foss for education: indian context - iit bombay

FOSS for Education: Indian Context

G. Sivakumar

Computer Science and EngineeringIIT Bombay

[email protected]

October 13, 2006

Outline

FOSS and Scientific Method

Digital Unite in India using FOSS?

FOSS in Academic Institutes: IIT-B Experience

G. Sivakumar Computer Science and Engineering IIT Bombay [email protected]


FOSS and Scientific Method

Sharing data and results is the foundation!

Way of Genius

If I have seen further [than others] it is by standing on theshoulders of giants... Issac Newton

Results are accepted only if they can be replicated! (sharing)Open Access is a must!



Why FOSS in Academia

Tamil Proverb

What has been learned is like a fistful of sand, what remains is likethe whole earth!

Solution?

Giving a scholar access only to raw information is like giving onlyseeds to a hungry man.

Way Forward?

Giving a student access only to executable code is like giving onlycooked rice to a farmer.

Students move from being mere users/consumers to producers.Great Empowerment!



Information Hierarchy

Knowlege is power! (Democratization needed)



Open Access Journals



What is open access publishing?

1 Free and unrestricted online access to the research literatureand databases

2 Users are licensed to download, print, copy, redistribute, anduse

3 Author retains copyright and the right to be acknowledged.

4 Papers are deposited in a public database that allowssophisticated searches (such as PubMedCentral)

5 (Bethesda Principles, April 2003)



Why is open access important?

1 Maximum impact for authorsaccess to the largest possible audience

2 New ways to access and use literaturefull-text searching and mining (e.g. Google Scholar)

3 Greatly expanded access to researchfor scientists, educators, physicians, the public

Good Economic Analysis athttp://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc WTD003181.html



Libraries vs AmazGoogle

Modern Students demand

1 Comprehensive

2 Accessible

3 Immediate gratification

4 Followability of data

What they expect from aLibrary?



Promise of Web/Library 2.0

How to find out

When cheap Mumbai-Chennai round trips are available

with package tours to Mahabalipuram, if possiblebut not on weekdays...

Whenever new articles on chess appear

only in English, Tamil or Germanbut other langauges ok if it is about V. Anand!but not written by ......

Two margas for moksha

Monkey way is Web 1.0 (search)

Cat way is Web 2.0 (sematic web)



Open Access not only for Consumers!



Power of Language

Localization a must for effective use of ICT.Many diverse efforts underway..

IndLinux (and friends)..

Text to Speech Synthesis (Mathrubasha of CDAC)At IIT Bombay

Centre for Indian Language Technologies (www.cfilt.org)Multi-Linugual Bulletin Board (Aaqua)Horizontal exchange of knowledge (not top-down).

Language need not divide us. Technology (UniversalNetworking Language) to the rescue! See some work at IITBombay at www.cfilt.iitb.ac.in

What is needed?

National Co-ordination of all these efforts.

For establishing “free” and open standards.

Essential for inter-operability



ta.wikipedia.org



en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open source

Open Source Model

Open Source Participants

OSS Development Tools

OSS Advocates andProjects/Organizations



FOSS and Academia

FOSS, like academia, is

Parallel, rather than linear

Large globally distributed community.

Highly talented, highly motivated collaborators

Truly independent peer review

Prompt feedback to users/developers.

Rapid release schedules.



FOSS Stack



Internet: Growth and Charter

Information AnyTime, AnyWhere, AnyForm, AnyDevice, ...WebTone like DialToneFrom Stone Age, Iron Age, ... to Information Age and DigitalEconomy.While Knowledge is power it is also true He who pays the pipercalls the tune (see 3 and 6 above).



IETF and Open Standards

Open Standards used by Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)

1 AvailabilityFor all to read and implement.

2 Maximize End-User ChoiceFair, competitive market. No lock-in to a particular vendor.

3 No RoyaltyFree for all to implement, with no royalty or fee. Certificationmay involve a fee.

4 No DiscriminationDo not favor one implementor over another for any reason

5 Extension or SubsetHowever, certification organizations may place requirementsupon extensions.

6 Protection against Predatory PracticesEmbrace and enhance!



Digital Unite

http://bridges.org/

Digital divides have been studied many times over; the pictureis clear, only effective action is needed.All Deeper Issues from Economics/Politics apply here too!

Trickle down theory (Adam Smith)Dictatorship of the proletariat (Karl Marx)

Not my cup of tea (in any case, not here, not now!)Effective sustainable solutions must provide more thancomputers and connections.

Effective use of ICT rests of many factors, including access,training, content, appropriate technology, relevant use, and thecultural, economic and political environment.

Accessing knowledge from Internet is like drinking water froma fire hose.Advantage of being a professor is excellent students who filterthe raw information for you!Let’s see the positives first.G. Sivakumar Computer Science and Engineering IIT Bombay [email protected]


Examples of Rural Empowerment

Many innovative uses- cattle/crop-disease/cataract diagnosis, milkcollection centres, sea/weather prediction ...



Some Projects at IIT-B

Several initiatives- MLAsia, DGF, Affordable Soltuions Lab, ...(Profs. Krithi Ramamritham, D. B. Phatak, ...)

Some screenshots (BhavPuchiye, Multilingual Content Retrieval,...)



Knowledge Generation, Dissemination and Control

Some major issues

Access

Freedom/Right to Information.Any time, any where, any form, ...?No free lunch.Critical Resources- Hardware and BandwidthInnovative designs needed in both.

Content (creation and control)

Language (Multi-lingual forum and Aaqua)Human-Friendly interfaces (BhavPuchiye)Data Exchange Formats and Protocols (critical)Freedom of access/modification/redistribution.Static vs Dynamic (next slide)



Static vs Dynamic Content

How often does it change?

Scriptures (Vedas, Bible, Koran, ...)

Geography (Saraswati river, ...)

History (does get rewritten!)

Science

...

Live cricket match scores.

Weather Data

Market Info (prices, stocks, shares)

How important is it to have real-time access? Will once a daysynchronization suffice?Great implication on Hardware and Bandwidth costs.Not all useful and important items need high interactivebandwidth.



Information Footpath

Super Highways are good, but why wait for that?

Laptop with info repository, multilingual query/response, datalogging. Sensors/instrumentation for various tests.Financial Inclusion project at IDRBT.What is the bandwidth of this Apu link? (Tannenbaum’s example).How to use this bandwidth effectively for Static and Dynamiccontent?



Knoppix and Friends

Knoppix Full system on 1 CD. No hard-disk installation! Morefrom home page www.knopper.net ...eMoviX:a micro Linux distro meant to be embedded in a CD together withall video/audio files you want, so that the CD will be able to bootand automagically play all files;MoviX:A mini CD Linux distro able to boot directly from CD and load inRAM a console interface to MPlayer. From the interface you caneasily play DVDs, VCDs, audio/video files Audio CD, internetradios, TV, you name it!Supported formats- AVI, MPG, QuickTime, MP3, OGG/VORBISand a few others. See http://movix.sourceforge.net/Easy, cost effective way to distribute information!Freeduc is one excellent example.



Freeduc in Schools

What is Freeduc? Let’s see from www.ofset.org ...

What does it cost to produce?

How to distribute? (Postman: once in 3 months!)

What expertise does it need?

What innovation is needed for India?

Localization!

Relevant content.

Who can/will do this innovation?Compare with proprietary software!



Another Example: SciLab vs Matlab

2-D and 3-D graphics, animation www.scilab.org

Linear algebra, sparse matrices

Polynomials and rational functions

Simulation: ODE solver (ODEPACK) and DAE solver (DASSL)

Scicos: a dynamic systems modeler and simulator

Signal processing

Parallel Scilab using PVM

Which is better for student?What will be cost savings across the country?Not just in science and Engineering!



Other Educational Sector Examples

Linux Cluster at IIT-Bombay

Most Value for money!Molecular modellingCircuit SimulationAerodynamics

Online Course Management

dotLRNMoodle

Not just for Science and Engineering



FOSS at IIT Bombay

Just the network first ...

Inside IIT we have 50 IP subnets.

Over 5000 nodes.

All Private addresses 10.x.y.z

4 Different WAN subnets

128, 64, 32, 32 address only!

iptables (www.iptables.org) to the rescue.

Selective services/machines opened up

Incoming ssh to different dept. servers.Outgoing ssh, Yahoo/MSN chatOutgoing port for SciFinderOutgoing ftp from select machines

Making a good policy is the hardest!



Critical Network Services

Firewall (Security sine qua non)

Domain Name Service (DNS) http://cr.yp.to/djbdns/

Directory Services (LDAP)

Virus Scanning clamav.elektrapro.com



Critical Network Services

E-mail (www.qmail.org)

Newsgroups (inn)

Web Proxy

WWW Servers (httpd.apache.org)



Network Servers Rack

All vanilla x86 Boxes running GNU/LinuxMost services load balanced. Hot Swappable (at the machinelevel itself) thanks to Ultra Monkey (www.ultramonkey.com).



Is IIT-B only a consumer?

Primarily a consumer of swatantra software so far. But, the tide isturning...

VartaAuthenticated access to IITB newsgroups for our alumni!A very valuable source of input (Chirag Kantharia)Sophisticated HTTP to NNTP gateway

Secure Online Polls/SurveysUGs can vote on next Film Society movie.3rd year Btechs can rank Institute ElectivesHostel 5 students can decide on picnic venue

Streaming Audio/VideoBased on ffmpeg and Palnatir and mplayer.World Cup better incentive than my lectures!

MTech ProjectsHyperSuit (Document Object Model)Arrowsmith (Network Discovery and PerformanceMeasurement)



A Consolidated View

A pyramid structure can be imposed.



Some Action Points

Adopt national Open Standards for Data and Applications

Gettting Information from Internet is like drinking water froma fire hose

Establish National Expert Groups in various Domains forNational Repository of “free” information

National Resource Centres for Swatantra Software. Invest inour human capital not proprietary solutions. OSSRC(www.ossrc.org.in) NRC-FOSS (nrcfoss.org.in)

Develop applications to be designed for various bandwidthsFrom totally offline/batch modeTo Information FootpathsTo Information Super-Highways

Empower horizontal flow/exchange of information by nationalmultilingual newsgroups/bulletin-boards (see IIT Bombaydemo at www.aaqua.org).



foss for education: indian context - iit bombay

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