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...of the BASIC interpreter written in TeX

...three years ago. I decided to finish my education before getting involved in something real.

Everything modded highly above so far is good and there's no point repeating it, so I will just mention the Indian stuff. :P

Problems

1. Indian institutes pick up developments like C++/STL etc a bit too slowly so you will have to work that out for yourself unless you are from a lucky place.
2. We Indians typically don't learn any real world toolkit/framework/library. It is only very large projects like the kernel and subversion that don't rely on toolkits/frameworks etc. A smaller, entry level project, say like some small game or something will typically use a framework/toolkit of some sort. If you don't know even one of these then it is extremely difficult to get started. Though once you know one you can pick up on others over time.
3. Too few mentors.

Solutions

1. Read wikipedia and its discussion pages on the language of your choice. You will know what you are missing. Learn that up. And if you were not taught STL, please pick it up if you want to proceed with C++. Ask your doubts on irc. IRc works once you figure out stuff like "Don't ask if I can ask", etc!
2. Try one of these -
   • Pick up some toolkit of your choice for example, in C++, you could choose something from QT, GTK, ncurses, SDL, etc. Now find a project that uses these and is both small and interesting and follow the slashdot advice.
   • Find the project first and then learn the corresponding toolkit. This is slightly more difficult for things like C++ etc.
3. 1. NOSIP
   2. Join your local LUG and attend it's meetings.
   3. Redhat too has a summer internship program in India I think. At least they did 3 years ago.

4. Perhaps I should add a proper detailed howto for Indians on my home page sometime. Anyway, good luck!

   Oh and also check out Sarovar along with sourceforge. (I am not affiliated with Sarovar or anything, btw.)

Interesting, because I always thought that GNOME looked closer to OSX and KDE looked closer to XP.

There are a variety of very good Open Solaris distros now:

Belenix: http://belenix.sarovar.org/belenix_download.html/

Polaris, Solaris for PowerPC: http://www.blastware.org/

Nexenta, the Solaris/Ubuntu mix: http://www.gnusolaris.org/gswiki/Nexenta_OS/

And of course you can go straight to the official Open Solaris Communities page here: http://www.opensolaris.org/os/communities/;jsessio nid=6E46815A1C5CC33AC6470A9439DABAA6#all/

Fight IBM FUD with Open Solaris Fact.

Playfair - http://sarovar.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=474

I was talking about the tool itself - and I don't think its OSX only. Sarovar hosts GNU projects, and I remember seeing something about its use on Linux and *nix systems. Couldn't be bothered to google when commenting!!

Linux has long since cross the threshold where a typical user (an enthusiast perhaps, but not a hacker) can drop a CD into a typical desktop machine and get a working, internet-connected workstation. OpenSolaris isn't even close yet.

There's the BeleniX LiveCD which includes a Gnome desktop. Drop it into a typical desktop machine and get a working, Internet-connected workstation.

It Pays To Read The Article! Yay!

At least with iTunes once you've bought a track, you've paid for it. Who really cares what you do with it after. Everyone is getting their slice of the action.

Uhm, yeah. As long as you don't mind being stuck with an Apple and Sony only MP3 player.

Then there's their little tizzy over PlayFair

'Cause life is all about choices.

"The only OSS tool authored by an Indian located in India is Anjuta (the programming IDE for gnome). Know of any others ?"

Dude, there's no way that could be the only one. Check this out. I haven't looked through it a whole lot myself, but I'm sure you'll find a bunch more Indian OSS projects there.

Teach Yourself Programming in 10 years by Peter Norvig has always been the all time favorite. I think every budding programming to read it.


-http://uthcode.sarovar.org

Some of the volunteers of the Indian Linux Project, along with team members of a few other South Asian Linux localization projects are trying to get Linux running on a low cost Geode based system. Join the indlinux-group mailing list if you are interested in helping out. The latest Indlinux Newsletter mentions this effort briefly.

btw, according to GForge list, we are 9th biggest public GForge site.

raj

The DirectPCR is the best solution if you really want something with the power and cool factor of the now-defunct XMPCR (no I don't have any business relationship, I'm just an XMFan regular and have been following developments). As for "hack factor" at least three separate people or groups have separately done the XMDirect protocol translation. If you have the right equipment, it's probably about an afternoon's work - just hook up two serial monitors side by side and dump away. So there isn't that much hack cred to speak of in this. Furthermore, if you're comfortable with a soldering iron, you can trivially build an XMPCR-compatible unit out of a SkyFi with a DB9 header, a MAX232, and an optical adapter board.

For more detailed info, search around on XMFan.com. As far as getting an official product that can do this, the RIAA is the one the put the clamp down on the XMPCR in the first place, so it's pretty unlikely you'll see official PCR-like hardware again from XM, and Sirius likewise probably won't do it anytime soon.

Anyway, I don't really know why you'd want to do this with FM (well, maybe you can't get up for Howard Stern, or you always miss your favorite NPR show...), but the XM content, music and talk, is quite good. And you can get Open Source software like PCRCommander that will record individual music tracks, timeshift programs, etc. The 10 bucks a month I spend on XM is well, well worth it.

...can be found on sarovar.org... it's one of the biggest public GForge sites out there.

playfair is licensed under the GPL, but links to mp4v2 which is licensed under the MPL. The MPL is not GPL compatible. The developer of playfair could easily rectify this by changing the license of his code to MPL.

You will agree that no site hosting open source / free projects can
support programs of this sort, which are in contravention of the law and
undermine the intellectual property rights of the owners.

According to Trivandrum Linux Users Group Tri(G)LUG Sarovar.org Admins are supposed to talk on their monthly meeting scheduled today. The site says "In this meeting we will have freewheeling discussions. Sarovar.org Admins will talk on slashdotting of Sarovar.org (which happened twice in a week's time) and PlayFair-related issues."

According to Trivandrum Linux Users Group Tri(G)LUG Sarovar.org Admins are supposed to talk on their monthly meeting scheduled today. The site says "In this meeting we will have freewheeling discussions. Sarovar.org Admins will talk on slashdotting of Sarovar.org (which happened twice in a week's time) and PlayFair-related issues."

According to Trivandrum Linux Users Group Tri(G)LUG Sarovar.org Admins are supposed to talk on their monthly meeting scheduled today. The site says "In this meeting we will have freewheeling discussions. Sarovar.org Admins will talk on slashdotting of Sarovar.org (which happened twice in a week's time) and PlayFair-related issues."

Apple's FairPlay DRM is already cracked! Why strike a deal for an impotent solution?

It seems to me that the DMCA is not working the way that the Media big boys thought it would. Back when DeCSS was released, the MPAA took all kinds of legal action under the DMCA and won, at least in court. Even though the MPAA "won", they lost in the end. I can find DeCSS (and newer programs that were developed from it) all over the Net. The legal action gave DeCSS all of the publicity it would ever need -- and not just in the Geek community.

We are seeing the same thing now with Playfair. What will Apple invoking the DMCA accomplish? It has just given Playfair a big publicity boost that it would not have otherwise had. I'm not saying that Playfair would have remained obscure if Apple had remained quiet, but the end result is lots of publicity not only for Playfair, but also for Sarovar. Even if Sarovar eventually takes down the Playfair site, the Playfair program will be available all over the Internet.
It is time to get rid of the DMCA and any other DMCA time laws. All they do is create more "crimes" instead of solving any copyright problems that big Media think they have. Programs like DeCSS and Playfair have legitimate uses that do not constitute a copyright violation under fair use and there are already laws that cover copyright infringement.

...in 4 days playfair has gone to second place on their download counter. Jeepers.

Sarovar will be moving higher on the list of GForge sites pretty soon... they're # 12 currently...

I am the playfair author. Yes, it was a C&D from Apple. The kind folks at sarovar.org have agreed to host the project, as it does not violate any Indian laws. The C&D from Apple will be posted to the website when it's back up at sarovar.org.

To clarify:

1. The DRMS code was written by VLC folks. I just used their code and two libaries (mp4ff and mp4v2) to create a nice, easy-to-use program. I did NOT reverse-engineer FairPlay.
2. I think $0.99 is a fair price, too. I just (a) philosophically disagree with DRM and (b) want to be able to play the songs that I have legally purchased outside of iTunes / Quicktime. For the record, I do not use P2P networks to share files illegally.
3. The DMCA is an abomination. Please write your congresspeople and ask them to repeal it.

I am the playfair author. Yes, it was a C&D from Apple. The kind folks at sarovar.org have agreed to host the project, as it does not violate any Indian laws. The C&D from Apple will be posted to the website when it's back up at sarovar.org.

To clarify:

1. The DRMS code was written by VLC folks. I just used their code and two libaries (mp4ff and mp4v2) to create a nice, easy-to-use program. I did NOT reverse-engineer FairPlay.
2. I think $0.99 is a fair price, too. I just (a) philosophically disagree with DRM and (b) want to be able to play the songs that I have legally purchased outside of iTunes / Quicktime. For the record, I do not use P2P networks to share files illegally.
3. The DMCA is an abomination. Please write your congresspeople and ask them to repeal it.

Hmmm... the CVS repository is empty...

The project has been moved here:

http://sarovar.org/projects/playfair/

Though nothing has yet been posted to it, the author posted on MacSlash that the C&D order from Apple will be posted - and will be continued as long as there is no violation of Indian law.

We have been using an application I wrote some for a couple years that has pretty much everything asked for except for the voice communication for that we use ventrillio. I setup a site seeing there was a demand for such an app and released it under the GPL. There are a couple things missing but over the next few days they will be added in.

check it out at: http://soulcli.sarovar.org/

I'm running Mozilla Foxfire on Luit Linux 0.2 now, a remaster of Damn Small Linux , a cut-down version of Knoppix. Since I am running off the cd, I doubt any virus could get into my box and do damage. Correct me if I am wrong.

As an Indian undergrad student who believes that salvation of comp sci. lies only in free/open software, my answer to that question will be that, in India the majority of the population is poor, at least as compared to international standards. We are as good programmers as those in any part of the world but the major difference lies in the kind of resources that we have and the lack of financial support to undertake open source projects. Most of us would rather grab the job that comes first in our sight and work on it, rather than wait for the ones most of us dream of.

As for the `idea of free knowledge exchange', ofcourse it is widely supported by most Indian programmers, atleast those who haven't entered the `Gates' of hell. Sarovar is one of India's contributions to the FLOSS world. A sourceforge.net clone that provides hosting for Free/Open Source Software projects.

emKnoppix was concived exactly for this purpose. One disadvantage of source distributions is that if their are bugs in say ssh, you are forced to apply patches and update. But if you follow a good distro like debian, the patches are all there, well tested. So emknoppix uses debian as the main distro and builds a compressed disk image which you can boot using a kernel, just like knoppix.

Even though name is emknoppox this is not a run from CD distro, the /etc is stored in hard disl (or flash or disk on chip) and stays put after reboot.

The url is http://emknoppix.sarovar.org and I am the author :-)

raj

...can be found here.

Yet another GForge installation!