V. Sasi Kumar | 3 Jan 2004 05:08

Gedit does not recognise Stallman

Gedit has a spellcheck (I think recently added). Strangely, it does not
recognise the word Stallman!
--

-- 
V. Sasi Kumar <vsasi@...>
CESS
Annamalai Gurusami | 6 Jan 2004 11:54

Re: Gedit does not recognise Stallman

"V. Sasi Kumar" <vsasi@...> writes:

> Gedit has a spellcheck (I think recently added). Strangely, it does
> not recognise the word Stallman!

But then 'Stallman' is a proper noun.  It is not a word that you will
find in a dictionary.  Hence no spell checker will recognize it.  Its
not strange.

Rgds,
anna

--

-- 

Time-stamp: <2004-01-02 11:03:20 annamalai.gurusami>

"Free for All offers as thorough and engaging an account of the
open-source movement--and the pitfalls in its path--as readers are
likely to find anywhere."-- Damien MacClean for Amazon.com.

                http://www.wayner.org/books/ffa/
V. Sasi Kumar | 6 Jan 2004 12:43

Re: Gedit does not recognise Stallman

On Tue, 2004-01-06 at 16:24, Annamalai Gurusami wrote:
> "V. Sasi Kumar" <vsasi@...> writes:
> 
> > Gedit has a spellcheck (I think recently added). Strangely, it does
> > not recognise the word Stallman!
> 
> But then 'Stallman' is a proper noun.  It is not a word that you will
> find in a dictionary.  Hence no spell checker will recognize it.  Its
> not strange.

Most dictionaries recognise a number of proper nouns. In this case, for
instance, it does recognise Richard.

--

-- 
V. Sasi Kumar <vsasi@...>
CESS
V. Sasi Kumar | 6 Jan 2004 13:18

CSIR uses only Microsoft

The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, an autonomous
organisation under the Govt. of India, is a leading agency of the GoI
involved in scientific and industrial research, and publication of
scientific material. They run several journals related to different
branches of science and technology. I found that they ask for manuscript
in MS Word format. No other format is acceptable to them, including
text, pdf, TeX, and, interestingly, RTF. I wrote a letter to them
pointing out that they were forcing people to buy software that they may
not need otherwise (even people who are using proprietary software may
have other word processors like Lotus WordPro). There was no response
from their side. I was forced to save in Word format from Open Office (I
had originally prepared it in LaTeX), check for consistency in another
computer having Word and send the file. Since this happened after a
prolonged process of screening and final acceptance after almost one
year after I had submitted it, I did not want to pull out. How can we
bring some pressure on CSIR to move to Free Software?

--

-- 
V. Sasi Kumar <vsasi@...>
CESS
eiidp | 10 Jan 2004 14:45
Picon
Picon

Re: CSIR uses only Microsoft

On Tuesday 06 January 2004 17:48, V. Sasi Kumar wrote:

>How can we bring some pressure on CSIR to move to Free Software?

 May be President Abdul Kalam who is convinced of our movement  and having a 
good influence on  CSIR authorities can intervene in this matter. Why don't 
we prepare and submit a mass petition to President and send its copy to CSIR 
authorities and related officers,

Regards,

Anil
Appropriate Technology Promotion Society (ATPS)
V. Sasi Kumar | 11 Jan 2004 14:04

Re: CSIR uses only Microsoft

On Sat, 2004-01-10 at 19:15, eiidp wrote:
> On Tuesday 06 January 2004 17:48, V. Sasi Kumar wrote:
> 
> >How can we bring some pressure on CSIR to move to Free Software?
> 
>  May be President Abdul Kalam who is convinced of our movement  and having a 
> good influence on  CSIR authorities can intervene in this matter. Why don't 
> we prepare and submit a mass petition to President and send its copy to CSIR 
> authorities and related officers,

This may not be a bad idea. I can get some signatures from my institute,
and perhaps a few from other institues also. If there is agreement on
this among the list membes, I can initiate a document.

--

-- 
V. Sasi Kumar <vsasi@...>
CESS
Ramanraj K | 10 Jan 2004 18:14
Picon
Picon

Re: CSIR uses only Microsoft

eiidp wrote:

>> How can we bring some pressure on CSIR to move to Free Software?
>
>
> May be President Abdul Kalam who is convinced of our movement  and 
> having a good influence on  CSIR authorities can intervene in this 
> matter. Why don't we prepare and submit a mass petition to President 
> and send its copy to CSIR authorities and related officers
>
Please visit:
http://presidentofindia.nic.in/
NIC runs our President's site on a Microsoft server.  NIC uses Apache on 
some of its servers, and I am sure it could use free software to run the 
servers that serve our President, knowing well about his open views on 
the software that is suitable for our country.  We also need to request 
NIC to use free software and also acknowledge its use when used in its 
sites.

Reg: CSIR
http://www.csir.res.in
http://www.csir.res.in/infomain.cfm
http://www.csir.res.in/csirsite/alldiam/wdiamond.htm

The CSIR is doing valuable serious research, but their work could shine 
better and reach a wider audience through free software.   At 
infomain.cfm I found that CSIR has authored several software programs. 
What platforms are they written for?  Would it not be better if such 
scientific software is released to the public as free software?  Why are 
the web designers at CSIR using such heavy graphics and amatuer gimmics 
(Continue reading)

V. Sasi Kumar | 11 Jan 2004 14:22

Re: CSIR uses only Microsoft

On Sat, 2004-01-10 at 22:44, Ramanraj K wrote:

> The CSIR is doing valuable serious research, but their work could shine 
> better and reach a wider audience through free software.   At 
> infomain.cfm I found that CSIR has authored several software programs. 
> What platforms are they written for?  Would it not be better if such 
> scientific software is released to the public as free software?  Why are 
> the web designers at CSIR using such heavy graphics and amatuer gimmics 
> that make it difficult to navigate the site?  I would expect a rich 
> content at such a site, and the use of heavy graphics that do not 
> present information in a scientific way are inappropriate for a body 
> like CSIR.  It is important that we prepare a detailed memorandum and 
> send it to all concerned for action.  We will need to send memorandums 
> to the PM also, because he is the President of CSIR.

I think these are very valid points, although there may be a doubt about whether this is the right place to
discuss issues like design of website.

However, it may not be inappropriate to send a memorandum to the CSIR,
the Prime Minister and the President on these issues, especially on the
software developed or used by CSIR. Perhaps we could include a couple of
lines on the design of the website also (in which case there need not be
another memorandum as mentioned in my earlier mail). Would Ramanraj
volunteer to draft such a memorandum?

Regards

--

-- 
V. Sasi Kumar <vsasi@...>
CESS
(Continue reading)

Ramanraj K | 11 Jan 2004 11:41
Picon
Picon

Memorandum to CSIR

  V. Sasi Kumar wrote:

>Would Ramanraj volunteer to draft such a memorandum [to CSIR]?
>
Sure.   We could collect points and prepare a memorandum.  This is 
definitely a step towards promoting use of free software in India, but 
this cannot be treated as an official memorandum of FSF-India, unless 
the FSF Board decides otherwise.

It may be better to discuss this at Fsf-discuss and those interested 
could subscribe to the mailing list at 
http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-discuss .  The obvious reason 
for this is that the postings in this regard while putting together the 
memorandum to CSIR may be long.

Please continue this thread, if it relates to points to be included in 
the the memorandum to CSIR, by posting to fsf-discuss@...

Regards,
Ramanraj.
Annamalai Gurusami | 6 Jan 2004 14:31

Re: CSIR uses only Microsoft

"V. Sasi Kumar" <vsasi@...> writes:

> branches of science and technology. I found that they ask for
> manuscript in MS Word format. No other format is acceptable to them,
> including

Likewise, I always find that employment agencies (or job consultants,
if you prefer that), often ask CV (or resume) in MS Word format.  I
send them a note stating that I don't have MS Word software, but that
I am sending in RTF format, which can be viewed in MS Word.  To my
surprise, most of them reject such resumes.  

Thats a sad reality.  I don't know why such a restriction is being
imposed.  I cannot seem to figure it out.

Rgds,
anna

--

-- 

Time-stamp: <2004-01-02 11:03:20 annamalai.gurusami>

"Free for All offers as thorough and engaging an account of the
open-source movement--and the pitfalls in its path--as readers are
likely to find anywhere."-- Damien MacClean for Amazon.com.

                http://www.wayner.org/books/ffa/
Dileep M. Kumar | 7 Jan 2004 05:05
Picon

Re: CSIR uses only Microsoft

On Tue, Jan 06, 2004 at 07:01:50PM +0530, Annamalai Gurusami wrote:

>>>Thats a sad reality.  I don't  know why such a restriction is being
>>>imposed.  I cannot seem to figure it out.

IAC,  Many companies  use  automated  software to  read  and sort  the
resumes in word  document. Thats why they insist a  job seeker to send
the resume in word format.

This may  be possible using  FS tools also.  

Regards
--

-- 
 .''`.     Dileep M. Kumar <dileep@...>
: :'  :    http://www.kumarayil.net
`. `'`     Mobile: 98474-47437
  `-  Debian GNU/Linux - Choice of the Freedom Lovers
Annamalai Gurusami | 7 Jan 2004 06:35

Re: CSIR uses only Microsoft

"Dileep M. Kumar" <dileep@...> writes:

> IAC, Many companies use automated software to read and sort the
> resumes in word document. Thats why they insist a job seeker to send
> the resume in word format.

[I don't know what IAC is]

I don't think this is even remotely possible.  Unless there is a
specific format in the document (the format of the information), there
is no way to automatically extract any information from all the
different kinds of resumes that comes in.  Look at your resume, and
then look at your friends resume, and see if there is _any_
possibility of extracting information from both of them in a uniform
manner.

Thats why the HR consortium is working on an XML based resume format.

Rgds,
anna

--

-- 

Time-stamp: <2004-01-02 11:03:20 annamalai.gurusami>

"Free for All offers as thorough and engaging an account of the
open-source movement--and the pitfalls in its path--as readers are
likely to find anywhere."-- Damien MacClean for Amazon.com.

                http://www.wayner.org/books/ffa/
(Continue reading)

V. Sasi Kumar | 7 Jan 2004 06:31

Re: CSIR uses only Microsoft

On Wed, 2004-01-07 at 09:35, Dileep M. Kumar wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 06, 2004 at 07:01:50PM +0530, Annamalai Gurusami wrote:
> 
> >>>Thats a sad reality.  I don't  know why such a restriction is being
> >>>imposed.  I cannot seem to figure it out.
> 
> IAC,  Many companies  use  automated  software to  read  and sort  the
> resumes in word  document. Thats why they insist a  job seeker to send
> the resume in word format.

We cannot force private companies not to specify proprietary formats for
such purposes. But our government agencies should not do that. They are
supposed to have some kind of social commitment, accountability and
transparency. The scientific community in India, in general, appears to
have ceased to be concerned with such matters (sorry for having to put
the community of which I myself am part in the docks). Can we think of
some strategy to bring pressure on CSIR to change?

--

-- 
V. Sasi Kumar <vsasi@...>
CESS
Raghavendra Bhat | 7 Jan 2004 06:48

Re: CSIR uses only Microsoft

V. Sasi Kumar posts:

> Can we think of some strategy to bring pressure on CSIR to change? 

There is no short-cut here, other than bringing the change yourselves. 

As you are a part of  that community of scientists, you should develop a
statergy amongst  like-minded guys within your institution  the CESS and
do it.  Firstly you should talk  about it, how it is benefitting you and
demo it to your colleagues.  Help them learn and slowly spread it within
the CESS, slowly  spread it to the next  CSIR `gaveshna kendram'near you
and go on.....

--

-- 
ragOO
RMS to visit Kochi ====> Jan 23
Be there and Join us!
http://puggy.symonds.net/~fsug-kochi
Harish CM | 7 Jan 2004 12:15

Re: CSIR uses only Microsoft

Raghavendra Bhat wrote:

>V. Sasi Kumar posts:
>
>  
>
>>Can we think of some strategy to bring pressure on CSIR to change? 
>>    
>>
>
>There is no short-cut here, other than bringing the change yourselves. 
>
>As you are a part of  that community of scientists, you should develop a
>statergy amongst  like-minded guys within your institution  the CESS and
>do it.  Firstly you should talk  about it, how it is benefitting you and
>demo it to your colleagues.  Help them learn and slowly spread it within
>the CESS, slowly  spread it to the next  CSIR `gaveshna kendram'near you
>and go on.....
>
>  
>

Indeed we have already made a humble begining.
Mr M senthil kumar | 7 Jan 2004 06:21
Picon

RE: CSIR uses only Microsoft

Dear All,
This discussion on the dependance of M$ products by the organizations only
reminds me of the good old (but famous) 'fortune' cookie:

Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer.  It has
a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk
storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on
voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300.
What's the first question that the computer community asks?

"Is it PC compatible?"

Regards,

Senthil
Harish CM | 7 Jan 2004 12:00

Re: CSIR uses only Microsoft

Mr M senthil kumar wrote:

>Dear All,
>This discussion on the dependance of M$ products by the organizations only
>reminds me of the good old (but famous) 'fortune' cookie:
>
>Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer.  It has
>a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk
>storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on
>voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300.
>What's the first question that the computer community asks?
>
>"Is it PC compatible?"
>
>Regards,
>
>Senthil
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Fsf-friends mailing list
>Fsf-friends@...
>http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends
>
>
>  
>
Looking back to the days of my initiation into computing (there weren't 
any desktops then - and the very first desktop experience of mine was on 
(Continue reading)

Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay | 10 Jan 2004 01:59
Picon

Re: CSIR uses only Microsoft

hi,

this is in reply to an old thread, but none the less. take a look at
the job pages of leading dailies - how many actually mention
explicitly the format ? this is an outcome of "wordprocessed
document=MS Word document" that plagues a lot of such organisations.
Oh by the way, recently a friend had the misfortune of sending in a
OO document saved as .doc for a job - received a reply that they do
not support using 'pirated software' and this is from a leading MNC
DTP company ! the hitch in this case was that although they have a
template - this 'should' be used only with MS Word 2000. this would
have meant an upgrade for my friend and he circumvented with OOv1.1

i really fail to understand why do companies not accept plain text or
html resumes - saves both parties enormous amount of trouble. perhaps
appropriate fora (does one to admit proposals along these lines exist
?) should be approached.

regards
sankarshan

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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Senthil_OR | 6 Jan 2004 14:51
Picon
Favicon

RE: CSIR uses only Microsoft

> -----Original Message-----
> From:  Annamalai Gurusami
> "V. Sasi Kumar" <vsasi@...> writes:
> 
> > branches of science and technology. I found that they ask for
> > manuscript in MS Word format. No other format is acceptable to them,
> > including
> 
> Likewise, I always find that employment agencies (or job consultants,
> if you prefer that), often ask CV (or resume) in MS Word format.  I
> send them a note stating that I don't have MS Word software, but that
> I am sending in RTF format, which can be viewed in MS Word.  To my
> surprise, most of them reject such resumes.  
> 
> Thats a sad reality.  I don't know why such a restriction is being
> imposed.  I cannot seem to figure it out.

Standardisation which M$ has driven by marketing and a good product(
Kindly dont whin, I am using a outlook here).
The next good quality product which can out-perform the existing one
will become a next standard.

So, if any of us want, then need to involve in OO or other Office Suite
and make it Highly helpful to common masses.
Quality of the product should market itself.( for eg. google,Linux
kernel in enterprise etc.)

BTW for CV's better use ASCII format.
Annamalai Gurusami | 7 Jan 2004 06:12

Re: CSIR uses only Microsoft

Senthil_OR@... writes:

> Standardisation which M$ has driven by marketing and a good product(
> Kindly dont whin, I am using a outlook here).
> The next good quality product which can out-perform the existing one
> will become a next standard.

I used LaTeX to prepare my resume and generate as many different
formats as possible.  And I am sure LaTeX is a better product than MS
Word as far as the resulting document is concerned.  

Rgds,
anna

--

-- 

Time-stamp: <2004-01-02 11:03:20 annamalai.gurusami>

"Free for All offers as thorough and engaging an account of the
open-source movement--and the pitfalls in its path--as readers are
likely to find anywhere."-- Damien MacClean for Amazon.com.

                http://www.wayner.org/books/ffa/
V. Sasi Kumar | 7 Jan 2004 05:51

RE: CSIR uses only Microsoft

On Tue, 2004-01-06 at 19:21, Senthil_OR@... wrote:

> Standardisation which M$ has driven by marketing and a good product(
> Kindly dont whin, I am using a outlook here).
> The next good quality product which can out-perform the existing one
> will become a next standard.

I agree with the marketing part that MS has done. But the quality is
very doubtful. The product it displaced, namely WordPerfect, which had
become very popular the world over, was certainly a much better word
processor than MS Word. Even today, I think, MS Word cannot give the
kind of features and stability that WP used to give five or ten years
back.

> So, if any of us want, then need to involve in OO or other Office Suite
> and make it Highly helpful to common masses.

OO already has many features that MS Word does not. For instance, the
auto word completion feature is very helpful to many ordinary people who
cannot type fast.

Regards
--

-- 
V. Sasi Kumar <vsasi@...>
CESS
Joe Steeve | 6 Jan 2004 15:41
Picon
Gravatar

Re: CSIR uses only Microsoft


From: Senthil_OR@...
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 07:51:24 -0600

> Standardisation which M$ has driven by marketing and a good product(

When I have a M$Word 97 document., and I edit it on M$OfficeXP ( just
changing italics to bold ) and open the same document in M$Word97, it
said that it cannot read the file.. and asks me to update. <This is a
problem I faced when I had to prepare a paper during my Under
Graduate>. I dont call this standardisation. I call it bullying.

Cheers,
Joe

--
"Software is like sex; Its better when it is free"
                                 -- Linus Torvalds
visit : http://www.joesteeve.tk/

_______________________________________________
Fsf-friends mailing list
Fsf-friends@...
http://mm.gnu.org.in/mailman/listinfo/fsf-friends
Mahesh T. Pai | 6 Jan 2004 15:35

Re: CSIR uses only Microsoft

Annamalai Gurusami said on Tue, Jan 06, 2004 at 07:01:50PM +0530,:

 > send them  a note stating that  I don't have MS  Word software, but
 > that I  am sending in RTF format,  which can be viewed  in MS Word.
 > To my surprise, most of them reject such resumes.

I once received a spam resume in  .doc format. I opened it in OO.o and
antiword. Wonder  of wonders -  antiword showed much more  info, which
was   obvously   embarassing   to    the   sender   duly   marked   as
deleted. Probably,  recruiters know  that, and want  to find  out what
you deleted from your resume.

But then, you  could simply have renamed the file  to .doc. Think this
trick  will work.  A  better alternative  is  not to  respond to  such
postings. Especially if the call is for a free software related job!!!

--

-- 
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+

  Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M.,                   
  'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road,               
  Ernakulam, Cochin-682018,               
  Kerala, India.                          

  http://in.geocities.com/paivakil         

+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
Joe Steeve | 6 Jan 2004 15:36
Picon
Gravatar

Re: CSIR uses only Microsoft


From: Annamalai Gurusami <annamalai.gurusami@...>
Date: 06 Jan 2004 19:01:50 +0530

> Likewise, I always find that employment agencies (or job consultants,
> if you prefer that), often ask CV (or resume) in MS Word format.  I

I've been a victim of that too. I used a PDF and a `plain text' and
was never called even for the screening test. eh., but i just thought
to myself., ah.. they lost me.. heh.

> Thats a sad reality.  I don't know why such a restriction is being
> imposed.  I cannot seem to figure it out.

I guess they never bothered to think about it before advertising in
the papers. I guess they dont care either. They just assume., that
anyone and everyone should have a M$Office accessible.

Cheers,
Joe

--
"Software is like sex; Its better when it is free"
                                 -- Linus Torvalds
visit : http://www.joesteeve.tk/
_______________________________________________
Fsf-friends mailing list
Fsf-friends@...
(Continue reading)

Annamalai Gurusami | 6 Jan 2004 12:47

Re: Gedit does not recognise Stallman

"V. Sasi Kumar" <vsasi@...> writes:

> On Tue, 2004-01-06 at 16:24, Annamalai Gurusami wrote:

> > But then 'Stallman' is a proper noun.  It is not a word that you will
> > find in a dictionary.  Hence no spell checker will recognize it.  Its
> > not strange.
> 
> Most dictionaries recognise a number of proper nouns. In this case, for
> instance, it does recognise Richard.

I probably should have been more specific in what I meant by the word
'dictionary'.  I was talking about dictionaries like Oxford, Webster,
etc.  I have never seen names in such dictionaries (the printed ones.)

Rgds,
anna

--

-- 

Time-stamp: <2004-01-02 11:03:20 annamalai.gurusami>

"Free for All offers as thorough and engaging an account of the
open-source movement--and the pitfalls in its path--as readers are
likely to find anywhere."-- Damien MacClean for Amazon.com.

                http://www.wayner.org/books/ffa/
Mahesh T. Pai | 3 Jan 2004 05:56

Re: Gedit does not recognise Stallman

V. Sasi Kumar said on Sat, Jan 03, 2004 at 09:38:36AM +0530,:

 > Gedit has a spellcheck (I think recently added). Strangely, it does
 > not recognise the word Stallman!

But then, 'Sasi' or 'Kumar' too are not recognised!!!!

An, surprise!!! surprise!!! 'Mahesh', 'Pai', and 'paivakil' *are*(1)

If you think this a bug, please report it to
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=gedit  

Seriously, IMHO,  it is  not really  a bug with  gedit. Gedit  uses an
external plugin  written by  somebodyelse to do  spell check,  and the
plug in relies  on a dictionary created by yet  somebody else. So, may
be, you should change the dictionary!!!

(1) I added these words to my private dictionary.

--

-- 
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+

  Mahesh T. Pai, LL.M.,                   
  'NANDINI', S. R. M. Road,               
  Ernakulam, Cochin-682018,               
  Kerala, India.                          

  http://in.geocities.com/paivakil         

+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~+
(Continue reading)


Gmane