KDE release: proud moments

Group discussions at Kanakakkunnu palace

Ee alternate free standards approach engane
nadappilaakkum?


Vimal , Mahesh sir , Ragsagar, Shyam_k, Kiran,
Libregeek, Santhosh and Anivar


Chandrettan , Jaison, Hiran, Pravi and Ani

Praveen, Anivar, Ani Peter, Sushma

KDE release party at Trivandrum in photos

Santhosh makes the introductory speech


Mr Teeka Ram Meena logs into the new Malayalam
enabled KDE 4.1 .....


From Left, Standing : Chandrettan, Anoop(Gnuanu), Vimal,
Manilal, Mangalat sir , Praveeninte thala , Anivar, Shyam_K ,
Ani chechi, Kurian, Sreeranj, Ragsagar, Sushma. From Left ,
sitting : Mobin, Rajiv ( Mandoos ), Syam Krishnan ( ISS ..) ,
Jaisan , Kiran, Santhosh, Hiran

Localized KDE Screenshots

International free software centre at Trivandrum

Kochi: The Kerala State Information Technology Mission is keen to set up the proposed International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS) by December this year.
In order to achieve this, M. Arun, secretary, Free Software Foundation of India and coordinator, Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment (SPACE), has been appointed its ‘special officer.’ The Centre will be located in Thiruvananthapuram.
Concurrent with the launch of the Centre, the government will hold an international seminar on ‘Free Software, Free Society: Freedom in Computing, Development and Culture’ with a view to highlighting the State’s feats in FOSS. It is also aimed at formulating a consortium of FOSS-related organisations the world over.
“We expect several developing countries in Asia and Latin America, especially countries like Brazil and Venezuela that have some experience of developing free software for public/private sectors, to participate in the seminar,” said Mr. Arun. Naturally, collaborative development of commercial Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) packages will be high on the agenda of ICFOSS.Logistic clearances
Meanwhile, the Information Technology Department is on an overdrive to obtain logistic clearances from the government for the project. It is in consultation with several experts, including free software guru Richard Stallman, in a bid to broaden the scope of ICFOSS.
“The focus is as much on spreading the philosophy of freedom as it is on the technicalities involved,” said Joseph C. Mathew, IT Adviser to the Chief Minister. The government, on its part, has earmarked Rs.60 lakh for the project.
Rahul De of the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, has already submitted the mission plan for ICFOSS. He feels that the Centre “is going to be a pioneering institution for promoting FOSS in India and dealing with FOSS issues”. Prof. De has identified six key areas that the Centre could operate on.
It may investigate what political, cultural and economic benefits FOSS would reap for the country.
Software development apart, this could be extended to issues such as patents, copyright, digital content and scientific publishing. Providing leadership in identifying FOSS technologies for different applications for the government, public enterprises, educational institutions, small business, individuals and other key sectors could be another thrust area.
The ICFOSS could be a consultancy for all government departments in the State for IT-related activities, besides creating a level- playing field for all software acquisitions.
It could certify FOSS software considered for adoption and facilitate FOSS-based initiatives in the State by setting up infrastructure.
On a larger scale, the Centre may also draw up an action plan aimed at making the State a global leader in the open source community by developing and customising FOSS applications for developing countries.
(Courtesy: Report by S. Anandan, in The Hindu dated 2 Aug 2008)

KDE 4.1 to officially support Malayalam

The amazing collaboration and enthusiasm showed by Swathanthra Malayalam Computing’s (SMC) KDE subproject made this possible. We had to cross the kde essentials barrier, which is required for inclusion in a KDE release as a supported language in a very short span of time. We achieved this milestone by completing 10000+ strings in about 10 days by 30+ contributors. KDE essentials include the most important packages that a default installation will have including the libraries and the base applications. Other Indian languages to be supported in this release are Hindi, Tamil and Panjabi. Exciting thing about this milestone is the participation of people from all walks of life including students, farmers, scientist, engineers …
Many of us were working till 3-4 am in the morning for the entire week leading upto the 4.1 deadline on July 11. #smc-project on Freenode IRC was the main connection for realtime collaboration with ‘mandoos’ (an IRC bot who can learn maanings and teach anyone who asks for it) helping the newly joined members of the team. You can join the IRC channel using your web browser by following this link.
People from all over the globe and round the clock joined this effort. Some places to mention are Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, USA … The enthusiam showed by the members throughout this great effort was amazing. In one single day 5 new contributors submited their first translation and more than 30 people contributed to this effort (Most of the contributors are listed here). It could be one of the few languages which completed kde essentials translations in such a short time.
You can see the list languages sorted by their percentatge of translations here. Malayalam is currently at 63rd position, 4th among Indian languages.
The release party is on Aug 9th and 10th at Thiruvananthapuram. Location and event schedule to be announced later (tune in to our mailing list for more details)

List of contributors. Thanks to Ani Peter for making this list.
1. Sasi Kumar
2. AnilKV
3. Ashik
4. Anoop
5. Anoopan
6. Prasad. S R
7. Hari Vishnu
8. Manu
9. Santhosh
10. Praveen
11. Manilal
12. Sushma K.S.
13. Sujith
14. Smitha
15. Remya
16. Hiran Venugopalan
17. Hitha Venugopalan
18. Chandrettan
19. Sankaranarayanan
20. Pratheesh
21. Syam Krishnan
22. Shiju Alex
23. Ragsagar V
24. Maxin B John
25. Sarath Lakshman
26. Baiju. M
27. Joju Joshua
28. Afsal
29. Nishan
30. Rajiv and his Mandoos
31. Ani
(This excerpt is from www.fsdaily.com, posted by Santhosh)