FYI ,Forwarded message.... Dear All,
Many of us have been advocating for several years, the adoption of FOSS applications and platforms in our country. FOSS related advocacy has been gradually gathering energies, including the campaign against software patents, including FOSS in the CBSE syllabi , suggesting a FOSS manifesto for political parties in the recent elections etc. However, we do have a long way to go before FOSS is taken as a default software option. Towards this cause, a network or a coalition of organizations working on FOSS adoption and promotion, would be able to act more cohesively on issues and strengthen our individual efforts. While such an initiative will be energy-intensive and time-consuming, it would help orchestrate our advocacy for FOSS adoption. We are writing to you to invite you to a meeting to discuss the building of such a coalition comprising of members from academic institutions, NGOs and CBOs, research and advocacy groups, professional associations, FOSS enterprises, FOSS user groups, government officials, media professionals etc and also its possible priorities. The first meeting of this network was held in Bangalore in February 09, when over 30 people met and discussed issues including working with Universities in Karnataka through NRC-FOSS, to adopt FOSS, train teachers on GNU/Linux (the Karnataka Computer learning program in schools is on GNU/Linux), countering monopolistic and restrictive practices in the IT sector, technical aspects such as developing local language fonts that are Unicode compliant etc. A mailing list and a wiki (http://fosscomm.in) have been since created.Please see the wiki(http://fosscomm.in) for a more detailed update on that meeting and activities post that meeting. We now plan to continue building this coalition, with a meeting in Delhi. We request you to join for a full-day meeting on the 4th of July at the JNU, New Delhi (exact venue within JNU will be communicated shortly). The proposed (draft) agenda for the meeting is as follows- 1. Reporting on the Bangalore FOSSCOMM 1st Meeting and follow up 2. “Open Standards” Follow up on the Department of IT's draft policy on open standards (http://www.mit.gov.in/download/Policyonopensandards.pdf) 3. FOSS in Education What the FOSS community can do to promote the use of FOSS in School Education and Higher Education 4. Software Patents and other legal issues a) Take up pre and post grant opposition for selected cases b) Take up the issue of Draft Manual which deviates from the Patent Act c) Take up with the Competition Commission, practices which seem to be restrictive or monopolistic. 5. Building political consensus around FOSS as an important factor for India's development If you require accommodation, please let us know, we will try and arrange at JNU. The travel costs as well as the cost of stay would have to be borne by the participants. For those requesting accommodation, please write to the following: Prof. Andrew Lynn [email protected] <lynn.andrew%40gmail.com> and Rajesh Kalithody - [email protected] <myidrajesh%40gmail.com> Any suggestion/modifications to the agenda are welcome. Thanks, Vinay Sreenivasa On behalf of the Delhi Organizing Group, FOSSCOMM(National network of the FOSS Community in India) -- Vinay Sreenivasa IT for Change 91-98805-95032 [email protected] <vinay%40itforchange.net> http://itforchange.net http://public-software.in -- A computer is like air conditioning: it becomes useless when you open windows. <-Fighting 4 Freedom-> _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, email [email protected] with "unsubscribe <password> <address>" in the subject or body of the message. http://www.ae.iitm.ac.in/mailman/listinfo/ilugc
