Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Tamizh Nadu

[Vickram Crishna]

With all due respect to the notion that many hands working can accomplish
more than one, the FOSS community has been working with ELCOT to ensure this
scheme was not hijacked by the proprietary vendor lobby (which nearly
happened even in this round of distribution), and at least at one point in
the past, the inclusion of localised wikipedia was an integral part of that
plan, hence, the creation of a 'source' offline wikipedia was a
fantastically worthwhile project.

 I make this statement particularly in response to a discussion on this list
just a few days back where a Wikipedian made a point of asserting that FOSS'
goals and that of Wikipedians do not match. My point being, while separate
movements may have individual objectives, at least when the common goal of
open knowledge is at stake, a spot of coming together is needed.

That statement was really distressing to read. No war, especially not a war
of ideas, can be considered won when a battle or two is over.

Again, in the runup to the WikiConference 2011, it is being said time and
again that FOSS goals have no place in the conference. Not only is this a
poor intellectual construct, it appears to me that a deliberate movement
exists to exclude FOSSers from even assisting (if they continue to support
FOSS platforms). It really seems very peculiar to me - not that I think
Jimmy Wales is the world's greatest saint or evangelist that ever lived, but
he is the first person to ask the community to understand how using FOSS
tools is a practical and worthwhile part of the Wikipedia experience.

Just yesterday or day before, another thread discussed the current features
of Mailman, our list software tool, which just happens to be FOSS. Somebody
wanted more features - but building in features is exactly the kind of
community-facing endeavour that characterises the difference between the
intellectual approaches to building tools, between FOSS and proprietary. I
could see no indication (so far) that the users concerned were in
conversation with active Mailman devs to see these features become a
reality.

Is it just me, or is there some disconnect or discomfort here?

On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 6:56 AM, Hisham  wrote:

>
>
> On Oct 3, 2011, at 2:14 AM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan wrote:
>
>
> 9,12 lakh Laptops will be completely distributed by the end of the Academic
> year.
>
>
> We are trying to establish a line of communication with ELCOT to discuss
> how we could have Wikipedia Offline installed on these computers.
>
>
> After all this nonsense, I ask a few questions to several groups of people:
>
>
> This isn't nonsense! It's fantastic context!!!  Many many thanks!
>
>
> 1> The chapter, the Foundation office, and board members. This includes
> Hisham Mundol, Bishakha Dutta, Achal Prabhala, Shiju Alex, Nitika Tandon et
> al.
> Are you willing to launch any school student oriented plan in South India,
> [not limited to TN]?
> I'm not asking for anything similar to the Campus Ambassadors program, but
> more of a series of Seminars, workshops, academies, meetups, tutorials etc.
> We need your support for such a mass scale program, as individually we
> cannot achieve anything.
>
>
> Yes!  Happy to discuss and see how best we can help out.  Let me know when
> we can talk.
>
> 2> South Indian wikipedians, especially the Bangalore, Chennai and Kerala
> communities.
> Are you open to helping us out?
> Especially Kerala, you are the most advanced in the Indic wiki sphere, will
> you please help out your neighbour TN?
>
> I'm willing to do as much as possible from my side[I'm not too good at
> arranging meetups, when I say Wikipedia, people stare at me blankly, and I
> can't explain it to them in Tamil, even though it is my mother tongue].
>
>
> Please do consider this Golden opportunity.
> There is plenty of potential out here.
> The laptops run on Linux, which means, a big boost to Open Source software.
> The primary target is school students, which means, more young editors [and
> oldies in their late teens like me].
>
> I couldn't think of how to say this, but somehow I just typed it and sent
> it.
>
>
> Once again, Thank You for this!
>
> hisham
>
> ___
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>
>


-- 
Vickram
Fool On The Hill 
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Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Tamizh Nadu

[Hisham]

On Oct 3, 2011, at 2:14 AM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan wrote:

> 
> 9,12 lakh Laptops will be completely distributed by the end of the Academic 
> year.

We are trying to establish a line of communication with ELCOT to discuss how we 
could have Wikipedia Offline installed on these computers.
>   
> After all this nonsense, I ask a few questions to several groups of people:

This isn't nonsense! It's fantastic context!!!  Many many thanks!

> 
> 1> The chapter, the Foundation office, and board members. This includes 
> Hisham Mundol, Bishakha Dutta, Achal Prabhala, Shiju Alex, Nitika Tandon et 
> al.
> Are you willing to launch any school student oriented plan in South India, 
> [not limited to TN]?
> I'm not asking for anything similar to the Campus Ambassadors program, but 
> more of a series of Seminars, workshops, academies, meetups, tutorials etc. 
> We need your support for such a mass scale program, as individually we cannot 
> achieve anything. 

Yes!  Happy to discuss and see how best we can help out.  Let me know when we 
can talk.

> 2> South Indian wikipedians, especially the Bangalore, Chennai and Kerala 
> communities.
> Are you open to helping us out?
> Especially Kerala, you are the most advanced in the Indic wiki sphere, will 
> you please help out your neighbour TN?
>  
> I'm willing to do as much as possible from my side[I'm not too good at 
> arranging meetups, when I say Wikipedia, people stare at me blankly, and I 
> can't explain it to them in Tamil, even though it is my mother tongue].
>  
>  
> Please do consider this Golden opportunity.
> There is plenty of potential out here.
> The laptops run on Linux, which means, a big boost to Open Source software.
> The primary target is school students, which means, more young editors [and 
> oldies in their late teens like me].
>  
> I couldn't think of how to say this, but somehow I just typed it and sent it.

Once again, Thank You for this!

hisham___
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[Wikimediaindia-l] Tamizh Nadu

[Srikanth Ramakrishnan]

Please note:
1. Tamil is not nisspelt as Thamizh or Tamizh, that is intentional.
2. This mail is an important one. It could pretty much give birth to a
massive digital movement that could aid Wikipedia and other projects like
OSM, and more.
3. This mail is a mix of discussions that happened over the list, the phone,
and of a few surveys done by me in Sathyamangalam and Gobichettipalayam
taluks of Erode district and a few in Ramnagar, Coimbatore City.

Dear all,
As you all should know by now, the Tamil Nadu government has already started
distribution of laptops and other paraphernalia.
This year, the Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu [ELCOT] has already
distributed 7000+ out of the targetted 9.12 lakh.
The students covered include School students, +2 students, UG and PG [Except
M.Phil and PhD] students.
The breakup of it is 60% goes to school and higher secondary/pre university
students, 32% to Arts and Science college students, 3% to Polytechnic
students and 2% to Engineering students.
Voters in the Nilgiris have already recieved laptops for their wards. [I,
however, inspite of being a student in Tamil Nadu, will not be recieving one
as my Voter registration is in K'taka]. However, my friends will recieve
them, and I can see how we can go about in getting them onto Open Source
projects.
As discussed, the laptop will have the ELCOT logo all across it both
physically and digitally. The Motherboard and other physical ICs will have
the ELCOT logo engraved on it, while you will see the logo on booting, with
Jayalalitaa's photo as a default screensaver[rumoured], similar to ELCOT
TVs.
The laptop runs on Bharat Open Operating System, or BOSS [again, as
discussed earlier], developed by a GoI entity, the Centre for Development of
Advanced Computing [C-DAC]. For a fourth gen Linux distribution[it was
launched in 2007], it is pretty lousy, bugged and has plenty of flaws.

9,12 lakh Laptops will be completely distributed by the end of the Academic
year.
In relation to this, a couple of us wrote to the Tamil Nadu Electricity
Generation and Distribution Company [TANGEDCO] regarding voltage and supply
issues as there is no point in having a laptop, with erratic power supply
and heavy fluctuations, [We came across a case of a laptop charger getting
fried in Gobichettipalayam].

As stated earlier, new textbooks under the Samacheer Kalvi provide links to
Wikipedia articles and feature images from the Wikimedia Commons.
This should be a morale booster for us, to provide better photographs and
media on the Commons and to make sure that the articles in question are
error free, even if it is on the English Wikipedia.


After all this nonsense, I ask a few questions to several groups of people:

1> The chapter, the Foundation office, and board members. This includes
Hisham Mundol, Bishakha Dutta, Achal Prabhala, Shiju Alex, Nitika Tandon et
al.
Are you willing to launch any school student oriented plan in South India,
[not limited to TN]?
I'm not asking for anything similar to the Campus Ambassadors program, but
more of a series of Seminars, workshops, academies, meetups, tutorials etc.
We need your support for such a mass scale program, as individually we
cannot achieve anything.

2> South Indian wikipedians, especially the Bangalore, Chennai and Kerala
communities.
Are you open to helping us out?
Especially Kerala, you are the most advanced in the Indic wiki sphere, will
you please help out your neighbour TN?

I'm willing to do as much as possible from my side[I'm not too good at
arranging meetups, when I say Wikipedia, people stare at me blankly, and I
can't explain it to them in Tamil, even though it is my mother tongue].


Please do consider this Golden opportunity.
There is plenty of potential out here.
The laptops run on Linux, which means, a big boost to Open Source software.
The primary target is school students, which means, more young editors [and
oldies in their late teens like me].

I couldn't think of how to say this, but somehow I just typed it and sent
it.

Note: If you consider this as SPAM, please IGNORE it. There is no need to
send me a mailing asking me to stop SPAMMING the list like last time.


--Regards,
Srikanth Ramakrishnan,
Coimbatore.

If there is a Wolfram Alpha, there should also be a SheepRavanBeta no?
Between 1970 and 1990, India did nothing, but increase her population.
The city of Kuzhambathur was famous for Kuzhambu ... The British were unable
to pronounce and hence it became Coimbatore.
 DR Ratio is the ratio of number of dosais to number of rotis a person can
eat under common conditions. It is usually greater than 1.
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