picture victure nahin banta kya? Ek picture toh banao phir maloom ho ga ... Khasi expose hoga...( "Arre Dada don't you make films? Make a picture-then Khasis will get exposed...") Except that highlighting a people in the Bollywoodian mould, as suggested by Mithun Da and embarked upon by Pomu Das with Ka Mon Ba Jwat, ( roughly translated as the determination to overcome obstacles) is an idea that evokes ridicule from the 'obscure' peoples themselves- "Khasi film!!! Ki beit ne... Pagal hai kya?" To many, the phrase 'Khasi film' brings only one kind of endeavor to mind. Manik Rytong. This 1984 national award winning film directed by Ardhendu Bhattacharya and, more importantly, produced by Rishan Rapsang, one of the few indigenous entrepreneurs, relates an ancient and popular legend about a young woman forced into marriage with the Syiem or chief even though she loves Manik, the flutist. She eventually chooses the funeral pyre of her lover over the luxuries of the palace. Classic national award winning fare. Especially if it is the first film produced in a 'marginal' language highlighting 'marginal' myths. As Rapsang admits, " we had two ideas-Manik Rytong and Tirot Singh." Tirot Singh being an anti-British war hero. Manik Rytong proved to be the more appealing of the two. It could avoid the controversy that biographical films tend to stir. It was at the same time a subject easy to identify with and project as a defining mythological landmark a community could point to with pride Perhaps this is why our queries into Khasi films met with either a self assured "Manik Rytong" or an embarrassed 'Ka Mon Ba Jwat'. The embarrassment is about being unable to reconcile oneself to the Bombaiya idiom in which Pomu Das chooses to image Shillong. The embarrassment is also about Sonu Nigam's poor rendition of Khasi lyrics. The embarrassment is eventually about finding secret longings for things 'Indian' in the spotlight that has so long focussed on graffitti like We are Khasis by blood. Indians by accident. This accident occurs everyday in the street life of Shillong. It occurs in its newly founded Cricket tournaments and Khasi songs, thinly disguised in bombaiya tunes, blaring out of its taxis. Herein, perhaps, lurks the danger of a numerically insignificant community getting absorbed in a Pan-Indian homogeneity. A fact that, in our politically correct moments, we would also possibly lament. But the sheer unembarrassed cinematic kitsch of KMBJ explodes this monochromatic cultural pessimism. For Pomu Das then, making the Khasi block buster, with an impossible all-india-release ambition lurking within its larger than life posters, was more about leaving a stamp on a society that simultaneously absorbs and alienates the 'outsider'. Mithun Da's exhortations corroborated Pomu Das's intuition. The script was not a problem. Pomu Das, who carries childhood memories of 'mainland' film crews coming to town , and evenings spent at Anjali cinema hall could just dip his mug into this rich vat of memory and extract possible plots. The story simulates the ephemeral trajectory of the masala movie with all the elements of love, lust and longing intact. It therefore projects an uncomplicated view of things with occasional concessions to local flavors. These local touches are what give KBJW its punch. Like khun ka ksew (son of a dog) a pungent abuse spewed back and forth by the town's riff-raff, the kind who saw the film more than once, and got hooked onto the Filmi Father's favorite crutch. The plot of KMBJ hinges around constants like the village boy, the sick mother, the haughty rich girl and her class conscious father. All this against Shillong's locations which came largely free. The funds were procured by mortgaging land and the director came in the form of a son, Pradeep Kurbah. Pradeep brings to KMBJ the unique inflexions of the masala movie because of his prolonged stint in the Bombay film industry. Last heard of, Pradeep was part the Raju Chacha crew and managed to transport the filmi (hot) dog back home to Pomu Das. Technically, therefore, the film follows contemporary trends in commercial movie making. It boasts of a refinement rarely seen in commercial films from the region which often content themselves with unimaginative technique thanks to shoestring budgets. Pomu Das however thought he had it all worked out. Armed with an assurance from the then government that matters of entertainment tax could be negotiated, once he managed to finish the film, Pomu Das wasn't making any compromises. The film crew came from Bombay as did the choreographer and the expensive HMI lights. Common (film) sense might baulk at such extravagance. But for Pomu Das this do or die venture was about making the 'ultimate' Khasi blockbuster. The one that would leave its stamp in the collective memory of the town as the 'exiled' insider's emphatic parting shot. When the locations didn't come free, like the time the crew landed in Bombay for the desi phareng (foreign) locale, the guerilla producer duped the Bombay Municipal Corporation, (which charges 65000 per shift) and shot freely within the city. The trespassing camera was concealed inside a vehicle and the crew drove away with Bombay's magic hour beaches. With the film in the cans (with minor over budgeting of just 10 lakhs, amounting to a total cost of 42 lakhs) Pomu Das was finally the small town Movie Mughal. But life in the films is never a 'bed of roses'. The government went back on its assurance. "Yeh log pehla samja ki yeh fool hai...yeh picture victure kuch nahin banaiga..."( the government thought I am a fool. I would never make the film.) Despite the fact that the theatres demanded thrice the amount they normally charge for screenings, Pomu Das managed a three month, 'house full' running of the film in 1998, braving extortionate rentals and a sabotaged soundtrack. This last hit where it hurts, Pomu Das having trekked all the way to Bombay for the dubbing and mixing of the soundtrack. It is now almost three years since KMBJ was released... Some claim to have watched it ten to fifteen times. Some hum the songs. Some still feel embarrassed at having enjoyed it's pulp. Some who missed the initial run of KMBJ or want to relive the experience still throng the town's non-toxic video parlours in search of VHS/VCDs of the film But Pomu Das is zealously guarding the film from video pirates. He wants a re-release hoping that the government will come around despite a growing suspicion that the obstacles are intentional and have something to do with the complicated nature of his roots. No state or national award, therefore, seems to be in sight for our auteur although a Garo video film, having acquired a state award, was recently honored with a television broadcast. Exemption from the entertainment tax also seems elusive but Pomu Das shrugs off the tragic hero's mantle. Khasi picture kyon banaya...hum bola apna dekhne ka liya banaya... hum toh picture daily dekhta hai...kabhi kabhi raat mein neend khulne se dekha ta hai...hum toh film bana diya...yeh toh khatam nahin hoga... ( I made the film for my own pleasure. I watch it during sleepless nights. The film is made. No one can change that.) Khun ka ksew! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Daisy Hasan and Tarun Bhartiya are members of the splitENDS media co-op. splitENDS is engaged in a long - term documentation of Shillong's urbanity. From ravikant at sarai.net Thu Aug 16 18:07:02 2001 From: ravikant at sarai.net (Ravikant) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 18:07:02 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Loneliness of a Long Distance Bihari Message-ID: <01081618070202.01077@jadu.sarai.kit> Here is another. Remembered village in a city. Enjoy ravikant Loneliness of a Long Distance Bihari an essay by Tarun Bhartiya 1. Childhood contrary to all expectations can be, and is, cruel. That too if you encounter those heavily unpopular bleeders called Bengalis. My father in all his wisdom, inspired, no doubt, by that crazy little thing called career, had decided to relocate. Shillong. 1980. Me - only ten and with little experience of anything but Patna, Kanpur and Ranchi. A little bit of Hindi, a lot of Maithili and no English apart from that usual translation stuff. Translate: Gaya, Gaya gaya so gaya hi rah gaya. Gaya went to Gaya and remained there. Meaning, I had had the usual Bihari childhood with two tiny twists, we spoke Maithili and whenever someone confounded by my name Tarun Bhartiya, asked me about my caste, I was supposed to answer, Jaat Paat pooche na koi, hari ke bhaje so hari ke hoe (Don't inquire of someone's caste, one who worships the God belong's to the caste of the God). I was ten and all of it was a game. Reaching for childhood memories may be and should be suspect, a retrieval of make believe. But there is no other way of discoursing on my Bihari status except to be reminded of that in moments of ex-girlfriend(s) crisis. You unfeeling uncouth Bihari. Great. Thus, in the one upman(child)ships of school, this gang of Sylhetis would corner me with incessant banter about Bengali greatness... Tagore, Bose - Jagdishchandra and Subhash, Vivekanand, Mithun ... I would mumble Rajendra Prasad, and (through their protests) Vidyapati, trying to stand my ground. It became an obsession. Worming through books, pestering my father, troubling my mother to excavate and resurrect Bihari Heroes. Any identity which had come into its own, needed objective constructs of Great Men (mostly) and women - a pantheon to look up to. But my under - duress education in Bihari hagiography would hit its first roadblock, when I was made to confront the proletarian nature of Bihari presence in Shillong. Shillong's milk trade, Aaloo Moori stalls and Paan kiosks were at that time, I'm talking about the eighties, exclusively under Bihari control, Biharis from Vaishali, I think. I could have been the eldest son of a university professor, but for most of my classmates I was a crypto-doodhwaala. I could have escaped such an ignominious fate by claiming to be a 'Hindi', a euphemism for a non-Bihari Hindi speaker, and dissociating myself from the mucky world of Bihar, as one or two of my friends, whom I knew to be true blue-blooded Bihari, would do. And under the fake rubric of Hindiwallahs, turn against me with a vengeance. These were pre-Laloo Prasad Yadav times. These were also pre-Mandal times. These were most definitely pre-Macdonald times. In a strange reversal of shame, I became vulgar and arrogant. If being a Bihari was rude crude, so be it. If one had no heroes, so much better. I had no Tagore ass to kiss. We are like this only. The democracy of such an illicit identity should not escape you. More than a Bihari, I started being a Shillong Kid. Beer and Beatles. But included my Bihariness as a part of my street cred, a style, as chic. In any event, my wide-mouth-way of speaking English would have given me away. PO-TA-TO instead of patato. One-ly or I mean 'only' extreme colonising of my tongue would have rubbed off my origins. Peppering my conversations with linguistic and aural references to Bihar and Biharis turned from necessity to convenience. An ability which matured into a finely honed performance art in Delhi. A Non Resident Bihari from Shillong to A Non Resident Bihari in Delhi. 2. Delhi University’s North Campus was like sojourning in Bihar. Multiplicity of accents, accenting castes and places. No one was a Bihari and everyone was. He was a Kayastha, and She a Notredam educated Bhumihaar. And I, a person with a Bihari accent, a curious name and claims to have grown up in Silong or Shillong. Most probably a Backward, or why else would I walk around with a name like Tarun Bhartiya, flirt with leftish politics and treat General Studies as a philosophical state rather than UPSC tool. I was confused, mightily confused. Here I was, no longer an outsider as in Shillong where for the majority I was an agent of the exploitative outsider or a crypto-doodhwaala. I was no longer looking for heroes to admire, just styling myself after revolutionaries and browsing for women to woo and wed. I soon discovered Bihari girls were out of my reach. Not that they were uptight, but the cryptic caste status of my name made them wary. They were ready to indulge in torrid affairs with men whom they shared surnames with, so that the fathers would have no moral, social and political quandary over the fate of the daughters. And why not ? Who wants their daughter wedding some low caste fool. I am sure there were exceptions lurking somewhere and the same could be said about Tamils or Haryanvis, but what would a Bihari see except a Bihari. Or else, one could derive courage from the University toppers, IAS officers, managers, all the achievements of a modern community. Such a state of things had started making Dilliwaalas jealous. How could the mucky state of Bihar send forth such successful individuals. Oriyas had their fruits of praise too, but they refused to stand out. They loved their silence and DOSA (Delhi Oriya Students Association). The difficulty for the Delhi Middle class (incidentally either immigrants or refugees) was reconciling poverty and a violence stricken space with a confident successful community. Biharis were not going to treat themselves as guests of Delhi but would take over the urbanity of the place as its primordial residents. But this segregation could break down, as it did during the Mandir and Anti - Mandal Madness, especially the latter. The prim and proper Delhi Middle class could be seen exchanging political notes with upper-caste uncouth Biharis. They shared their just-beneath- the-surface caste chauvinisms on Kranti Chowk (Revolution Square), a chowk of Brown-shirted counter-revolutionaries. And I got beaten up by my brethren. Just one incident on their road to Kranti Chowk. It was again my name and my refusal to tow their political line. But with hindsight, it was my name which aroused their wrath. More than the physical pain, it was my middle class pride which got hurt. Those uncouth people, how dare they touch me. Me, the English speaking hipster from Shillong. Then my snobbish self-indulgence was sobered by the arrival of caste segregation at the mess tables in these posh environs of the campus college hostels. As the leftish cosmopolitan conglomerate, we were used to sitting together away from the lunacies of Begusarai, Patna, Ranchi, and Darbhanga, but suddenly we were forced to conjoin our mealtimes with outcastes and backwards from Begusarai, Patna, Ranchi, and Darbhanga. If you were Manoj Yadav you no longer partook your aaloo-paratha with that school friend Bhuso or Bhaskar Sinha from Begusarai. And if you were also Manoj Yadav who flirted with leftism, it was better that you left Delhi for Begusarai for the period of the Agitation. It was not the Bihar for which I had tried to memorise Rajendra Prasad, Jaiprakash Narain and all the other heroes. It was no longer My Bihariness against the Sylheti Bengaliness, but Bihari against Bihari. I finally admired my childhood Bengali demons. 3. However, there was yet another Bihar which was stalking the streets of Delhi. A Bihar which was not producing IAS and IPS officers but sweat in sweat shops. A Bihar which got abused as 'Biharis' in the overcrowded Blue/Redline buses. A Bihar which was graduates forced to guard prison-like colonies with nothing to guard them except a comical Lathis. A Bihar which had nothing to do with the Bihar of Delhi University (though I am sure with the same fault lines), but was forced by the grime of Delhi slums to labour under the abusive naming convention- 'Bihari'. These were the faces which finally entered the nasal cavities of Delhi's chattering classes. The university crowd could be bought to hide their origins, but this Bihar was everywhere. Cycling kilometers from a slum to an equally hazardous factory. Driving Autos, guarding the houses and speaking up. Sitting in the bucolic urbanity of Shillong- I read of the (now defunct) Additional Solicitor General of India Mr. Rawal playing up his liberal credentials in court by asserting that the government cannot allow Delhi to suffer from the 'Bihar Syndrome'. I am not devastated. I don't reach for the nearest analyst. As a Bihari maid servant, working at a friends house in east Delhi, told me, "they want to turn Delhi into Paris and they don't want us in this Paris." For her Paris was an American city and with such general knowledge she was completely unfit for the UPSC. Nevertheless her social analysis was dead certain. It is opinions like these that the chatterati cannot take. Silence is a virtue which this Bihar hasn't heard of. If you take a tourist trip into the industrial areas of Delhi and decide to meet the Union leaders you would be surprised at the number of Biharis you find. In their quest for a global city, Delhi elites want subservient labouring classes ready to trudge miles to tend their gardens and feed their dogs. But these Biharis refuse to fit the stereotype which is being erected for them. They shall defecate in your vicinity till their demands for Public toilets are fulfilled. In the Rawalesque obsession with the 'Bihar Syndrome', one is tempted to read this conflict of silence vs. speech almost as a class conflict. 4. When I started to reflect on my loneliness as a long distance Bihari, I thought I would make obvious angry noises, take the Mickey out of Mr. Rawal and his gang and arrive into a glowing definition of the self. But being a Bihari is more of an idea in the making, than an idea already made like our family sitting room. In the loud mouthed way we speak, our sitting rooms have all the accruements for this voice to echo and resonate shamelessly. If you are a non-Bihari and have visited the houses of Biharis who can afford to have sitting rooms, you can be assured of embarrassment at the sheer shabby openness these spaces conjure. Children troop in and out, Daadi offers her comment, host sits cross-legged on the sofa. The pride in being a Bihari may be computed to being inversely proportional to drawing room grandeur and prissiness. If this is the mathematical equation of my identity- I am all for it - the Bihariness. If it means, being skeptical of the ruling classes, take my contribution for the construction of that Bihari edifice. It is always nice to sit between people for whom rulers exist to be unmasked and railed against. If it means working out your resistance in all its political concreteness, By god ki kasam, this country has to be forced to embrace the Bihar Syndrome. And for a North East boy, if Bihari intends not to be Xenophobic, I shall lapse into a major celebration. But is this all there is to it, being a Bihari? In the final days of my college career, one of my juniors entered my hostel room and demanded ten rupees for organising the Chitragupta Puja. I was offended but sweetly explained to him that- 1. I was not a progeny of Chitragupta, who, for non-Biharis, is the mythical ancestor of Kayasthas, a forward caste and, 2. I had leftish beliefs. Unfazed, he tells me," A Sinha has informed me that you belong to us, not the Backwards, we know your father's name..." I was defeated. I had to physically evict him from my room so as not to part with my ten rupees and leftish beliefs. I was unmasked. Now I was a Bihari. A Bihari with a caste. That too a forward caste. But this story has a sadder ending still. That very A. Sinha, a student of Sanskrit, was caught as a ‘fence’ for stolen goods. We were all astonished. The astonishment was not at his thievery, but at the subsequent revelation that this great organiser of the Chitragupta celebrations had used a highcaste Sinha surname by obliterating his rightful Backward one. A spectre haunts - the Bihar syndrome. ________________________________________________________________________Tarun Bhartiya teaches video in a Shillong college and makes videos under the name of splitENDS. From pankaj at sarai.net Thu Aug 16 21:24:09 2001 From: pankaj at sarai.net (Pankaj) Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 17:54:09 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] freedom v/s freesoftware In-Reply-To: <20010812173711.94937.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com>; from prabhatmuhurta@yahoo.co.in on Sun, Aug 12, 2001 at 06:37:11PM +0100 References: <20010812173711.94937.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20010816175408.A13051@sarai.net> On Sun, Aug 12, 2001 at 06:37:11PM +0100, Prabhat Kumar wrote: > I have seen all the mails sent by Mr. Mathur and Mr. > Chatterjee. > > LUGs people just love to target Microsoft by whatever > means they find. LUG's are not an entity its a group of people and people have opinions you can not and should not generalise Hackers criticise Microsoft because of the bad quality of there products and their business techniques. > I think Chatterjee had become unnecessarily emotional > so he used the word crook. But I think actually, > governments should be cautioned of Linux otherwise > they would have to GPL every piece of their secret > information about e-governance. If secrecy of > government information is legitimate then why not the > secrecy of business information is equally legitimate? > In the competitive market every company maintains > secrecy for its existence, what is wrong about it? > What is special about software and Microsoft? My > friend was talking about AIDS medicine, is the > information about that medicine is freely available? > Does my friend have stopped taking medicines, the > information of which is not available openly? I don’t > understand this half-baked notion of freedom. I think > freedom of medicine is more important than freedom of > software. Is anybody asking for freedom of medicinal > information? Is my friend ready to challenge the sin > of secrecy done by state about its information? > Logically my friend should reject governments if he is > honest about his theory of free information. Yes, > fight for freedom should be fought at every level, but > nobody is stopping anyone to be consistent in his > theory. If Microsoft is a sinner then all companies > and institutions are sinner who hides information. So > my friend, think deeply what you are saying. I belive you dont know any thing about the GPL Go sit in a corner for ten minutes. and then read the GPL. And if you have followed this list there were discussions about medicine knowledge being free. > Actually, my argument was due to the lack of training > programme, even though programmes are open or > so-called free; they are in control of very few. By > and large people who are working in the market come > from lower middle class and lesser academic > background. They need some training or guidance to > start working. Most of them cannot afford to go to > institutions like NIIT. For example, I have asked many > network administrators working in small offices why > they are not using Apache. The reply I have got that > first of all their office doesn’t permit to download > and secondly they don’t know where to learn Apache. > They didn’t know anything about LUGs. And what makes you belive that its LUG's problem to make everyone realise that th LUG exists. I belive it is more importan that people nknow their rights and how and in what way the goverment/police can screw them and are deciding about new ways to do the same. Free Software is a noble concept and LUG's are a nice way to get free pizza. There are more important things in life. >Frankly > speaking, LUGs are too culturally coded for large > section of people to participate. Did I stopped you to join our's or start your own. >First of all, though > now they are tending to act patriotic for their > professional ambition, but they hardly even speak > their own mother tongue. Most of them are quite > elitist by their behavior if not stinking rich. I do not and never will buy this concept of mother toung mother land and all this shit I strictly belive this all is crap and is just mind control If it makes sense to speak dutch I will learn and speak dutch. So it makes more sense to speak english in India Because more people understand english then my mother toung (being Dogari) so please don't 4try to sell this mother toung /land crap to me or any sane person. And hindi might be your primary language. its not mine. >I think these two are enough reason for society at large > to relate with these people. Another important thing > is, yes, few books and CDs are available in the market > but these books are only for those who have comfort > with English, who doesn’t need some one else to > explain what is written in the book. Using mailing > lists etc. requires some amount of social and cultural > confidence along with technical competency. Otherwise, > they do lot of unnoticed improvisation (can be called > as hacking, I don't know how to bake a cake and all the recipies are too technical to understand and the ingrediens listed are not available in the store near me baking needs too much hardware and I can not afford it. Who's fault is this? What you wrote above is absolute crap. >thus I feel that LUGs are only celebrating > the religion of hacking and true hacking is happening > somewhere else) in hardware and usage of software as > they have to live with limited resources provided by > their shop owner or company unlike most of Linux Users > who work in big companies and play with ample amount > of resources. When I said free as “free market” I > meant that, if some one does not have wealth of > English education and cultural confidence then nobody > is there to help him out. My friend, society is not > only comprised of elites so there is no harm in > thinking about poor. And I don’t know when LUGs will > realize that elites are there only because of > proprietary structure of social formation. It doesn’t > take minute to sweep noises like freedom if so is > needed. Companies and states are only instruments in > that formation. I find it very amusing to see that > after seeing cases like BMW, Jessica Lall, NBA etc. I belive you don't understand the concept of free software as well. What You are saying is absolutly absurd. You mean If I belive i Free Software and write code and free it from myself and release it under GNU GPL I should also make sure that every one gets the resources to use my s/w? > LUGs still have lot of faith on copyright and > legalities to protect GPL. Wow. Take my word the > “freedom” of Linux will only grow if non-elite people > are also considered as human being. Otherwise Linux > will grow but “freedom” will die its inevitable death. > Knowledge never diminishes by sharing, but yes, > monopoly and control do, isn’t it? NO Go sit in a corner for ten minutes and then Go read The GPL again. > > Going to slums is considered as undignified act by > many, so I don’t expect my friend to do so but if he > had accepted my suggestion of starting a free training > school of “free software” that would have caused some > reason to respect Linux Users in India. I promise to > send as many students as he needs. But I don’t think > it is going to happen. I don't think So. I beliv people who brag about going to slums and doing great for the miserable community just suck. I belive the problems of people who are in slums cannot be solved by paying visits to slums and helping the miseriable people those people ar'nt incompetent in any way. I don't know what you want to do but No linux user/developer will like to help you if you criticise them. LUG's as a community are bunch of technical people trying to know more about software that is ethically correct. They have no moral or leagle liablity to help the poor or any of that crap. There is more important stuff a poor person needs then computer letracy. Just Like knowing how to bake a cake is more important to me then knowing how to clean the gutter. -- Pankaj Kaushal From ravis at sarai.net Fri Aug 17 14:34:34 2001 From: ravis at sarai.net (Ravi Sundaram) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 14:34:34 Subject: [Reader-list] tactical media revisited Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20010817143434.009e6d08@mail.sarai.net> Geert and David co-authored the classic ABC of Tactical Media, (re-printed in the Sarai Reader 01, and available in www.sarai.net and www.nettime.org) in 1997. This is a reflection through an interview, posted on nettime, -ravi David Garcia and Geert Lovink The GHI of Tactical Media An interview by Andreas Broeckmann, July 2001 ab: In 1997, you wrote The ABC of Tactical Media, and at that time the concept of 'tactical media' was already a few years old. It had grown out of the cooperation of media artists and activists in Amsterdam and has been closely identified with the Next 5 Minutes conferences, although important models of tactical media usage have also come from elsewhere. And then the concept was first related mainly to video and TV activism, which have been eclipsed in the last years by the Internet. A follow-up that you wrote in 1999, The DEF of Tactical Media, tried to sketch some of these changes. Do you think that it makes sense to speak of Tactical Media as a general attitude and practice that pervades different media, or is Tactical Media a summary term for a whole host of different media practices, each with their own culture and politics? gl: Or even aesthetics? No, I don't think so. Tactical means tactical. It's a really open, short-term concept, born out of a disgust for ideology. It is pretty much a post-1989 phenomenon, surfing on the waves of events, enjoying the opening up of scenes and borders, on the look out for new alliances. Curious, not afraid of differences. I am not sure if tactical media are bound to certain media or platforms. It is about a form of art meets activism with a positive attitude towards contemporary digital technology. It is more exploratory than confrontational. To some extent self-reflexive. There are a lot of rituals and phrases which have to be thrown out in order to be able to make new start and reach new audiences. Let's face it. This excitement has grown and resulted in a whole new generation of (net) activism, covered by the mainstream media. We are living in interesting times. This cannot be said of new media arts which was at its height in the early to mid nineties. Today's activism has profited from it, though. There is no fall-back noticable towards a grey dogmatic non-aesthetics, which really surprises me. ab: The 'grey dogmatic non-aesthetics' of earlier tactical media? Is this the result of a more 'pop'-oriented attitude in activism? A new generation that is less tied up in clean, fundamentalist ideologies? Java activists versus the telnet-generation? gl: No, I think the distinction is a more primitive one: online versus offline (which, by the way, are not contradictory practices). It is not even punk versus techno. The DIY aesthetics I am referring to here is one which cares for the self (image), it has grown out of a curiocity, and is done with precision. It is against the sloppy attitudes which implicitly say that form doesn't matter anyway. I am talking about an activism with style. Not a particular style. Having, and maintaining, a style is quite something these days. It is hard. I am not sure if I would call it 'pop,' because that term, for me, is refering to 'popular.' That's not what I mean. Sophisticated and rich styles activists use often are unpopular. The aesthetic program does not even have to be about a certain 'look.' I am talking about a higher, critical awareness of style rather than the correct usage of this or that contemporary icon, software, color set, patterns or typography font. ab: David, you have always strongly advocated a tight linking of media activism and art. This relationship has been very strong in a particular segment of media art practice, but it has sometimes fallen between the camps of established contemporary art and political activism. How would you describe the link between the two - or the complex in which they articulate each other? dg: Yes, this is true and the reason for my position is not theoretical but the result of my first experience of seeing tactical media at close hand, in action in what I still believe to be one of the most important and effective campaigns of recent years. This was ACT UP a mobilisation against the AIDS policy of the Reagan administration of the time, which in choosing to ignore AIDS was a policy of silence. Artists played a critical role in both organising and giving shape and a kind of charismatic momentum to ACT UP. I believe it was the artist collective Gran Fury in their exhibition Let the Record Show who created the slogan (or equation) that became the symbol of the AIDS activist movement world wide: SILENCE = DEATH An activist carrying this statement on banners or wearing it on badges or sweat shirts were not delivering a simple polemical message from an earlier era of politics with its rigid command structures. They were developing a new language for the era of communicative networks. The activists were "wearing" a statement which required completion by others, to wear this logo was to draw people into conversation. Not a command but an invitation to discourse. Intimate media, a "user language" for both activism and the visual arts. This took the rhetorical tropes of the likes of Jenny Holzer and Barbera Kruger into a new and tactical dimension. ab: Do you mean what Geert refers to as a 'style' - tactical media as an attitude more than a technical definition? dg: Yes, rather than the use of any particular medium it is this quality of creating effective user languages (virtual or otherwise) that *engage* and *deploy* rather than *authorise* and *require* that characterise the tactical practitioner. The posters, videos, installations, murals graphics and television channels such as The Gay Men's Health Crisis were not only successful as art and as activism but were successful as art BECAUSE it was effective activism. The AIDS tactitical practitioners, collectives like Gran Fury or individuals like Greg Bordowitz (who is still working) are true hybrids leaving behind the older categories to forge something else, something necessary, something which required a name. In N5M we chose to call it tactical media. Maybe the term itself is a tactical solution, an improvisation that has proved a curiously successful stop gap measure like the X in algebra. There is a text by the Critical Art Ensemble which encapsulates what I think is still the best take on tactical media: "There has been a growing awareness that for many decades a cultural practice has existed that has avoided being named or fully categorized. Its roots are in the modern avant garde, to the extent that its participants place a high value on experimentation and on engaging the unbreakable link between representation and political and social change. Often not artists in any traditional sense refusing to be caught in the web of metaphysical, historical and romantic signage that accompanies that designation. Nor are they simply political activists because they refuse to take a solely reactive position and often act in defiance of efficiency and necessity ... For those of us who are involved in tactical media felt a kind of relief that we could be any kind of hybrid artist, scientist, technician, craftsperson, theorist, activist, could all be mixed together in combinations that had different weights and intensities. These many roles of becoming artist becoming activist, becoming scientist, etc., contained in each individual and group, could be acknowledged and valued. Many felt liberated from having to represent themselves to the public as a specialist and therefore valued." I can't put it any better so I won't try. But I will add that this model and its continued use makes it something more than simply a "short term concept". ab: Geert, in a new text called The New Actonomy which you wrote together with Florian Schneider, you describe the new possibilities of media activism that are emerging, but you also point to the potential dangers that people have to be aware of. The Internet as the master medium of the 1990s has, in the last two or three years, fallen into what looks like a depression. Some say that the party and the hype are simply over, others that we are entering into a more realistic stage where the importance of the Net as a medium will continue to grow, while the utopian hopes subside in the face of all sorts of critical reality checks. These reality checks are also closely tied to a crisis of the general belief in globalisation and the fast-aging 'new economy'. Does this crisis create room for tactical media practices, or does it make the life of media activists more difficult? gl: It is indeed true that advanced net activism (not the adolescent 'hacktivism') is much closer to dotcom business than many would suspect. The new actonomy is open for business, constantly searching for funds, just as tactical media no longer fully depend on state funding. For a good reason: there is a common interest in innovative net concepts, software, interfaces, usage of streaming media, free software and open source etc. This might mean that the current wave of net activism will face a setback in a little while because it's just behind the dotcom wave. The stagnation of bandwidth is a real concern, for example, also for activists. The same counts for the e-cash crisis and the absence of a functioning micro payment system. Activists, sitting on their explosive content, would really benefit from alternative e-commerce systems, not based on credit cards. It is of course good for social and political work on the Net that the cyberselfish robber mentality of the dotcoms has gone. But do not forget the flip side of this. With libertarianism losing its hegemony there is also the danger of throwing away the baby with the tub water and giving away the cyber freedom to corporations and the state. That should never happen. It is also up to activists to fight against censorship, lobby against the flood of desastrous legislations etc. ab: The French theorist Felix Guattari has used the term 'post-media' to describe a potential system in which the mass media are pushed aside by a multiplicity of small, heterogeneous, digital media, a network or rhizome of practices that foster the emergence of more differentiated, less homogeneous subjectivities and group subjectivities. Howard Slater has taken this idea up and points out that the cheerful clutter of independent media activities on websites, music labels, in zines, at demonstrations, mailing lists, etc., are the kinds of post-mdeia operations which Guattari saw the beginnings of in the Minitel and free radio movements in France in the 1970s and 80s. However, rather than fulfilling Guattari's utopian hope, the mass-medialisation of digital media seems unstoppable and threatens to turn the Net, as well as the computer in general through the software door, into a one-way medium. Is the hope for 'DIY media', which we also tried to promote through the transmediale.01, futile? gl: Not futile. It's a struggle. You don't get media freedom for free. And most of all: you can't buy 'technological freedom.' It doesn't come with the equipment or even with the software. It is only a matter of time until we will see the first full-scale civil war, fought with Linux software on both sides, causing thousands of deaths. Why not? Is there something like inherently good software? No. The Internet is beyond good and evil and simply mirrors human nature with all its flaws. A radical and open, independent media infrastructure is produced by people and their ability to connect with each other and create a "culture." DIY media do not go anywhere if it just means Do It On Your Own. The trick is to create loose ties and provide a relative autonomy for seperate units. The units can be individuals, groups, collectives, associations, circles of friends, from the same discipline and generation, in contact with the rest. The opposite of DIY is DBO, Done By Others. There is indeed a danger that Internet will become a professional medium, in the hands of others. But that's only the case at the macro level. On the micro level there is still so much possible, especially for those who wanna stay off the radar for a while. ab: David, in how far can education play a role for this kind of post-medial practices? You have been teaching at the art academy in Utrecht for several years now: has it been possible for you to translate the attitudes of art and media activism into the curriculum? dg: Actually where I have been teaching is the department of Interaction Design in a building far away from the main art school and devoted to Art, Media and Technology. To my surprise I have found key questions within interaction design highly applicable to the central problems of art and activism. These are the problems of action in relationship to observation. Historically there was a separation of observation and action in 17th century science and was mirrored in the same period by artists stepping out of the workshops of the artisan and into the isolation of their private studios. But in all areas of science and culture interest has again returned to the one area that was excluded namely action. This can be seen by analysing the discipline of interactive art and design as action or 'behaviour' lies at its core. Earlier forms of art could be perceived as constructed out of three primary components: appearance, content and structure. To this triangulation interactive artists and designers have added a fourth and defining component, "behaviour". Not simply the behaviour of the user but of the system as a whole which is made up of machine AND users. In this model, the work of art includes the whole system, the machines and the people. Success in these new forms of interactive art depend on being able to integrate a visualisation of the behaviour or action of the system into the work itself. It is in this context in both interaction design or tactical media that I apply the same maxim "visibility is not achieved through prediction, but through support". This summer at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the artist George Legrady and the computer scientist from Helsinki Timo Honkela worked together (with others) to produce the installation, Pockets Full of Memories (www.pocketsfullofmemories.com) in which neural networks are used to create an artwork that evolves over time, refining its decisions in relationship to the different contributions that each museum visitor makes to the system. This is an artwork - and a supportive environment - that learns! Works like these are creating a new chapter in the history of culture. But we are confronted with the fact that along with this new chapter comes a new set of problems. As Gerard de Zeeuw, an important teacher and intellectual who recently retired from Amsterdam University wrote : "Action remains the area of the unexpected, of the invisible, of that which changes without pattern. Stepping into the river still seems as unique as it was 2500 years ago!" ab: For me, this conflation of interactivity in media art, action in a political sense, and behaviour - which seems to be a form of action that is non-subjective and driven by outside forces - is not unproblematic and I wonder whether it is possible to get all of this under the umbrella of 'tactical media.' gl: No. For me tactical is the expression of a nineties temporality, in search of new a alchemy, to break out of the high art versus raw activism of the outgoing eighties with its dogmatic infightings and institutionalized new social movements. For me the whole idea of tactical media geared up towards Seattle and the IMC phenomena. There's a phenomenal renaissance of media activism going on around the globe. I was just at the second Media Circus conference in Melbourne (www.antimedia.net/mediacircus). I also attended the first one, in September 1999, a one day event, during the East Timor crisis. Media Circus doubled in size. There were 350 mainly young people during the weekend. Last night, in Sydney, there was the first Active Sydney Fair (www.active.org.au/sydney/fair), with a crowd of at least 500. Naomi Klein spoke and she warned of summit tourism, the crackdown of authorities against the massive street protests. There is a gap between abstract topics of third world debt, world trade agreements, financial policies and the daily misery, with its concrete, local struggles. I don't think internet activism, or tactical media for that matter can fill that gap. What we can do exchange concepts. The rapid growth of anti-border groups, supporting illegalized migrants, is a good example there. A fight in which the tactical imagination plays a key role (see: www.deportation-alliance.com). ab: David, when you started the Next 5 Minutes series 10 years ago, you were a free-lancing artist, whereas now you are teaching at an academy. Do you see areas where the academic system is opening up for more diverse and critical approaches to media in art and design? dg: Recently my possibilities in the academic framework have been greatly expanded with the founding of the Ph.D. program Design for Digital Cultures which is a European doctorate sited at three very different European colleges, the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart, Utrecht and Portsmouth University. My objective over time is to make spaces for the people, theory and materials which have emerged from tactical media into an active component within the Digital Cultures program. This is not simply a question of curriculum it is a question of supporting and enabling the researchers who are part of the program to contribute to tactical campaigns, projects and conferences. For me this program will only be successful if we are involved in *action orientated research*. The first stage of this will include explicitly linking the program to the development of the Next 5 Minutes edition 4. The ball started rolling in a recent seminar in which I participated at New York University where they have launched a research program on tactical media, from this event came the notion of N5M4 as a loose alliance of rolling research groups. The aim is that these groups should form an active network of research nodes, each of which would be working on a specific synergy theme - ideally it should include groups such as NYU - Sarai - Critical Art Ensemble - Open Streaming Alliance - Technics (UK) - to name but a few. The process would involve a structure of regular "development meetings" and smaller planning meetings (on-line is fine but not enough - face to face is still the highest bandwidth -) to ensure that the nodes keep each other informed and are able to borrow freely from each other. In contrast to many previous tactical events I favor experimenting with an approach in which the meetings identify *objectives* and come to (fasten your seat belts) *conclusions*. Under these circumstances The Next 5 Minutes Conference/tribal gathering would remain but be informed by less random approach. N5M would be the platform for presenting the results of our researches. The results could take many forms and be in many media but it would also include programming the conference itself which would obviously want to draw from beyond its own network. I envisage this process beginning November 2001 with research and meetings proceeding throughout 2002 and would culminate early in 2003 with The N5M4 event and conference in Amsterdam with possible related events in other locations. ab: A final question. What David describes in relation to the development of the Next 5 Minutes as a research movement raises the question of the sites, institutional and informal, of tactical media practice. While institutions are no doubt necessary for creating a sustainable practice and infrastructures, the tactical always also seems to imply a 'hit-and-run' attitude which cannot be tied down in such structures. How would you see this tension and how do you think the field can be developed most fruitfully? Do we see the emergence of new, stronger alliances? gl: I do not see it as a tension yet. Institutionalization is a problem which only comes in time. Let's say after five or ten years when an original scene has broken up into fragments. There are indeed people who dig in and do not know how to move on. They are the power brokers. They end up taking all the credits, taking the money from ministeries, foundations and sponsors. But in most cases it's power over a dead territory. Creative individuals can't deal with the kind of bureaucracy that comes with today's institutions. I would love to see more hit and run companies taking off in the new media arts and activist sector. In that sense the dotcoms can be a good lesson. This is mainly because the arts and culture still depends on government resources. It hasn't found ways to generate its own income, nor does know how to negotiate with sponsors. The result is an incredible waste of time. I would love to see a fund where you could apply and get an answer in a few weeks time. We need art and activist ventures. The only way to do something quickly and initiate something new these days is to do it without any money, which sets off the well known self-exploitation cycles. There must be ways to break out of that logic. dg: I want to emphasize that when I see N5M as a research process I mean *action orientated research* not research for its own sake. To Geert's emphasis on speed and mobility I would add (not substitute) a slowing down to analyze, reflect and evaluate; not so much digging in, as digging deep. Let me demonstrate with some local media archeology; I have been re-reading the proceedings of the first event where I met and worked alongside Geert. The Seropositive Ball, held in Amsterdam in 1990. The project arose out of a necessity for something beyond the perception of AIDS as an exclusively medical problem. It combined activism and all the arts with an embryonic culture of computer mediated communications. But at the time we were heavily and to a degree justifiably critiqued by New York activists. This is what Gregg Bordowitz said to us more than a decade ago: "the way the conference is organized is based on a utopian notion of a free exchange of information, instituted through technology. A use of technology that is unquestioned, uncriticised, unproblematised. The notion that a universal space can be established through phone links, faxes and modems. If there is one thing that is established through the kind of work we do is that there have never been such things as universal categories, principles or experiences. In future I would like to see conferences which reflected the interest of the people with the most at stake, in which there was some acceptance of difference that isn't evened out or erased through some notion of free exchange through some neutralmeans that remain unquestioned ... To me this destroys community ... collectivity." Next 5 Minutes 1 (1993), which followed The Sero Positve Ball at the Paradiso, was to a degree driven by a desire to answer this critique. But I am not sure whether any of the N5M conferences have yet been successful. Interestingly I recently re-met Gregg in the tactical media seminar in New York. He has remained a AIDS activist and video-maker and has been part of the successful campaign that fought the drugs companies who were trying to prevent the use of cloned drugs in South Africa (a case where the issue of intellectual property is a matter of life and death). Gregg is still committed to fight AIDS world wide. To me the continuity of this struggle, this "digging in" with values other than "hit and run" is inspiring. Personally I also found value in a closer scrutiny of the past of what Geert described as our fragmented "scene" not for history's sake but for the sake of making us less likely to repeat mistakes and re-invent the wheel. Time has come to question the assumption that ephemerality must always be a virtue. Manifestos of the tactical (including our own) assume that we must reject the permanent, the monumental. Defacing public monuments is a knee jerk reaction of many street protests. I think there is something to be learned from the American Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King when they appropriated the Lincoln Memorial as a means of tapping into a broadly based community memory. In Amsterdam we also have a great example, the Homo Monument which is a beautiful and effective public site for reflection and mobilisation. On the question of the tension between informal tactics and institutionalization, like Geert I also don't see tension, but for different reasons. The perceived tension is based on the misapprehension that tactical media is by definition always on the outside of institutional power. Power exists where it enacts itself and that may or may not be within institutions. I know plenty of "power brokers" who operate on the outside of institutions. Nor do I accept the romanticism of the statement "creative individuals can't deal with bureaucracy". An important reason for introducing the term tactical was to leave behind the rigid dichotomies of mainstream vs underground, amateur vs professional, or even "the creative individuals vs uncreative individuals". From Paper Tiger to the BBC's video diaries we discovered that the tactical cuts straight across the marginal vs mainstream dichotomy. It is the contexts in which tactical media are made that influence the tactics deployed, and these contexts (and their tactics) are multiple. # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net From jeebesh at sarai.net Fri Aug 17 18:19:58 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 18:19:58 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] freedom v/s freesoftware In-Reply-To: <20010816175408.A13051@sarai.net> References: <20010812173711.94937.qmail@web8102.in.yahoo.com> <20010816175408.A13051@sarai.net> Message-ID: Pankaj wrote : (to Prabhat's mail) >I belive you dont know any thing about the GPL >Go sit in a corner for ten minutes. and then read the GPL. A strange echo of earlier times. "Go and read and then come back" - is a line that must have been said in the 20th century sect-battles ad infinitum. Why does this have to reappear again on conversations about free-code? The problem is that practitioners and activists tends to become proprietary about the thoughts or practices from which they draw upon. This is a remnant of the ethos of the`manuscript culture`of medieval times and it is intriguing to see it operating within the digital domain. And secondly they get into a representational trap where the self (or the organization) becomes the idea. So any discussion of the idea have to go over their body. And of course the body is the pure body, rest are all impurities! Last November I visited IT.com in Bangalore. What surprised me was the hostility to the usage of the word `free software` among some Linux users. Saying GNU/ Linux was an anathema (you could get ostracized from some groups if you could stick to this usage). Why is it so Pankaj? The formation of communities of knowledge and practice are complex processes and it becomes a problem when these communities create an arrogant and defensive public representation and postures. It helps no one, least of all the communities themselves. What surprises me is the almost derogatory reference to a thing called `slum` in this discussions. Since people from `slums` are not likely to appear in this discussion (at least in the near future) to challenge their representation, so why must we then keep on referring to them to score points in arguments about `free software`. Why must the digital avant-garde of Linux programmers be so worried and upset about the possibility of having to deal with the realities that neither threaten them and nor contest their claims. I can understand when a Linux enthusiast polemicizes against a Microsoft propagandist, but why must hackles rise when an argument is made for the extension of the best of free software to precisely those areas in society where there is the greatest need for it. Earlier, the debate has been precisely about this, where and when could free software enthusiasts expend their energy, with the state, in the marketplace or in that area of society that is neither within the domain of the state or of the market. There seems to have been a totally defensive reaction by those who have been critiqued on the grounds that their investment of energies in state and market led initiatives may be contrary to what free software is all about. It is indeed sad that Pankaj should have reacted so strongly against the idea of working on free software platforms that work in Languages other than those that are written in the Roman Alphabet. To talk about the need for software in a particular language which might happen to be someone's mother tongue (English too is a mother tongue to many) is not the same thing at all, under any circumstances, to a call for the defence of the 'mother land'. It is simply a plea that the benefits of free software be accessible to those who do not have a facility with the English language. Moreover Pankaj is GPL not an attempt to create a tactical public domain? Cheers Jeebesh From kshekhar at bol.net.in Fri Aug 17 13:44:51 2001 From: kshekhar at bol.net.in (Mumbai Study Group) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 13:44:51 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] 25.8.2001: Positioning Mumbai Globally Message-ID: Dear Friends: In our next meeting, we welcome SULAKSHANA MAHAJAN, Doctoral Candidate at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A., who will give a presentation on "Positioning Mumbai in a Globalising Economy: Public-Private-Sector Participation in Infrastructure Delivery in the Mumbai Region". Ms Mahajan is a former lecturer at the Academy of Architecture, Rachana Sansad, and is currently pursuing her doctorate on the economic restructuring of cities, state policies and the role of public and private sector participation in delivery of services and infrastructure. Her present research is on information and communications technologies. She is the co-author with Hemlata C. Dandekar of "MSRDC and Mumbai-Pune Expressway: A Sustainable Model for Privatising Construction of Infrastructure?" (Economic and Political Weekly, 17 February 2001). Her study of Mumbai has also taken her to Nashik, Pune, London and Rotterdam to see how these urban regions are redefining their economies locally and globally, and in this presentation she will share her observations from her perspective as an urban planner. This session will be on SATURDAY 25 AUGUST 2001, at 10.00 A.M., on the SECOND FLOOR, Rachna Sansad, 278, Shankar Ghanekar Marg, Prabhadevi, Mumbai, next to Ravindra Natya Mandir. Phone: 4301024, 4310807, 4229969; Station: Elphinstone Road (Western Railway); BEST Bus: 35, 88, 151, 161, 162, 171, 355, 357, 363, to Ravindra Natya Mandir, 91 Ltd, 305 Ltd, A1 and A4 to Prabadevi. ABOUT THE GROUP The MUMBAI STUDY GROUP meets on the second and fourth Saturdays of every month, at the Rachana Sansad, Prabhadevi, Mumbai. Our conversations continue through the support extended by Shri Pradip Amberkar, Principal of the Academy of Architecture, and Prof S.H. Wandrekar, Trustee of the Rachana Sansad. Conceived as an inclusive and non-partisan forum to foster dialogue, discussion and criticism on urban issues, we have since September 2000 held conversations about various historical, political, cultural, social and spatial aspects of Mumbai in the context of globalisation. Our discussions are open and public, no previous membership or affiliation is required. We encourage the participation of urban researchers and practitioners, experts and non-experts, researchers and students, and all individuals and groups in Mumbai to join our conversations about the city. The format we have evolved is to host individual or panel-based presentations in various arenas of urban theory and practice, and have a moderated and focussed discussion from our many practical and professional perspectives. Among others, our previous sessions have hosted the following presentations: * Kalpana Sharma, Associate Editor of The Hindu and author of the recently published Rediscovering Dharavi (Mumbai: Penguin Books, 2000), spoke about slum-dwellers, citizenship, and representations of the poor and unhoused in the mainstream media. * Kedar Ghorpade, Senior Planner at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, presented on the business of managing cities, the history of urban planning attempts in Mumbai, and the challenges of planning in an expanding mega-city. * Dr Marina Pinto, Professor of Public Administration, retired from Mumbai University, and author of Metropolitan City Governance in India (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000), discussed with us urban administration in the major cities of the country, and the structure and functioning of the Bombay Municipal Corporation. * Dr K. Sita, Professor of Geography, retired from Mumbai University and former Garware Chair Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, spoke about the changing economic functions of the city historically, and geographical and social implications for planners. * Dr Arjun Appadurai, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, Director of Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research (PUKAR), Mumbai, and the author of Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Univ of Minnesota Press, 1996), presented on the questions of cities and globalisation: the changing social ecologies of consumption, new market cultures, and the multiple loyalties and identities being formed by these global processes in local contexts in Mumbai. * Rahul Srivastava, Lecturer in Sociology at Wilson College, spoke on the Neighbourhood Project, an ethnographic initiative he has conceived through encouraging his students to look at their own localities in the inner-city areas of Central Bombay, through textual and visual media. In a discussion of the changing contexts of urban identity formation, we noted the value of using the city as a pedagogical device for students. * Sandeep Yeole, General Secretary of the Pheriwala Vikas Mahasangh, along with several colleagues from various unions of street vendors and hawkers in the city, made an overhead presentation and interacted with us on issues of hawkers self-organisation, social consumption and street commerce in Mumbai. * S.S. Tinaikar, former Municipal Commissioner of Bombay, Sheela Patel, Director of the Society for Protection of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), and Bhanu Desai of the Citizens' Forum for the Protection of Public Spaces (CFPPS) joined us for a round-table discussion on the Maharashtra Government's new Slum Policy 2001 and the competing interests in the process of policy formation on urban issues. * Shirish Patel, one of India's leading engineers and part of the planning team which designed New Bombay, chaired a discussion and presentation on Mumbai's built environment in the wake of the earthquakes in Gujarat, where we heard from Pramod Sahasrabuddhe and Abhay Godbole, both structural engineers with long-standing practices in Mumbai. * Dr Anjali Monteiro, Professor and Head, and K.P. Jayashankar, Reader, from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences Unit for Media and Communications, Mumbai introduced their film "Saacha", about poet Narayan Surve and painter Sudhir Patwardhan, both of whom were part of the landscape of Left cultural activism in Mumbai. The film was followed by a discussion with Sudhir Patwardhan about the changing face of Mumbai. * Dr Sujata Patel, Professor and Head, Department of Sociology, University of Pune, spoke on politics, identities and populism, on the basis of her ongoing project on culture, consumption practices, and the Shiv Sena and her forthcoming edited anthology, co-edited with Jim Masselos, titled Mumbai: Bombay's Future?. This will be the third volume in the series, co-edited with Alice Thorner, of which the first two volumes were Bombay: Metaphor for Modern Culture, and Bombay: Mosaic of Modern India (both Oxford University Press India, 1995). * Dr Mariam Dossal, Head, Department of History, Mumbai University, spoke on nationalist architecture and the Bombay School of Architecture in the colonial and postcolonial periods. Dr Dossal is the author of Imperial Designs and Indian Realities: The Planning of Bombay City 1845-1875 (Oxford University Press India, 1991). * B. Rajaram, Managing Director of Konkan Railway Corporation, and Dr P.G. Patankar, former Chairman of the Bombay Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking (BEST) and currently with Tata Consultancy Services joined us for a panel discussion on public transport alternatives for Mumbai: the Sky Bus and Underground Metro. * Ved Segan, Vikas Dilawari, and Pankaj Joshi, three noted conservation architects, featured in a panel discussion on the social relevance of heritage and conservation architecture in Mumbai. * Debi Goenka, of the Bombay Environmental Action Group, and Chandrashekhar Prabhu, architect and environmental and housing activist, joined Professor Sudha Srivastava, Dr Geeta Kewalramani, and Dr Dipti Mukherji, of the University of Mumbai Department of Geography, for a panel discussion on the salt pan lands in Mumbai, the politics of land use and the Coastal Regulation Zone Act. * Sucheta Dalal, business journalist, author, and Consulting Editor, Financial Express talked to us about institutional finance in the city. Dalal has co-authored with Debashis Basu The Scam: Who Won, Who Lost, Who Got Away, about the Harshad Mehta scam, a story which she broke; she is the biographer of A.D. Shroff, financial expert and founder of the Forum of Free Enteprise (Viking Press, 2000). * Dr Arvind Rajagopal, Associate Professor of Culture and Communications at New York University, presented on "The Pheriwala as Encroacher-Entrepreneur: The Aesthetics and Politics of Recent Debates on Hawkers in Mumbai". Dr Rajagopal is also the author of Politics After Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Indian Public (Cambridge University Press, 2001), which examines the impact of the screening of the Ramayana serial on Doordarshan on Indian society in the nineties, and the interface between economic liberalisation, the rise of Hindutva, and the role of the mass media. * Dr Gyan Prakash, Professor of History at Princeton University, and member of the Subaltern Studies Editorial Collective, presented on Indian modernity and the idea of Bombay, part of his ongoing research on imaginary histories of the city. Dr Prakash is the author of Bonded Histories: Genealogies of Labour Servitude in Colonial India (Cambridge University Press, 1990), Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (Princeton University Press, 1999), as well as several articles on colonialism and historiography, and is has edited several volumes on colonial history. These broad concerns have been the impetus for our conversation. We feel that it is through marrying such general discussions to a focussed engagement with the many aspects of urban life, that we can promote quality debate and discussion on urban theory and practice in Mumbai. Almost any issue deemed "urban" has numerous dimensions -- legally, politically, economically, spatially, historically -- and the Mumbai Study Group is meant as a multi-disciplinary forum for discussion and mutual criticism by professionals in their respective fields of urban practice: whether as architects or planners, lawyers or journalists, academics or activists.Through such a conversation, we hope to build an inclusive community of urban citizens, which while grounding itself in the practices of professionals also has a clear critical perspective, situating Mumbai in the theories and practices of urbanism globally. We invite all urban researchers, practitioners and other interested individuals to join us in our fortnightly conversations, and suggest topics for presentation and discussion. For any more information, kindly contact one of the Joint Convenors of the Mumbai Study Group: ARVIND ADARKAR, Architect, Researcher and Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, Phone 2051834, ; DARRYL D'MONTE, Journalist and Writer, 6427088 ; SHEKHAR KRISHNAN, Coordinator-Associate, Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research (PUKAR), 4462728, ; PANKAJ JOSHI, Conservation Architect, Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, and PUKAR Associate, 8230625, . From prabhatmuhurta at yahoo.co.in Fri Aug 17 23:25:20 2001 From: prabhatmuhurta at yahoo.co.in (=?iso-8859-1?q?Prabhat=20Kumar?=) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 18:55:20 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] freedom and freesoftware Message-ID: <20010817175520.76437.qmail@web8101.in.yahoo.com> I thought that I shall not write any more mail on this subject but Mr. Pankaj is compelling me to write two lines. I just want to ask Mr. Pankaj that if a company sits on a GPLed software and makes it a proprietary software, then what an individual programmer can do. For how long can that ill-fated programmer survive the series of court dates and hearings? One should not forget that fighting a legal case is not an easy job for a person who doesn’t have vulgar bank balance. Secondly, I thought that when I used the examples of NBA, BMW one could understand the level of corruption I was referring to in legal matters. Anyway, hope Mr.Pankaj now understands what I meant if he had read what is GPL all about. No doubt, GPL is a very good concept, but it has its limitations. It is only a means to reach somewhere, not the end. If someone things that GPL is the ultimate solution then he is living in fools paradise. I take it for granted that purity and divinity of GPL is bound to be dishonored in this world of adulteration and corruption. So I prescribe to increase the user base of Linux and construct a popular opinion. This is important for its own existence not for charity. Popular opinion in the form of protests etc. can show better result than a single middleclass person fighting a lonely defeated battle in the sea of power and money. I don’t want to reply other comments that I would like to presume nothing more than emotional out bursts. By the way, I am not against Linux if so understood. Prabhat ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send a newsletter, share photos & files, conduct polls, organize chat events. Visit http://in.groups.yahoo.com. From patrice at xs4all.nl Sat Aug 18 01:40:19 2001 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (Patrice Riemens) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 22:10:19 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] [fred@bytesforall.org: [goa-research-net] COMMENT: Autonomy of Scholarship and the State] Message-ID: <20010817221019.N5755@xs4all.nl> ----- Forwarded message from Frederick Noronha ----- Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 09:44:26 +0530 (IST) To: goa-research-net at goacom.com Subject: [goa-research-net] COMMENT: Autonomy of Scholarship and the State Source: The Hindu (http://www.hinduonnet.com) Autonomy of scholarship and the state The Hindu, August 14, 2001 By Itty Abraham & M.S.S. Pandian THE RECENT decision by the Supreme Court to dismiss the PUCL writ petition contesting the Government's move to put new restrictions on international academic conferences is indeed a disappointment. The Government order is a major setback for Indian academia, for relations with our neighbours, and for Indian civil society more generally. The broad scope of these restrictions raises a number of important issues. For instance, what is the meaning of the word ``semi- political''? Can we slice the topic of politics so finely that we now have a spectrum, from full politics to semi-politics to demi-politics and so on? Who carries the authority to pigeonhole different themes as belonging to these different categories of politics? The question of communalism is presumably any subject that deals with Hindu-Muslim relations in particular and inter-community activities more generally. Does this mean that the academic discussion and debate of the history, sociology, politics of communal relations is off limits? One can understand that conferences that seek to exacerbate tension between communities are not in the public interest. But we already have so many sources of such tensions, from the Shiv Sena rag Saamna to the hit Bollywood film, `Gadhar'. Is there no discrimination possible between these sources of communal hatred? In fact, it is precisely through rigorous academic conferences that we may acquire a more nuanced and informed understanding of the causes of inter- communal relations. Not only that, but academics are also sensitive to other examples of communal relations, where groups have worked out ways of living together and of addressing common problems within their own institutions, without the intervention of the state. Should we not learn from these examples and publicise them so that others may also copy these `best practices'? That human right also falls under this category is an important indicator of what lies below the surface. It is well known that the Government of India is enormously sensitive to its international public image. Its dubious efforts to prevent the issue of caste being brought up in the World Conference on Racism is only the latest example of such sensitivities. As a result, the Government's response to most forms of international criticism - whether about violation of human rights or caste-based discrimination - has traditionally been to sweep it under the carpet. What one must question is the colonial mentality that suggests that an airing of one's shortfalls leads to a decline in the nation's well being. It could rather be the opposite. It is only a confident nation that allows free expression on all matters, with the assurance that the outcome will lead to a stronger public and greater legitimacy for the state. The fragility of the Indian Union that is implied by these restrictions flies in the face of the resilience and popular strength of its democracy. The Government's reasoning here is course independent of the fundamental rights to speech and association guaranteed by the Constitution. But one realises that the problem is structural when one associates this latest rule with, for example, the difficulty in passing a reasonable set of national laws that guarantee the public's right to information, or, denying private radio stations the right to produce news programmes. What is most troubling is the all-too-easy recourse to invoking the sacred cow of national security when in trouble and the even greater ease with which so many intellectuals and commentators swallow this line. There are actually very few things that really affect national security. Selling certain kinds of national secrets is one, provided these are really secrets. Where Indian armed forces are positioned, the level of their ammunition stocks, the level of their morale - this is information one may not want some enemy to know. Yet, as Tehelka showed, these are things that are probably easy to find out in New Delhi, provided one has some contacts and a little ready cash. There are other things that affect the nation's security too, like bankrupting the country through unwise or corrupt financial practices, practices that cause enormous number of innocent people to suffer and take years to repair. But a lot of things have nothing to do with national security. It is extremely difficult to identify national security concerns related to any international conference, even those on human rights, most things to do with the Northeast and nearly everything to do with religion. What we mean in practice by national security are usually the activities of one or another Government Ministry or agency which is keen not to have its activities scrutinised by the public. Atomic Energy is of course the easiest case in point. As long as national security is defined by the same people who get to carry it out, its scope inevitably expands until it reaches the present ridiculous extent. The heavy-handed efforts of the present Government to prevent dialogue from taking place across national boundaries are likewise doomed to fail. Two obvious responses will take place. Those who really have something subversive or seditious to say will find other ways of getting their message across. The means are too many to control. The other is that major academic conferences will no longer be held in India. One can do the same conference in Bangladesh, Nepal, or Sri Lanka, with no effort at all - the only difference being the local audience. The real losers will be the students and junior faculty who have the most to gain from attending these events. If these restrictions continue, it might even reach the point when even holding an international conference in India will become suspect. There will be those who will wonder what political connections the conference organisers had or what deals they struck in order to get foreign participants in. The credibility of these conferences will be suspect by default, the quality of their discussions notwithstanding. The power of the state over Indian academic institutions and scholarship has derived both from ideological reasons and financial ones. In the early days after Independence, there was little question among politicians, bureaucrats and academics alike that the purpose of social science scholarship was for national developmental needs. Both the support given to fields like economics in particular and to the setting up of institutions like the Delhi School of Economics and the Institute of Economic Growth had this larger purpose in mind. Agencies like the Planning Commission provided a convenient channel both for policy ideas as well as for academics shuttling between theoretical and applied pursuits. These conditions are no longer true. In the present context, both ideological unanimity and financial support have withered away. Except in the hard sciences, and there too in some technology fields in particular, it is becoming clearer that unless institutions are able to generate their own sources of funds, they are likely to wither away through neglect. Under the impact of neo-liberal policies and the excessive politicisation of the advanced centres of learning under the present Government, the contradiction between the excessive legal power of the state over academic institutions and the shrinking resources and support it provides them is stark and growing. In this changed context, what is required is a debate both over the appropriate role of the state in relation to determining the direction and content of scholarly research and the question of a contemporary rationale for social science scholarship. The first is easier to address - given the constitutional right to free speech and assembly and structural conditions that see the state selectively withdrawing from the field of higher education - the state has no standing for censoring the free flow of knowledge. The latter question is more complex. Responses could range from liberal definitions of a good society to the need to generate new ideas to renew society and respond to social demands. Perhaps most important, however, is the need for critical perspectives on the state and society that are unconstrained by fashion or fear. Even as we agree that the second issue needs far more sustained attention and discussion, we must also be clear that the legitimate voices in that debate are the community of social scientists, not the state. (The writers are, respectively, Program Director, Social Science Research Council, New York, and Fellow, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Chennai. The views expressed are of the writers and not of the institutions they belong to.) Copyrights: 1995 - 2001 The Hindu ------------------------------------------------------------------- To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from Goa-Research-Net ------------------------------------------------------------------- * Send us a brief self-intro to justify your interest in this "specialized" forum. This should be sent to teodesouza at mail.telepac.pt or to fred at goa1.dot.net.in * Send email to majordomo at goacom.com (NOT goa-research-net at goacom.com) * Leave SUBJECT blank * On first line of the BODY of your message, type: subscribe goa-research-net YOUR at EMAIL.ADDRESS or unsubscribe goa-research-net YOUR at EMAIL.ADDRESS ------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- End forwarded message ----- From reyhanchaudhuri at hotmail.com Sat Aug 18 01:44:23 2001 From: reyhanchaudhuri at hotmail.com (Dr. Reyhan Chaudhuri) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 20:14:23 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] Reply to:Loneliness of a Long Distance Bihari BY a solitary 1/2km Daily runner. Message-ID: Mr.Bhartiya�s postings were really a good read and one can suspect that writing it may have made him quite nostalgic and fondly look back on his childhood. However since I�ve been told this is a public space in a relatively public domain and that we can air our completely own opinion and views unrestrained ,so I must make the intitiative of doing precisely that. So ,even if it is at the cost of nettling him or putting him on a defensive stance, I feel I must state that perhaps next time or consequently he ought to probe the reasons for the Bihari syndrome. Why did the stereotypical myths emerge and why these preconceptions(he would probably prefer to call them prejudices) are not entirely old granny tales ? It is one of the BIMARO states (as statisticians call it) which roughly translates in Hindustani as:�Sick�.But is also an acronym Bihar /MadhyaPradesh /Rajasthan/ Orissa. (Bengal? U.P?They maybe included too,I must check up.) For those who are not familiar with our subcontinent it may be relevant to tell them that India is divided into states and union territories. Like perhaps the federal states of America .However they are more like the EEC countries with different languages, different scripts and often even races;)These Bimaro states are problem areas(though a cynic would say whole of the country is in dire straits. ) and sick in the sense that they are more diseased in comparison to some of the other states. All their Mortality and Morbidity Rates are at a dismal level and more important much lower than the National Calibrations. These include the Economic rates and the more abstract but equally real in terms of �life & �living� ,the:Psycho-Social ones. I would include in this category the perpetuation of feudal or mediaeval atrocities and obscurantism .Everyone shall pounce upon me that it happens all over the Asian continent or in the country. Please, it is in different degrees and shades and in INdia where it is rampant(I would never say ubiquitous) even these microgrammic or nanogrammic variations become significant for one to generalize with labels and biased slogans. I do not want to shatter anyone�s scenic dewy drama of their childhood as even as a(or rather as a) medico , I can sense they are a vital framework for sustaining one�s� future� and presence of the subconscious� present�. However going back to the past as a post-adolescent for self-analysis(and not self-worth) surely he /she can smell the rat or clench the cockroach. I mean the menace of evil or brutal violence that is omniscient. Ofcourse there are normal people (read human) like everywhere on the Good Earth. But their potentialities their very own home/ state(viz. Bihar) are crippled and niceties constantly tested by this sandfly lurking as mother of all kala azars. Infact it is not one but a swarm of sandflies, volatile under a curiously dormant crust and exploding or relapsing into riotous ravage in a very random manner. (Very alarming this both for the inhabitants and onlookers like me.) Sorry to meander into non-explicit messages but what I mean is surely there is some reason why there is no� Rajasthan syndrome� or a derogatory MadhyaPradeshi� tag.And this is not because they are not labour class or blue collar workers. All the migrants from the other BIMARO states into Delhi (& other metropolises)(,though I specifically said Delhi as the author/reader-list member mainly discussed Delhi ) are not Computor Gurus or Neuro-surgeons. Most of them are also of equally humbling background and professions�So why are there no negative aspersions or detrimental baggage with them or for them? Before I end maybe I should tell you that I am not from any of the other BIMARO states to speak on their behalf. My views emerge entirely out of personal experience (read partly private) and not prejudice. Well no, not quite as I admit there may be self-conscious prejudice (yes, there can be such a thing) but the personal experience preceded the prejudice and not vice versa. Yrs. Sincerely (& With no Cheers at all or with some languid ones) :R.Chaudhuri _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From Steef at CwaC.nl Sat Aug 18 03:00:48 2001 From: Steef at CwaC.nl (Steef Heus) Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 23:30:48 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Caldera CEO mulls unified Unix/Linux In-Reply-To: Message-ID: FYI. Steef By CNET News.com Staff August 17, 2001, 2:00 p.m. PT Q&A As chief executive of Caldera International, Ransom Love is on the forefront of developing open-source software for business computing. In a question-and-answer session, he describes his vision of Linux's future, the possibility of unifying Unix and Linux, and the effects of his Orem, Utah-based company's recent merger with Santa Cruz Operation's operating system and services arms. Q: What is your biggest concern right now? A: Our biggest concern has always been compatibility problems. We face a world where all companies use Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and other Microsoft applications, so we have to have compatibility and keep up with what Microsoft does. The idea of companies moving away from Microsoft is something that may not happen in the near future, if ever, so we have to explore other areas. But you sell a desktop version of Linux? We believe we can save 20 to 30 percent with Linux on the desktop, but there's a difference between running Microsoft on the desktop and how we see customers running Linux. We (see) people running Linux desktops managed by Volution (Caldera's management and computer monitoring software), or running Windows on the desktop and accessing Linux through Tarantella. But as the Internet becomes a more pervasive business model, Linux will become a thin client, or a customized client. We are moving away from monolithic clients to a desktop operating system that will be more customized to fit the business need. The challenge of the desktop is evolving. The traditional monolithic desktop is not for Linux but the evolving thin client desktop is ideal for it. Something like 80 to 90 percent of personal time is now spent in the browser. And as the Internet becomes the predominant use of the desktop, applications will follow. As the desktop becomes the browser, you will see Linux become the predominant platform on devices that connect to the Internet. You have been heavily criticized in the past for your comments on open source. What is your position now? Caldera is absolutely committed to open source, but you have to remember that GNU is just one of many open-source licenses, so not everything we do will be GNU--but a lot will. For ubiquitous open-source environments we will continue to use GNU. But Volution's underlying license, for instance, is Open SLP. We are going to continue publishing under open source. But many of our big customers do not want to contribute their work back to the community--GNU forces them to give it back--so in some cases we publish under other licenses such as BSD so customers don't have to give their proprietary work back to their competitors. Linus (Torvalds) says it doesn't matter which license you use. We are just extending that philosophy to business computing. What does the future hold for your unified Linux/Unix platform? Linux is most widely deployed in embedded systems and low-end servers. Because of the current economy, there is no funding for general Linux, so we will see tremendous specialization in these areas. With UnixWare we can now take Linux to 32-way systems. And while we are not going into the embedded space, we will concentrate on thin-client implementations as well as those server implementations. With the technology we have we want to move into the high end, and the Unix kernel is two to three times more scalable than the current Linux kernel. But there are always trade-offs in putting everything into a single kernel, so what we want is a single-build environment, so we have to create a single application layer. On IA32 you can run smaller applications on Open Linux, or bigger back-office applications on OpenUnix, while on IA64 you have OpenLinux and IBM's AIX5L, which shares 70 percent common code with UnixWare. When we talk about unifying Unix and Linux, the two have a huge amount in common. A lot of people are running their businesses on Unix, while Linux has a tremendous population on Web servers and other front-end servers. So we are taking both and combining them into one platform. The only area where Linux and Unix really compete right now is for the developer mindshare, but in future Linux will provide whole new applications to Unix. What it comes down to is that we have the only platform for developers that spans from thin client to the data center. What will happen to OpenServer? We have more than 2 million installations of OpenServer. The operating system is in maintenance mode now, so there will be no more major enhancements. But what we plan to do is to take the OpenServer technology to Linux, probably with some sort of open-source license but not GNU. A vast number of your OpenServer customers are running point-of-sale devices. What does this mean for them? Our customers, including KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and a lot of these types of companies--with widely distributed branches--are now looking closely at Linux for their point-of-sale devices. For these companies the cost of a Microsoft license is hugely prohibitive, so we are now developing hardware drivers for our customers. What does the recent acquisition of SCO really mean for Caldera? The merger of Caldera Systems and SCO has resulted really in a new company. Our big job now is to try to help people understand what it means. Our mission is to enable development, deployment and management of a unified Linux and Unix operating system. The goal is to make Linux on Intel the alternative business platform because it is built on open standards. We have 18 offices worldwide, sales support and marketing for 182 countries. Most Linux firms are specializing and pulling back into their core markets. We have been doing some downsizing of the company, but this has not been a question of cash but of what is the right number of people needed to provide support in a global market. How heavily will you rely on resellers? We have a large OEM (original equipment manufacturer) team directed toward OEMs and resellers, and we see the channel as critical to business adoption of Linux. The reseller is the one who takes our products, who understands them and who turns them into solutions for business customers. We now need (value-added resellers) more than ever, even though we make Linux as easy to install and manage as we can. For the business customer buying open-source software, I don't believe in the direct market, I believe in the channel. Open-source software can be overwhelming to these customers. Along with the acquisition of SCO, you also acquired SCO Forum, which you have renamed Caldera Forum. Do you think this will continue to be the success it has been for the past couple of decades? I think Caldera Forum could be even more popular than SCO Forum was. It is unique in the industry because it is not a trade show, and people do not go there to be sold something. They go to interact. There are far too few events like that. Staff writer Matt Loney reported from London. From geert at xs4all.nl Sat Aug 18 06:35:00 2001 From: geert at xs4all.nl (geert lovink) Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 11:05:00 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] I liked this posting about Empire Message-ID: <016f01c12783$30d8d400$c900000a@bigpond.com> > From: "Andrew Neeson" > > I saw this review about "Empire" Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. > > I haven't read the book, although was > considering it, but am wondering what > people think of it and whether the > criticisms below are unfair? > > Andrew Hi Andrew, I think the book should be read very closely before a judgement is rendered. There's been a curious trend on the (US) left to dismiss "Empire" out of hand because it has received some favorable attention in the popular press. That leaves us in the curious position of having to reclaim a Marxist text as our own! I am still wading through it but so far I find it amazing how the mass media have managed to portray the book as pro-neoliberal globalization. On the contrary "Empire" is pro-globalization in the same sense that Jeremy Brecher et al are "pro" globalization in their book "Globalization From Below" (South End Press). If you are interested in seeing some of the pomo trends in Marxism brought to bear on the globalization debate you will enjoy the book. If thinkers like Deleuze are not your cup of tea then I'd avoid it. joe > > Is this today's Communist Manifesto? > > By Sam Ashman > > (snip) > > > This reworking involves two central and mistaken ideas. > > New global order > > The first is the whole idea of "Empire" itself, both the title and the > heart of the book. Hardt and Negri accept the widespread view that we are > living in a new era of economic globalisation which has rendered the > nation-state powerless. > > There are lots of problems with this view. But Hardt and Negri don't leave > it there. They go even further and argue that the new era of "Empire" > has also transcended imperialism and any conflict between nation-states. > The world is now ruled by an impersonal structure of economic and > political power that has no centre and cannot be identified with any > particular state-not even the US. > > We have entered into an era of the "universal rule of capital without a > centre". "Along with the global market and global circuits of production > has emerged a global order, a new logic and structure of rule. Empire is > the political subject that effectively regulates these global exchanges, > the sovereign power that governs the world." > > The authors paint a very dramatic and dark image-a bit like something out > of a science fiction novel. They are clearly describing a world that is > oppressive and destructive. But the book is also frustrating because there > is virtually no concrete analysis of the world today. > > There is no analysis of the workings of the world economy, of multinational > corporations and organisations like the WTO, or of nation-states. > Empire ignores completely the very serious conflicts and rivalries that > exist between nation-states, such as that between the US and China. > There is no discussion of how George Bush's "Son of Star Wars" plan has > "transcended imperialism". > > Every argument is put at a very abstract and general level. There is no > discussion of who rules, or how. One of the interesting points Hardt and Negri make is that much of the debate on globalization over-emphasizes the negative and de-emphasizes the positive side of globalization. They argue that the positive side of globalization is precisely that it is constructing a world order and leaving behind the divisions of nation-states. The enemy is no longer German or British or Belgian or French imperialism, the enemy is a relatively small number of multilateral supranational institutions. I think Ashman is wrong to criticize the authors for not rehearsing the existing case against these institutions (WTO, IMF, etc) because Hardt & Negri are providing a framework into which such criticisms can be placed. It is the legitimate work of others to extend the analysis. Furthermore the authors argue, the project of building "Empire" is laying the foundations for its undoing. Globalization, or empire building, has called forth a remarkable international opposition movement (still in formation). The idea that globalization is spawning its own gravediggers -- its own spectre of communism -- may be an optimistic assessment but it seems like fairly straight forward Marxism to me. > Multitude > > The second central idea of Empire is that of the "multitude" or the people > at the bottom of society. It is the multitude, a vast and amorphous > mass, which resists Empire at every point. The multitude is something > different from the working class. Ashman may prefer a class-based politics but he ignores the fact that the emerging movement is exactly what Hardt & Negri suggest: it is a loose coalition of groups from many parts of society, in other words, a multitude (or mass movement). Again I think the argument can be favorably compared to Brecher et al's argument mentioned preiviously or to Karl Polanyi's notion of the "self-defense" of society against market forces. The reaction is cross-class. > In Empire Hardt and Negri accept that "the composition of the proletariat > has transformed". Today the industrial working class "has all but > disappeared from view. It has not ceased to exist but it has been displaced > from its privileged position in the capitalist economy." It's an interesting argument. The decline of the traditional working class is an old argument. It is certainly the case that the greatest labor militancy can be found in what Immanuel Wallerstein calls "semiperipheral" zones of the world economy -- countries like South Korea. It may very well be that the locus of revolutionary change has shifted to this zone as well (which is not an argument made in "Empire"). > But this is not so. The working class is not only a growing force. It is the > one force with the power to disable the system Today there are 20,000 > more auto workers' jobs in the US than there were in 1979. Is he serious? Organized labor in the US is moving from strength to strength? What happens when they export those beloved auto industry jobs? After all, the bulk of Volkswagon workers are not German but Brazilian. Ashman is hanging his counter-argument on a pretty flimsy hook. > Globalisation has created a million new garment workers in Bangladesh, > mainly women, who are fighting and building union organisation. Many > workers battling against neo-liberalism and privatisation know that they > are not alone. > > But Hardt and Negri argue that events like the Palestinian intifada, the > 1992 revolt in Los Angeles, the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, and > strikes by workers in France and South Korea cannot be linked together. > > "None of these events inspired a cycle of struggles, because the desires > and needs they expressed could not be translated into different > contexts." This is ludicrous. The Zapatistas may not have provoked similar > risings, but they have certainly provoked international inspiration and > solidarity. Hardt & Negri celebrate what they call "nomadism" & "miscegenation." They are very wary of a localism which appeals to some fundamental notion of difference as potentially fascistic. The concept of the local, they argue, "need not be defined by isolation & purity." Instead they focus on the circulation of struggle that occurs when populations are forced to move. They see in this movement a counter-flow which disrupts the attempt of the forces behind globalization to impose (capitalist) homgeneity & order. Regarding the Palestinian struggle perhaps it is best to see how the notion of locality has changed among Palestinians, many of whom have lived much of their lives in the diaspora, and how currents of cosmopolitanism run against other more "pure" notions of identity. I am thinking of the difference between Edward Said & Islamic Jihad. Perhaps someone who understands the terrain of Palestinian struggle can state what I'm trying to get at more exactly. > Who's the enemy? > > Hardt and Negri, having defined Empire as the "universal rule of capital > without a centre", argue there is no longer one clear enemy. So the > capitalist class, the employers and the armed might of the state are no > longer the enemy. As such, they also give up on any notion of political > strategy. They do outline three general demands: > > The right to global citizenship (free movement of all peoples across > the globe). > > The right to a social wage (and a guaranteed income for all, > including the unemployed). > > The right to reappropriation (control over language, communication > and production). > > There are also vague calls to be a "radical republican", and at other times > for "revolutionary political militancy" and the need to be "communist". > But what does this mean? > > Their only guidance is to suggest "posing against the misery of power the > joy of being". Empire's final paragraph even gives St Francis of > Assisi as a possible role model for those who want to fight for a better > world! Revolutionaries need to do a lot more. One note: the right to global citizenship includes not only the right to move but the power to make the decision about whether to stay or go. That means empowerment over "push" forces in the market that force people into international labor circuits. Think also here Pierre Bordieu's excellent essay "Neoliberalism: Utopia of endless exploitation." Make no doubt about it, globalization is also an attack on citizen entitlements everywhere. Universalizing rights (new rights & not just existing ones!) is certainly a worthy goal of struggle. I found the closing passage of the book which is titled "Militant" quite moving. The appropriation of the figure of St Francis has puzzled many, myself included. Would he prefer Zizek's reappropriation of Lenin as a more apt figure? > We need to build the day to day struggles of workers against privatisation > and job losses and link them with battles against neo-liberalism > around the world, as well as the big demonstrations outside institutions > like the G8 and the International Monetary Fund. > > There is no doubt Hardt and Negri want a better world. But they do not > understand the world we live in today, nor do they provide a guide for > action to win a new one tomorrow. Once again I think accusing someone of not providing all the answers is a bit weak, but that's just my opinion. Thanks for posting the review. joe From jeebesh at sarai.net Sat Aug 18 11:56:42 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 11:56:42 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] The Day After - Suraj Rai Message-ID: This is text written by Suraj from LNJP Basti, Ajmeri Gate, Delhi. I find it amazingly rich with meaning and alludes to the complex interiority of the person. cheers, Jeebesh "The Day After..." - Suraj Rai (14 yrs) (Translated by Ravikant) There is an earthquake...everyone is dead. How did I survive? The question will haunt me. It is possible that I would die of shock of losing my family members. If I manage to survive I will be happy to be free bird. And the sole owner of the basti. But the government will take away all this land. First of all I will extricate the survivors in the basti. I will make do with the belongings left in the collapsed houses. Since I will be the only one left, the police, Press and the TV-wallas will come to interview me. On such an occasion, I will miss my friends and relatives very much. But what had to happen has happened. Whether I get government relief or not, I will have to help myself. If I receive government aid, I will use it to complete my education. The other relatives will come too, but what do they have to offer except solace. I will be surrounded by a fleet of ambulances... I'm feeling sad looking at the dead bodies... some of which will make me cry. Friends, brothers, parents, sisters, neighbours, enemies.... I have lost them all. There is absolutely nobody to support me. I tell God: why did you do this? You should have left some one to look after me. I have been left alone. At least send my Mayadi from Calcutta. I would like to live... From patrice at xs4all.nl Sun Aug 19 18:22:24 2001 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (Patrice Riemens) Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 14:52:24 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] The Fear of Ideas: Is India a Paranoid State? (fwd) Message-ID: <20010819145224.B18261@xs4all.nl> ----- Forwarded message from FREDERICK NORONHA ----- Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 15:38:04 +0530 Subject: [goa-research-net] LINK: The fear of Ideas: Is India a paranoid state? Daily Star (Dhaka) 1 August 2001 Op-Ed. The fear of Ideas: Is India a paranoid state? Praful Bidwai Indira Gandhi gave India a bad name in the 1970s by policing scholars' visas. Academics like Paul Brass paid heavily for this--as did good scholarship. The NDA is doing the same--even more hypocritically. Today, on the one hand, it endorses "globalisation" at the expense of national sovereignty...On the other, it is xenophobic about ideas. NOW everyone knows the Indian government grossly mishandled the media at Agra and lost the "information battle" to Pakistan. This is fashionably attributed to a tactical "failure" to practise "media-based diplomacy." This criticism is largely valid. But the deeper failure isn't tactical. It lies in the culture of excessive secrecy. The government doesn't share what it knows with its own people, even after it becomes public knowledge. Mr Vajpayee first disclosed the 1998 nuclear tests' rationale not to the Indian people, but to the President of the United States. Many are the disasters, including Indira Gandhi's assassination, about which our public learns first through the BBC. In line with this is the babu's mortal fear of new or heterodox ideas. Take Mr M.L. Sondhi's dismissal from the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR). This happened two days after the Agra Summit, to welcome which he had organised an India-Pakistan social scientists' conference. The dismissal's grounds-- "loss of confidence"; non-submission of accounts;-- and complaints of "irregularities"smack of a vendetta. In reality, Mr Sondhi-- a self-confessed sangh parivar member--was sacked because he had antagonised powerful people, especially Human Resources Development (HRD) Minister M.M. Joshi. Mr Sondhi is complex "saffron liberal". One can't credit him with academic excellence-- he can claim little recent work-- or tolerance. A Jana Sangh MP in 1967, he is a political maverick and a bull in the academic china-shop. He is known for his imperious style-- and his contradictions. Mr Sondhi advocates India-Pakistan reconciliation and underscores India's "soft" face. Yet, he worships the Bomb. He advocates free exchange of ideas, but opposes critics of nuclearisation to the point of censoring them. (As earlier reported, I was the target of his heckling in 1998--my sole experience of its kind in two decades.) Mr Sondhi's stewardship of the ICSSR was partisan. He ignored its ill-funded 27 affiliate-institutes but started new projects. He blew up money on grandiose seminars at five-star hotels even though many ICSSR institutes can barely pay their wage bills. If the HRD ministry was genuinely concerned about "irregularities", it could have asked for an explanation-- and no more; for the ICSSR is an "autonomous" body. But it was happy because Mr Sondhi's "five-star" conferences were "Shyama Prasad Mukherjee seminars". The ministry was complicit in Mr Sondhi's creation of a new Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Institute of Social Justice, Manali, against the Council's rules. Mr Sondhi, for his part, went along with the Ministry's equally partisan actions, including appointment of third-rate academics and pamphleteers to the Council. This mutual indulgence vanished when Mr Sondhi stopped playing Dr Joshi's game. Matters came to a head as RSS appointees unfolded their agenda: "proving" India's "Aryan" "greatness", and negating its multi-cultural, multi-religious character. This was academically embarrassing. Mr Sondhi got into an ugly scrape with the "RSS cabal". This was thus an intra-parivar fight over ICSSR spoils. Finally, the HRD ministry, which had blatantly politicised the Indian Council of Historical Research and inflicted Hindutva even on the natural sciences, did a hatchet-job on Mr Sondhi. One must condemn the rationale and manner of his sacking. This blow to academic freedom expresses official intolerance of even mildly liberal ideas. The government fears free communication between India and the world. Take its two recent orders: one requiring citizens to report all foreign guests to the police, and the other demanding advance "security clearance" for international conferences of "a political, semi-political, communal or religious nature" or related to human rights. The first order would even make President Narayanan guilty of not reporting Gen Musharraf as his guest! And the second obnoxiously violates academic freedom. There has been a big uproar over the first order. But the Supreme Court has upheld the second. Therefore, all organisers of international seminars must obtain Home and External Affairs ministry clearances for inviting participants from Pakistan, China, Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. Invitees from elsewhere need prior Home Ministry approval. This can take months and dozens of visits/letters. This makes a mockery of Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution guaranteeing free expression. It is also incompatible with the spirit of academic debate. Such debate is international in character, as is scientific scholarship itself. Indira Gandhi gave India a bad name in the 1970s by policing scholars' visas. Academics like Paul Brass paid heavily for this-- as did good scholarship. The NDA is doing the same-- even more hypocritically. Today, on the one hand, it endorses "globalisation" at the expense of national sovereignty; it cannot even conceive of growth without foreign capital. On the other, it is xenophobic about ideas. The government fears free thought-- particularly when that defends the popular interest. Exclusivist attitudes come naturally when our post-colonial rulers deal with progressive foreigners, as distinct from business people. (Those applying for a "business" visa get it instantly!) Take Ms Ali Sauer, a Canadian who has praised the Narmada Bachao Andolan in Economic and Political Weekly; and US citizen Ann Leonard-- formerly of Greenpeace, who has long campaigned against the dirty global trade in toxic wastes. Ms Sauer is being deported. Ms Leonard has been put on the "adverse" list. Unless such mindsets change, we will become a backwater of chauvinism. Enlightened intellectuals must reject such insularity and support freedom of thought to the point of not just tolerating, but sincerely respecting, heterodoxy. Conformism is bad for free debate--and democracy. So the recent judgment on Sahmat's Ayodhya exhibition, banned in 1993, is welcome. The Delhi High Court has pronounced that "everything" about the ban was "indefensible". The exhibition authentically depicted plural Ramayana traditions, including a Dasaratha Jataka version which portrayed Sita as Rama's sister. Much of the "outrage" against the exhibition's spirit of tolerance was feigned. The silence of some intellectuals on the ban only encouraged Hindutva. They should have spoken out. They always should Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist -- From shuddha at sarai.net Mon Aug 20 15:31:23 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 15:31:23 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fwd: P is for Property Message-ID: <01082015312300.01639@sweety.sarai.kit> Apologies for cross posting to those alrealdy on the Nettime List, but this essay by McKenzie Wark is very relevant to the connections between the political economy of information and cultural property and recent developments in science, particularly medicine that some of us have been talking about on the list. This echoes, what Joy Chatterjee and Prabhat have been talking about. The problem is the emerging regime of total propreitorial control over information per se, of which the conflict between free and propreitary notions of software is only a specific case. Unless hackers build alliances with others who challenge control over information and expression they are likely to remain fighting ghosts in the void. ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: P is for Property Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 00:02:29 -0500 From: McKenzie Wark To: NETTIME-L at bbs.thing.net VECTORAL TIMES 17TH AUGUST 2001 P is for Property... McKenzie Wark Two stories on the front page of today's New York Times point plain and simple to where the real action is in the 'new new economy'. as in the old economy -- its about property. After President Bush announced his bzyantine rules for government funding of stem cell research, it turns out that one single foundation may own the patent to that precious cell. Stem cell research is a promising field for possible cures for a wide range of illnesses, from diabetes to Parkinson's disease. Stem cells extracted from human embryos could be cultured to produce insulin or new nerve cells. According to US Patent 6,200,806 the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) owns both the method of isolating the cells and the cells themselves. The foundation has already granted rights to a biotech company called Geron Corporation, which provided funding for the research. The patent is open to legal challenge, but if it holds up, researchers using stem cell lines that match the patent must do so under terms set by the patent's owners. Researchers may purchase the stem cell line from an outfit set up by WARF, but must agree to restrictions that pander to Geron's interests. No one is sure yet whether stem cell research will provide the cures touted, but already the research agenda is being twisted towards the commodification of any possible benefits. The 'new, new economy' is not about information or the internet or connectivity or content or any of the other standard industry blather, it is about property, as it always is in a class society. The story about the stem cell cash-in ran right next to one announcing that five major movie studios have agreed to a joint venture to profit from the downloading of movies from the internet. Fearful of a repeat of the Napster situation, where millions of music lovers freely exchanged music files as a gift to each other, the studios are moving to rope off the movie download future as a pure for-profit operation. The scheme has been much delayed, as one would expect, by the pissing contest between studio honchos of MGM, Paramount, Sony, Warners and Universal. Disney and 20th Century Fox say they plan their own proprietary systems, just to mess things up further. While not agreed on the price, the deal from all these schemes will likely be much the same. You can download a movie, but you can only keep it on your hard drive for 30 days. The copy of 'Mission Impossible 13' you paid for will self destruct within 24 hours of its first viewing. You will also have to wait weeks, maybe months after the film's theatrical release for the pleasure. So what does this have to do with stem cells? Stem cells that may save lives and action films about taking them are both forms of 'intellectual property', and the privatisation of property is the engine of commodified development. If you will pardon a giant leap from the particular to the general, I would argue that these stories are straws in the wind of a new development in class society -- the rise of what I would call a vectoralist class. What distinguishes the vectoralist class is its seizure of information as a form of property. Amid all of the noise and blather of internet 'tulipmania', a much more significant development was gathering pace. The cornering of the market for knowledge and culture as intellectual property. The means by which it is stored or distributed are largely irrelevant. The movie studios really don't care if you buy a DVD or download, so long as they preserve their margin. What matters to the vectoralist class is cutting off access to any vector along which information might be stored or transmitted that might dare to assert its autonomy from the 'business model'. As stem cell scientists have already discovered, intellectual property can be a huge barrier to the free creation that is at the heart of science (or for that matter, art and culture.) Just as the capitalist class privatised the agricultural commons three centuries ago, the vectorialist class is privatising the information commons. The privatisation of information puts the question of class back on the map, but through the development of new class antagonisms. The old economy of capital and labour, landlords and farmers did not evaporate in a puff of information age smoke, but it may well be the case that new class forces have superimposed themselves on the old class order, with different agendas and different interests. For a more comprehensive exposition of this new theory of class, check out A Hacker Manifesto, at the url below. Or just keep reading the news feeds, and checking for clues. A HACKER MANIFESTO 2.0 http://www.feelergauge.net/projects/hackermanifesto/version_2.0/ NOTES Sheryl Gay Stolberg, 'Patent on Human Stem Cell Puts US Officials in Bind'; and Rick Lyman, 'Hollywood, an Eye on Piracy, Plans Movies for a Fee', New York Times, !7th August, 2001 http://www.nytimes.com McKenzie Wark, Brooklyn, NY, mw35 at nyu.edu # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net ------------------------------------------------------- From Steef at CwaC.nl Tue Aug 21 16:51:59 2001 From: Steef at CwaC.nl (Steef Heus) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 13:21:59 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Penguin Enrolls in U.S. Schools In-Reply-To: <01081618070202.01077@jadu.sarai.kit> Message-ID: Hi, just found a nice article on how Linux is penetrating the US schools: 2:00 a.m. Aug. 20, 2001 PDT Tux the penguin may become the preferred mascot of America's financially strained public education system –- for Linux represents a way to avoid paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for software. More than 98 percent of the schools in the U.S. have Internet access, according to a recent Department of Education report. But software costs can be prohibitive, especially now that Microsoft is stepping up efforts to stop license infringement in schools, forcing them to pay for every single copy of Windows they run. For the full article see: http://www.wired.com/news/linux/0,1411,45862,00.html You can also find some other articles on Linux successes in the US industry. Even Holywood is adopting Linux for their special effects. So: with MS being MS and having their arrogant licensing policies, they actually are the best promoters for alternatives ;) Steef From shuddha at sarai.net Wed Aug 22 13:16:07 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 13:16:07 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Dragan Stojkovic on Hackers vs. Telecom in Yugoslavia Message-ID: <01082213160700.01377@sweety.sarai.kit> Apologies for cross posting to those on the Nettime list. Here is an interesting, if provocative piece of information on cyber guerrilla tactics in Yugoslavia, which occurred when the the telecom company unikaterally made it much more expensive for people to connect to the Internet. Would the hacker community in India be prepared to take action if things took a turn for the worse here, and if so, have they any thoughts on what that action could be? Cheers Shuddha ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: Yugoslavia: Hackers 1, Telekom 0 Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 11:49:47 +0200 From: Slobodan Markovic To: nettime-l at bbs.thing.net [...forwarded from www.internodium.org.yu mailing list. original from "transitions on-line" --sloba] http://balkanreport.tol.cz/look/BRR/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=9& NrIssue=1&NrSection=1&NrArticle=1882&ST_max=0 Yugoslavia: Hackers 1, Telekom 0 20 August 2001 BELGRADE, Yugoslavia--Ticked-off hackers proved to be a revolutionary force in their own right when they took on Telekom Serbia. Hackers threatened to disrupt Internet and phone service and succeeded in cutting off connections for several hours in protest against the telephone monopoly's recent price increases and system changes. Phone service in Yugoslavia has long left a great deal to be desired, particularly in the area of customer service. Bills are not itemized, and if payment is more than six days past the due date, there is a good chance phone service will be cut off. However, another deeper feeling of bitterness among citizens has little to do with opaque bills or quick shut-offs. The first privatization of the phone company occurred in June 1997, and though sanctions were still in place, Italian and Greek companies managed to purchase a part of the phone system--a transaction that many in Yugoslavia viewed as enriching the regime and former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's war chest. Resentment had simmered for several years, but as the phone company has begun to implement price increases in recent months, long-held irritations have surfaced. On 30 May, Telekom's board of directors decided to raise the prices of telecommunication services in Serbia. The decision, approved by the Serbian government, provided for a 48.5 percent increase on 1 June, another on 1 August, and finally a 26.5 percent increase on 1 November. The first price increase went into effect smoothly, but the second one angered consumers, especially Internet users. By the time the enormous new phone bills had arrived in mailboxes, it had become a common conversation topic. Complicating matters was the widespread contempt for the service. When rates were cheap, there was little grousing, but people were now wondering why they were being forced to pay more for such shoddy service, particularly the abrasive customer relations. Telekom had also altered its tariff system. Previously, all local calls were charged at the rate of a single "pulse" for two hours during the afternoon and also during night hours. Under the new rates, the meter runs for the entire night, at half the price of daylight calls. That particularly impacted Internet users. Instead of 0.30 Yugoslavian dinars for one hour of phone usage, the price increased nearly twenty-fold to 5.50 Yugoslavian dinars ($1 = 68 Yugoslav dinars). In addition, Internet time costs approximately 30 dinars per hour, which means that 50 hours of nighttime Internet would cost around $20. Unlimited Internet service costs approximately $30 per month, plus the Telekom toll charges, and businesses face even higher charges (the average monthly income in Serbia is approximately $70.) Techies were outraged, and response was swift. The first hacker threat was published in Belgrade daily Blic on 11 August. The threat gave Telekom 168 hours to restore the old tariff regime, after which cyber attacks would be launched. Hackers also threatened to physically disable the system by cutting down poles and wires. On 10 August, Internet browsing had been impossible for two hours, and the hackers claimed responsibility. One of Telekom's officials acknowledged the first attack but stated that it had come from Italy. Belgrade prosecutors filed charges against unknown persons for sabotaging Telekom's link to the outside world and "damaging Telekom and other Internet service providers in Serbia." Other Telekom officials denied that there had been any attack and stated that they were prepared for any attempt to flood their lines. Once the first threat became public, other hackers and wannabe-hackers joined in, and soon news and information sites began to carry downloadable files for do-it-yourself attacks. For the less sophisticated user, there were helpful tips such as "do not do this from your home, go to a cyber café or other location." Discussion groups dedicated to cyber life were full of negative reactions to Telekom policies. At one of the most-visited web groups, one administrator suggested a flat monthly tariff option for internet users of about 8 USD, plus special phone numbers for the ISP dial-up modems. Some Internet users fear that the increased rates are an attempt to squeeze in more legal regulation of telecommunications. But Dragor Hiber, the president of the management board of Telekom, said that the price corrections are necessary since they were part of the contract between Telekom and Greek "OTE" and Italian "STET," who own a combined 49 percent of the shares. Although there have been rumors that the questionable legal nature of the contract between Belgrade and Rome and Athens will be investigated, nothing serious has been undertaken so far. On 13 August, Hiber was still reminding consumers that the third tier of the price increase was due to take place on 1 November. The following day in an interview with B92, Hiber claimed that he had been misquoted by Serbian media sources. He said that in reality the third price "correction" would not occur until next year, "after the effects of the first two." On 17 August, the day the hackers' ultimatum was due to expire, the Serbian government publicly recommended that Telekom consider a compromise by offering more intervals between impulses--in effect, a slow down on the meter--which would mean five hours of toll-free service per month. The following day, the Telekom management board agreed to accept the suggestion, and the Italian and Greek partners are due to give their answers within a very short time as well. For now at least, the revolution in cyber-space appears to have won a victory. --by Dragan Stojkovic ------------------------------------------------------- # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo at bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime at bbs.thing.net ------------------------------------------------------- From shuddha at sarai.net Wed Aug 22 13:39:03 2001 From: shuddha at sarai.net (Shuddhabrata Sengupta) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 13:39:03 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] On Connectivity in J&K Message-ID: <01082213390301.01377@sweety.sarai.kit> In a recent newspreport, on the Star News Television Channel, New Delhi Television showed how the experience of accessing the Internet in the part of Kashmir under Indian control is a very different experience from elsewhere in India. Unlike the rest of India, VSNL (Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited) the state run ISP is the sole provider of Internet services in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The connections are frustratingly slow, and close watch is kept on internet usage by military authorities, in order to prevent usage of the Internet by militant groups and their sympathisers. Bandwidth and connection speed are apparently deliberately kept low, so as to make browsing the net as difficult as possible. As a result of this, a large number of trained IT professionals are having to either leave Jammu and Kashmir, or stay without jobs, because the IT infrastructure and connectivity in the state is so abysmal that there are no prospects for any work in the IT sector. The Software Technology Park in Srinagar is an empty shell of a building. Apart from this, the consequences are as follows : If you are a person who wants to get online, and happen to live in Srinagar, Anantnag or Baramulla, the time and effort you spend in a cybercafe is likely to be much more than what you would spend to do the same things in say, Delhi, Mumbai, or Trichy or Kanpur, Benaras or Burdwan. You are likely to find several sites blocked (without explanation) and also your surfing behaviour, as well as your personal emails are likely to be looked into, by gentlemen in uniform, in the national interest of the Republic of India, with an unhealthy intensity of interest. Given that equality before the law is one of the fundamental principles of a democratic system, clearly, there are two sets of principles operating here. Equality before the law for people living ourside J&K (at least theoretically) and a different set of rules, regulations and priorities, inside J7K, all sanctioned of course by the IT legislations.What could be happening in J7K vis a vis the Internet, could be happening next in any other part of the territory of the Republic of India. But at the moment this is not the case, though perhaps we need to know what exactly is going on in terms of free access to the internet in the north eastern states before making any categorical assertion. Nyway, broadly speaking, the relationship to the Internet, between people who live inside and outside Jammu and Kashmir, within the territorial ambit of the Republic of India, are grossly different. People who live outside J&K have the priviledge of net access and connectivity in a way that people who live inside J&K clearly dont. Also, apparently it is impossible to connect telephonically form the J&K to certain international locations. This leads me to psoe three questions which I hope will be responded to by this list: 1. Is this denial of basic rights to communication and information resources to the people who live in the part of Jammu and Kashmir that is administered by India nothing short of an instance of a colonizing mentality at work? 2. Why do Indian telecom authorities in a part of the country they claim as their own behave as if they are an occupying power? 3. And what, if any, thoughts do those who believe that Information should be free have on this matter? Curiously. Shuddha From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Wed Aug 22 14:44:48 2001 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 02:14:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] The public domain audit Message-ID: <20010822091448.35579.qmail@web14601.mail.yahoo.com> A proposition to the community of those concerned with the public domain... As you all know, many business magazines and the UN publish rankings of countries or cities according to various parameters. with UN it's usually things like quality of environment, levels of corruption, per capita income etc. for business publications it's all about doing business - so looks at things like business law and effectiveness of its implementation, infrastructure for business, skills of workforce etc. these things are significant because people read them and make decisions on the basis of them. governments (/cities/states) therefore want to look good in these things. the fact is that if you say "the government is corrupt" you're not saying anything that anyone's going ot take any notice of; but if you say "the government of XXX scored 15 out of a possible 100 points for lawfulness and integrity which puts it behind XXX and XXX" it is much more of a spur to action. isn't it time for such a ranking for the quality of the public domain? An international public domain audit? the last couple of years have brought the issue of the public domain and governments' attitudes towards it to a head as the Internet has erased many of the forms of information privilege previously enjoyed by institutions of power and facilitated "horizontal" communications between groups of people with shared interests within and across state boundaries. governments have responded for the most part with fairly draconian legislation that makes clear their unease about this new situation. zygmunt baumann talks in his book, "Globalization: The Human Consequences," of the "striptease of the State" during which it gaily divests itself of its roles as regulator of financial markets, labour policy, corporate behaviour etc, and is left in the spotlight with nothing except its power to repress its workforce and deliver it up to the needs of the global economy. In this context the freedom of speech of citizens seems a liability - you don't know what people might say, and perhaps they'll embarrass us! it's rather like, at the corporate level, the humiliating antics of rogue employees who start having a food fight in the office in front of the big boss from overseas who happens to be visiting. though they may support "globalism" they find it difficult to be joyful about the new global conversations that their citizens are able to engage in. So it seems to me that the process of clamping down on scholars, programmers, political figures, and indeed the general public, should be incorporated into some kind of public domain index. this would give ratings to governments for their position on various things (percentage of emails, phone calls tapped, availability of certain kind of information, degree of freedom of expression on the web or in the streets, number of people jailed for crimes of opinion or expression, restrictions on travel of scholars, political figures etc). it would be issued as an annual publication and as a continuously updated website (with extracts from legislation, relevant news reports, statistics etc). there would be 3 main applications of this: --it would allow us to build a detailed picture of how the public domain compares between states - and, crucially, how it is changing over time. Currently - i believe - we have only anecdotes to give us an indication of this. --it would act as an international watchdog on governments (quite possibly the 'good guys' would not come out on top in a study like this). if it were conducted with integrity, such a study would receive massive press coverage each time it was issued and would bring the otherwise relatively abstract issue of "the public domain" home to a wide audience. there is nothing like numbers and rankings to make things tangible. --it would allow people who have uncertainties about the legal consequences of their public actions or statements to consult a central, independent source. i think that the increasingly stern attitudes of governments all over the world towards the public behaviour of their citizens would make this relevant for everyone. What I am talking about is a mammoth project with much international cooperation and probably significant institutional support. I post it to these lists in order to see what people think of the idea and how they think it might be undertaken. It is not my field at all, and others will have much more intelligent things to say about it than i do. I look forward to hearing your responses. Rana Dasgupta __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ From jskohli at fig.org Fri Aug 24 02:20:46 2001 From: jskohli at fig.org (Jaswinder Singh Kohli) Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 02:20:46 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Fingered by the movie cops Message-ID: <3B856CA6.62D2148@fig.org> Under today's copyright laws, you are guilty until proven innocent. I know -- it happened to me. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Amita Guha Aug. 23, 2001 | One recent Monday, my boyfriend and I returned home from a long weekend away. As usual, one of the first things we did was check our e-mail, only to discover, to our dismay, that Time-Warner Cable, our Internet service provider, had cut off access to our account sometime around midnight the Friday before. My boyfriend, a software engineer who takes his e-mail seriously, called the tech support line and was transferred to several people that evening, none of whom could help. All he could find out was that the account had been suspended for "security reasons." The next morning, we received an express-mailed letter from Time-Warner Cable, which stated that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) had accused us of distributing copyrighted material. The MPAA had determined that someone, supposedly with an Internet protocol (IP) address assigned to our computer by Time-Warner at the time, had distributed the material on July 4. The part that got me was the second paragraph: "In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. Section 512, (ISP name) has removed or disabled access to that material." I can’t describe the shock I felt reading that someone in my household had been accused of breaking the law. Even worse -- we had evidently been tried, found guilty and penalized before we were even told of the accusation. The letter went on to inform us that our account would be suspended for one week, pending assurance from my boyfriend that it wouldn’t happen again. There was no mention of what materials we had distributed. Why did Time-Warner take the word of the MPAA and immediately cut us off without even asking us about the allegations, or even notifying us about what was going on? We were our ISP's customers, not the MPAA -- although, of course, Warner Brothers is a member of the MPAA too. But when we asked Time-Warner about it, we were told that they "had to take immediate action." I later learned that under the provisions of the DMCA, an ISP does indeed have to take action immediately when it is told about a case of copyright infringement. Doing so protects the ISP from liability for the transgression. But how exactly did the MPAA get its information about the movie that we supposedly uploaded to Usenet? Is our every move in cyberspace being watched? Basically, yes. As I researched further, I discovered there is a burgeoning industry based on patrolling the Net for copyright abuses. There is, for example, Ranger Online, a company that provides "Intelligent Online Scanning" technology to organizations such as the MPAA. Get the IT news your choose! Spending too much time & money keeping global websites up-to-date? Have a need for network speed? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Print story E-mail story -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I decided to try to find out exactly how the MPAA tracks online piracy. I spoke to Emily Kutner and Hamanshu Nigam of the MPAA and told them that a friend of mine had been accused of online piracy. They walked me through the procedure they use to find cases of copyright infringement. The MPAA looks for people who are distributing movies in any form that they are not authorized to. It uses Ranger Online’s software to monitor multiple areas of the Internet, including IRC, Gnutella, Usenet, Web sites, auction sites and ftp sites. It does this on an international basis. When it finds a location that is distributing copyrighted material, it identifies the owner and the host of the material. Citing the DMCA, it sends a letter and notifies the alleged perpetrators that they are infringing on a copyright. When I asked exactly how they find an instance of piracy (for instance, what search parameters they use), Nigam told me the methods were proprietary information. I was particularly interested in this aspect of the process, since I was, and still am, very curious as to how the MPAA decided we had pirated a movie. Nigam did say that by the time an ISP is notified of a copyright violation, every effort has been made to determine that piracy has been committed. Nigam also told me that if I told him my friend’s IP address, he could find out exactly what had happened in his case. I told him I’d have to check with my friend first. Kutner then said that if my friend were truly innocent, he wouldn’t have anything to hide. The thing is, he didn’t have anything to hide in the first place, and he was still accused. My boyfriend doesn’t actually care so much about his good name. He is angry that a service he pays for was interrupted for no reason. And he is worried that the MPAA will harass him some more if he reveals his IP address. Perhaps his fears are groundless, but if you had been wrongly accused and penalized, you would be worried, too. A large, powerful organization managed to stick its nose in our business and cause us days of inconvenience and aggravation. We weren’t given the chance to defend ourselves until after action had been taken against us. If we are accused again of distributing copyrighted material, we lose our accounts for two weeks instead of one, and face banishment from our ISP. And not a bit of this is under our direct control. Nigam told me that if my article had a moral, it should be that piracy is illegal and no one should trade movies without permission. This article does have a point, but it’s not about piracy. It’s about a flawed piece of legislation that allows a person to be penalized for an alleged action before he has the chance to defend himself. The moral of the story is that the DMCA allows you to be tried and judged guilty before you even know what has happened. The MPAA could have my account shut down immediately -– or yours -– and there’s nothing any of us could do to stop it. salon.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Print story E-mail story -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My boyfriend called the number given in the letter. After 24 hours of phone tag, he finally spoke to a network technician, who told him the details. The MPAA had found out that someone had uploaded a movie to Usenet, allegedly from our IP address, on the evening of July 4. However, at that time, we were out watching fireworks. There is no way we could have been responsible for the infraction. My boyfriend logs all network activity on his machines, and there was no activity at the time we were allegedly dealing in pirated flicks. When my boyfriend suggested that perhaps the MPAA had transposed the IP address, the network guy said that that was not possible. When he asked for a hard copy of the information the MPAA had sent them on us, Network Guy agreed to send one, but as of this writing had yet to do so. Before we could regain access to e-mail, Time-Warner Cable required a signed letter from my boyfriend promising that he wouldn't upload any copyrighted material. A few hours later, we were able to restore our e-mail accounts. It took over 48 hours to clear everything up. But it'll take a lot longer than that to undo the real damage. The incident raises some serious questions about where our society is headed, as the corporations who guard intellectual property such as movies and popular music get ever more zealous in their attempts to prevent unauthorized use. -- Regards Jaswinder Singh Kohli jskohli at fig.org :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The Uni(multi)verse is a figment of its own imagination. In truth time is but an illusion of 3D frequency grid programs. From rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com Fri Aug 24 10:22:51 2001 From: rana_dasgupta at yahoo.com (Rana Dasgupta) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 21:52:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Microsoft humour Message-ID: <20010824045251.84268.qmail@web14601.mail.yahoo.com> A light moment on the reader list. Try out the "Word" package. Fun. http://128.241.244.96/portal/uploads/27000/27549_winrg.swf R __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ From amehta at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in Tue Aug 21 09:03:37 2001 From: amehta at giasdl01.vsnl.net.in (Arun Mehta) Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 09:03:37 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] music sharing enhances creativity In-Reply-To: <01082015312300.01639@sweety.sarai.kit> Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20010821090025.0330fa48@202.54.15.1> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/20/arts/20ARTS.html?todaysheadlines (but you need to be registered there -- well worth it) Why Just Listen to Pop When You Can Mix Your Own? By MATTHEW MIRAPAUL "I like taking someone else's ideas, bringing them into your own head and trying to make sense of them through your own interpretation," Mr. Kenniff said. Judging from Bjork Remix Web, a remarkable site at www.arktikos.com, he has plenty of company. Mr. Kenniff's remake of "Hidden Place" is one of 10 "Vespertine" tracks on the site. Overall it contains nearly 800 remixes, submitted by about 160 different Internet contributors, of songs taken from Bjork's five solo albums. If transferred to compact disc, the fan-made music would fill about 50 albums. The site's growth demonstrates how digital technology, abetted by the Internet, is turning fans from passive acolytes to active participants in the artistic process. In postmodern culture, in which existing elements are routinely cut, pasted and blended into new works, computers are providing handy tools for these transformations, and the Internet is supplying an eager audience for the results. Music is just one realm where this is happening. There are hundreds of "fan fiction" sites, where amateur authors have taken popular characters from television shows like "Star Trek" and "The West Wing" and written new, sometimes smutty stories about them. In film, a shorter version of the "Star Wars" movie "The Phantom Menace," digitally edited by a supposedly impatient fan, is rumored to be circulating in cybers pace From mehta at vsnl.com Mon Aug 27 22:02:05 2001 From: mehta at vsnl.com (Arun Mehta) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 22:02:05 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] On Connectivity in J&K In-Reply-To: <01082213390301.01377@sweety.sarai.kit> Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20010827175751.019e2f80@202.54.15.1> At 8/22/2001, Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote: >1. Is this denial of basic rights to communication and information resources >to the people who live in the part of Jammu and Kashmir that is administered >by India nothing short of an instance of a colonizing mentality at work? I believe that the amount of freedom you have, is related to how much you are willing to fight for. The tendency of the government everywhere is to grab as much power as it can get, if your rights be trampled, well, then you better be willing to fight for them. In the "sensitive" areas, since there have been far bigger issues to tackle, telecom may have suffered as an issue. Shuddha, thanks for bringing this up. You have a well-developed conscience. The American Indians say, I believe, that your conscience is a triangular object in your heart, which, if provoked, turns sideways and pokes. But if you ignore it too often, the corners wear out, and you stop noticing. As I see it, the way to protect shepherds working in remote areas from terrorist attacks is to give them FM mikes -- that way, they can communicate with each other using cheap FM radios. Hard to use this telecom equipment for reaching the enemy, since anyone monitoring the FM channels can overhear. I also think such mikes would be very useful in disasters, when the telecom breaks down. So Shuddha, ideas on how to take this issue up? >2. Why do Indian telecom authorities in a part of the country they claim as >their own behave as if they are an occupying power? They behave that way everywhere. Arun Mehta, moderator india-gii. To join a list which discusses India's bumpy progress on the global infohighway, mail india-gii-subscribe at cpsr.org http://members.tripod.com/india_gii is our neglected website. To reassure yourself as to the quality of content and volume of mail, please visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/india-gii/messages From boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl Tue Aug 28 02:28:20 2001 From: boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2001 22:58:20 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] india.indymedia.org Message-ID: Hi. I'm a non-Indian who spent some time living in India, and would like to be supportive of Indian independent media, in particular of what seems a very promising project: http://india.indymedia.org. My question is: would Sarai readers be willing to help develop the india.indymedia.org site? http://www.sarai.net is an excellent site, but http://india.indymedia.org would have a different and complementary role - see http://www.indymedia.org. The idea would be for www.sarai.net people to meet, train and support grass-roots activists (adivasis' groups, dalits' rights' groups, womens' rights groups, environmentalists, student activists, anti-nuclear-bomb groups, etc.) to use and manage India.Indymedia as a non-hierarchical publishing agency - text/images/audio/video are supported. I was very impressed by political activism in India, but the many diverse groups need to network together in a way that avoids any group dominating any other. Look up the following meta-lists of sites, and you should be able to find Delhi-based, Calcutta-based, etc. grass-roots activists who would be glad to have good e-support: http://www.zmag.org/southasia/southasia1.htm http://www.indiasocial.org/cgi/dirsearch.asp?catval=1 Indymedia "policy" for starting a site: http://process.indymedia.org/want_imc.php3 http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2001-August/000864.html If you like the idea, then please join in the India.indymedia discussion group: http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-india/2001-August/thread.html From jskohli at fig.org Tue Aug 28 09:29:53 2001 From: jskohli at fig.org (Jaswinder Singh Kohli) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 09:29:53 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] [2600] Death to Virus Writers Message-ID: <3B8B1739.9C0A0FBF@fig.org> -------------- next part -------------- An embedded message was scrubbed... From: Jaswinder Singh Kohli Subject: [2600] Death to Virus Writers Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 16:35:03 +0530 Size: 7432 Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010828/06d4ade1/attachment.mht From kshekhar at bol.net.in Thu Aug 23 21:32:13 2001 From: kshekhar at bol.net.in (Mumbai Study Group) Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 21:32:13 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] 25.8.2001: Positioning Mumbai Globally Message-ID: Dear Friends: In our next meeting, we welcome SULAKSHANA MAHAJAN, Doctoral Candidate at the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, U.S.A., who will give a presentation on "Positioning Mumbai in a Globalising Economy: Public-Private-Sector Participation in Infrastructure Delivery in the Mumbai Region". Ms Mahajan is a former lecturer at the Academy of Architecture, Rachana Sansad, and is currently pursuing her doctorate on the economic restructuring of cities, state policies and the role of public and private sector participation in delivery of services and infrastructure. Her present research is on information and communications technologies. She is the co-author with Hemlata C. Dandekar of "MSRDC and Mumbai-Pune Expressway: A Sustainable Model for Privatising Construction of Infrastructure?" (Economic and Political Weekly, 17 February 2001). Her study of Mumbai has also taken her to Nashik, Pune, London and Rotterdam to see how these urban regions are redefining their economies locally and globally, and in this presentation she will share her observations from her perspective as an urban planner. This session will be on SATURDAY 25 AUGUST 2001, at 10.00 A.M., on the SECOND FLOOR, Rachna Sansad, 278, Shankar Ghanekar Marg, Prabhadevi, Mumbai, next to Ravindra Natya Mandir. Phone: 4301024, 4310807, 4229969; Station: Elphinstone Road (Western Railway); BEST Bus: 35, 88, 151, 161, 162, 171, 355, 357, 363, to Ravindra Natya Mandir, 91 Ltd, 305 Ltd, A1 and A4 to Prabhadevi. ABOUT THE GROUP The MUMBAI STUDY GROUP meets on the second and fourth Saturdays of every month, at the Rachana Sansad, Prabhadevi, Mumbai. Our conversations continue through the support extended by Shri Pradip Amberkar, Principal of the Academy of Architecture, and Prof S.H. Wandrekar, Trustee of the Rachana Sansad. Conceived as an inclusive and non-partisan forum to foster dialogue, discussion and criticism on urban issues, we have since September 2000 held conversations about various historical, political, cultural, social and spatial aspects of Mumbai in the context of globalisation. Our discussions are open and public, no previous membership or affiliation is required. We encourage the participation of urban researchers and practitioners, experts and non-experts, researchers and students, and all individuals and groups in Mumbai to join our conversations about the city. The format we have evolved is to host individual or panel-based presentations in various arenas of urban theory and practice, and have a moderated and focussed discussion from our many practical and professional perspectives. Among others, our previous sessions have hosted the following presentations: * Kalpana Sharma, Associate Editor of The Hindu and author of the recently published Rediscovering Dharavi (Mumbai: Penguin Books, 2000), spoke about slum-dwellers, citizenship, and representations of the poor and unhoused in the mainstream media. * Kedar Ghorpade, Senior Planner at the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority, presented on the business of managing cities, the history of urban planning attempts in Mumbai, and the challenges of planning in an expanding mega-city. * Dr Marina Pinto, Professor of Public Administration, retired from Mumbai University, and author of Metropolitan City Governance in India (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2000), discussed with us urban administration in the major cities of the country, and the structure and functioning of the Bombay Municipal Corporation. * Dr K. Sita, Professor of Geography, retired from Mumbai University and former Garware Chair Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, spoke about the changing economic functions of the city historically, and geographical and social implications for planners. * Dr Arjun Appadurai, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, Director of Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research (PUKAR), Mumbai, and the author of Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Univ of Minnesota Press, 1996), presented on the questions of cities and globalisation: the changing social ecologies of consumption, new market cultures, and the multiple loyalties and identities being formed by these global processes in local contexts in Mumbai. * Rahul Srivastava, Lecturer in Sociology at Wilson College, spoke on the Neighbourhood Project, an ethnographic initiative he has conceived through encouraging his students to look at their own localities in the inner-city areas of Central Bombay, through textual and visual media. In a discussion of the changing contexts of urban identity formation, we noted the value of using the city as a pedagogical device for students. * Sandeep Yeole, General Secretary of the Pheriwala Vikas Mahasangh, along with several colleagues from various unions of street vendors and hawkers in the city, made an overhead presentation and interacted with us on issues of hawkers self-organisation, social consumption and street commerce in Mumbai. * S.S. Tinaikar, former Municipal Commissioner of Bombay, Sheela Patel, Director of the Society for Protection of Area Resource Centres (SPARC), and Bhanu Desai of the Citizens' Forum for the Protection of Public Spaces (CFPPS) joined us for a round-table discussion on the Maharashtra Government's new Slum Policy 2001 and the competing interests in the process of policy formation on urban issues. * Shirish Patel, one of India's leading engineers and part of the planning team which designed New Bombay, chaired a discussion and presentation on Mumbai's built environment in the wake of the earthquakes in Gujarat, where we heard from Pramod Sahasrabuddhe and Abhay Godbole, both structural engineers with long-standing practices in Mumbai. * Dr Anjali Monteiro, Professor and Head, and K.P. Jayashankar, Reader, from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences Unit for Media and Communications, Mumbai introduced their film "Saacha", about poet Narayan Surve and painter Sudhir Patwardhan, both of whom were part of the landscape of Left cultural activism in Mumbai. The film was followed by a discussion with Sudhir Patwardhan about the changing face of Mumbai. * Dr Sujata Patel, Professor and Head, Department of Sociology, University of Pune, spoke on politics, identities and populism, on the basis of her ongoing project on culture, consumption practices, and the Shiv Sena and her forthcoming edited anthology, co-edited with Jim Masselos, titled Mumbai: Bombay's Future?. This will be the third volume in the series, co-edited with Alice Thorner, of which the first two volumes were Bombay: Metaphor for Modern Culture, and Bombay: Mosaic of Modern India (both Oxford University Press India, 1995). * Dr Mariam Dossal, Head, Department of History, Mumbai University, spoke on nationalist architecture and the Bombay School of Architecture in the colonial and postcolonial periods. Dr Dossal is the author of Imperial Designs and Indian Realities: The Planning of Bombay City 1845-1875 (Oxford University Press India, 1991). * B. Rajaram, Managing Director of Konkan Railway Corporation, and Dr P.G. Patankar, former Chairman of the Bombay Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking (BEST) and currently with Tata Consultancy Services joined us for a panel discussion on public transport alternatives for Mumbai: the Sky Bus and Underground Metro. * Ved Segan, Vikas Dilawari, and Pankaj Joshi, three noted conservation architects, featured in a panel discussion on the social relevance of heritage and conservation architecture in Mumbai. * Debi Goenka, of the Bombay Environmental Action Group, and Chandrashekhar Prabhu, architect and environmental and housing activist, joined Professor Sudha Srivastava, Dr Geeta Kewalramani, and Dr Dipti Mukherji, of the University of Mumbai Department of Geography, for a panel discussion on the salt pan lands in Mumbai, the politics of land use and the Coastal Regulation Zone Act. * Sucheta Dalal, business journalist, author, and Consulting Editor, Financial Express talked to us about institutional finance in the city. Dalal has co-authored with Debashis Basu The Scam: Who Won, Who Lost, Who Got Away, about the Harshad Mehta scam, a story which she broke; she is the biographer of A.D. Shroff, financial expert and founder of the Forum of Free Enteprise (Viking Press, 2000). * Dr Arvind Rajagopal, Associate Professor of Culture and Communications at New York University, presented on "The Pheriwala as Encroacher-Entrepreneur: The Aesthetics and Politics of Recent Debates on Hawkers in Mumbai". Dr Rajagopal is also the author of Politics After Television: Hindu Nationalism and the Reshaping of the Indian Public (Cambridge University Press, 2001), which examines the impact of the screening of the Ramayana serial on Doordarshan on Indian society in the nineties, and the interface between economic liberalisation, the rise of Hindutva, and the role of the mass media. * Dr Gyan Prakash, Professor of History at Princeton University, and member of the Subaltern Studies Editorial Collective, presented on Indian modernity and the idea of Bombay, part of his ongoing research on imaginary histories of the city. Dr Prakash is the author of Bonded Histories: Genealogies of Labour Servitude in Colonial India (Cambridge University Press, 1990), Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India (Princeton University Press, 1999), as well as several articles on colonialism and historiography, and is has edited several volumes on colonial history. These broad concerns have been the impetus for our conversation. We feel that it is through marrying such general discussions to a focussed engagement with the many aspects of urban life, that we can promote quality debate and discussion on urban theory and practice in Mumbai. Almost any issue deemed "urban" has numerous dimensions -- legally, politically, economically, spatially, historically -- and the Mumbai Study Group is meant as a multi-disciplinary forum for discussion and mutual criticism by professionals in their respective fields of urban practice: whether as architects or planners, lawyers or journalists, academics or activists.Through such a conversation, we hope to build an inclusive community of urban citizens, which while grounding itself in the practices of professionals also has a clear critical perspective, situating Mumbai in the theories and practices of urbanism globally. We invite all urban researchers, practitioners and other interested individuals to join us in our fortnightly conversations, and suggest topics for presentation and discussion. For any more information, kindly contact one of the Joint Convenors of the Mumbai Study Group: ARVIND ADARKAR, Architect, Researcher and Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, Phone 2051834, ; DARRYL D'MONTE, Journalist and Writer, 6427088 ; SHEKHAR KRISHNAN, Coordinator-Associate, Partners for Urban Knowledge Action & Research (PUKAR), 4462728, ; PANKAJ JOSHI, Conservation Architect, Lecturer, Academy of Architecture, and PUKAR Associate, 8230625, . From boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl Wed Aug 29 03:31:28 2001 From: boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 00:01:28 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] india.indymedia.org Message-ID: Hi, I got a reply: > The idea of training people is great, but what if they don't have > the outlets? indymedia is an Internet outlet, that not many have > access to in India. Definitely a good question! My "immediate-term" response is that many grass-roots activists in India already do have *some* internet access. They could more-or-less immediately benefit from training. Detailed response at: http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-india/2001-August/000028.html From geert at xs4all.nl Wed Aug 29 10:51:39 2001 From: geert at xs4all.nl (geert lovink) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 15:21:39 +1000 Subject: [Reader-list] Harnessing the power of IT for sustainability Message-ID: <00f301c1304d$1a2c2400$c900000a@bigpond.com> From: "David Wortley" To: Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2001 8:39 PM Subject: Global Responsibility Forum - Monaco October 18th to 20th - "Harnessing the power of IT for sustainability" This conference will not only focus on key global digital divide issues, but will combine for the first time (to my knowledge)the application of virtual conferencing technology with a physical conference. Delegates to this important conference will be able to interact with virtual attendees in an entirely new and innovative way. If you have an interest in the application of ICT to a collaborative sustainable future, you should attend this forum ! ABOUT THE FORUM The Global Responsibility Forum in Monaco from October 18th to 20th sees the launch of major European initiative to promote awareness of best global responsibility practices within the private sector, governments and NGOs. The forum will focus on emerging innovative uses of Information Communications Technology to support a sustainable future and will illustrate how to meet the triple challenges of responsibility, sustainability and profitability. The forum will also see the launch of Global Cities - a global responsibility partnership with EuroNews, Europe's leading news channel, using television as a vehicle to foster public dialogue on quality of life and will pioneer the innovative use of virtual conferencing technologies to engage global participants working in this field. Full details of the program and registration can be accessed at :- WHO SHOULD ATTEND ? The forum is designed to be of interest to corporate organisations, governmental institutions, NGOs and citizen networks working to address digital divide and sustainability issues. The discussion and dialogue generated by the forum should help to shape best ICT practices within all these sectors. PROGRAM OVERVIEW THURSDAY OCTOBER 18TH Roundtable discussions on furthering environmental and social responsibility Opening Addresses by HSH Crown Prince Albert of Monaco and keynote speakers FRIDAY OCTOBER 19TH PLENARY SESSIONS Confronting the paradoxes of Information Technology Can Information Technology bring sustainability benefits to the poorest of the poor ? Information Technology as a tool for monitoring and spurring corporate sustainability performance SATURDAY OCTOBER 20TH (AM) Workshop Sessions Why NGOs and companies enter into dialogue World Business Council's working group on IT and sustainability The Digital Divide Towards sustainable travel and tourism VIRTUAL PARTICIPATION We are seeking a limited number of virtual participants to join the forum via the internet. We are pioneering the use of virtual conferencing technology in a live conference environment and we are especially looking for individuals or groups involved in using Information Communication Technology to tackle the digital divide and shape a sustainable social and economic future. If you are interested in being a virtual participant and are involved in a relevant project, please contact David Wortley by email at dwortley at massmitec.co.uk Regards David Wortley Community Commerce and Knowledge Network (ComKnet) Project www.comknet.org.uk Virtual Conferencing for Community Development WHO CARES WINS From arunmehtain at yahoo.com Tue Aug 28 11:46:00 2001 From: arunmehtain at yahoo.com (Arun Mehta) Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2001 11:46:00 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Wireless LAN In-Reply-To: <01082718453400.17899@office.interoffice> References: <5.0.2.1.2.20010827173437.01fc31d0@pop.mail.yahoo.com> <5.0.2.1.2.20010827173437.01fc31d0@pop.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.2.20010828112910.01f26160@pop.mail.yahoo.com> Brilliant, Devdas! This idea of setting up a 802.11b network among the Bombay Linux crowd needs to be emulated. Wish you all the luck. Aren't there people on these lists, that might wish to join? Think about it... You spend maybe Rs. 20,000, once, which puts you on a broadband wireless network, that can carry audio (whatever your sound card happens to be playing), video telephony, and best of all, you'll can share your Internet connections! Imagine, that 50 people join, and on average, each of them has a connectivity to the Internet of 1K -- that really is a modest estimate. Now, imagine that at a time, on average, 10 of these 50 are actually using their connections. That means, that if everyone shares, each of these 10 get 4-5K of bandwidth for free, to use in addition to their own! I can only urge all of you to pass this on to friends you know in Mumbai, who have a techie bent -- after all, you will need to do some tinkering with wireless equipment, IP addresses and stuff. Remember, that the best telecom in a disaster-prone area is 802.11b -- it is merely Ethernet in the air, runs TCP-IP, so is as robust as the Internet -- no central server. If there is an earthquake in your town, the surviving nodes will quickly be able to restart communications, if at all there is a break! Oh, and if other people would like to start something like this in their own cities, do get in touch with me? consume.net has a database of people that want to be nodes, so we could either just enter ourselves into their database or start one of our own for India. And if people are interested in starting something like this in Delhi, I'm eager and willing to push this idea forward here. Why doesn't the Delhi Linux Users Group initiate something similar? Raj? Arun At 8/27/2001, Devdas Bhagat wrote: >On Mon, 27 Aug 2001, Arun Mehta spewed into the ether: > > > > Well, it depends on the topography: the basic cost factor in the hw is how > > much power you need to expend to reach your neighbors. 802.11b is legal in > > India, the card I believe, is under $200, add a couple of hundred dollars > > for a good antenna and cable? That's the fixed cost. >No, the idea is to hook up the Mumbai LUG. The concept is to hook up as >many luggers as can afford the cost to an always on high speed network >for fun. Range will be about 120km diameter. We will probably be >assembling our own hardware from scratch as well. From jeebesh at sarai.net Wed Aug 29 18:43:43 2001 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 18:43:43 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] ASCII Cafe in trouble Message-ID: I am forwarding a mail about a serious attack on the ASCII cafe in Amsterdam. ASCII cafe. It is in the basement of a big alternative bookstore (where you can get books on all critical social and political currents). A moodily lit space with all kinds of computers (primarily low-tech!) and a brilliantly exposed network, it is a great mix of machines, wires, keyboards and, most importantly, a very open and warm group of people. The ASCII café seemed a space where knowledge sharing, innovation, conversation and pleasure are all abundant! On the evening we went, there was workshop on compiling the Linux kernel. It was a relaxed ambience, with a lot of technical knowledge being shared in easy conversation. No techie arrogance or dismissiveness. It was very easy to melt into that simple hospitable atmosphere. A place like this needs to be protected and its ethos proliferated. Cheers Jeebesh From: Henk Date: Wed Aug 29, 2001 12:01:38 PM Asia/Calcutta Jodenbreestraat 24 on the street 900% rent increase The internet werkplaats, ASCII, has received, along with their bookshop neighbours, notice of a rent increase of more than 900%. Our landlords, the Woningbedrijf Amsterdam (Housing Corporation Amsterdam), find this to be a "reasonable proposal". A letter received from them began, "The Housing Corporation Amsterdam wants the rent from their commercial spaces adjusted to the market price level". This startling rent increase is to start on Sept. 1 and go from f 580. to f 5100. per month. Reasonable? Though The Housing Corporation finds this to be a reasonable proposal, ASCII members, the volunteers of the bookshop Fort Van Sjakoo, and the volunteer-run Window to Europe, with whom we share our space, cannot come up with this kind of money. Once this money is demanded, the volunteer-run non-profit organisations sharing this space will be forced to find new premises, and face the loss of these initiatives. Not only can we not pay, we also find the thrust of the Housing Corporation to be unconscionable and excessive, pushing, as they are, more and more non-commercial, idealistic initiatives out of the city centre and towards extinction. We need support We beseech you now to support us in our struggle. ASCII started life in a squat on the Herengracht, and moved into the basement of Jodenbreestraat 24 in January 2000, to become the neighbours of the Fort van Sjakoo, and the Window To Europe. We are run entirely by volunteers, and survive in an entirely autonomous way. We supply the people who could not otherwise afford it with free internet access, and we support the activist community with computer access and a space to communicate. We have an online radio news hour once a week, with live streaming and incisive interviews, and every Sunday we have experimental jazz. We also run courses, including the popular Genderchanger Academy, teaching women computer hardware basics. We run popular courses in Linux and basic HTML. We have regular workshops that explain a range of technology related subjects, from PHP programming to monitor hacking. ASCII is also a meeting point for programmers and IT workers with a social conscience, who get together in the spirit of open source and share ideas, start new initiatives to support projects such as indy media, and give support to open source software such as Linux. The internet werkplaats is run entirely on Linux, with one computer running Free BSD, and the chance for volunteers to delve into other open source operating systems. Most of the hardware is recycled and donated. ASCII strives to prove that outdated, no longer fashionable computer hardware is perfect for low-end computer tasks such as internet surfing, and things thrown away by some can be used by others. History The Fort van Sjakoo has been at Jodenbreestraat 24 since 1977. The building was squatted 2 years earlier as a protest against its planned demolition to make way for an office building. The squatters made the building liveable and on the ground floor a successful bookshop was started. Thus the squatters' resistance was successful and the building was saved. In 1989 the city bought the building for next to nothing; the residents and the bookshop became renters. The Housing Corporation was then still a part of the municipality, and they got possession of the building. Since then the company has become privatised. The bookshop supplies people with all sorts of information that they can't easily find elsewhere. The collection consists of a wide range of left-wing political, social criticism, avant-garde, artistic, rebellious, odd and environmentally friendly books and magazines, often impossible to find else where. Also housed in Jodenbreestraat 24 is the foundation Window To Europe, created in 1989 with the goal of promoting the cultural consciousness and mutual understanding between people who were for a long time separated by the Iron Curtain. They have through the years concentrated on the traditional musical cultures from the different ethnic groups who live in the former Soviet Union. Lately they've added a form of electronic music. In the bookshop is the office from the foundation European Juggling Association, who organizes, among other things, a yearly festival which attracts more than 3000 jugglers. Alternative Amsterdam? These four initiatives are all non-commercial, non-profit and vibrantly contribute to the life that makes Amsterdam the unique city that it is. If the Housing Corporation is successful in its push to make more and more money, they will be responsible for the sterilisation of a famously artistic city, a *dumbing down* of a city that prides itself on its creativity and social inclination. The Housing Corporation is not allowed to raise its rent for living space but is legally within its rights to raise the rent for buisnesses to the market level. This thinking comes from the assumption that businesses by default turn a profit. And The Housing Corporation Amsterdam isn't legally bound to differentiate between rent increases for different types of businesses and organizations. But there are many non-commercial idealistic organisations which are purely altruistic in nature that are being turned out on the street with the gentrification of the city centre. The commercial space in Jodenbreestraat has recently increased to absurd levels as its level of popularity has increased. For decades the street was full of unpopular ugly buildings, which were falling apart, and construction sites. The last few years the city has been busy with fixing up the street. First they took away the terrible buildings. Then came new buildings and the pavement was redone with fancy stones. The junkies were kicked out of the area, and since recently there is an alcohol ban. The policy of the city hall was successful: tourist attractions like the Holland Experience, big chain stores like Blokker and Albert Heijn wanted to be on the now upscale street. And the price per square metre increased in record time to 10 times higher. As these non-commercial and social organisations are under pressure because of the enormously inflated rent increases, the only way to stop the trend is to have a non-profit rent catagory for social and non-commercial initiatives. Demand We, along with our neighbours Het Fort van Sjakoo, the Window To Europe, and the European Juggeling Association, want the Housing Corporation Amsterdam to withdraw their rent increase. Support from the people who believe in what we all do is warmly welcome. We would really appreciate it if our supporters began their own actions in support of us. If you want to know what's going on you can put yourself on a couple of mailing lists: sjakoo-announce at squat.net (subscribe at https://squat.net/mailman/listinfo/sjakoo-announce) ascii-announce at squat.net (subscribe at https://squat.net/mailman/listinfo/ascii-announce) Please send your opinion about the rent increase to the directors of the Woningbedrijf Amsterdam (Housing Corporation) and send us a copy too. Woningbedrijf Amsterdam Muntendamstraat 1 1091DR AmsterdamPostbus 94278 1090GG Amsterdam Fax 020-6630829 e-mail: binnenstad at woningbedrijf-amsterdam.nl ASCII Jodenbreestraat 24 sous 1011NK Amsterdam e-mail: ascii at squat.net http://www.squat.net/ascii International Bookshop Het Fort van Sjakoo Jodenbreestraat 24 1011NK Amsterdam Telefoon: 020-6258979 Fax: 020-6203570 e-mail: sjakoo at xs4all.nl http://www.xs4all.nl/~sjakoo -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 9569 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010829/93935e03/attachment.bin From heus at xs4all.nl Wed Aug 29 20:03:31 2001 From: heus at xs4all.nl (Steef Heus) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 16:33:31 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] Governments push open-source software Message-ID: Hi, just picked this from the net. See for full (interesting) article: http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-6996393.html?tag=pt.msnbc.feed..ne_6996 393 Steef By Paul Festa Staff Writer, CNET News.com August 29, 2001, 4:00 a.m. PT Governments around the world have found a new rallying cry--"Software libre!"--and Microsoft is working overtime to quell it. A recent global wave of legislation is compelling government agencies, and in some cases government-owned companies, to use open-source or free software unless proprietary software is the only feasible option. This legal movement, earliest and most pronounced in Brazil, but also showing signs of catching on elsewhere in Latin America, Europe and Asia, is finding ready converts as governments struggle to close sometimes vast digital divides with limited information-technology budgets. So far, there is no evidence that similar legislation is being considered anywhere in the United States, experts said. Software libre Several foreign governments have considered mandating the use of open-source or free software. • The French Parliament proposed a bill concerned with both the availability of source code for software used by the government and with the use of open standards. Observers say the government is blocking the bill pending European movement on the matter, particularly as it relates to patent issues. • The Argentina Parliament reviewed a proposal that mandates, with some exceptions, the use of free software in all government offices and in government-owned companies. • In Germany, the government has funded efforts by the German Unix Users Group (GUUG) to adapt the free privacy software called GnuPG--analogous to the proprietary PGP privacy software--for use by non-U.S. government entities. The project specifically cites U.S. export restrictions as a reason why PGP itself is inadequate. • The European Commission has solicited recommendations from the European Working Group on Free Software, which last year raised the possibility that the EC could mandate the use of free software "whenever feasible" but stopped short of recommending that it do so. • In Spain, the Canary Islands Parliament recently approved a multipartisan, nonbinding resolution urging the use of free software by the government. • In Asia, governments have acted by appropriations rather than legislation to limit the use and impact of proprietary software. In South Korea, public universities squeezed by the region's 1997 financial crunch found themselves unable to purchase software. In response, the Ministry of Information and Communication last year set up training programs for GNU Linux for systems administration. • In China, the government has moved to install the open-source Linux operating system provided by Red Flag in an attempt to avoid reliance on U.S. companies, particularly Microsoft. From aziza_ibekie at yahoo.com Thu Aug 30 03:42:32 2001 From: aziza_ibekie at yahoo.com (david oga) Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 15:12:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] DAVID AKHIGBE Message-ID: <20010829221232.5615.qmail@web20203.mail.yahoo.com> FROM: MR,DAVID AKHIGBE T EL: 234 1 759 1549; FAX: 234 1 759 0379. E-MAIL:aziza_ibekie at yahoo.com BUSINESS PROPOSAL ATTN: PRESIDENT / CEO, My name is DAVID AKHIGBE, a member of the Presidential Task Force on Oil Spillage Clean-up. Early last year there was a major oil spillage in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria which rendered over 70% of the communities homeless.The contract was handled by a foreign firm but because of the huge monetary profit we envisaged we decided to over-invoice the contract sum. Now the contract has been completed and the original contractor has since been paid,but the contract balance of US$38 million,which resulted from the over invoiced contract sum that has been left in a suspense account with the CENTRAL BANK of NIGERIA,is what me and my partners are planning to take out of the country for ourselves.The problem is as government officials,we are not suppose to own fat bank accounts,talk less of having foreign ones.To this end, we are soliciting your assistance as a foreign partner who can assist us and receive this amount into your account. We are ready to share this money with you on the basis of participation. We also have plans to invest part of this money in any viable business in your country under your care,as we are nearing our retirement age. In any case, I received a reference of you/organization from the Nigeria Chambers of Commerce and Industry �Foreign Trade Division� as a reputable organ that can assist us on this transaction. Please if you accept my proposal do not hesitate to send me a fax on 234 1 759 0379 or send me an e-mail on: aziza_ibekie at yahoo.com, so that I can provide you with the basic procedures for the release of the fund. It does not matter whether you or your company does contract project of the nature described here, the assumption is that you won a major contract and subcontracted it to another company, more often than not, big trading companies or individuals of unrelated field win major contracts here in Nigeria and subcontracts same to more specialized firms for execution. BENEFIT For providing the account where we shall remit this money, you will be entitled to 25% of the entire funds, 70% will be for me and my partners,while 5% has been set aside to cover any expenses that may be incurred by both parties during this transaction, both local and international. Please I enjoin you to handle this transaction with utmost degree of maturity and confidentiality because I am still in active government service with the �NIGERIAN NATIONAL PETROLEUM CORPORATION�. If I receive your response on time, this whole transaction could be accomplished within the shortest possible time based on your interest and determination,since the money is already in transit. Please, try to call me up to confirm the receipt of your fax or e-mail.The lines may be busy,but keep trying till you get through. Yours faithfully, MR. DAVID AKHIGBE (MNIM). __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger http://im.yahoo.com From Steef at CwaC.nl Thu Aug 30 04:00:01 2001 From: Steef at CwaC.nl (Steef Heus) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 00:30:01 +0200 Subject: [Reader-list] DAVID AKHIGBE In-Reply-To: <20010829221232.5615.qmail@web20203.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Hi to you all, Please ignore the email of DAVID AKHIGBE. I have had several emails of this kind from Nigeria (among them an email of a friend of a Nigerian King) and they can not be trusted. The stories are great, and at least appealing, the money is 'there', and you only have to 'help'. A few years ago this type of actions were done by snail mail. On a large scale. It varied from letters with similar content as this email, but also invoices of small amounts for directory services etc A lot of companies payed, some individuals lost a lot of money. But the Dutch justice department wasn't able to track the Nigerian gang. And now it seems they have internet access in Nigeria.... Steef From monica at sarai.net Thu Aug 30 11:33:21 2001 From: monica at sarai.net (Monica Narula) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 11:33:21 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] To avoid spamming Message-ID: Dear members of the Reader list, In order to avoid future spamming from the David Akhigbes of the world, I have to unfortunately make postings rights available only to members from now on. In case someone objects, speak now or be silent forever! Monica - list admin -- Monica Narula Sarai:The New Media Initiative 29 Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 054 www.sarai.net From patrice at xs4all.nl Thu Aug 30 16:16:23 2001 From: patrice at xs4all.nl (patrice at xs4all.nl) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 12:46:23 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] [Fwd: he who controls the bootloader] Message-ID: <43600.145.18.124.232.999168383.squirrel@webmail.xs4all.nl> -------- Oorspronkelijk bericht -------- Onderwerp: he who controls the bootloader Van: Mark-Jan Bastian Aan: discussion at hippiesfromhell.org An interesting article about an issue that was not widely examined in the Microsoft antitrust trial: http://www.byte.com/documents/s=1115/byt20010824s0001/0827_hacker.html It's about the way Microsoft licenses it's software to OEM's like Dell and Gateway, that prevents non-microsoft OS's to be installed as a dual-boot option on newly shipped PC's. These secret MS-to-OEM licenses (not the EULA license!) have a provision that the pre-installed Microsoft-OS must be loaded by a Microsoft bootloader only. And, the license agreement of the bootloader, states that that bootloader may only be used for booting Microsoft operating systems. This prevents that any OEM can ship a dual-boot system with Windows and another OS. This is needed by alternative OS manufacturers (be it linux, FreeBSD or BeOS) to give any reasonable way to market a different OS, and allow it to gain marketshare. Most joe-sixpack users of PC's don't know that there exists something besides windows. They will only use what is preinstalled, and are not going to do extra steps to buy, download and install alternative OS's. This means that most people also won't have the chance to test alternative operating systems. Installing afterwards will also give more problems than a finetuned linux install that an OEM could deliver, where everything would work first time you turn it on. So, if a OEM like Dell or Gateway wants to give people an option to boot into either Linux or Windows, that is not possible, Microsoft will threaten them by either increasing licensing fees, withdrawing support, or whatever argument they can make to convice them to stick to a Microsoft OS only. Be, Inc, a company that made the BeOS, found this out some time ago, when giving OEM's an option to include a preinstalled BeOS installation for free, besides windows (dual boot). There was a lot of enthusiasm at the OEM's, but once the Microsoft lawyers visted the OEM, and explained their licensing terms again, they all had to refuse the offer of Be, Inc. The interesting thing is that the U.S. antitrust trial was mainly about the browser integration issue, while this bootloader control issue, is much more clear case of anticompetitive behaviour. Mark-Jan From jotarun at yahoo.co.uk Thu Aug 30 21:15:22 2001 From: jotarun at yahoo.co.uk (=?iso-8859-1?q?Jo=20and=20Tarun?=) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 16:45:22 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Reader-list digest, Vol 1 #154 - 2 msgs - URGENT WARNING In-Reply-To: <200108300427.GAA20140@mail.intra.waag.org> Message-ID: <20010830154522.47256.qmail@web9107.mail.yahoo.com> Please note that the message from Nigeria in the last digest is part of a well-known scam which has defrauded many people in the UK in the hope of easy money in the last few years and has been officially warned against by the UK govt. I would request the list administrator to ensure that such messages are not circulated, and other readers to pass the warning on. Jo Sharma --- reader-list-request at sarai.net wrote: > Send Reader-list mailing list submissions to > reader-list at sarai.net > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, > visit > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > or, via email, send a message with subject or body > 'help' to > reader-list-request at sarai.net > > You can reach the person managing the list at > reader-list-admin at sarai.net > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it > is more specific > than "Re: Contents of Reader-list digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. DAVID AKHIGBE (david oga) > 2. RE: DAVID AKHIGBE (Steef Heus) > > --__--__-- > > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 15:12:32 -0700 (PDT) > From: david oga > To: reader-list at sarai.net > Subject: [Reader-list] DAVID AKHIGBE > > FROM: MR,DAVID AKHIGBE > T EL: 234 1 759 1549; FAX: 234 1 759 0379. > E-MAIL:aziza_ibekie at yahoo.com > BUSINESS PROPOSAL > > ATTN: PRESIDENT / CEO, > > > My name is DAVID AKHIGBE, a member of the > Presidential > Task Force on Oil Spillage Clean-up. Early last year > there was a major oil spillage in the Niger Delta > Region of Nigeria which rendered over 70% of the > communities homeless.The contract was handled by a > foreign firm but because of the huge monetary profit > we envisaged we decided to over-invoice the contract > sum. Now the contract has been completed and the > original contractor has since been paid,but the > contract balance of US$38 million,which resulted > from > the over invoiced contract sum that has been left in > a > suspense account with the CENTRAL BANK of NIGERIA,is > what me and my partners are planning to take out of > the country for ourselves.The problem is as > government > officials,we are not suppose to own fat bank > accounts,talk less of having foreign ones.To this > end, > we are soliciting your assistance as a foreign > partner > who can assist us and receive this amount into your > account. We are ready to share this money with you > on > the basis of participation. We also have plans to > invest part of this money in any viable business in > your country under your care,as we are nearing our > retirement age. In any case, I received a reference > of > you/organization from the Nigeria Chambers of > Commerce > and Industry ‘Foreign Trade Division’ as a reputable > organ that can assist us on this transaction. Please > if you accept my proposal do not hesitate to send me > a > fax on 234 1 759 0379 or send me an e-mail on: > aziza_ibekie at yahoo.com, so that I can provide you > with > the basic procedures for the release of the fund. It > does not matter whether you or your company does > contract project of the nature described here, the > assumption is that you won a major contract and > subcontracted it to another company, more often than > not, big trading companies or individuals of > unrelated > field win major contracts here in Nigeria and > subcontracts same to more specialized firms for > execution. BENEFIT For providing the account where > we > shall remit this money, you will be entitled to 25% > of > the entire funds, 70% will be for me and my > partners,while 5% has been set aside to cover any > expenses that may be incurred by both parties during > this transaction, both local and international. > Please > I enjoin you to handle this transaction with utmost > degree of maturity and confidentiality because I am > still in active government service with the > “NIGERIAN > NATIONAL PETROLEUM CORPORATION”. If I receive your > response on time, this whole transaction could be > accomplished within the shortest possible time based > on your interest and determination,since the money > is > already in transit. Please, try to call me up to > confirm the receipt of your fax or e-mail.The lines > may be busy,but keep trying till you get through. > > Yours faithfully, > > MR. DAVID AKHIGBE (MNIM). > > > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant > messaging with Yahoo! Messenger > http://im.yahoo.com > > --__--__-- > > Message: 2 > Reply-To: > From: "Steef Heus" > To: > Subject: RE: [Reader-list] DAVID AKHIGBE > Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 00:30:01 +0200 > > Hi to you all, > > Please ignore the email of DAVID AKHIGBE. I have > had several emails of this > kind from Nigeria (among them an email of a friend > of a Nigerian King) and > they can not be trusted. The stories are great, and > at least appealing, the > money is 'there', and you only have to 'help'. > A few years ago this type of actions were done by > snail mail. On a large > scale. > It varied from letters with similar content as this > email, but also invoices > of small amounts for directory services etc > A lot of companies payed, some individuals lost a > lot of money. But the > Dutch justice department wasn't able to track the > Nigerian gang. > And now it seems they have internet access in > Nigeria.... > > Steef > > > > > --__--__-- > > _______________________________________________ > Reader-list mailing list > Reader-list at sarai.net > http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list > > > End of Reader-list Digest ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie From reyhanchaudhuri at hotmail.com Fri Aug 31 00:32:49 2001 From: reyhanchaudhuri at hotmail.com (Dr. Reyhan Chaudhuri) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 19:02:49 +0000 Subject: [Reader-list] The Day After - Suraj Rai Message-ID: Reading this translation by:Mr.Ravi Kant two things occurred to me.(1)That one gets acquainted to new words & interesting concepts(atleast for some of us) within the throng of postings sent by electronic mail to Members on the Sarai Readers List.For Exmple:"the complex interiority of a person" was oneof them; (2)Secondly the illuminating realisation that the world can be complex but also amazingly universal in it's complexity.For instance seeing the title,before beginning to read,one expects and prepares to glimpse an original alternate world view.Since to most of us on the readers list(I strongly suspect)do not or have not ever lived in the L.N.J.P.-like slums or have only briefly worked or passed through them. However quite the contrary one finds his response very synchronous to what other teenagers would reply.Maybe with a slightly different vocabulary but in essence pretty much the same.I say this as I interact on a nearly daily basis(with slightly older teenagers) at South Delhi Polytechnic for Women in the same city as Master Suraj.I've enquired about their thoughts on this event and found a remarkable resemblance in their response. Master Rai begins with highly human emotions on being bereft(or rather the thought of it) of his immediate family & friends.However then(like most teenagers)he brightens at the thought of and his feeling of power on his two moments in the Sun.Ironically his name literally means 'Sun' in Hindustani.(Actually to those not from here I must mention that for most of us on the subcontinent,the expression ought to be altered to'moment on the moon',as being in the sun's glare is not a very plasurable concept over here with nearly nine months of hideous heat.) Coming back he looks forward to the media making him into a bigwig.However then his thoughts dart back to his near & dear ones and his heart bilks at the idea of this honour or treat sans family.This is I thing at the end of the day an amazing universal feeling(with perhaps some exceptions only)even among older persons.Most people look for approval and admiration from their dear ones or those who matter and not cold strangers or remote acquaintances.Some folks may feel that celebrities and VIP's thrive on an unknown fan clientele.However if you see their interviews/biographies/quotes on awards day,they seem to invariably recall or think of their near and dear ones. He also seems remarkably astute and sceptic about the impersonal assistance of the government.Realises that he may have to depend solely upon himself.Parting words or those in conclusion are very hitting and (I think) honestly instinctive,"I would like to survive." I too find in the young people with whom I interact(and presumably from quite a different background to Master Rai),that unlike the last generation their minds in this computor-age are marvellously multi-programmed.Unlilke us who are often stuck in a groove or on one theme,they flirt with ease and expertise to a number of concepts.Also inspite of a harder and harsher world they live in(and despite the numerous suicides the dailies gloss over) their survival instincts and the stress on survival are well embellished. It may be quite interesting to carry out further comparisons on this subject between different sorts of people and of different ages.We may find universality of emotions or reactions to events,eeven if in a completely contrasting scenario...... Yours Sincerely, R.Chaudhuri. >From: Jeebesh Bagchi >To: reader-list at sarai.net >Subject: [Reader-list] The Day After - Suraj Rai >Date: Sat, 18 Aug 2001 11:56:42 +0530 > >This is text written by Suraj from LNJP Basti, Ajmeri Gate, Delhi. I >find it amazingly rich with meaning and alludes to the complex >interiority of the person. cheers, Jeebesh > > >"The Day After..." >- Suraj Rai (14 yrs) >(Translated by Ravikant) > >There is an earthquake...everyone is dead. How did I survive? The >question will haunt me. It is possible that I would die of shock of >losing my family members. If I manage to survive I will be happy to >be free bird. And the sole owner of the basti. > >But the government will take away all this land. First of all I will >extricate the survivors in the basti. I will make do with the >belongings left in the collapsed houses. Since I will be the only one >left, the police, Press and the TV-wallas will come to interview me. >On such an occasion, I will miss my friends and relatives very much. >But what had to happen has happened. Whether I get government relief >or not, I will have to help myself. > >If I receive government aid, I will use it to complete my education. >The other relatives will come too, but what do they have to offer >except solace. I will be surrounded by a fleet of ambulances... I'm >feeling sad looking at the dead bodies... some of which will make me >cry. Friends, brothers, parents, sisters, neighbours, enemies.... I >have lost them all. > >There is absolutely nobody to support me. I tell God: why did you do >this? You should have left some one to look after me. I have been >left alone. At least send my Mayadi from Calcutta. I would like to >live... > > > > >_______________________________________________ >Reader-list mailing list >Reader-list at sarai.net >http://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/reader-list _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp From boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl Fri Aug 31 01:44:38 2001 From: boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 22:14:38 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Reader-list digest, Vol 1 #154 - 2 msgs - URGENT WARNING In-Reply-To: <20010830154522.47256.qmail@web9107.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 30 Aug 2001, [iso-8859-1] Jo and Tarun wrote: > Please note that the message from Nigeria in the last > digest is part of a well-known scam which has The latest version of spam-bouncer - GPL free source software which has very sophisticated filtering of spam - has a file sb-fraud.rc for dealing with earlier versions of Nigerian spam (but it failed to stop this one - only my personal "formula" used with spam-bouncer caught it). I would recommend http://www.spambouncer.org for anyone who gets a lot of spam and is willing to spend a bit of time thinking (ouch!) when installing. Don't fiddle with mail software lightly... Any system administrator (or mailing list manager?) should at least spend some time looking at it. There are all sorts of keyword based and IP address based formulae for "definite spam" and "suspected spam". You can have options such as just storing spam in a separate folder, deleting it, sending an automatic bounce which makes the spammer think your address is wrong, and sending an automatic complaint to the postmaster. In the latest version with sb-fraud.rc, there is even an automatic complaint (if you have the complaint option validated) to an address in the USA to police who are tracking this particular fraud group! From arunmehtain at yahoo.com Fri Aug 31 14:01:41 2001 From: arunmehtain at yahoo.com (Arun Mehta) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:01:41 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Durban conference Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010831135745.02593a00@imap.satyam.net.in> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/26/opinion/26HEAN.html?todaysheadlines Says the great poet Seamus Heaney: there is genuine healing power rather than mere rhetorical uplift in Mr. Mandela's espousal of the aims of the Durban conference, and the conference could well adopt as its sacred text something he wrote in his book, "Long Walk to Freedom": "It was during those long and lonely years that my hunger for the freedom of my own people became a hunger for the freedom of all people, black and white. I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed. I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else's freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken away from me. The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity." I am wondering if the role of media in racism is being properly examined at Durban? The role of business? For instance, I am told that many companies, even large ones, run by traditional Indians (I won't say the "m" word), won't hire Muslims. Arun Mehta, B-69, Lajpat Nagar-I, New Delhi -- 110024, India. Phone +91-11-6841172, 6849103. http://www.radiophony.com mehta at vsnl.com _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com From arunmehtain at yahoo.com Fri Aug 31 14:13:42 2001 From: arunmehtain at yahoo.com (Arun Mehta) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:13:42 +0530 Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Sklyarov arraignment has serious implications In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20010830112217.02731870@pop.mail.yahoo.com> References: <5.1.0.14.2.20010830142721.00abae60@aconsult.net> Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20010831140535.01ca9640@pop.mail.yahoo.com> I would like, at national level, an examination of India's policy on intellectual property. There was a time, when we, pretty much alone in the world, were fighting against extending the concept of IP to processes, where really what was being patented was information, not a product. It is widely believed, that all this was at the instigation of the Indian drug industry, that did make money from copying foreign drug designs. However, the issues we raised then, and got no support for, were good ones. Some of those are coming up again as part of the Aids controversy in Africa and South America. Others are raising similar questions in the IT arena. Just when the Indian position finally could get international support, our own approach seems to be one of total withdrawal from our earlier position. How did this happen? I think Sarai, a univ or one of the LUGs could do worse than to organise a 2-day workshop, with presentations on the current positions and historical perspectives from all the concerned industry and social sectors, producing a paper at the end that puts forth what we consider to be a sensible IP policy for India. At 8/30/2001, Dr. Raj Mehta wrote: >I think this is going to take both court and political pressure >to get it changed. I explained this "head in the sand" aspect >of security when the Mellenium Copyright Act passed with that >absolutely asanine provision embedded in it. Of course the banning >of certain bandwidths and decoding of broadcasts was the first step >and it's entrenched, likely with all too much precedent to support >it as well. > >With Microsoft in the lead - as I've explained how it affects OfficeXP, >and ultimately all of the dot-net product line -- there are enormous >funds potentially arrayed in support of the "law". > >I honestly don't think that the population of the United States is >wise enough to understand the problem, enmasse. Certainly there are >voices crying out, and need to be. The actual strategy needed is >to make this MORE EXPENSIVE to the SFPA members to have enforced than >it would be to get it revoked. Frankly, I haven't seen that answer >yet, but it would appear to be the only long-term answer. > >As for this first "sacrificial lamb" on the alter of "We want your >business - literally - in our pocket", I really don't have an answer, >either. I hold out a lot of hope for the EFF legal team. The UN is >already as close to getting kicked out of NYC as it has ever been, so UN >"Human Rights" arguments aren't going to carry any weight. > >Here are some comments about creation of circumvention devices and reverse >engineering in context to the MCA: > > 1. The "copy protection" provisions against reverse engineering > in the MCA are the equivalent of making it illegal to point > out to anyone that when your neighbor draws a photo of a lock > and tapes it to his front door, that he hasn't truly secured > his house. As long as we take it back to software, and he > declares it to be part of his "copy protection scheme", however > ineffective the security of it is, and however ELSE it is > misrepresented as providing security (even in other uses within > the same software), it is illegal to speak of it, or even > discover it, and CERTAINLY illegal to exploit it. > > This is what's going on in this "test case" and poor Mr. Sklyarov > is an inflation of the old ITAR, but this time DRIVEN by shoddy > business, rather than shoddy government. > > 2. Remember, there dosn't have to be any security actually involved. > It's moved out of the technical realm, and into the economic and > law realm. > > Here's an example: > > You remember the ROT-13 encoding, commonly used for fun on FidoNet > and even still, on the internet, once in a while. > > A B C D E F G H I J K L M a b c d e f g h i j k l m > | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | > N O P Q R S T U V Q X Y Z n o p q r s t u v w x y z > > merely replace each character in the original with the corresponding > one, and you've done "ROT-13" encoding of the data. The security > stands against casual raeding by SOME people - and that only. > > Suppose I write an E-Mail program, and sell it as a program > for exchanging 'secure e-mail', but based on simple ROT-13 > encoding of the messages. If I also use that ROT-13 to store > a user password, then I can declare the whole code body that > does the ROT-13 to be part of the copy protection. > > At that point, it is illegal under the MCA for anyone to > "reverse engineer" that copy protection. Since it is declared > to be a copy protection scheme. Others also cannot make > compatible software. If I can get suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^H the > public to buy it, and use it, it is now illegal for anyone to > "discover" that ROT-13 is not secure - to announce that - to > build other software that is compatible with it.... (e.g. > Sklyarov's software). > > 3. Microsoft has had a steady move to defining all formats in XML. > They have been almost industry leaders in XML, and especially > in XSL (Styleheets in XML). Even their HTML generated, e.g. > by Word98 is broken without the externally referenced stylesheet > files, which are referenced with a local-hard-drive file:// > URL - NOT a publically accessible over-the-net URL. > > Both XML and XSL are intended to be used to define file formats. > All Microsoft has to do with dot-net, is insure that the XSL > and XML "keys" sit on their website or other networked facilities, > or even distribute them WITH the "leased" software, and have > those be the ONLY way that you can get at your data. > > By divorcing their traditional sneakiness from anti-trust > actions, and making them part of that MCA protected "Copy > Protection Scheme", they have swung the law over to their > side to re-enforce their traditional monopolistic lock. > > >SCENARIO: > > San-Jose, California Dec 21, 2003. -- Fourteen respondants today > were convicted of violation of the Mellenium Copyright Act, their > XML and XSL files confiscated, and they were ordered to pay an > undisclosed out-of-court settlement to Microsoft (MSFT). The XML > and XSL files defined the format that their own data was stored in. > But, in July 2002, Microsoft had announced that those very files, > when dynamically produced by its Office-XP and successor products, > were the core of its "Copy Protection" which protects them from having > companies terminate their leases of the software, while still being > able to get at their business records. > > While these XML and XSL files are merely readable text descriptions > of the data, because they are considered part of the "Copy Protection" > of the entire XP line, they may not be reproduced, read, copied > nor recreated, under the provisions of the MCA. Plesee Mr. Gates, > don't sue me for disclosing that they're just text files! I'm > counting on my "freedom of the press" rights to protect me but, > my stating it, after that declaration of July 2002, makes it as > much a violation as those respondants actually PRODUCING the > files. > >SCENARIO: > > Philadelphia - Jan 7, 2004 -- The well known and respected security > firm known as "L0pht Heavy Industries" was handed over to Microsoft > today -- in effect. The damages awarded to Microsoft (MSFT) for > L0pht's continuing to point out flaws in Microsoft's software exceeded > the net worth (and possibly the gross assets) of the security company. > Microsoft proved their case in district court, that many of these > flaws actually exist in code that Microsoft has considered to be > part of their "Copy Protection Scheme". It is well known, after > last months convictions in San Jose, that reverse-engineering any > such provisions is a violation of the MCA, and publishing the > results of such findings is a 2nd violation. > >raj > > > >At 02:34 PM 8/30/01 -0500, Udhay Shankar N wrote: >> From LWN: >> >>http://lwn.net/2001/0830/ >> >> >> >>The U.S. government, clearly, is serious about this prosecution. >>Somebody, somewhere, wants to put an immediate and forceful stop to the >>creation of "circumvention devices" and the exposure of third-rate >>encryption schemes. The raising of the stakes may be an attempt to >>intimidate Mr. Sklyarov into pleading guilty to a lesser charge, or >>perhaps the government wishes to make an example of him that nobody can >>ignore. One way or another, we are now seeing the degree of repression >>that the U.S. is willing to apply to ensure that certain kinds of >>software are not written. >> >>It is time for the free software community worldwide to get serious as >>well. This is a threat we can not ignore. If this prosecution is >>successful, we will certainly see an increasing number of attempts to >>control, with force, how we can use our computers and what software we >>can write. >> >>It takes very little imagination to picture a future where the >>general-purpose computer has been replaced by a "trusted computing >>platform" and systems which do not "seal data within domains" are treated >>as "circumvention devices." At what point, exactly, does Linux become an >>illegal device under the DMCA? In a world where programmers face 25-year >>sentences for code that was legal where they wrote it, this vision should >>not be seen as overly paranoid. >> >>It is time to get serious. How can that be done? >> >> >> * Write code. The wide distribution of PGP years ago had a profound >> effect on attempts to restrict cryptographic software. Free software is >> difficult to control; there is no easy target like the one Elcomsoft >> provided with its proprietary offerings. The more code that is out >> there, the freer we all will be. >> >> * Attend protests. Many will be happening on August 30, of course, to >> mark the arraignment. But we will have to make ourselves seen and heard >> for a long time thereafter. See the event calendar on the >> FreeSklyarov.org site for the definitive list of events. >> >> * Pressure the political system. U.S. citizens should be writing to >> their congressional representatives asking them to apply pressure for >> Dmitry Sklyarov's release, and to push for a repeal of the DMCA. Web >> pages exist to help you find your House and Senate representatives. Note >> that snail mail tends to be more effective than email. >> >> Those of you outside the U.S. can raise awareness within your >> governments, and work to ensure that DMCA-like legislation is not passed >> in your country. DMCAish laws have been proposed in numerous countries; >> now is the time to show where such laws lead. The DMCA should not be >> allowed to infect countries beyond the U.S. >> >> * Tell people about what is going on. Write letters to the local >> newspaper. The Sklyarov case remains unknown to much of the >> non-technical population; that needs to change. >> >> * Contribute money. A legal defense fund has been set up to help pay >> Dmitry's expenses. The EFF is also expending considerable resources on >> this case (and others), and could benefit from your membership. >> >>It is also time to consider pulling Adobe's name back into this whole >>affair. It is Adobe that started this particular prosecution; the company >>should not, at this point, be able to get out with one simple joint press >>release with the EFF. Adobe started this thing; it should help end it. >> >>The free software community is faced with a challenge that is far more >>daunting than that of creating a top-quality, free operating system. Most >>of us are well out of our competence and comfort when dealing with this >>sort of oppressive politics. But this issue is going to come to us, >>whether we choose to address it or not. We can win this fight; even in >>the U.S., justice can usually be made to prevail. But it is going to take >>an effort beyond just putting "free Sklyarov" in our .signature files. >> >> From rishab at best.com Fri Aug 31 15:11:17 2001 From: rishab at best.com (Rishab Aiyer Ghosh) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 02:41:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Re: Sklyarov arraignment has serious implications In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20010831140535.01ca9640@pop.mail.yahoo.com> from Arun Mehta at "Aug 31, 1 02:13:42 pm" Message-ID: <200108310941.CAA03273@shell5.ba.best.com> arun, it's not clear but if i read you correctly then you're wrong about india's patent law. to clarify: india has always had _process_ patents, and only during the uruguay round of the GATT adopted TRIPS etc which would extend patent coverage to _products_. this was despite the _opposition_ of much of the drug industry in india (though of course favoured by the MNCs, and later any indian drugs companies who had their own innovative products). the difference is that with only _process_ patent protection, a drug like viagra, say, is not protected as a product, but only one specific process to manufacture it is protected. a widespread practice in the indian drug industry has been to simply find a slightly different process to make the same _product_, thereby being outside the patent (in india). with _product_ patents as well, it is the final formulation of viagra that is (also) protected, regardless of the process used to reach there. > I would like, at national level, an examination of India's policy on > intellectual property. There was a time, when we, pretty much alone in the > world, were fighting against extending the concept of IP to processes, > where really what was being patented was information, not a product. It is > widely believed, that all this was at the instigation of the Indian drug > industry, that did make money from copying foreign drug designs. one reason the AIDS drugs controversy has not arisen in india (despite the fact that it was caused at least in part by an indian company's offer - i think cipla - to sell clones of drugs patented by MNCs to the south african govt at low cost providing the govt. took all the legal liability of patent violation) is that AIDS is not (yet) as big a problem in india and the govt has no similar mass-drug-purchase activities. and that afaik south africa started implementing its TRIPS committments well before it was required to do so. (there is a 'grace period' till i believe 2005 of which india is taking full advantage). that said, certainly it would be a good idea to hugely increase the awareness of IPR issues in india, especially the positive (to india) aspects, since various nutcases have pretty much taken over indian brainspace with the so-called imperialist nature of IPRs. (sloppy patent systems that allow the healing properties of turmeric to be patented before overturning them haven't helped IPR's PR either.) the economist had a special some weeks ago on how IPR can help developing countries, and this holds true for india over almost anywhere, given that the false stereotype of the land of'maharajas and snake charmers' has been replaced abroad by the (equally false) stereotype of the land of programmers. it is also a good idea to increase awareness of the issues as india follows some western countries in reforming _copyright_ - as opposed to patent - law to dramatically reduce other liberties that are very much needed in india (e.g. DMCA etc in the US). -rishab From boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl Fri Aug 31 17:01:40 2001 From: boud_roukema at camk.edu.pl (Boud Roukema) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 13:31:40 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [Reader-list] job-market or brain-market? Message-ID: Dear R.Chaudhuri, > (1)That one gets acquainted to new words & interesting > concepts(atleast for some of us) within the throng of postings sent by > electronic mail to Members on the Sarai Readers List.For Exmple:"the > complex interiority of a person" was oneof them; Here is a word/concept that's come up in a discussion at: http://india.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=186 We hear a lot about the "job market", e.g. for students. The reality may be the "brain market": it's business & industry that make the biggest profits from university education - since they "buy brains" and earn high monetary profits from them (much more than the brains' average salaries), surely they ought to fund the training of these brains - so that student fees remain unchanged. Boud From mithi at silchar.com Fri Aug 31 23:14:27 2001 From: mithi at silchar.com (SAGNIK CHAKRAVARTTY) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 10:44:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] A New Website on Syhlleti Language Message-ID: <20010831174428.08A5D2756@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010831/1bb414fd/attachment.pl From mithi at silchar.com Fri Aug 31 23:50:51 2001 From: mithi at silchar.com (SAGNIK CHAKRAVARTTY) Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 11:20:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Reader-list] Validity of the UGC-NET Exam Message-ID: <20010831182051.6D20236F9@sitemail.everyone.net> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010831/7fa78f6b/attachment.pl -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Validity of UGC-NET Exam.doc Type: application/msword Size: 35328 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/attachments/20010831/7fa78f6b/attachment.doc