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On the wrong side of the digital divide...

by Khairil Yusof — last modified 2005-06-06 08:26 AM
Contributors: Frederick Noronha
Frederick Noronha, Goa 2005. Copyleft. May be reproduced or distributed in any form, provided credits are maintained as is the integrity of the text.

To everyone who shared those amazing days, filled with energy and exhaustion, at Bangalore. To the people who spent time in sharing their knowledge, experience and skills so generously.

Edited and typesetted by Frederick Noronha, Goa 2005. Copyleft. May be reproduced or distributed in any form, provided credits are maintained as is the integrity of the text.

Contents

1 NGOs find favour in alt.software

For an sector that talks of alternatives, the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or voluntary sector stays surprisingly aloof from one significant alternative that has really worked - free software. But there are stirrings to bridge this huge chasm. In end-January, India's technology mecca Bangalore is to be the venue for an international 'camp' meant to promote FLOSS among the NGO sector.

Others talk of building 'another world'; in free software, it is already there. Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS, using the newish acronomy that better describe both diverse strands that make it up) today allows just about anyone to avoid globally dominant players, and to find more freedom-oriented options. It also, at the same time, works very efficiently in the growing world of computing.

Asia Source, as the 'tech camp' is called, will be held from January 28 to February 4, 2005 and "hopes to bring together over a hundred people from 20 countries to increase the use and awareness of FLOSS amongst the non-profit sector in South and South East Asia."

There will be participants coming in from a range of backgrounds.

Sucharat "Ying" Sathapornanon from Thailand looks after IT for the Asia-Pacific Regional Resource Center for Human Rights Edcuation. Umesh Pradhan comes in from Thimphu, Bhutan. Ujjwal from Nepal is a "technical supporter" of non-profits in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Yee Yee Htun from Myanmar lives along the Thai-Myanmar border, and is a volunteer webmaster for AAPPB (Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma) - www.aappb.org. Alecks Pabico from the Philippines is a journalist working with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism.

>From a range of Asian countries, NGOs and grassroots technology support professionals will come in "to learn new skills, exchange tips, and share experiences", organisers say. Local hosts reminded participants that Bangalore is famous for its silk, sandle wood, handicrafts, designer jewelery and (tasty vegetarian) food.

But beyond the names and faces and local attractions, there's a more important message.

FLOSS bestows on the user four freedoms - freedom to use the software for any purpose; freedom to study how the software works; freedom to modify the software; and freedom to share the software with others. >From a technical perspective, this can be used to reduce costs and hardware requirements while also improving security, reliability, performance, stability, and scalability.

>From a wider philosophical perspective, FLOSS can transform patterns of access, usage, control and ownership of knowledge and technologies. Globally, FLOSS has grown after several hundred thousand hackers and students scattered across the globe collaborated to produce a unified body of knowledge without resorting to hierarchical structures and exploitative relationships. This movement is also seen by some to demonstrate how wealth can be created by entrepreneurs in the free market without using the proprietary copyright regime.

In Bangalore, four themes will flow throughout the event. FLOSSophy for NGOs (or, why Free Software and Open Source makes sense), migration and access to non-proprietorial software, tools for content-building and communication, and the localisation of computing to make it relevant to countries across Asia.

Elizabeth, originally Timorese (from East Timor), is currently doing her internship at the Open Forum of Cambodia with KhmerOS (Khmer Open Source). The KhmerOs is working to localise software to Khmer, the Cambodian language. Says she: "I'm learning from them while also preparing a localization document for Tetum, one of our national language in Timor Leste." Tetum uses the Latin script with some accents, since it has words imported from Portuguese.

Talat Numanov from Dushanbe, Tajikistan works in Central Asian Development Agency as an IT specialist, and his goal is to learn more about FLOSS and distribute it to users. Says he: "My friends use Mandrake Linux (because it has been localised to Tajik)." Russell T. Kyaw Oo from Myanmar says: "I am focusing on localization, translation and modification."

Guests from overseas should be meeting up with Guntupalli Karunakar, a soft-spoken extremely low-key Mumbai-based champion of localisation. He's one of the key movers behind the Indian Linux Project (http://www.indlinux.org). Explains Karunakar: "My primary experience is in F(L)OSS localization. I have been working on this for last four years, We have almost completed Hindi localization part."

Not-so-friendly neighbouring regions are sometimes united by common concerns. From Pakistan, Sufyan told Karunakar in a pre-conference online discussion: "We at Open Source Resource Center of Pakistan (www.osrc.org.pk) will be grateful to you if you can give us an action plan for localization in Urdu."

Localisation is an issue that many are addressing in the FLOSS world, and taking computing to communities which otherwise might just be seen as an unviable market.

Javier Sola, a Spaniard living in Cambodia, is coordinator of the KhmerOS project. "Our goal is to make Cambodia OpenSource-Country by means of localization. I am an enthusiast of F(L)OSS localization. I believe that it is the key to adoption of F(L)OSS by users," says he.

He has been also working on a "toolkit" on how to do FLOSS localization. In Javier's view, localization and making migration easy are the two "keys to FLOSS adoption". In Bangalore, he regrets not being able to attend both tracks.

Hok Kakada, another Cambodian, works for the KhmerOS project, which she sees as aiming to "enable all the Cambodian people to use a computer in their own language". She says that by using FLOSS, their team has already localized a number of applications into the Khmer language - actually, not just applications, but even the operating system as well.

OVER A HUNDRED

Over a hundred participants are expected at this global meet. Together with experts and specialists, they'll look at how technology and free and open source software makes sense within the non-profit sector - in terms of access and content.

Asia Source organisers - the Dutch TacticalTech.org network and Mahiti.org in Bangalore - say theirs will be the "first event of its kind" in the region.

Peer-learning will take top priority. Participants will look at available options, learn how to select and apply alternative technologies. They'll access skills and tools to utilise this in their daily work.

There will be experts to share the skills.

Colin Charles, also from Malaysia, considers himself an "all round open source person, actively involved in The Fedora Project and OpenOffice.org." He has helped many NGOs, companies and individuals make the switch, first to the Windows-like Open Office and then to GNU/Linux.

Soon-Son 'Shawn' Kwon from South Korea works with a "big corporation" by day and by night has been managing the highly-successful Korean Linux Documentation Project, "as a hobby".

David Tremblay is a French Canadian volunteer working for Oxfam Quebec as an IT analyst in Ha Noi, Viet Nam. He says: "I'm implementing websites, intranet, extranet and networks using - as much as I can - open source, open standards and accessible technologies. I'm trying to build a strong open source community in Ha Noi. I'm also a proud [GNU]Linux desktop user."

Tremblay argues that he wants "to raise awareness among my NGOs that are too often giving away computers without thinking what their are doing.... I want to raise awareness that software choice isn't genuine. Too often, they think of their computers as a hammer, and everything become a MS-nail."

One of the more colourful and high-profile though is "Rasta coder" Jaromil.

Denis 'Jaromil' Rojo is the maintainer of dyne:bolic, HasciiCam MuSE and FreeJ. He calls himself "a nomadic rastafari of south Italian origins" and a free software developer.

Dynebolic (dynebolic.org) comes out with a GNU/Linux multimedia-oriented distribution. Jaromil sees it as being suitable for "audio/video manipulation, network radio streaming, veejaying and anything else we can come up with together". He points out that this is a "100% free" operating system. (In the world of FLOSS, the word 'free' doesn't refer to zero-cost, but refers to the freedom to run, study, redistribute and improve software.)

At the 'camp', there will be a range of sessions. From planning and helping an NGO to migrate to FLOSS, to sharing tips and techniques on using tools for content development, advocacy and campaigning. In parallel to this they will look beneath user-level scenarios, and break-down tricky issues such as techniques for localising software and forms of understanding the real cost of technology use.

Asia Source will be held in a small artists community on the outskirts of Bangalore. But perhaps this needs to be recognised as an endeavour that goes beyond just code.

FLOSS ideals are spreading to other fields. It's amazing to see the manner in which the sharing of knowledge and information is catching on in other circles too. Today, like sharing Free Software, the same ideals are growing in fields like open law, open source biology, MIT's OpenCourseWare, Project Gutenberg and Books Online (that distributes e-texts free online), free dictionaries and encyclopedias, and the open music movement.

VENTURES THAT MAKE SENSE

Various experiments are seeing FLOSS being deployed to bridge the 'digital divide'. While the potential is vast, and significant achievements are being reported at the ground level, there probably just isn't enough awareness about it.

Tomas Krag in Copenhagen runs a small non-profit called wire.less.dk. It works primarily with low-cost wireless solutions for remote areas (mostly in the so-called 'developing world'). With a background as a web-developer, technical architect, and technology evangelist, his interest is "in a variety of open (standards, source, spectrum, doors) technology solutions to bring more people on to the Internet, and make it a richer better place".

Adi Nugroho lives in Makassar, a small town in Sulawesi Island in Indonesia. He's been using FLOSS since 1998. In March 1999, with some friends, they founded the Linux User Group Ujung Pandang, to learn GNU/Linux together and to help each other to migrate and use it.

Way back in September 1999, they build iNterNUX, the first full-GNU/Linux Internet cafe in Indonesia, which use FLOSS for all servers and workstations.

NEEDING A LEG-UP IN ASIA

In the West, FLOSS grew early. But in Asia it is a younger development, mainly because widespread public access to tools vital for collaboration - like the Internet - grew in these parts only very recently.

In Bangalore, the camp is being supported by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Aspiration. This event is sponsored by Hivos, the Open Society Institute, and the International Open Source Network (IOSN). This perhaps marks a shift in the approach of international development organisations, who have come to recognise that the Free Software approach to knowledge and skills makes the most sense in a world where poverty and illiteracy and unconquered enemies for a few thousands millions.

Prior to this event, similar 'source' events have taken place in South East Europe, Southern Africa and are planned in 2005 in Western Africa. See http://www.tacticaltech.org/asiasource

2 An overview... what's happening

You might end up wondering what's really happening at the Asia Source. Amidst a lot of geeky talk, late sleepless nights, a bizarre-and-mirth-generating dance session, and people-to-people networking ... there's also a lot of events happening on parallel tracks.

Migration and adoption aims to show non-geeks how to shift to FLOSS, or Free/Libre and Open Source Software. The 'gyan' (knowledge) there includes talks on options available, assessing NGOs' needs, convincing them about the why's of FLOSS, installing and configuring it, and how to choose the "right FLOSS for your NGO project".

Next comes tips - fairly detailed hand-holding actually, thanks to young techies like Colin, Swayamindu and other veterans - on installing and configuring, the after-installation work, and planning for a skills upgrade. There were other themes too: intergrating FLOSS into NGOs work, FLOSS software project management, skill sharing, training advanced skills...

Localisation was another major priority here. It's attempting to given participants a basic understanding, how society benefits, and pinpointing work needed to be done. Localisation's priorities, processes, tools, and hands-on work are among the other work those in the track will get drilled with.

To take the issue forward, coming up is a session on managing localisation projects - writing projects, finding funding, and estimating costs. Finally, FLOSS enthusiasts can't overlook the role of sending their localisation work "upstream" to make it relevant.

Content was the third leg of this stool. Both open publishing, and audio/video got looked at. In the former, the focus was on content management solutions, or CMSs.Those tools that make it easy for any non-techie to update websites. Drupal and Plone were the two focussed on.

In open audio/video, the "whys" and "hows" of "tactical" video and audio work are getting focussed on.

Where the needs of the world and your talents cross, there lies your vocation. -Aristotle

3 Clashing views, above a thick rope

Lay a thick rope around the ground. Throw in a couple of controversial statements. Ask campers to take a stand (literally, and physically too) depending on whether they agree, totally disagree, or just want to hedge their bets.

What you have is a 'spectograph' - showing you the spectrum of public opinion and where it stands vis a vis diverse views. What's more interesting is when people are asked for justifications for their positions.

Allen Gunn threw up two controversial statements, which he asked people to take a position over - *It's always bad to use proprietorial software* and *It's always okay to copy information*.

There were impassioned arguments, convincing perspectives... and a few convoluted positions from both sides. And from diverse positions in between.

What was most amusing was the way in which people who were *100% agreed* for one issue went on to a near-total disagree-position for the other.

As the dummy mike - "just a prop, it doesn't work" - went around, camp participants queued up to get their points across.

Should you use proprietorial software at all if the base package needed just to get your computer going actually costs more than the average annual per capita income of many countries?

Said a being-realistic Open Society Institute sub-board member Jean-Claude Guedon of Canada: "I *have* to (sometimes) use proprietorial software solutions. But I don't like it."

Others took the /pragmatic/ stance, arguing that any tools could be used, as long as these 'did the job'.

But then, using proprietory software comes with a price. Even if its easier to use - as often is - it simply reinforces the idea that /there is no alternative/.

A participant from South Asia pointed out that it is not a "sane decision" to spend US$450 on a home PC's software, when one is paying the real price of proprietorial software.

Marek felt that to create amazing products, one didn't need "amazing tools". But then, others argued for building up FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) enthusiasts who are willing to "engage people in the world of proprietary code".

Yet another speaker pointed to the role of software monopolies in "lobbying governments and buying off NGOs". Supporting such products has a deeply corrupting influence, he argued. It was also pointed out that while corporations like IBM are supporting FLOSS, they are at the same time supporting the dangerous idea of software patents.

There was even more heat and fire on the issue of "copying patents".

Dr Arun Mehta of Delhi came up with the argument that biology's way of 'copying information' happens whenever a cell replicates in the body. But another view was that the nearest equivalent to 'copying information' is a cancer!

"Piracy is helping monopolies to stay monopolies," argued one angry young man. Another spoke in favour of copylefted models of sharing information, but stressed that this should be done without violating the license and by first convincing the producer of the information about the benefits of sharing.

"We have to learn to pay for what we consume," was one valid point.

But should concepts of "rewards" come above the ideals of passing on information where it is badly needed, and could even make a difference between life and death?

Privacy issues were also raised. These are serious issues.

Darius argued articulatedly: "Sharing and co-operation is a human default. Yet, at the same time, rewarding people who create the stuff is also very, very important. The problem is that most of the rwards goes to the intermediaries - distributors, publishers or corporations."

Others noted that property need not be the only way to reward people. "Copyright alone has never driven people tob create content. In Shakespeare's time, copyright didn't even exist. Yet, Shakespeare still produced all his plays," was one, not unconvincing view.

Much food for thought.

4 Thrashing out the tricky theories

Just what's the real difference between Free Software and Open Source? Can you 'pirate' a copy of GNU/Linux? Can we localise it and then proceed to sell it? Why are there so many different licenses around?

These and a whole lot of other tricky issues came up at the Asia Source 2005 camp, currently underway on the outskirts of Bangalore, as NGOs (non-governmental organisations) met the geeks and tried to find commonground to possibly make Free/Libre and Open Source Software more relevant to the non-profit world.

Sunil Abraham began the session by raising a half-serious query: "Do you need to have a beard to believe in FLOSS?"

But participants had a lot many other queries they needed a better understanding on, before they could take the plunge into what, for many, was unfamiliar waters.

Some of the queries listed were indicative in itself:

What's the GPL (General Public License) and the LGPL? How do Creative Commons licenses work, at creativecommons.com? What are Apache licenses all about?

Then, there was more: what was the difference between the public domain, freeware, shareware and "shared source"? What are the Four Freedoms offered by the Free Software movement?

Above all, what is the politics of Free Software and the Open Source movements? Finally, one big question: why FLOSS or FOSS at all?

Jean-Claude Guedon, of the University of Montreal in Canada and the Open Society Institute's sub-board member, threw up an interesting history of the evolution of software, these movements and more.

If not all questions were answered, there were a number of thinking processes started, and a lot of sharpening of understanding.

5 Talk, campaigns... and wires?

In one of the halls - a mix between the typical cap-shaped thatched South Indian roofs and modern construction - they were discussing FLOSSophy. That's almost a religion! In two other venues, they were doing rather practical, hands-on activities.

Allen "Gunner" Gunn focussed on deploying the Internet for campaigns. Internet activism and cyber organising. "There's also this point related to the Digital Divide which says that when I use the Internet to organise, I always leave some people out," he cautioned.

But it's not just the Internet, but even the mobile phone, which has become ubiquitous in some parts of communications-poor Asia, that could be an ally in the search for justice. And Gunn said he was willing to hear as much of the Asian experience,as to point to what was being done a world away. Literally. In North America.

Tomas Krag of Denmark - of wire.less.dk - meanwhile had his introduction to wireless. He offered the basics of setting up a wireless access point and what it entails in its different forms. Next week, his WirelessII session is expected to go into more details...and it has all the uber-geeks in the making quite lapping up all those loose wires!

6 Blogging, on blogs

"You too Fred?" Yoo-Mi Lee asked in disbelief, as she saw me sneaking into the session on blogs that Ethan Zuckerman of Harvard was to hold at Asia Source, a couple of days ago. If the truth is to be told, while I've grown grey in journalism, the world of blogs and wikis are an area of cyberspace that one only recently had the luxury to experiment with.

My 500-rupee-a-month no further phone charge account made the difference. It made long hours of Internet surfing possible. Inspite of getting access to the Internet (mainly email) since way back in 1995, surfing the Net was hardly frequently possible. This is surely the reality for large parts of the Third World, where dial-ups work slow and phone-bills can be killing.

Ethan's session was fascinating. Back home, I trawled his lead - http://www.technorati.com - and came across some 95 blog references to Asia Source. Many are indeed false positives. But check out for yourself: http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/search.html?rank=&url=%22Asia+Sou...

Topping the list was Yoo=Mi's entry. See http://www.bethechange.org/blog/yoomi/index.php?p=24

There were other neighbours in blogosphere. Ethan was there. And so was Jeff Ooi of Malaysia, whom Ethan termed a "Malaysian super-blogger". Jeff's comment helped me find an earlier blog of mine, related to URLs linked to Goa, which I had myself almost forgotten about. If interested, it's: http://www.livejournal.com/users/goalinks/ Young Colin Charles (Malaysia) has also been active with his own blog. See http://www.bytebot.net/blog/

There's even an entry or two from someone who couldn't make it to Asia Source -Neil Blakey-Milner. Then, take a look at Sayamindu's Rants & Ramblings at http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings/index.php?m=200502 This even explains under what circumstances Sayamindu heard the soft-spoken Indic localisation guru Karunakar shout for the first time in his life!

Ethan Zuckerman has an optimistic thought: "If one out of ten of the people in the (Asia Source) room with me this afternoon starts a blog, the blogosphere will be a richer and more interesting place." See http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ethan/2005/02/04#a751

Do point us to other interesting blogs, related to FLOSS, NGOs and Asia that you might be aware of.

7 Blogging... with Ethan Zukerman

What's the real power of blogging? Is it just a teenager's toy? Ask Ethan Zuckerman of the Berkman Centre at Harvard. This founder of the Geek Corps - http://www.geekcorps.org/ - was an invitee to Asia Source, which ended in Bangalore earlier this month (February 2005). Take this: Google.com throws up 49,700 hits for his name linked to the word "blog" in 0.12 seconds.

If you think this is an exaggeration, see: http://www.google.co.in/search?hl=en&q=%22Ethan+Zuckerman%22+blog&meta=

"The theory behind a blog is to have a pretty simple website with a few characteristics. It offers calendars and space for comments. So, there's scope for a dialgue (between writer and reader)," says Ethan. Then, there are 'current entries' on the top, archives for past posts, links, personal information, and syndication information. Blogs use the reverse-chronological order - with last posts on top.

To show us an example of a blog, Ethan took us to http://www.bethechange.org/blog/yoomi Asia Source camp participant South Korean-based in the US Yoo-Mi Lee was narrating her own experiences in India, under catchy titles like "3 Degrees" and "5 Degrees".

Ethan points out that there are some 6 to 6.5 million blogs worldwide. (One need not guess to say that most must be out of the more affluent world.) "For 90% of these blogs, the audience is ten or fewer readers. So it means many bloggers are just writing for their friends and families," says he.

But blogs aren't just tools for 'time-pass' (an Indianism, meaning just for killing time). Ethan points to the Global Voices project, which is trying to "collect as much news as is possible for people of another culture".

Surprise of surprises: people are using blogs to undertake professional work, discuss developmental themes, and even to fight battles like ones for free speech. Blogs are much easier to manage than a CMS (content management solution, which itself offers an easier-to-create website). Blogging sites like LiveJournal.com make it easy for people to write under pseudonyms, to allow for more free expression.

In reply to Jean-Claude's earlier query, you can even search for blogs by going to the http://www.technorati.com website. (Quite useful; I checked it out. You get quite another view of cyberspace from here. Grassroots people expressing themselves, rather than just searching websites.)

Ethan explained how "well connected" weblogs happened to be, and explained the how keeping up with them is made easy by the concept of Really Simple Syndication (RSS). Put simply, this means keeping updated with the changes happening in a blog, mailing-list or site, without having to visit it every time to check. Cool! You can set this up even in your browser with the right Firefox extensions, for instance.

You can set up a blog at blogger.com with three to four clicks. It's free of cost. Word Press is "pretty powerful", while Blogspot is somewhat earlier generation, believes Ethan. There's also LiveJournal.com and xanga.com.

Typepad is "really useful for people who want a lot of control over their blog" but costs US$5 per month. 6apart morphed into Movable Type. Trackback is a system on blogs that links you up with other readers and bloggers.

'Bridge blogging' is a concept where bloggers keep their 'online jottings' for an audience outside their country. Some use blogs as a "scratchpad" for their ideas and thinking, while others build their professional work on it.

Explains Ethan: "I write a lot of my academic work on my blog. When I put up a search for it on google, it is then a lot more easier to find." But then, "your blog is you, online... it increasingly becomes how I introduce myself to the world".

Blogs are different from wikis, and each have their own role. "Blogs are for one author or a groups of authors, and contain more of the authorial tone (the writer's voice). Wikis are less about authors and more about content," explains Ethan.

In other words, the latter are a useful collaborative tool. Blogs, on the other hand, "were designed to help people to yell at the world", as Ethan says, half-seriously.

Obviously, there's much more possible. Take the case of http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/ blog which made news during the US invasion of Iraq. (Also see /weblog.bergersen.net/archives/2003/05/dear_raed_is_back.html )

Another interesting blog is i.hoder.com - both in Persian and English. "Two years ago, there were no blogs in Iran, today there are 80,000," says Ethan. Above all, take http://www.ohmynews.com - a South Korean initiative to build a movement literally of thousands of grassroot reporters. http://blogafrica.com or http://allafrica.com/afdb/blogs/ offers an agglomeration of regional African blogs. Global Voices is at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu:8080/globalvoices/

Flickr.com offers blogging space for photographs. http://del.icio.us (delicious, spelt in another way) offers the chance of sharing bookmarks online.

Check out some other interesting links at http://www.worldchanging.com and http://planet.asiasource.tacticaltech.org or even http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/osiworkshop.html (offering links to various blogs). I think the last URL is about the best, a one-stop shop on blogging as it were.

Check it out; there's too much here to take lightly.

8 Taking design to settlements and slums... Cybermohalla in Delhi

It's not just city slickers, elite schools and plush corporate environments that need computers. Even working class environments can find good use for the PC, says a team working among the poor and disenfranchised in Delhi's resettlement colonies and slum clusters.

Aniruddha "Karim" Shankar (27) has some interesting stories to narrate from the heart of the Indian capital. He's part of Cybermohalla, a joint project of Sarai (sarai.net) and Ankur, a society for alternatives in education (www.ankur-education.org). Its basically an endeavour to see how technology makes sense in working class settlements, resettlement colonies and slum clusters.

"We don't want to work in 'bastis' (residential areas of the poor) from the framework of deprivation, but from that of creativity. We need to shift people from being consumers of news, information and culture, to become producers of it," says Shankar.

For three-and-half years, the project says it doesn't "teach" but try to "engage in conversations" with young adults there - about the city, about technology, and about creativity.

Various media are deployed. There are people who write. "I've seen some of the most brilliant and poignant nicely-written text from some participants, aged from 16 to 22," says Shankar.

Apart from text, he says there's also a huge amount of work with images, a large amount of work with animation. There's now beginning to be some amount of work with audio, as a radio-play.

What's the point sought to be made here?

"I don't think we're looking at arriving at a goal. The typical answer would be that there is no point. It's not a product that's packaged. We don't give any certificates, but you do learn a lot of skills. It's not an area for CV-building," Shankar explains.

He sees it as an area for "continuous creative engagement, with the city, the surroundings people live in, and in interpersonal relationships".

The Cybermohalla experiment has built links with organisations and people in Liverpool, in Germany, in Mumbai and in Gujarat. Physically, it is located across four centres in New Delhi - three of which are set in working class settlements. One is on the edge of New and Old Delhi. The other near the Yamuna and modern India's showpiece exhibition centre of Pragati Maidan, and the third is in South Delhi. The fourth is a research and development centre.

They use low cost computers, run on GNU/Linux. Currently, the lab is running Gentoo Linux, a distribution of non-proprietorial software which optimises for speed. Using this, they are able to track the development of open source software very closely, since they build everything on source.

In their work, they use Free/Libre and Open Source Software tools like Open Office, KDE (the K-Desktop Environment), Gnome, GIMP, Audacity, Mozilla, Mozilla Composer, Scribus. Some are also into Inkscape, a vector-drawing package.It's a successor of Sodipodi. People have mini-disk recorders, feed into Audacity, and "cut and chop" what audio segments they want.

Users in these areas turn out to be "extremely confident about computer". Everyone from among them knows about how to assemble and disassemble a computer. Says Shankar: "I try and make sure everyone knows the in's and out's of a computers. It's a box that's mostly empty. They thought a box which was so big should be full of something, they just found it full of air. Someone said, 'Isme to sirf hawa hai." (There's just air in it.) So from an instrument that bred dread, it turned to be one made up of air."

fTake each and every component out, and give them to hold. Touch, or taste if they want. Then ask them to get it back in. Describe each component, and

what it does. The standard box is like a monolith. One or two gleaming buttons and lights that blink...

Don't want to put a label of poor and muslim. Woman called Nasreen, who asks questions and Sunit also. They get flustered when they have questions in their head. Flustered that they might be asking the wrong questions or might forget something. That's a question to overcome it.

Shamsheer complete handles a lab by himself, Suraj who's brialliant in animation and images, Rabia who is working on DTP using Scribus. It's really nice, because you have different personalities. People who want to get the job done quikly, and those who are really hungry to learn. These people reaaaaly want to learn.

They live in basically what the urban, educated, English speaking would call 'slums'. Hierarchy huge for them.

They definitely are from a working class settlement. 'Basti' is the best way to describe it, a place of living or inhabitation or settlement.

Ankur side Prabhat, really good at organising; Ankur has done so many years of phenomenal service in slums. Without them there would have been no Ankur at all. Jeebesh, Shveta, Monica, Joy, Ashish and a whole bunch from Sarai.

It's a place that works computers, but does not hand out any certificates. It doesn't make any promises of what you will become. It's not a sausage factory, to churcn out sausages. It's really important to reinforce these spaces. The richness which you get when you engage creatively with your surroundings is really good.

It's a three-and-half old. I engage in technological conversations and also look after the technological systems. I've done my law from National Law School in Bangalore. A lawyer by training but a infra-techie by choices. I'm not a programmer. My best skill is to interface between technology, technologists and human beings.

I've met many brillaint technies and many, many effective communicators. But speaking in a manner that's friendly, not top-down, open, welcomeing yet technologically rich ... is a huge challenge.

URL: http://cm.sarai.net

Aniruddha "Karim" Shankar can be contacted via email karim at sarai.net

9 A 'priest' against proprietary code

Wire Lunghabo James from Uganda is sometimes called an Open Source "pastor". He carries the message to anyone who's willing to hear, and explains why it makes sense to use Free/Libre? and Open Source Software.

James is general manager of the East African Centre for Open Source Software, and is coordinating a team that is translating computer desktop software to Ugandan languages, besides the Mozilla web browser into the local Luganda language. He's also a council member of the Free and Open Source Software Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA).

"In Uganda, Linux has just been growing all the time. It's mainly popular with corporates. That's where its impact has been highly felt. But it has also gotten inroads into government, though most of the government agencies don't even know they're using it. But it's there. Almost every ministry has at least one Linux server, at least," he said in an interview during his visit to Asia Source.

But there are problems too, as this coordinator of the team translating computer desktop software into indigenous Ugandan languages. (They've competed the Mozilla web browser into Luganda.)

The spread is not even. ICT, or information communications and technology is concentrated around urban areas. "When you get out of the capital city (Kampala), the concentration of computing decreases. That means the chance of running into Linux goes down too," says he.

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LINKS

http://fossfa.net/ Free and Open Source Software Foundation for Africa http://translate.or.ug/ ICT Translations Uganda

http://translate.org.za/ South Africa translation project

http://tectonic.co.za/ Africa FLOSS news and links

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James is more into "advocacy, shouting and talking about it" since 1997. Says he, "Whatever opportunity I get, I'd talk about it. Whether that's at small fora, big fora, to students, or to parliamentarians."

Jokingly, he says his refrain became "a song". "I keep singing the same, same, same thing to anyone who cares to listed, and keep doing it like a pastor," says he.

UGANDA LUGs: Right now, the east African country of Uganda has one user group. University students are planning another. The existing one is "really big" by African terms, he says. It has about 300 members, over seventy percent of whom are locally based in Uganda. The rest being mainly well-wishers from abroad.

Says James: "There is a lot of activity within the mailing list, and a lot of follow-ups happening at the user levels. When we have problems, go out to help each other. This has a very positive impact. It helps to bring together the community of isolated people to Open Source activism. It is also a one-stop centre for support in the country. Anyone who has a problem finds someone to relate to and find a solution. Sometimes we go there to ask for solutions. Instead of going to google.com and spending two days to find out what exists, you get quick answers."

But one shortcoming of the Linux Uganda (LUg) - which has its site coming up at http://linux.or.ug - is the need for having regular physical meetings.

IN AFRICA

How does he see FLOSS, or Free/Libre? and Open Source Software, doing in Africa as a whole?

Says he: "In South Africa (the situation) is very bright. High end solutions are actually being implemented in the Open Source area. Companies like Obsidian Systems and SevenC have really come up with very good solutions which are worth good value for money."

James argues that when one sees what the others have done "you really get challenged, and realise that a lot can be done". Currently, South Africa has the leadership, partly becaus eof the level of the economy, he believes.

Then also you have countries like Namibia (known for its schools project), Ghana, Kenya, Egypt, even Uganda and Tanzania, where FLOSS activities are taking place there too.

James' own encounter with FLOSS is interesting. He joined an ISP in 1997, and found a sys admin who was pro-GNU/Linux. Using proprietorial software then meant spending sleepless nights in keeping it running. But the management didn't want to risk a change-over to FLOSS and Linux.

So the sys admin secretely changed over the operating system, to the surprise of the ISP's managers, who found everything moving very smoothly. When they voiced their surprise over the drop of cyber-incidents, the sys admin let the cat out of the bag, and mentioned of the shift in software. Later, the ISP opted for Linux for operations in nearby Kenya too.

Says James: "That is when I really got a first taste of Linux and loved it from the word go. I've never looked back since then."

What would James list as the three main challenges facing the growth of FLOSS in Africa?

Number One he sees as the struggle for for survival by the developer and FLOSS evangelist. Says he, "It's so hard to advocate when you don't have bread and butter on the table. Advocacy doesn't bring in money. We do it because we simply love what we're doing. First you have to prioritise on earning an income. That effects on how far we can advocate. In Africa, you don't work, you don't earn. That's how hard the environment really is."

Secondly, he sees the government's attitude. "Many of the governments are not ready to consider alternatives. Even before knowing how good or bad they are, they simply don't want the status quo to be changed," says he.

Code, in his view, should be aimed at meeting local needs, with customisation to suit local demand. He points to the dangers of getting caught up within a proprietorial software system.

Says he: "You can image coming up with a national database say for health systems that is a proprietary format. Then tomorrow, the company goes bust - these things happen - and your're stuck. You can't get access to your information. Maybe trade relations go sour with the country that company comes from. There are things you can't rule out. In this era, where everything is going online, you can't be sure of security implications of some of these software. In matters of national security, you don't want to rely on software which does anything, without you knowing. We (in Africa) may not have the programmers now, but can't we have them tomorrow. We need computer programmers to come up with solutions that meet our needs and demands."

For him, the third challenge is the need for Capacity-building. "Most of the people who get any form of computer training get it on proprietary software. That's why they lean on it. That's what they know, what they talk about, what they advocate. There's a need for investing in training for open source software," adds he.

10 On the airwaves... for a dollar or two

Hello, hello! Low-powered radio is one of the few technologies even the poor can afford. It's also about the easiest medium to create content for. In the midst of all the FLOSS talk, there was space at Asia Source for some other (non-software) relevant technology or two.

These points were made by Dr Arun Metha today, when he showed Asia Source participants how it was possible to build a simple FM transmitter with inexpensive components.

"Speech is natural. It is efficient. It's five times faster than typing, and ten times faster than writing. It's flexible. We don't have to touch or see anything to create speech. For people like the blind whom I work with this is the only option," he said, paraphrasing the words of Victor Zae.

Dr Metha, an electrical engineer and computer scientist who has studied in India's prestigious IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) network, has been one India's early telecom- and cyber-activists.

He whipped out the tiny radio transmitter that he had hacked together. "(To be effective) we need to be able to make a radio station anywhere where a radio or TV is being repaired with easily available parts. This is not rocket science," he said, as his demo took by surprise those attending his talk.

Audio, he pointed out, is far more democratic than other media. You don't need to be terribly well educated to make your point. "Trade unions and women in bazaars can also make their voices heard," he said.

Metha's low-powered transmitter has a broadcast range of just half-kilometre. He also discussed the possible relationship between the Internet and radio.

He pointed out that the Indian laws allow for 50 milliwatts cordless microphones to be used, but not for low-powered radio transmitters of the same strength. "If the President of India can use this technology, why can't poor women in a village do the same thing (to share useful information)?" he questions.

Patrice Riemens narrated experiences from Europe, with radio. Other participants from Indonesia mentioned how they had set up one during the recent tsunami disaster.

Says Metha: "My current passions include village radio and software for the handicapped." He has written the eLocuter software, to meet the communication needs of the noted scientist Professor Stephen Hawkings. See http://radiophony.com/html_files/download2.html for software details and for an article see http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20040607/indiacomputes01.shtml

Metha's websites are at http://www.indataportal.com, http://www.holistic.com and http://www.radiophony.com - the last contains plans for building a low-cost radio transmitter.

11 The long road to another life.... via Charity Focus and ProPoor

Yoo-Mi Lee is South Korean, and when five, moved with her family to Uganda. For there, it has been a long road as she travelled in the US since 1971, moved from the east to west coasts in 1987, and is now based in San Francisco. In between, she had four different careers, and after being a research analyst and Wall Street trader ended up as a full-time volunteer.

"I tell the Charity Focus people that they've ruined my life," she laughs. "Because I can no longer go back to a 'real', paying job."

To understand how that all happened is understanding the story of Charity Focus. What's this institution, and its ProPoor network all about.

Says Ms. Lee: "It was started as a development portal for South Asian NGOs, a place where they could find development news. It's a place where people could search for NGOs - by country, by region, by sector and also by key-words. For instance, if I were looking for a job in a particular city in a particular sector, I could use the database to do that search."

But that's not all. ProPoor is also a place where people can find donor agencies, categories by type of agency. For instance, based on whether it is multi-lateral, government-based. Originlly, it had dated information like a calendar of events, job-openings. Says she: "Now we've taken this a little bit offline, and provide those kind of announcements in the form of a newsletter."

What they would eventually like for this site to be is a much more interactive site, where there could be many-to-many coversations. "NGOs can learn from each other, from consultants in the field, and from individuals. Individuals can learn not only what NGOs are doing, but the latest research in the field," she adds. There is a publications database that is also searchable.

But to understand ProPoor's present status and its goals, one perhaps needs to history. It was founded by a philanthropist, who was co-founder of Sony Entertainment TV, Jayesh Parekh, based in Singapore now. He's one of those serial entreprenurs who now runs a company called Mobiapps, offering applications for mobiles.

Narrates Lee: "He wanted to give something back to the community, and was having a conversation about it with a classmate, who happened to run a media services company in Kolkatta. So they set up the propoor.org. Initially they had 14 employees. The employees actually did all the work in terms of content gathering for the site. A couple of people read every newspaper they could find their hands on, searched the web, got on mailing lists for development news. From different nodal agencies, they worked to get events that might be useful for NGOs, trainings and conferences."

They actually sent out letters to NGOs, asking them to fill-in information, so that they could load it on the database. They would periodically send out emails, faxes and letters, asking NGOs for updated information.

All of this was handled by a full-time staff. But it was a difficult operation, and Jayesh wanted to hand it over to someone who could take it ahead.

Says Lee: "When Jayesh first met Charity Focus, did not believe a model of 100% volunteers was possible. So he kind of kept tabs on us for about a year, till he decided (laughs) well, it's working. He handed over the full portal to us (Charity Focus) to manage and operate..."

Charity Focus was itself founded by five friends in the San Francisco Bay Area, who previously had run a small donation club. Once a month they would put in some money each, maybe 50 dollars. They would then research small NGOs and donate that month's pool of money to them. But they didn't feel that what they were doing was enough.

"These were very young kinds. Founder Nipun Mehta was about 23 years old. Another was just 18. That was in 1999. When the dotcom boom was at its height. They decided that small NGOs, or even large NGOs at that time, couldn't afford entering the dotcom or Net world. Or even if it was affordable they couldn't find anyone to create suitable websites for them," says Lee.

At that time a basic website cost US$20,000. Now you can get it for $2000. The tools have beomcome more affordable.

So what Charity FOcus did was to take a close look at the 'Guide Star', a directory of non-profits in the US. They narrowed their hunt down to the Santa Clara county. They started 'cold calling', that is looking at the number and simply picking up the phone. They began offering to build something - a website in cyberspace - for free.

Initially, those at the receiving end of such offers were very skeptical. There was a lot of ignorance too. Says Lee: "At one place, somebody said yes. They went to physically meet the client. The director of that organisation took out a screw-driver and said, 'You're going to put something on my computer, right?'"

Initally this network did a lot of outreach to try and get non-profit clients. Very shortly after that, the requests for websites and the number of volunteers really grew exponentially. "We had some unsolicited media coverage. They couldn't believe here were kids, at the height of the dotcom boom, giving away free website services," says Lee.

So, pretty soon, they had to keep changing and scaling our procedures and website. It's going to undertake another huge change very shortly. Charityfocus.org has since taken over a dotcom pledgepage.com - now called pledgepage.org

The latter's founders wanted to do it as a business. After three years they decided there's no business in seeking pledges of support for the non-profit world. They still had users whom they didn't want to lose, so they found Charity Focus and decided to hand over the operations of the portal to them.

Charity Focus has also since built an ecommerce platform called communityShops or simply cshops.org. The idea behind that is not just an Internet shopping portal, but a way to give community service organisations one more channel to distribute their goods, and also a way to communicate with buyers. To make people aware that there's a story behind the products and the work of the NGO.

"So when you're buying a hand-made greeting card, you know who made it and the circumstances of the person, and what the NGO is doing to help whoever it is. It could be a woman in the slum community or a former child labour," says Lee.

There are some other innovative ideas too.

"One of the oldest service of Charity Focus is a daily quote service, which Nipun started before he even started Charity Focus. He started this application to braodcast it at 3 am in the morning, which he thought was so cool so that you can get in your mailbox every morning (laughs). We have quite a large subscriber base and now syndicating it for free so that anyone could get it," says Lee.

This generally contains a quote, a news item some - called signs of light, of the good-news news - and suggestions for any action you can do under the heading 'be the change'. You can subscribe to this inspiring service online at Charity Focus. There's a quote-a-day and the thought-of-the-week, which comprises a longer passage.

"Recently, we also hooked up with a person who had founded something called Enlightening Messges. Its goal is to have organisations or companies put quotes in the forms of banners on their sites. Instead of having an advertisement, you have a nice quote. We've taken that project, to help and distribute the banners," says Lee.

Charity Focus has something like 7000 volunteers now, worldwide.

Besides a background was a Wall Street trader, she has also been a business analyst and worked in business development. She was also herself briefly involved in a startup of a healthcare technology company.

"Now I'm a fulltime volunteer. I tell the Charity Focus people they've ruined my life. Because I can no longer go back to a 'real', paying job," she adds, half-seriously, and it's obvious that she gains a lot of meaning from her work. "We're involved with a lot of other Charity Focus volunteers who are continuing to think about ways how they can increase their (volunteer) service life, while continuing to do something in order to sustain themselves."

Says she: "Eventually we'd like to turn Charity Focus into Service Space, where anyone can incubate any type of service project that they have. So they can use the Charity Focus infrastructure and processes to serve their project. They can put out request for volunteers, or use our project management system." She adds that all of Charity Focus applications and programmes are open source - they welcome anyone to take and replicate them.

Yoo-Mi Lee can be contacted via email at yoomi@charityfocus.org The websites are at http://www.charityfocus.org, http://www.propoor.org, http://www.eshops.org, http://www.pledgepage.org and http://enlighteningmessages.org

12 From Chile to Cambodia ... with some help from South Africa

Javier Sola was just "passing by" Cambodia, when the move made him take a dramatic u-turn in his life. It was there that he decided to stay on, Now, he believes he can help localise the language of the region which is home. He sketches the characters of the local language, to explain the challenges it faces before getting onto the computer desktop.

But this story starts out in another world.

This 43-year-old Chilean-born Spaniard was the director of the Spanish Internet Users' Association. For seven years, he had pushed for the development of the Internet in Spain. In that time, he had actively participated in the creation of ICANN, the Internet's central management body. He was chair of the working group that decided the creation of new Internet top-level domains (like .info, .biz and so on).

But in 2003, he quit his job. Says he: "We created a working group to see what had to be the future for the management of the Internet. Something which would be legally secure and yet affordable, and efficient. But then, the US intervened to say the Internet belonged to them."

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Links:

http://www.khmeros.info

http://forum.org.kh

Email javier at khmeros.info

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Subsequently, Javier saw ICANN as becoming weak, with the levers of power in the hands of dominant countries. "I was not at all happy. I had helped to create this structure, and within a year, I got out," he says. By 2003, people lost interest in the Internet. It became a commodity. "So I lost interest and quit."

Life is, they say, what happens when you're making other plans. Javier had been scouting around the Far East, looking for a venue for an international conference. He thought that he would love to spend the next part of his life writing - he had already done a small travel book on India. That's when he decided to visit Cambodia, a place he had never been to.

There, he met a Spanish bishop who ran a handicapped children's home. He ended up staying there for eight months. He loved the place "because it was a very happy place and there weren't too many computers around".

But things changed. Teaching the children computing was impossible. All PCs were in English, a language they didn't know. "I thought maybe I could do something here. What would it take to get computers working in the Khmer language?"

Then his search began. By 2003, he started looking at Open Source. "I decided my social goals, and, based on social goals, looked for software," he said.

What were these goals? Why localisation really?

Anticipated spin-offs were many. Reducing training time. Allowing people of a young age to strart with computers. Reaching out to rural areas with computers. Separating the skills of English and computing, so both not bundled.

("Someone who finishes high school in Cambodia is usually very poor. They need to find a job. If they can learn computers in two months, they can find a job and, then, probably learn English. If you bundle the two, they will take two years and probably find a job which doesn't need English.")

Also, the country was in an odd situation where the administration could not work in its own language, on computers. Says Javier: "When you transliterate the language into English characters, there are different ways of spelling. That causes a problem."

The Khmer script is an Indic-based script, based on Brahmi. But it is probably more complicated than some Indian scripts. Cambodia has some more vowels. It has several split 'matras' (vowel signs that Indian languages too have). It also has sub-script consonants like the Indian language of Kannada, but you could have two consonants on a single letter, says Javier.

So Javier and his team started writing project proposals, looking at the software needed, and sought to pick up the right multi-platform software tools they could work on.

"Our strategy is to release things in Windows-based programmes first. Our whole project looks at distribution and training. We needs support from the world of distribution and training; these people are very much used to Windows, afraid of anything that doesn't look like Windows," says he.

Javier explains the relevance of computerisation to Cambodian computing. "Civil servants don't know English. There are a lot of small computer training places in Cambodia. We want to retrain all these people. Ours is a two stage plan. First develop and distribute applications. Simultaneously develop Linux user interface, where it will work with the same."

How much has the team done so far?

Says Javier: "We have translated Internet tools, and we've translated Open Office. ThunderBird, FireFox, and Imp - the last being a webmail programme, needed since many users don't have their own computers on which to download mail to. In terms of Open Office, we will be ready for distribution in April. Open Office is translated. We're working on the help-section, and hope to finish in a month."

What are their priority targets? Basic Internet applications, basic office applications, and training material and documentation. They also hope to introduce a training program that offers 'pyramidal' certification for those who learn sections of the course, as they keep getting familiarised with parts that lead up to the whole.

Currently, the project has six translators and one typographer. It hopes to scale up to a total of 14 persons - including eight translators, and two installers going round the country of 13 million and 181,000 sq kilometres, installing the localised software in places where it matters. Three will be 'trainers of trainers'.

Large firms like Microsoft haven't yet come in to Cambodia with local solutions. "It hasn't come so far. Maybe the market is uninteresting. Maybe after seeing what we're doing, they will come. That too will make me happy, because they are social goals. It would help the Khmer language."

Javier says their project is "working really well".

They believe the best advangate of using Free/Libre and Open Source Software is language. "If Microsoft isn't supporting your language yet, you have infinite possibilities. If Microsoft is in your language, you have a requirement of localising. Otherwise you can't compete," he points out.

Localisation is more important when it comes to spreading FLOSS, compared to other advantages like the cost of the software, he believes. So, they went about creating a master plan to computerise the private sector and those beyond the government sector. "I think, at some point of time, we could become the first country that manages to get wider Linux utilisation (based largely on localisation)," he believes.

Javier has put his dreams on paper. He located the 70-year-old Nobert Klein, who ran the Open Forum of Cambodia, and was, like him, involved in the Internet in the mid-nineties.

Ironically, the hike in the Euro value helped that body to put aside some money received from funders and launch their localisation plans. Now they've approached APDIP (the UNDP's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme) with plans to create a manual on how-to do a localisation project.

>From South Africa, they've learnt what should be avoided.

There, a major localisation project to translate free software into 11 national languages is being undertaken by Dwayne Bailey and team of http://translate.org.za "This is really an exciting project," adds Javier.

13 Arabeyes, offering new visions to computing in Asia

Mohammed Sameer of Cairo, is just 24 and a pharmacy graduate. But he's one of the thirteen or so active young people who are working hard to open new vistas to the world of computing, specially in Asia. Called the Arabeyes, this team is working to make computing more relevant to hundreds of millions using the Arabic lettering across the globe.

In a world where computers were created for a left-to-right flowing script like English, the languages of Asia (and less so of Africa, since many use the Roman alphabet) pose significant problems when getting them to work with the vital tools of tomorrow, computers. Arabic gets written from right to left. Indic scripts, such as Hindi, can get written on top, below and in-front of a base alphabet. Added to that, various computer terms have to be translated, in a way the user understands.

But these challenges are being met.

Located online at arabeyes.org, the network Sameer is part of describes itself as a "meta project that is aimed at fully supporting the Arabic language in the Unix/Linux environment". It is designed to be a central location to standardize the Arabization process. What makes it interesting is that Arabeyes relies on voluntary contributions by computer professionals and enthusiasts scattered across the globe.

If successful - and it's arguably already on that road - the project could benefit a large pool in West Asia. "I suppose (it would potentially benefit) all people using Arabic or Arabic-lettered languages, in the Middle East and the Urdu-speaking people (of South Asia). Then, there are people speaking languages like Pashto too(using a similar script)," says he. "This could be a pool of maybe 225 to 400 million people (depending on how you define it)," Sameer told this correspondent in an interview. Arabic has been a literary literary language for over 1500 years, and is the Islam of liturgical language

When did this project start? Where did it start? Who are its members?As of now, where has Arabeyes reached? Sameer had an interesting story to tell, while visiting India recently.

What makes it different is that unlike other 'Arabized' products, this one looks at Free Software, sticks to a 'free' approach for computing, and works on the ideals of 'open source' communities. GNU/Linux, the computer operating system around which Arabeyes is based, is among the most famous examples of free software and open source development.

In the past, most attempts to Arabizing Unix - a multi-task and multi-user computer operating system, that came before GNU/Linux - were mostly attempted by Arab computer science students studying outside the Arab world. Once their studies ended, their projects got abandoned.

This time round, there's no problem of sparse code or fighting to re-invent the wheel. So, rather than creating new computer applications, their goal is to incorporate modifications and additions to existing "common everyday-use applications". This becomes possible in the world of Free Software, which offers the freedom to run, study, redistribute and improve its crucial software code.

Sameer says it has currently "100% Arabised" Gnome, and has touched about 99% in terms of KDE Arabisation. (Gnome and KDE are the two most popular desktop environments used in the world of Free Software. In graphical computing, a desktop environment offers a graphical user interface, or GUI, solution to operate a computer. It provides icons, toolbars, applications, applets, and abilities like drag-and-drop. This gives each desktop environment a distinctive 'look-and-feel'.) .

OpenOffice.org 1 has also been completely translated, and they are now working on OpenOffice.org 2. OpenOffice.org is an office applications suite for computers, that is compatible and also direct competitor to Microsoft Office. Unlike the latter, it is free software. FireFox, the revolutionary web browser which today millions are seeing as an option to the dominant Internet Explorer, is in the process of being translated.

That's regarding translation.

Like other Free Software projects that thrive on the Internet, this one too has its contributors coming in from different countries and regions. Youcef Rabah is an Algerian PhD student in Cosmology. Mohammed Elzubeir is from the Sudan. Ossama Khayat is from the Lebanon and studied in Kuwait. Nadim Shaikli is of Iraqi origins. There are 13 volunteers listed on the http://www.arabeyes.org/people.php page of the project, ranked in terms of the "CVS commits" (or, roughly, software improvements) they've made. We're reminded that "chances are if someone has a high number of commits, they are working very hard." Mohammed Sameer is ranked a decent third.

Team-leader Nadim Shaikli is one of the core team, and with the aid of another member, introduced Arabic to Vim - the multi-platform text editor from the Free Software world. Currently they're re-working on 'Akka' project (which basically a software layer on top of the console, or almost old-fashioned non-graphical monitor which is however still used by many, specially on older computers).

"We are trying to create an Arabic spellchecker, called? Duali. But it's still not complete," says Sameer. Duali, named after the legendary founder of the Arabic grammar (Abul Aswad al Du'ali - d. 688), is an Arabic spell-checker that is designed to accommodate to the Arabic language. It is also extendible to other non-Arab based languages as well. Other tools being "Arabised" are also listed on their website.

What does he see as the major tasks sill to be completed?

"We had (taken up work on) a live CD to show Arabic work donRt understand.," Sameer says. Incidentally, a Live CD is one which boots from your CD-Rom drive, and runs software from there itself, without needing to be installed on your hard disk. Sameer adds: "The original maintainer (or volunteer team leader) isn't able to carry on. I took maintainership, but have yet to complete (something significant). I have to finalise various projects and we need to complete whatever we're doing. Then, we should try to be more involved with testing various products for Arabic support," says he.

Basically they see themselves as try to fix what's missing.

``I don't think we have much things technically missing. But what I see as really annoying is that we're missing some important standards. For example, we don't have a standard on how to normalise various Arabic letters - the diacritics. These are some small things, but they're eally annoying," he says with the frankness of a techie eager to do a good job, as against the attitude of a salesman proffering a flawless product.

How did he find the Arabeyes team? Simply while trying to locate solutions to his own computing needs. One of the projects of the Arabeyes team is Akka, a tool for Arabizing Linux and Unix consoles. Akka allows you to read and write in Arabic in your plain-text 'console' (as the old-fashioned monitor was called), using any existing software without any change.

Solutions like Akka and QaMoose were just what he was looking out for. QaMoose allows you to access an English/Arabic user-defined dictionary via the web.

Their team has over 500 registered users, but approx 13 are very active contributors, on a daily basis. Users are those who appreciate their work, which depends on the active contributors to really grow and become meaningful.

Could such a small group even dream of making a difference to the way a few hundred million people use their computers? "Two people, (Free Software Foundation guru) Richard M Stallman and (the father of the Linux kernel) Linus Torvalds did change the life of millions (in terms of computing). They were two; we are 13. If they can do this, I hope we too can achieve something," says he, with cautious optimism.

Asked why the Arab would could simply not take the easy option of using proprietorial software - which is made by companies like Microsoft, and is widely used across the globe, but is a costly solution in the poorer parts of the planet - Sameer laughs: "That's a religious question," says he. His reference, of course, is to the fact that campaigners for Free Software have strong preferences and points of view, and refer to their choices for Free Software and the freedom it offers as being "religious options".

"We're really focussing on open source software." Free or Open Source is any computer software distributed under a license which allows users to change or share the software freely. By contrast, proprietary software means that some individual or company holds the exclusive copyrights on a piece of software, at the same time denying other people the access to the software's source code and the right to copy, modify and study the software.

SOUTH ASIA AND URDU

Sameer says he had been contacted by people from South Asia too, who wanted a solution for the Urdu language that is also written right-to-left. Unfortunately, he says, they lost contact.

Urdu is a language which originated in India, emerging out of interaction between Indian languages and the tongues spoken in the courts of the rulers of the sub-continent - from the time of the Delhi Sultanate to the Mughal Empire and its succeeding states. The language of the court, and of literature, was usually Persian, while that of religion was Arabic, the language of the Quran. This process of the mingling of these languages and the local dialects led to the development of everyday speech that sounded much like today's Urdu and Hindi. There is still a spectrum of dialects spoken in the streets of cities from Lahore and Karachi to Delhi and Calcutta and in the villages all over the region.

Like Arabic, it also uses a right-to-left script, making it face common challenges when attempting to computerise across various software programmes.

Says he: "At Arabeyes, we would like to know the state of Urdu. I think Farsi (from Iran) would also benefit from this work, the Farsi people have been very helpful for the last few years."

What's his tip for those wanting to work in the field of localisation, or adapting computers to local languages? "They should really understand the language needs, and then, they will start hunting around for what's missing and what's not. And then, I don't know.... but I'd really be glad to help anyone," he adds.

Sameer has been using computers "since I was in primary school" when his Attari-manufactured computer was used for the programming language Basic, that became widespread on home microcomputers in the 1980s. "My father helped me. He knew this was the thing I loved. I just graduated and worked for (a formal degree in) pharmacy. I don't know anything about that field (pharmacy, which I studied) now."

Sameer is one of the admins responsible for the Egyptian Linux user group website. Linux, being a computer operating system that depends largely on volunteers, has a concept of volunteer-run 'user groups' that spread awareness about it worldwide.Egypt has two major Linux user groups or LUGs - called the Eglug and Linux-Egypt.

Sameer can be emailed at msameer at foolab.org or msameer at eglug.org

Arabeye's priorities include:

  1. Addressing the various font/keyboard-mapping issues (for typing in Arabic)
  2. Creating the ability to write plain-text Arabic easily
  3. Creating the ability to spell-check your Arabic text documents
  4. Creating the ability to send and receive mail through an Arabic interface
  5. Localize (or translate) Common Graphical-User-Interface (GUI)
  6. Creating the ability to take Arabic text files and create various enriched documents (using computer-based formats such as TEX, Word, etc)

14 What Lawrence Liang has to say

Amidst a serious talk on a almost-legal subject - but wrapped with a lot of Lawrencian humour - the young and articulate lawyer Lawrence Liang took out a copy of his new(ish) book titled 'Guide To Open Content Licenses'.

For the curious, Lawrence is a National Law School of India graduate. That's a pretty prestigious instituion, and his Liang surname is a reflection of his Chinese-settled-in-Calcutta ancestry, in this melting pot called India.

This book (pp 109, price: a gift, ISBN 90-72855-16-7) is available online and Lawrence promised a copy for those who asked.

See http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdr/research/lliang/open_content_guide

A quote: "In recent years copyright has moved away from being an esoteric and technical legal subject to one that affects musicians, designers, artists, students, authors, ordinary consumers, and more generally any one involved in any way in cultural production."

Reason enough to keep track?

Lawrence Liang's book order <node/216#comment-13>

Comment by Patrice Reimens: (not verified) on 05/02/2005 - 11:48

Lawrence is in touch with Matthew Fuller/ the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam (publisher) to get the book out to anyone who genuinely wants it. Number of copies still in stock is however not sure, and there is talk of a second (augmented?) edition. If you write me, I can try & obtain a copy for you and send it to you bwo my university's postal service (don't forget yr 'snail' (postal) mail address!). Please be patient (back in NL March 1 only). Al this goes for the same price: a gift ;-)

15 Grafting the 17th century onto 2005

It's bizarre. It's bemusing. It's a bazaar.

Can a concept from 17th century South Asia be grafted onto the globalised world of circa 2005? We met a somewhat jumpy (that's his usual style) but always enlightening-to-talk-to Patrice Riemens of the Netherlands at the Asia Source camp. He bluntly sees the concept struggling to take off "due to various circumstances".

But he's optimistic. It's soon (as of Feb 2) going to be rescheduled from 2 to 4 pm.

What does it involve? A Turkish tea service, and talking FLOSSophy, or the philosophy of Free/Libre and Open Source Software. In his own words, the general idea was to have a "place where people chill out and discuss", something like a north Indian tea shop where information and views blend with tea and 'time-pass' (an English word adapted to the Indian context, loosly meaning just spending time).

"Where it doesn't take off is that it is seen as rather elite, and has an 'in crowd' smell to it. Unless you make it a compulsory part of the event, you don't get people spending time there," says Patrice. Of course, compulsion wouldn't quite work, and what would happen to all that 'cathedral and bazaar' talk?

Patrice sees modern globalised definitions of 'chilling out' as being more accompanied with beer and noise. This is what happens at camps, and the rest of the time involves concentrated work. "It has the image of being what the Germans call a 'Geheimtip' (people-in-the-know) air to it," says Patrice. "It remains a minority affair at best, and at worst it can be taken by some organisers ("not the ones here") as a distraction," says Patrice.

But the camp's unofficial FLOSSopher talks all this FLOSSophically.

"It's anyway an attempt to take across something in both time and place". In Europe, the idea of the baazar is one from distant Asia, he points out. In addition, "this is more an idea of the 17th century, rather than of 2005" he adds. "This idea is just like how Mahatma Gandhi once described Western civilisation. 'It's a fantastic idea'," he adds.

Patrice (54) says he has the "usual mixed background educationally", both geographically and language-wise. He proudly announces he read and dropped-out of the Classics, before majoring as a geographer, and taking on an unsalaried fellowship at the University of Amsterdam.

His self-description describes him as one who "never went for a mainstream academic career" and instead went in for becoming a cultural activist and independent researcher. He has been involved with the Amsterdam Digital City, Nettime, Waag Society for Old and New Media, and the French language review Multitudes.

Patrice says he's "never very easy withing institutional frameworks", and prefers to play the role of an "intermediary" and resource person, while looking at the social and political role of the so-called New Technologies. He sees himself as staying on the "edge of things" rather than the core.

Well, he's almost Indian! Maybe in his next life ;-) But that's no reason for losing heart. We all know FLOSS is a great idea, but it does take time to catch on. Keep on at it Patrice!

At another track, an almost spontaneous 'bazaar of ideas' has sprouted on the sidelines of the camp. Participants were invited to share just about any skill they have, however esoteric. And they did...

Look what's on 'sale' (without price of course!). Douglas is offering tution in the air guitar. Henryk is offering how to make the famous Mazurska Gozechotka, which is a rattle from a district of north-eastern Poland. Chandita is offering a expo and demo in making toys by hand from organic material. Hinde will demo how to roll a cigarette in the form of a Dutch tulip.

But that's not all. Yoke is offering a lesson on snacks from Malaysia. Surekha is offering to teach anyone to sing in classical Kannada, Azhar besides Fajar (Indonesia) and Rhodora (Philippines) are all offering to trade souvenirs.

Yee Yee is teaching anyone who might have the plans to do so, how to cook in prison, secretely. Subir has posters from the mountains and CDs about Nepal. Sanat, Nasir and Ujjwall are opting for a souvenir exchange. Karunakar has digital photos from India and lessons on how to find your way from the stars. Want to learn the rudiments of the Pashto language? Contact Qaisar. Julio from Guatemala will teach you how to reach the Mayan calander. Ying has a limited release of CDs and souvenirs from Thailand. And Shawn is trying to trade 'hacker objects'.

Dr Arun Mehta of Delhi is offering basics in Yoga. Shekhar has tips on how to eat with your hands - it's not as easy as it looks (if you want to get it right, that is).

If you thought that was not enough, Poornima will teach a willing victim how to drap the traditional Indian sari. Allan has a more mischevious idea on that, which might not be expressed in text here!

16 Not a dictionary put out (since 1979) ... and moving to the electronic

When Said Marjan Zazai gets back to his cross-border home that spans the home along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, he wants to step up work on a computerised (electronic) dictionary for the Pashto and later possibly the Dari languages.

(Pashto - also known as Afghan, Pushto, Pashto, Pashtoe, Pashtu, and Pukhto - is the language spoken by the ethnic Afghan otherwise known as the Pashtun people who inhabit Afghanistan and the Western provinces of Pakistan. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtu )

"The last dictionary was printed in 1979. Speakers of this language have not seen any language since then. That dictionary too was hand-written, and the Pashto-Pashto dictionary itself covered 4500 pages across five volumes," he says, explaining the need for this language in this strife-torn Central Asian country that is statistically among the poorest countries in the world.

Kabul-born Zazai believes that a computerised dictionary would not just help the language keep up with the times, but also help make glossaries and spell checkers. "I found it could help me in a possible migration into Linux as well," he adds.

Free/Libre and Open Source Software, he feels, helps smaller languages to launch local initiatives in localisation.

Wikipedia says: Pashto is spoken by about 17 million people in the south, east and a few northern provinces of Afghanistan, as well as the western provinces of Pakistan. It is spoken by circa 35% of Afghanistan population who are of the Pashtun tribe, as well as by ethnic Pashtuns who live on the other side of the disputed Durand Line in present day Pakistan (ca. 13% of the population). Dari is the local name for the variety of Persian spoken in Afghanistan.?

Zazai has also talked to a website that offers a pop-up dictionary, and they are interested in English-Pashto-Dari and possibly English-Pashto-Dari and English-Pashto-Persian dictionaries... sometime in the future.

While going to Kabul for his visa to India, he dropped by at the Afghanistan Academy of Science and Litterature, which is struggling amidst the war and strife the region has and is seeing.

"They welcomed us to work with them," he says, and also expects the linguists to appreciate the opportunities for taking their language to the world of computers.

One problem however has been that some top linguists have migrated out of the country torn by strife, and today are in the West.

Zazai, born in Kabul, has a Master's degree in computer science and currently is th emanaging director of a software firm in Peshawar, Pakistan. See http://www.aesthetechsoft.com/about.html

Zazai's firm emphasizes on localisation, and he was earlier involved in Unicode font development for the Pashto language. He has also worked as a Pashto localisation expert together with Everson Typography - http://www.evertype.com - to standardise the Pashto and Dari keyboard layouts. He also worked on collation and locale for Pashto.

Zazai says the dictionaries will be freely available at http://www.pakhtodictionary.com and will also be available as software in a CD. His firm is planning to work on localisation of FLOSS into Pashto.

17 OSRC, FLOSS and Pakistan

>From South Asia, Pakistan is one of regions which looks to software as a useful export. Back home, the country has also been working to build up non-proprietorial code - as a way of battling 'piracy' (as the illegal copying of software has been termed, somewhat unfairly) and also building up local skills.

Sufyan Kakakhel (26) is the Project Officer with the Pakistan Software Export Board's (PSEB) Open Source Resource Centre Islamabad, an institution that comes under that country's Ministry of IT and Telecom. In an interview, he tells FREDERICK NORONHA of the plans for building Free/Libre and Open Source Software in that part of South Asia.

Kakakhel got his MBA in Finance from the International >Islamic University, Islamabad in 2002. After working with a telecom company as regional manager, he founded his own open source company iinix Solutions (http://www.iinix.com) along with three friends, one of whom was then Pakistan's only Redhat Certified Engineer.

He explains what the Open Source Resource Centre - http://www.osrc.org.pk - plans, and offers other insights into the Pakistani FLOSS world.

Q: What would you see as the noteworthy growth of FLOSS in Pakistan?

We can differentiate the whole movement in Pakistan in three sectors. One is government, the second is the community and the third is the commercial open source companies.

Q: What has the government specifically being doing?

The government has recently established the Open Source Resource Centre, to promote Open Source in the country, to help out the Open Source community, to help students in their Open Source projects, to conduct trainings. To facilitate every person and stake-holder in Open Source.

Pakistan Computer Bureau (PCB), under the Ministry of IT and Telecom, recently started conducted trainings mainly for government officials. There have been two types of trainings. One for end-users, and the other for administrators.

The plan is to basically train government officials on Linux and Open Source. PSEB currently is running two projects in Open Source, SORC and industrial automation using Open Source.

We have selected a few industrial sectors - textile and few others - from the SME (small and medium enterprises), and we're working to automate their processes using Open Source technology.

The Ministry of IT says that from now any, any computer server that is to be purchased by the government is to use an Open Source operating system. This policy was laid down about one year back.

Q: And, from the world of business?

On the business side, there are four to five companies exclusively working on Linux and Open Source. There are a lot more claiming they work on Open Source, but they don't do so exclusively. They work on Windows, and Solaris and other platforms (apart from FLOSS).

Firms working exclusive on FLOSS include ATRC, Ping Systems and Ants Consulting, all from Karachi, the financial capital and a city of 15 million people. Then there's also iinix Solutions (at Islamabad), of which I happen to be one of the founders.

Q: So how would you give a snapshot of the community?

Among the community, the most active network is the Linux-Pakistan, also known as PLUC. They have around 2000 registered users, and in Karachi specially they're very active. They have periodic meetings for techies, though of course these are not restricted to for techies only.

Besides, the Computer Society of Pakistan has a SIG (special interest group) on Free and Open Source Software. Commmercial companies and the Open Source Resource Centre are members of it.

Q: What would you see as the three most important developments needed to build FLOSS in Pakistan?

The first thing I think is that Open Source sould be included in the curriculum both in schools and universities. Second, it's equally important in the universities that students should do their final year projects using open source. Besides that, the government should implement more on the Open Source platform, also as a means of addressing piracy issues.

Q: How is localisation work doing in Pakistan?

Dr Sarmad Hussain from Lahore he's working a lot on Urdu localisation. Few months back, he had conducted a workshop on localisation. Some participants from Mongolia and Afghanistan, whom I met, told me it was a very good workshop. Someone in Karachi, have localised part of Open Office. It's not a stable verision. But when I saw it last it was working.

Q: From the Asia Source camp (held in Bangalore, India in Jan-Feb 2005) what were the kind of lessons you learnt?

I really learnt a lot of lessons from participants coming from Nepal and Uganda. We would like to launch projects on similar lines, in the schools. I think Pakistan could gain a lot if we could learn from such experiences (like initiatives to take FLOSS to schools, done by way of Project Ganesha in Nepal).

18 What's special about Ubuntu?

Those of us at the Bangalore Asia Source camp (spanning eight days in Jan-Feb 2005) would have noticed that Ubuntu was pretty much the 'unofficial' GNU/Linux choice on the desktops that we mostly used.

Where does this distro come from? What is it talking about?

There's a pretty amazing story. Ubuntu blurs the dividing line between free speech and free beer!

Distrowatch.com <http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=ubuntu> says this about this distro: "Ubuntu Linux is a complete desktop Linux operating system, freely available with both community and professional support. The Ubuntu community is built on the ideas enshrined in the Ubuntu Manifesto: that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customise and alter their software in whatever way they see fit. "Ubuntu" is an ancient African word, meaning "humanity to others". The Ubuntu Linux distribution brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world."

There's an even more unusual history behind the person behind Ubuntu. My favourite tool, Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canonical_Ltd> explains: "Canonical Ltd is a company founded (and funded) by South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth for the promotion of open source projects. The first major product to be sponsored by the company is "Ubuntu", a Debian-based Linux distribution."

If you wanted to know who exactly Mark Shuttleworth (32) is, then go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Shuttleworth. This South African entrepreneur is an early "space tourist", and became the first South African in space. After selling his Internet security firm Thawle to VeriSign, he founded a venture-capital company, and the Shuttleworth Foundation, which funds educational projects in South Africa. (On 25 April 2002 Shuttleworth lifted-off aboard the Russian Soyuz TM-34 mission, traveling as space tourist for approximately $20 million US.)

Shuttleworth, "in the early 1990s he was a Debian developer, and in 2004 he returned to the GNU/Linux world by funding the development of Ubuntu Linux, a new open-source operating system, via his company Canonical Ltd." Who said Debian developers don't go far ;-)

My young friend Derek (20), a co-villager in Saligao who looks after my Debian-based desktop at home (and has self-taught himself GNU/Linux), feels Ubuntu contains too little software in its single-CD distro. But others at the camp were struck by its simplicity of use. (It gave me a little trouble with my pen drive, though.)

Whatever you feel about it, just visit this URL and they'll send you 1, 5 or 10 CDs free of cost - http://shipit.ubuntu.com This is a nice way to build interest in FLOSS; provided you give it over to the right people!

19 Adi from Indonesia ... cybercafes with GNU/Linus

Before its even dawn in Bangalore, Adi Nugroho's cell phone starts ringing. It's usually an SOS call coming from his distant homeland of Makassar, in Indonesia. The other day, he got up particularly early. "We had a crisis," he said, with a laugh that doesn't quite hide the tension. "Our wireless mast crashed down on the police station."

But the crises, and having to repeatedly cope with trying situations, hardly wipes the broad smile off Adi's face, and the jokes he is wont to repeatedly share. In fact, Adi sees opportunity in adversity.

In September 1999, when Internet access speeds were crawling on his island-home at Makassar, a small town in Indonesia's Sulawesi, some 1400 kms from Jakarta, he came up with an unusual solution. He built Indonesia's first full-Linux internet cafe. It was called iNterNUX.

By now, he's no more in the cybercafe business. "Simple," says Adi, "because I don't want to compete with my customer." By now, most of the Internet cafes in Makassar use GNU/Linux for their servers. His own Internet cafe has grown into an Internet Server Provider - see http://www.internux.net.id - and continues to use GNU/Linux.

Crisis is the mother of invention. By 1999 he knew his job at a Siemens project was coming to an end. So he thought of starting the cybercafe to cater to the 1.5 million from Makassar.

Says Adi: "I opened the cybercafe. There were only five machines. All 486 machines. At that time, I really didn't want to use Windows anymore. In the corporate world, we had a lot of problems using Windows. More than half of our time we would spend just fixing computers. Even after working overtime. Fixing computers which hung, and fighting virii.'

Says he: "Sometimes if there is a virus, and no anti-virus for it yet, I would have to hack the virus, to make my own anti-virus solution while awaiting a better solution. It's real terrible; you can try it. (Laughs)"

By then, he was a home-user of GNU/Linux. The thought had struck him that if he ever had the option - and was not constrained by corporate policy - then he would surely switch over in the workplace too.

So, he did set up GNU/Linux on his 486 machines "because I didn't have money for everything (while setting up the cybercafe)". So he just bought a Pentium III as a server, and used what is now called the LTSP (Linux Terminal Server Project, then called the x-terminal).

Makassar (also known as Macassar, Mangkasar) is the provincial capital of South Sulawesi, in Indonesia, on the island of Sulawesi. Beginning in the sixteenth century, Makassar was the dominant trading center of eastern Indonesia. Makassar was a key center for Malays working in the Spice Islands trade, as well as a valuable base for European and Arab traders from much further afield.?

Soon, the results started to show.

Compared to another Internet cafe, his ol' faithful 486s could work faster than a PII machine. "Of course, because it was an x-terminal," says he, proudly. It was both low-cost and fast. This drew customers who didn't know what GNU/Linux was. They just used it, as Adi puts it with glee. At that time too, most people didn't know much about computers at all. So using one operating system or another was a non-issue. "They didn't say 'This is Linux and I don't want it', but instead they said, 'This is Linux, and I want to learn it'," Adi narrates.

Thanks to earlier generation PCs and apt software, Adi claims that break-even came in three months. "If someone says we cannot get money from Linux, then I say, I got a lot of money from Linux," he smiles.

In the year 2000, Internet cafes got very popular. They started growing very fast. Again Adi began "flowing like water", and thought that if a number of Internet cafes came up, he would lose customers. So, he just switched roles - becoming an Internet cafe installer. "They can take my customer, but at least I can get the money first. Yeah, that's business," he says with his laugh very much in place.

Demand far outstripped supply, and it was then easy to earn because of the lack of GNU/Linux support skills. "If you install just Windows at that time, you could get paid about US$5 per computer. I can get three times of it by installing Linux. Because nobody knew Linux at that time. Its only about business," he adds.

By 2001, he expected the number of Internet installers to grow. "So we were looking for another problem we could solve. The problem with most Internet cafes in Makassar is that they would use only dial-up, and were costly," as Adi recounts.

So, he started an ISP (Internet Service Provider).

But there was a problem here because of the official monopoly. Laws laid down then that Internet access could be provided by PTIndosat, and they didn't want to sell bandwidth to someone like Adi. Says he: "Even if I want to sell dial-up access, dial-up phone lines is provided by PTTelecom and they don't want to sell telephone lines to me."

So, they started using wireless LAN. At thta time, it was still not regulated, because the government was none too wise about wifi and all that.

Adi shut his Internet cafe, because he didn't want to compete with his clients. What's his experience then, after running the country's first GNU/Linx-only cybercafe?

"Nice. Nobody complained that it was Linux. Everyone complained because I'm so poor that my Internet cafe didn't have even an airconditioner, and it's needed in Indonesia," he laughs, talking about an experiment that ran for 18 months.

Would he recommend it?

Yes, he says emphatically. "We experienced very less problems. Anyhow it's not a barrier to user. Just make your Linux very similar to Windows and nobody knows the difference (if you fear customer resistance). Qvwm is very much like Windows 95. Only an experienced user would know the difference. Just change the icon. Ha, ha, ha, ha..."

On the other hand, some customers preferred his IRC clinet - because kvirc is better than the Windows-based mirc.

Adi thinks it a bit of an irony that the giant state-run firms are now offering wireless LAN for Internet access. "But when customers go there, they tell the customers, 'We have wireless access, just like iNterNUX (Adi's firm)."

His word of advice to Free/Libre and Open Source Software enthusiasts: "My suggestion is don't become a follower. Be a leader."

20 It's no tower of Babel, it's South Africa

Countries from the South, emerging from a number of problems, can seem like a Tower of Babel. But when it comes to coping with diversity, Dwayne Bailey's story from South Africa makes the point nicely. Free/Libre and Open Source Software can indeed offer interesting solutions even to smaller languages.

>From 2001, this slim South African started the Translate.org.za project.

WIKIPEDIA notes: South Africa has eleven official languages, which is second only to India. As a result, there are many official names for the country. It also recognises eight non-official languages (Fanagalo, Lobedu, Northern Ndebele, Phuthi, Sign Language, Khoe, Nama, and San).?

Dwayne explains what this is all about: "At Translate.org.za we're localising Free and Open Source Software into 11 South African languages. One is English, it's quite an easy one (smiles). The others are Afrikaans, Zulu, Khosa, Venda, Tsonga, Tswana, Siswati, Northern Sotho, Southern Sotho, Ndebele."

All these languages use the Roman script. Bailey (33) points out that this makes the task easier. But it is a heavy task nonetheless. Some South African languages have special characters, but these are Romanised. "We have no problems with fonts or keyboards. With the Asian languages, it's the other way round, and there have been big problems."

Bailey sees the project as doing well. Open Office, the free alternative word processor, has been done in four languages. Bailey expects six more to be completed by June 2005. Mozilla, the attention-grabbing useful web-browser, has also been done in seven languages. KDE, the desktop environment, has been done in four languages but fell behind because of a "changed idea of what should be done". Gnome has been completed in three languages, and the team is busy doing Fedora in three more.

What's the secret for the apparent success of such an ambitious and, in many ways, daunting project? "Invent what you're doing. Nobody else is doing that. We have social objectives, that helps us define what we do. Otherwise you get pulled and pushed by everyone."

Our golden rules, says Bailey, is that applications chosen for translation should be focussed at the end-user. "Our logic that (it should benefit) the people whom language would most affect. Someone who could program could have probably mastered English already. Localisation must be aimed at the end-user."

Besides, Bailey clearly favours Free Software. "We're using donor's and state money. So, the work should be available to the people and Free Software allows us to do that. If we were using proprietary software, we would probably still be negotiating for the right to do the software.

Lastly, he prefers cross-platform tools. Ones that are able to run on both Windows and GNU/Linux. "Clearly, the majority of people still use Windows. It's not our job to change that, though my personal views might be different," says he.

Translate.co.za has been helping other countries that would like to learn from their experiences. And mistakes.

How easy, or difficult, is it to actually localise a Roman script language? Says Bailey: "If you can avoid keyboard stuff, then you just look at translating. It's very easy to translate, but difficult to translate well. That's where we start looking at things in building glossaries."

"We want people to translate, but not everyone should be doing it. Like the Linux kernel - everyone wants to add code, but not all are allowed to do so (unless of proven competence). There are barriers to entry," says he.

Bailey's approach is to usually reject an English word as an easy way out while translating. "If it's already in the culture, either in English or corrupted English, then it's fine," says he.

To give an example: the team insisted that there was no word for 'password' in Zulu. They insisted there was no equivalent for 'proxy-server'. "Proxy is someone acting on your behalf. The Zulu have a word for guards that stand at the gate of the king's court. People often don't think long enough and hard enough about concepts." Some languages don't have a positive connotations for witches and wizards. It really means helper.

"In fact, the best people to translate are not computer people but language people," he says. Finding people who are excited about their language, or care passionately for them, make for the best chances of success.

How long does it take? A good translator can manage approx a thousand words a day. So, Open Office, with its 75,000 words would need some 75 working days. Then, the documentation is an additional 500,000 words. Quality assurance would take some more time.

What's the kind of feedback he has received? Most has come from the language of Afrikaans. "Most just accept. But sometimes out of the 800,000 words you translated, they'll pick one and haggle. You could have 200 emails about opinions and yet no valid feedback," says he, undaunted by what can be a thankless job at times.

Earlier, this project was founded by the millionaire-founded Shuttleworth Foundation. Now too, it gets some funds from there.

Says Dwayne: "When we started we made lots of mistakes. Nobody else who interacts with us makes the same mistakes. Since we are dealing with 11 languages, the situation in India (with its multiplicity of languages) is the closest thing to the work we have to do." But one shortcoming he sees with his own project is getting out the results adequately to potential users.

21 Where FLOSS spells Magics (or, Mayix)

>From the distant Central American country of Guatemala, the message comes through loud and clear: young techies there see a lot of hope in Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS), simply because it allows them to share, learn, improve and benefit from software that should serve people first - not just spell megabuck profits.

Julio Cesar Gonzales Cordon (35) is the co-founder and general co-ordinator of the LUGUSAC (Linux Users Group of Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala). LUGUSAC is involved in several projects, the most important of which its members rate the production of a Mayan-language GNU/Linux distribution.

Guatemala is a Central American country of 108,000 square kilometers and has a 14 million population. It lies in the south of the continent of North America, bordering both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Their official language is Spanish, but there are 21 spoken Mayan languages. There are two other languages, Garifuna and Xinka. More than half of the country are descendents of the Mayans. The most spoken is K'iche, with the language having more than a million speakers.

Julio told me more about this and other issues, during a recent visit to India, to take part in the Asia Source camp, an event that drew over a hundred participants and sought to build a bridge between both geeks and non-profit organisations. Excerpts from an interview at Bangalore:

FN: Julio, could you start by telling us something about your user group, and what work it's doing in what, for us, is a remote part of the globe?

The Linux User Group of Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala probably is the biggest in Central America. We have 300 members. Of course, we don't have a list of members since we don't ask people to register or pay up for joining. But our mailing list is of that size.

Daily we get anything between five to 25 messages, almost all in Spanish. There are people from Central America, South America, and some from Europe too. It was launched in December 2001.

FN: Which countries in Latin America would you consider to be the 'strong' players in the world of FLOSS?

In Latin America the countries that can be considered ahead are Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. Maybe Chile too.

We have a little communication (among the different countries of our region). We do have some members on our mailing list from these different countries. But we have not yet arranged any joint activities, except in the case of of El Salvador, whose members came for an install fest. Now, we plan to help to form a Linux user group in the west highlands of that country.

FN: Tell us about your unusual plans for a Mayan language distribution for GNU/Linux?

Some of the Linux enthusiasts in our country are working to launch the first native American distribution called Mayix, It stands for Mayan Unix.

The developers of Mayix began their work one year ago. Two weeks ago, we got an award of the Commision Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia, the national science commission. They won the third prize in the national award for innovations to human development.

[Wikipedia says: From the 4th to the 11th century, the lowlands area of the Peten region of Guatemala was the heart of the flourishing Maya civilization. After the collapse of the lowland states, the Maya states of the central highlands continued until conquered by the Spanish, who first arrived in 1523 and colonised the area.?]

FN: What does the name connote?

We had several sessions about what the name would be. Several names arose linked to the traditions of our university, but Mayix was chosen.

In the beginning we didn't think of improving Mayan culture through that, but the Mayas are a symbol of Guatemala. We are descendents of the Maya civilization in some way. We are very proud. We look to seeing this becoming the very first distribution - some years down the line - in all the Mayan languages. There are 22 Mayan languages in Guatemala.

It's based on Gentoo. Mayix is better because the binaries are put together in a live CD and have a significant amount of documentation in Spanish too. Right now, we are focussing on people who want to learn GNU/Linux by using Gentoo. Those working on the project took up a lot of ideas and spread them over the Gentoo distro, they assembled the blocks in order, and deployed Spanish too.

This distro is being used the course in Operation Systems in my university.

This teams' main leader is Paulo Alvarado (24), a student of computer engineering.

FN: Could you tell us some of the problems encountered when attempting to localise your software?

The difficult is that there are so many terms which seem to have virtually no translation. Then, the Mayan people use Spanish words too for some words.

The other problem is that most Mayan people have no access to Internet or computers, or these kind of technologies.

FN: What lessons in localisation of GNU/Linux did you pick up in Bangalore, if any?

There were many (useful lessons). First lessons were more technical, just how to do things. Secondly, we picked up lessons from how other countries are working. Thirdly, the lesson coming how were ideas that arose here of how to make networks of people and organisations that make the localisation process easier and faster.

FN: From a Central American perspective, why does GNU/Linux appear appealing to you'll?>

For several reasons. First and foremost, because you have the control of the technology. You can decide what technology will do for you. You have many choices of many technologies. Secondly, there's the factor of the (low or no) cost of the licenses. Thirdly, also because Linux lets you use old PCs or hardware to do useful things. You don't fall into the planned-obsolescence circles.

FN: Tell us something about where you live and your plans to diffuse FLOSS to other parts of the country.

I stay in Guatemala City. Right now, we are in a project to visit the west highlands, to found another Linux user group there.

We have planned to make weekly visits for the next six months, each weekend. The idea is to visit this region for a six month period, to translate and pass on to them our experiences of these four years.

We're doing this so that they can be reach almost our level of knowledge very fast. I hope, I'm sure, after that they can share their experiences in the little towns around them, and with us as well.

It's a three-hour car journey. It's in very hilly land, with mountains and trees. It's located in the west side of the country where it's cold.

LINKS: Julio can be contacted via email at: juliocgc @ gmail.com WEB-SITES: http://www.lug-usac.org LUG http://www.mayix.net Distro (pronounced like Magics)

22 Bridging the communications gap... without wires

In a world where it's simply too costly to wire up large rural areas, could wireless provide the solution? Yes, says Thomas Krag <t at wire.less.dk>, a Danish tech guru who believes that the Third World could gain a lot from a largely untapped technology.

Krag (31) is taking up a new initiative called The Wireless Roadshow - thewirelessroadshow.org - which promises to share training and capacity building with non-profits to use low-cost wireless technologies for connectivity.

"We're focussing on market-failure areas," he says. "Lot of telecommunicatons are run by monopolies or cartels, who have a mindset which is very centralised, focussed, and Westernised. They bandy around words like mission-critical, fail-safe and multiple-redundancy as if it was funny. They live in a world where the cost of a line going down is so high that it impacts very badly on connectivity."

Krag, who's Danish, has a joint degree in the computer sciences and business administration. At 31 he has worked in a dotcom and was "not happy with the over-commercial focus". His forays took him to volunteer in Ghana with the Geek Corps, working with a wireless ISP. "Since then, I've been looking around for new ways to basically contribute my skills in development," says he. He founded wired.less.dk in late 2001, with Sebastian Buettrich and support from the Open Society Institute.

Krag sees there being two main reasons - philosophical and financial - besides "empowerment" for going into this field. The philosophical reason he explains as being due to freedom and the need to own one's own communication infrastructure.

He notes: "A lot of the wireless community networks in the West define themselves in this way. That the only way they can protect themselves from censorship and external controls of their communication (whether government or commercial) is by owning their own network."

Krag quotes Free Software Foundation lawyer Eben Moglen as talking about three technology freedoms - free software, free hardware and free etworking. His work, he believes, falls in the last category.

But does this make economic sense? "The other big reason is the finacnial reason. Costs are lower with wireless technology, but more importantly costs are much more evenly distributed over time," says he.

Krag explains that in tradtional telecom development, there's a large cost-curve in the start, and then revenue starts coming in only later. But in countries where finance is not readily available, and inflation drives interest rates into the 50s and 60s percent levels, it's not a viable model.

With wireless, he argues, because it's a decentralised model, you can build out a wider network gradually as you get revenue, so you don't need the same upfront financing. "You needs some, but not to that (traditional) level," says he.

But why does he believe this technology is "particularly suited" to the developing world? What technology is he looking at?

"The technology we work with is wi-fi, mostly. We also do V-SAT stuff. There are a couple of reasons. One is that wi-fi operates in unlicensed spectrum. Because we have a property model of spectrum management, most spectrum is unavailable without financial resources. But where unlicensed spectrum exists - that's not everywhere, unfortunately - it lets small organisations deploy communication networks without financial outlay beyond equipment," he says.

The other main reason is that this has become a 'consumer level' technology. This has happened in parallel with the growing level of commodity hardware, often with chipsets from reasonably-priced regions like Taiwan. That all has pushed the priced down, and also increased flexibility.

Wirelessroads is a "pretty young" project. It got funding in June 2004, but Krag has been working with wireless world since June 2002. "Our biggest success story was in September 2004, when we helped to organise a community wireless event in rural Denmark, with a community wireless group from Berlin. About 30 of the 120 participants were invited from the 'developing world', funded by the Open Society Institute. We had a workshop track on wireless in the 'developing world'," says he.

Wirelessroadshow scheduled to travel to five countries. They're currently looking out for partners, and Krag feels India could be one of the countries on the list.

"Our radar is high on Southern Africa, Nepal, Bhutan. But we're basically babies in the world of international development. We plan to have a group of wireless experts that will travel to these countries, and do trainings and capacity-building. Essentially, we'll be taking the first steps and building a wireless network. It may be Internet-based or telephony, depending what's legal in that region," says he.

23 From Croatia: free music lives

Here's some good news: music can be free. Music wants to be free. There surely are other ways of getting the best out of the musician, and reaching it across to audiences. From tiny Croatia comes the message, loud and clear and the notes strike you as being amazing clear.

Marcell Mars - the online digital name of Nenad Romic (32) - is one of the founders of Croatia's Multimedia Institute (mi2) and the net culture club Mama in Zagreb.

Let's listen to Marcell's story in his words. While working with music, they came across a number of DJs, who were increasingly realising that there was no commercial market for electronic music in a small country like theirs.

"They were people who love electronic music. Electronic music is for young people. It does not have a big as a market share, and the target group which listens doesn't buy CDs. But it makes up for at least half of the dance and club music, when young people go out," he says.

So Marcell suggested a way out - he proposed in the year 2000 that they publish their music under the same conditions as Free Software was being published, and making an impact the world over. (In Free Software, the reference is to freedom, not necessarily zero-price. But one is also allowed to share and distribute it, without running into ultra-restrictive licensing that blocks its spread unless one pays.)

Says Marcell: `"When I explained this to them, they picked it up quite easily. Specially because electronic music is probably the most connected of all genres of music to digital information. They already shared samples, sounds, loops and other things."

So they easily accepted that idea. Marcell and team started a label with four releases. They called it EGOBOO.bits

Why the name? "We didn't go in for the term of 'beats' because it's more to do with things digital. From the beginning had the idea of not just going with digital, but with any kind of creative, beats," he explains. The first name came from a science fiction novel. It was a cultish novel from the 50s, featuring "one small guy" dreaming of making the most popular funzine ever, a theme linked to the DIY (do-it-yourself) sharing culture.

Egoboo was a name from the book. It also is a short-form for ego-booster. That, says Marcell is some kind of an answer to the question of why people share knowledge and art - because of recognition, and when you give something good you can take back something which is more of a feeling.

This venture got some visibility and media attention, and also got noticed from others in the field. "In a few years, we've gathered some over 30 artists around the label," says Marcell.

He sees a couple of reasons as being responsible for that. One is that there's otherwise simply no commercial market for electronic music in Croatia. "So we build some kind of brand for people who make music which can't be recognised as profitable music by others. It's the only option for them to be published. We're also saying it's easy to publish, you can make your own (music and get it out)."

So then, how does their music get around? In rather untraditional ways.

It's free download. You can just download everything from egoboobits.net But they also sell CDs which is anyway much more cheaper than regular one in the commercial shops. Their products are priced at about 3.5 Euros, compared to upto 20 Euros from the commercial world of music.

Now it's getting to be kind of well-structured. Explains Marcell: "It started as an informal communication and gathering, and now we're running a web-site which is based on the the TamTam online collaborative platform software."

To get things working, the concept is something like this: if you want your music (or bits) published - not just music, though 90 per cent is music - you need to make a page on the wiki. Creating a web-page here is a simple indeed task, just as on any other wiki. (Wiki's are collaborative tools which allow anyone to Yourself. The wiki combines this with extreme ease of use.) "It's a wiki that's completely open. We do help, and have meetings with every artist. But some did it without even contacting anyone from egoboo.bits," says Marcell.

By publishing on that web-site the musician accepts that for the first three years, they will use GNU/GPL (the GNU General Public License, a popular license used by many in the Free Software world). "Even though we knew the software-oriented license is not suitable for music, we use it as a symbolic gesture to show what kind of values and movement we see as our inspiration and context where we belong," says Marcell.

>From January 2005, this team however officially launched Creative Commons Croatia. Creative Commons is a network seen as more suited for sharing of creative work, including writing, music, film and more. "Now it's attribution, share-alike, creative commons license. We have some 30 artistes, video, music. I consider myself one of the artists too, and have been writing articles, preparing readers, probably writing a book with another guy," he says. "It works as an interdisciplinary collective."

The Republic of Croatia is in Europe and borders the Mediterranean, Central Europe and the Balkans. Its capital is Zagreb. In recent history, it was a republic of Yugoslavia. Croatia is situated between central, southern and eastern Europe, because it has a rather peculiar shape that resembles a crescent or a horseshoe. This accounts for its many neighbours: Slovenia, Hungary, Serbian part of Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegrin part of Serbia and Montenegro, and Italy across the Adriatic.

Croatia has a population of just 4.5 million. It's a country in transition. "Ex-Yugoslavia switched from lite socialism to the worst capitalism. What we have as a legacy from socialism is corruption, and the from capitalism we get the gap between rich and poor," says Marcell.

He believes some of the successes of the artists and label in general is unique in the world. "We had video clips as Number 1 for a couple of weeks on the Top 10 like on national TV by a group called zvukbroda ('Two Friends'). Other artistes like 'No Name No Fame' had been on the most popular radio station as Number 1, and won the equivalent of Croatia's Grammy for the best debutantes.

So here's the Big Question: how does allowing your music to be freely copied actually help, if you're an artiste?

"Yes it works. Some aspects work in the short term, while others in the long term. One thing is sure, a lot of that music is created because of love for it. Some of our artistes are making money - mainly by jigs, by playing live. Publishing on the EGOBOO.bits label gives them a name, and helps to build contacts. Our goal is to find alternate ways of supporting their creative production, though not through the mainstream way (of selling uncopyable music)" says Marcell.

Those artists are recognised as high quality electronic music artists.

For most, all forms of electronic music is almost the same. But this comes in a rainbow range. At egoboo.bits they're more into eclectic Hip Hop, Down Beat, Down Tempo or also House, Deep House, Tech House.

Would this kind of counter-intuitive marketing actually work for other genres of music? Marcell explains: "It works for other genres also. We had a festival just before I came here. It was the most successful project we ever had. There were really lot of people. People started to talk about the Creative Commons. I'm quite sure for the next year we'll have guitar band event which creates Creative Commons music."

For a long time musicians like these simply put out their creative work under 'I don't care' corporate notices. But at the current stage of the evolution of the law, there are regulation saying 'I don't care' actually means 'I control', and that means 'I allow police, army, globalisation forces and others instruments of power to force people and regulate intellectual property - not just music - in in a very forceful way', he argues.

Says Marcell: "We want to be mainstream. We want our artists to live from their music. We're not soldiers from any ideological war, but stand quite strongly with values like sharing, non-hierarchy, freedom of speech and all the others."

Marcell does believe that there should be some level of protecting people's intellectual work, and man should find some ways of supporting creativity in society. But this will not happen by making huge inflexible systems which support just global capital and multinational companies in the field of entertainment, games or any other field where intellectual property is the commodity.

Says he: "I think the best leader in the world is Brazil with prominent musician Gilberto Gil as its minister of culture. He's also promoting such ideas. Besides, Brazil is a big country, and it helps if they take the first step. They will probably set up some kind of good ground for small countries like Croatia and others. That's the way how to get some `attention for your creativity when you're not a rich or from Hollywood."

24 In the Philippines: doing a watchdog's role

When the watchmen are asleep, then it's time to set some other mechanism in place. That's just what a band of journalists in the Philippines has managed to do, by setting up what they call Philippine Centre for Investigative Journalism.

It's actually a non-profit independent media agency, specialising in investigative reporting. "We were set up in 1989 by nine Filipino journalists, who realised the need for newspapers and broadcast agencies to go beyond just day-to-day reportage," says Alexander "Alecks" P Pabico, the 37-year-old online manager and training director of the Centre. He comes from Quezon City in the Philippines.

For the background, the Republic of the Philippines is an island nation consisting of an archipelago of 7,107 islands, lying in the tropical western Pacific Ocean about 100 kilometers southeast of mainland Asia.

Pabico, visiting India recently for a conference, is part of the network - www.pcij.org - and has trained scores of Filipino and Southeast Asian journalists, journalism educators and campus writers in the areas of investigative reporting, computer-assisted journalism and newspaper design.

"The Centre believes that the media plays a crucial role in strengthening democratic institutions. But in doing so, the media should provide citizens with the basis at arriving at informed opinions and decisions," says Pabico, who has also co-authored a book titled 'The Electronic Trail: Computer-Assisted Research and Reporting in the Philippines'.

How does he see Philippines and its media morph in the decades after the Marcos dictatorship? Says he: "Institutionalising democracy in the Philippines is ongoing work, not only for the media but also for its citizens. For the media, there is still the crucial role of continuing to demand access to information not only for themselves but for the public and the citizens. This would translate into a greater demand for transparency and accountability on the part of government."

So how does the PCIJ actually operate?

They're funded by donors. Since they don't have their own newspapers, their investigative stories are sent to all the newspapers, and it's the prerogative of the editors of these newspapers to use the story or not.

"Most of the time, our stories get published because of the different, public agenda we pursue, as compared to the mainstream media. In some newspapers, they don't regularly use the stories we do anymore, because they have developed their own investigative reporting teams. That, in itself, is a victory for the Centre too, in helping to imbibe a culture of investigative report in the Philippine media," says Pabico.

So what is the focus on? Mainly their stories deal with corruption in government, and whenever possible in private institutions or business institutions.

In the last year, this Centre made popular the use of 'lifestyle checks' on Internal Revenue and Customs officials. On the basis of the statements of their assets and liabilities that these public officials submit, the PCIJ tries to investigate whether these declarations are true or not in terms of the houses they own, the cars they drive, their memberships in exclusive clubs or organisations. Often, that somehow does not jibe with what they declare as their net worth.

The Centre became famous for the investigations of the ousted President Joseph 'Erap' Estrada in around 2000. "We were the first ones to expose his alleged unexplained wealth, the way he was building mansions left and right for his mistresses, and the number of companies he was still in when the law required he divested his interests in these corporations," says Pabico.

As a result of the investigations they did, Estrada was the first President to be impeached in Congress. Part of the cases revolved around the stories the PCIJ did on unexplained wealth, hidden mansions and the corporation link. While the impeachment trial never reached its finality, and eventually lead to the People's Power revolt that forced him to resign, Estrade is now in detention, and his 'plunder case' is being tried in court, Pabico suggests.

PCIJ has a staff of 14, five of whom are journalists who regularly write reports. Pabico's own background is unusual; he took up architecture studies in university. But he also dabbled in writing during his campus days, eventually becoming editor-in-chief of the University of the Philippines publication, 'Philippine Collegian'.

Of the nine founders, one - Sheila Coronel - is currently executive director. Another is now serving with government.

Has the PCIJ, in turn, inspired other groups? Says Pabico: "I'm not so sure, but we were founders of this new alliance, the South East Asian Press Alliance some four years ago. It is a regional venue for journalists and one of the main focus is on advocating for press freedom and free expressing the press."

What would he see as the main problems plaguing the Filipino press today?

Says he: "There's too much commercialism in terms of the news coverage. Reporting is dictated largely by commercial interest. The ratings-game is also reflected in print, by the way of sensationalised reporting is being resorted to.|

Pabico also feels there's still a need for training and professionalism on the part of journalists. Right now though there has been an increasing number of people going into the trade, coming from a communication and journalism background. But still a lot training needed in terms of new technologies. "And of course, there's the problem with ethics and ethical violations or transgressions. The media is not free from corruption. This was particularly true in the last elections in 2004 May," adds Pabico.

For their part, the PCIJ has three to four training programmes in a year, focussing mainly on investigative journalism. "We also go out to the region, beyond our country, to address the training needs of local and regional journalists," adds Pabico.

25 Building bridges, non-profits and geeks

By Frederick Noronha

Stephanie Hankey of the UK believes that non-profit organisations needs a healthier relationship with technology. She spent seven years on working out the relationship between NGOs and technology. For her, the seven year itch, if you want to call it that, resulted in an ambitious event at Bangalore - India's wannabee Silicon Valley. She was one of the main organisers of this 'camp', held recently to build bridges between non-profits and Free Software.

Hankey and her team also undertake consultancy work. They are advisors to the Soros Foundation in about 20 projects. She herself comes from an information design background, ran a magazine and worked in multimedia. After studies in the Royal College of Arts where she studied computer design, Hankey designed an interface for social software. Her graduation project was an information system for journalists working in conflict zones.

Brighton-based Hankey was based in Amsterdam till four months ago. Tactical Tech (http://www.tacticaltech.org) is registered in Netherlands, and has some of its activities in Poland, and some in UK.

The almost-frail 31-year-old British information designer, creative director and producer narrates what lead to this Asia Source event, and where she sees the marriage between the geeks and non-profits going.

FN: To start with, could you tell us where your work started, what lead you to co-found Tactical Tech (http://www.tacticaltech.org) and where it is now headed?

Both co-founder Marek Tuszynski (of Poland) and I started Tactical Tech, after both worked for the project of the (George Soros-founded) OSI Technology Support for Civil Society of the Soros Foundation.

We felt there was a need for somebody to look specifically at the Open Source-NGO area in the developing countries. Also there was the need for a group to be working at the level of connecting people across different regions.

FN: So what's your focus?

What we organise around is right-based work or social justice work. Perhaps the only other group doing similar work is the Association of Progressive Communicators, but with a different style of working and different perspective. We got funding from the Soros Foundation.

For us, the first thing we put together was the Summer Source camp, which we did in Croatia in 2003. We were able to bring together a number of people there. So many had been working on the ground; we tried to bring all people together, whom we thought were interesting.

FN: Why do you see a gap there?

For our part, the main gap we see is that there is lots of talk between technology and NGOs but very little work at the practical level. Conferences are there, but nobody knows on the ground how to implement it.

We always saw that gap as being needed to be countered with a very practical, hands-on work at the grassroots level. We thought we knew the people with the expertise, and that's why we thought of doing Summer Source.

It was far more successful than expected it to be. We were then asked by computer programmer Kwindla Kramer, the CTO of allafrica.com, who had just been a facilitator, to do a similar camp in Africa. We said we'd do if had an African partner. We got Schoolnet Namibia (a project to take Free/Libre and Open Source Software to the students of that country) and Joris Komen. So we got together for it.

FN: What was the experience there?

What we discovered is that the Open Source community and the Non-Government Organisations are not connected. Nobody knows each other. There have been a lot of African developers reaching out to Europe and US, but not really to each other (within Africa).

It was really hard to find African facilitators. We just didn't know who those people were. So we made Africa Source, much smaller (than Asia Source). There were some 50-60 participants.

Our intention was to get people to meet each other, and also help find facilitators and partners. That's why, for instance, we've brought in some people who were at the Africa camp here, like FLOSS evangelist Wire Lunghabo James of Uganda.

FN: If you were asked to list the three biggest problems in NGOs adopting cost-friendly and politically-correct FLOSS tools, what would you list?

Even if NGOs want to use Open Source Software, they don't have anybody around to give that kind of support. If they had the money they would go in for proprietorial software. So, there's the sheer lack of technical support. That's one of the major stumbling block that needs to be addressed.

Connected to that, those people who do know about Open Source, (and those in Open Source) don't know how to go to the process of marketing that. Convincing NGOs (about the benefits of FLOSS) is the way to go. Rather do things like throwing them into the deep end of the pool, where they simply can't survive.

Third is the need for basic awareness raising. What the selling point? Why do we want to use it? In some countries it's much easier to start with Open Source, specially when there is no entrenched computing tradition, for instance Tajikstan. In other cases you have to make a very solid case, so it's very difficult. As more Open Source applications come into the market, rather than just distributions, it will filter into the NGO sector.

FN: What is the message you're passing on to NGOs? What are you encouraging them to look at?

We try to look at issues beyond just migration (to FLOSS, or Free/Libre and Open Source Software)). We've also been focussing on open publishing, video, audio and localisation. We've had a session on FLOSS and disabilities, for instance.

FN: In terms of the 'NGO In A Box' product, which tries to introduce NGOs to Free Software, what exactly is this package of yours meant to be?

We're trying to make it a stand-alone product. It's a collection of Free and Open Source Software that would be useful to deploy for an NGO. We are working to have it localised and make it appropriate for each region.

We need to look at how information is handled within an NGO, and look at the full cycle. From collecting information, to seeing it efficiently stored and shared, taking care of security issues, and how you analyse it, to end up making information understandable to people. Basically, this means having information - rather than technology - as the core focus with dealing with an NGO.

By talking about technology alone you're never going to get to a lot of NGO people, because it terrifies them. Putting information first and foremost, it makes things much more accessible. If technology is a piece of that larger part, then it's fine.

FN: What do you see as the stumbling blocks in the adoption of FLOSS by NGOs?

Even with technology people, Open Source had a big image maybe a couple of years ago. Still, you have a lot of people saying its not ready yet. They saw it two years ago and they forgot all about it. They need to be convinced that it has changed a lot over a short period of time, and you need to be sure what you're talking about.

The other aspect is obvious: in a lot of countries we work in, software is 'free' (in the sense of being free of charge). That's because of 'piracy'.

When proprietorial firms like Microsoft cracks down on license, it becomes easy, and they want alternatives. Take the case of Bulgaria. There, the government did a deal with Microsoft, and in return started to crack down on licenses for NGOs. We worked with a group which realised that if everybody in the NGO sector had to buy a license for the software it would cost $2 million for the sector.

FN: How do you see countries like India, and their NGO sector?

We're still finding out. We're learning all the time. We'd love to think that India can play quite an interesting role for us too in the future. What we would like to see India as a good resource to draw upon to advance similar projects in other countries.

Other countries too like Philippines, leaped forward in NGO area and information areas. Lot of problems in Africa are very similar to those here, though very strong difference too. You have a very talented tech sector, and dynamic NGO scene.

FN: How do you see your work fitting into the wider priorities of the Soros Foundation?

They work on the policy and practical levels. On the policy level, I can't say. On the practical level, I think at the beginning they wanteto see what would happen. Philosophically, Free and Open Source Software is very connected to their interests (and the Open Society initiative). They're connected to openness. They want that process (of wider adoption of FLOSS) to be kick-started. So therefore fund event s like this.

They do policy but also promote some open source tool-sets.

>From a strategic point of view, if you're into funding, Open Source is a really fast way of making contacts (and having a wider impact in attaining your goals). People connected with Free and Open Source Software are usually aligned with social belief systems. Thought it's not a rule.

We went to the Middle East and, in a couple of days, got 20 names of people to meet, because of the networks that already exist (in the FLOSS world).

FN: What do you see as being able to achieve by bringing two diverse sets of people together, geeks and non-profits?

We wanted to bring NGO people together with the technology people. What we found is that you get extremely talented 19-year-old hacker who wants to build a system for human rights activist. But he has no idea what he needs, because he's never met one. It's not just a question of teaching the NGO people about technology, but it's a big reverse.

26 Some FLOSS links. From Asia

Meet these good people, and their ventures. At least virtually! Warning: some of the links might be only distantly related to the field of FLOSS.

* http://www.khmeros.info Making Cambodia "a country that does not have to change to a new language in order to use computers!" This page is linked to the work of Hok Kakada (20), Javier Sola, Keo Sophon (24) among others.

For other Cambodia sites, visit

* http://www.forum.org.kh Open Forum of Cambodia * http://www.cambodiacic.org Community Information Centre project * http://www.nida.gov.kh/ National ICT Development Authority * http://www.itm.edu.kh/ The varsity where Rapid Sun (a young graduate who passed out in 2001) teaches Linux-Apache-MySQL-PhP and related technologies.

* http://www.internux.net.id This is Adi Nugroho's Internet Service Provider in Indonesia. Adi is the guy who built Indonesia's first only-GNU/Linux cybercafe at the remote region of Makassar, some 1400 kms from Jakarta.

http://linux2.arinet.org Fajar Priyanto (Indonesia) keeps his Indonesian GNU/Linux tutorial site here. Fajar is a convert from proprietorial software to FLOSS fan.

And, at the risk of sounding arrogant by linking to myself, here are some of this blogger's links:

* http://ilug-goa.swiki.net ILUG-Goa, a local user group * http://linuxinindia.pitas.com Links to FLOSS in India * http://wikiwikiweb.de/LugsList Listing of user groups

Here's some useful links to Indic localisation guru G Karunakar:

* http://www.indlinux.org IndLinux Project, check it out * http://www.indlinux.org/wiki/ Wiki for the above project * http://cartoonsoft.com/blog ("Just a personal blog. You need not put it there," says GK.)

Indian Plone ace (and many things more) Kiran "Jace" Jonnalgadda's:

* http://jace.seacrow.com/me

Another localisation guru (and many things more, despite the young age) Sayamindu Dasgupta's links:

* http://www.peacefulaction.org/sayamindu/ His home page. * http://wlinux.ods.org/GNOME-2.6/ One of his often-Slashdotted Gnome reviews. * http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings/index.php Sayamindu's weekend hacker's blog * http://sayamindu.randomink.org/ramblings/index.php?p=124 His blog from Asia Source.

This is Sunil Abraham's NGO-dressed-as-a-company offering FLOSS-based solutions to NGOs:

* http://www.mahiti.org

Sarai is a Delhi-based organisation that has been giving fellowships to geeks working on FLOSS.

* http://www.sarai.net

Malaysian young guru Colin Charles - currently studying in Melbourne - has his website below. He's experienced with the Fedora Project and OpenOffice.org, and has authored on lulu.com books on Fedora Core: Made Simple and OpenOffice.org: Made Simple

* http://www.bytebot.net

Jaclyn 'Jac' Kee Siew Min of Malaysia is with the Association of Progressive Communicators and other women's groups. FLOSS-linked in many ways is the APC:

* http://www.apcwomen.org

APDIP is linked to IOSN.net (the International Open Source Network), and, in turn, Seow Yoke May is linked to APDIP (she's the webmaster - or webmistress, rather - there).

* http://www.apdip.net A UNDP body * http://www.iosn.net International Open Source Network, good primers related to various aspects of FLOSS.

Khin Mi Mi Aung is from Myanmar (based in Korea, for her PhD) and offers this LUG link

* http://www.myanmarlug.org

Kuma Raj Subedi "Kamal" from Nepal is a great narrator. Earlier connected to the Ganesha Project of taking GNU/Linux to a Nepali school.

* http://ganeshas-project.org

http://opart.org/svcs (Silicon Village)

Sufyan Kakakhel of Pakistan is part of the Open Source Resource Centre in Pakistan and founded an Open Source iinix Solutions company

* http://www.osrc.org.pk * http://www.iinix.com

And Dong Calmada is the vice president of the Philipine Linux Users Group, for external affairs. And do point to any links that might have got inadvertently left out.

About this document ...

On the wrong side of the digital divide...

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