Tux Watch

Thanks to our friends from the UNDP-APDIP-IOSN International Open Source Network’s ASEAN+3 Node in the Philippines [here] who only recently organized the Asia Source 2 FOSS Camp in Indonesia [here] have produced a CD Package, filled with useful FOSS based free business applications titled SME-in-a-Box. I was lucky enough to be there and recieve a copy of the CD the content of which I will now be sharing through TuxWatch.org exclusively for our readers.

“SME-in-a-Box�? is a toolkit designed to meet the specialized needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) based on Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). The aim is to provide a selection of peer-reviewed software and material, which help businesses to grow. SME-in-a-Box leverages the power of FOSS for social and economic development. The collection comprises of software and manuals for general use of SMEs in their daily operations and management. Online links for each application will be conveniently included on this website directing the end-user to relevant websites and thus, gaining quick access to both downloades and advanced technical documentations and case studies.

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According to the Red Hat Website [here], the Swedish Armed Forces have made the decision to migrate their servers from Windows NT to Red Hat Enterprise Linux thus replacing Windows NT with Red Hat Enterprise Linux across its core IT infrastructure. The decision by Swedish authorities is driven by security considerations.

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How can you make money off of FOSS?
The easiest is selling FOSS. Be sure to explain to customers that it’s a matter of freedom, not price. Distributing this book with the software might be a good idea. Remember that if the software’s under the GGPL and you distribute binaries, you must include the source with the binaries and/or offer the source separate. You could also write free documentation and sell that. The same things in the above paragraph apply here.

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Thanks to TuxMachine [here], I came accross some very interesting links showing Microsoft’s attempts to interfere with the FOSS and Linux movement and possibly conquer it by:

1. Microsoft’s CodePlex [here] is an attempt to become FSF’s Savannah or SourceForge.net but if you go through their terms and conditions, you will be amazed how they treat Intellectual Property Rights. I hope the developers joing this site have a good eyesight vision, hey how many fingers are these?

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“FOSS A General Introduction” serves as an introduction to various aspects and dimensions of FOSS issues, including, FOSS in education, FOSS and government policy, localization, open standards and licensing. This book has been donated to Wikibooks by the International Open Source Network (IOSN) [here] and the UNDP Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme (UNDP-APDIP) [here].

The Wikibook gives a detailed introduction to FOSS, presents various FOSS Success Stories, discusses Linux, Intellectual Property Rights and Licensing, covers Localization and Internationalization of software and has a Glossary and list of various FOSS Licenses in its annextures. Wikibooks [here] is an open-content textbooks collection initiative and contains information and knowledge on a number of other areas of great importance.

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Part- 4. India Plays “IT” Big

Further adding to local FOSS Ecosystem development initiatives in India, the Indian state of Tamil Nadu has been making headlines [here ] the world over as the state goes for FOSS due to concerns over security and the high costs that Microsoft offers for Windows. The Indian state is not new to FOSS as the local government been running Red Hat Linux on various backend servers coupled with JBoss application server and PostgreSQL databases.

Mr. C.Umashankar the Managing Director, Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (Elcot is a state-owned IT supplier) has clearly announced that

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Part- 3. India Plays “IT” Open

India has been very prominent on the FOSS world news bulletins due to the fact that with one of the largest populations in the world, the country has been on preference list for Information Technology and Software Business Process Outsourcing for the western or developed world. Adding to this, almost every major FOSS development corporation has either Research and Development center in India as well as country operations including giant brand names like Red Hat, Novell, IBM etc. In India, the Center for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) [here ] has been leading FOSS initiatives in the country.

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Part- 2. Pakistan Brings Nation Closer To Realization

To take FOSS efforts to the next level in Pakistan, the Government initiated a project worth Rs29 million titled “Open Source Resource Center” (OSRC) [here] was established at the through the Ministry of IT’s [here] implementation arm the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) [here] in January 2004 in Islamabad to facilitates stake holders and investors in the software industry, should they decide to shift their businesses from vendor-dependent proprietary software to open source software technology. It aims to create a culture of open source software use in Pakistan through media awareness and training workshops, and act as a virtual community for experts in this field.

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Part- I. Realizing True Potential

Readers on this side of the world may not be aware of some very interesting ICT and FOSS developments taking place in the various regions of Asia. First of all, there are many FOSS initiatives that are very active within the overall region adding value to the global FOSS movement. These regional or country level initiatives include organizations and groups like:

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Ever heard of NGO-in-a-box?

Well, if you haven’t, then you’ve been missing a lot of useful and important tools from the world of Linux and FOSS. NGO-in-a-box has been putting together a box loaded with peer reviewed and selected FOSS tools, tailored to the needs of nonprofits. It empowers nonprofits with software and provides documentation including materials that fits implementation scenarios. These boxes are

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