.ORG Mela Projects

Anamika Press Code for Indian Script Representation (APCISR)

www.indicybers.com

APCISR (Anamika Press Code for Indian Script Representation) is a GPL'd set of representational semantics and associated algorithms implemented using GCC for compositional syllabic Indian scripts along with the corresponding set of graphemes, developed independently by the authors, for use with fixed width console (text-mode) applications. This is the 'only' FOSS/GPL'd software that provides this functionality, all other alternatives, such as CDAC's GIST, are commercial. The APCISR uses a 9-grid format to extract the common features of the Brahmi derived Indian scripts. Each feature forms a specific grapheme. The 9-grid consists of three rows, viz. Urdha, Madhya and Nimna, and three columns, viz. Matrik, Lipik and Purak. The Indian script symbols are mapped to their constituent graphemes in one table, with the graphemes being mapped to the corresponding glyphs (character-codes) in another table. Hence, the process of conversion of codes such as ISCII to APCISR is a two-step procedure. The first step (synthesis) consists of combining the grapheme maps of the different Indian symbols, which is algorithmically intensive, while the second step is a straight forward O(n) lookup procedure for obtaining the character values of the corresponding graphemes.

AnkurBangla: GNU/Linux based Bangla LiveCD

www.bengalinux.org

Ankur Live CD 2.10 (Kuasha), is based on Knoppix with a KDE desktop. The current version is a continuation of the Ankur Live CD 2.05 (Boishakhi). Our first AnkurBangla Live CD 1.0 (Technology Preview) was based on Morphix and the GNOME desktop. The Ankur Live CD's core is based on Knoppix 4.0.2. It runs a localised (Bangla) version of KDE 3.4.1, with some extra customizations and features.

Debian Indic Project

debian-in.alioth.debian.org

The Debian Indic Project coordinates the integration of Indian language support in Debian. Debian is the world's largest GNU/Linux distribution, developed by around 1000 volunteers all over the world. Debian-IN or the Debian-Indic project is a subproject to help support Indian languages on Debian. Current work is available for viewing at http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/debian-in/. This project works closely with Indlinux.org.

Fedora Project

fedoraproject.org

Fedora is an open, innovative, forward looking operating system and platform, based on Linux, that is always free for anyone to use, modify and distribute, now and forever. It is developed by a large community of people who strive to provide and maintain the very best in free, open source software and standards. The Fedora Project is managed and directed by the Fedora Foundation and sponsored by Red Hat.

FreeBot ANGEL: People's Robot

www.indicybers.com

FreeBot ANGEL (Autonomous Natural interfaced General purpose Events driven Learner) is an open source robotic platform with GPL'd software/firmware and public domain electronic/mechanical design. It is intended to be similar to robotics kits like Lego Mindstorms. It's control software is designed as per the NI2A2 (Natural Interfaced Intelligent Adaptive Agents) theory, a derivative of subsumption architecture. The electro-mechanical design tries to closely mimic vertebrate nervous system.

Free Software Foundation of India

fsf.org.in

FSF India is a non-profit organisation committed to advocating, promoting and propagating the use and development of swatantra software in India. Our goal is to ensure the long term adoption of Free Software, and aim for the day when all software will be free. This includes educating people about software freedom and convincing them that it is the freedom that matters. We regard non-free software as a problem to be solved, not as a solution to any problem.

Hindawi Vernacular Programming System

www.indicybers.com

The first ever 'complete' suite of open-source programming languages for Indic languages. It includes equivalents of C, C++, lex, yacc, assembly etc. in Hindi, Bangla and other Indic languages. Some of the innovations of this project include a system for displaying Indic scripts in 'true' text-mode. This is done without using any aditional hardware. At no point has any graphical (rasterising) method been used for this. All the required glyphs have been accomodated in the extended ASCII code page, leaving 7-bit ASCII unaltered. This method is applicable to all Brahmi derived composite syllabic Indian scripts. Hindi, Bangla, Assamese and Gujarati scripts have been implemented. Oriya and Punjabi are under development. There are strong suggestions that this may be applicable for South Indian scripts as well. This has made it possible to have BIOS/POST in Indic languages.

IndLinux.org

www.indlinux.org

IndLinux - The Indian Linux project is the premier FOSS group working on localization of FOSS to Indian languages. Indlinux started in 1999-2000 and has been actively into enabling Indian language computing on FOSS. IndLinux has been active in Hindi language localization and also in incubating teams for other languages like Gujarati, Punjabi, Oriya, Telugu, Marathi, Manipuri etc.

IndLinux is driven by volunteers dedicated to the cause of Indic computing and taking it to the masses. IndLinux has brought about GNOME, KDE, and XFCE desktops in Hindi and the popular releases Hindi Milan & Rangoli.

Koha: Open Source Integrated Library System

koha.org

Koha is the world's first full-featured open-source Integrated Library System. Developed initially in New Zealand by Katipo Communications Ltd and first deployed in January of 2000 for Horowhenua Library Trust, it is in use around the world.

Koha's development is steered by a growing community of libraries collaborating to achieve their technology goals. Koha's impressive feature set conforms to international standards like MARC21/UNIMARC, z39.50 services for copy cataloging etc., and continues to evolve and expand to meet the needs of its user base.

In India too, Koha is fast becoming a viable option for Libraries deciding to integrate or expand their use of IT in everyday management. During Q3 2004, to address the information sharing and community building of Indian Koha Users, the Indian Koha Interest Group (KIG-India) was formed.

Military Global Positioning System

military-gps.sourceforge.net

Military Global Positioning System is an application which addresses certain key surveillance issues of the military. The Java based application provides certain logical filters like night vision, contrast stretching and sharpen. An intelligent A* search algorithm which calculates the optimal path for military vehicles to enemy targets.

Architecture

• Operating system: Linux
• Language: Java
• Database: MySQL
• Procedures: Java Mail API and RMI
• Web server: Apache

Minimalistic Object Oriented Linux (MOOL)

dos.iitm.ac.in/MOOL/main.htm

Minimalistic Object Oriented Linux (MOOL) project aims at redesigning the existing Linux kernel with a minimal set of core object-oriented (OO) components. Excessive common coupling prevails in the existing kernel. Studies have shown that common coupling is increasing in successive versions of Linux. This will make maintainability of Linux difficult in coming years. As a starting step we have tried to reduce the number of global variables in the kernel. Some global variables are used only by two or three kernel modules. These are passed as function arguments. The peformance of the modified kernel is measured with the standard performance analysis tools. The modified kernel performs almost same as original.

NepaLinux

www.nepalinux.org

NepaLinux is a Debian and Morphix based GNU/Linux Distribution focused for Desktop usage in Nepali language computing. It contains applications for desktop users like: OpenOffice.org, Nepali Gnome Desktop, Nepali input systems etc. The development and distribution of Nepalinux is done by Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya (www.mpp.org.np). The official site for NepaLinux is www.nepalinux.org.

NepaLinux is an effort of promoting Free/OpenSource Software (FOSS) especially GNU/Linux.

Open Source Simple Computer for Agriculture in Rural Areas (OSCAR)

www.oscarasia.org

Launched in January 2004, OSCAR looks at developing an open source weed identification software for the major weed species of Rice-Wheat crop systems which can be deployed on Simputers. The application will address extension workers, farmers/farmer groups, students in the Indo-Gangetic plains. The application will have 50 weed species in the database, their botanical characteristics, their incidence and ways to control them on field. It will also be ported in local languages like Hindi, Urdu and Bangla (if necessary in Punjabi and Nepali). The activities are designed in such a way that on one hand, the botanical/taxonomic work proceeds to enrich the database of weed species by collecting photographs for each character of every species, drawing the identikit and on the other hand, the development work progresses simultaneously benefiting from the botanical work. As a result we now have a beta version for windows and linux/simputer version is almost in its beta stage. These versions are tested on field during the workshops and subsequent field trips in the Indo-Gangetic plains with farmers, extension workers and students.

Romenagri Transliteration System

www.indicybers.com

Romenagri is a GPL'd non-ambiguous invertible case and diacritic independent compiler acceptable transliteration system with the associated algorithms implemented using GCC for high portability. It may be used for developing vernacular compilers, besides regular transliteration work. The system has been developed independently and demonstrated to be applicable to all languages using the North Indian composite syllabic scripts; viz. Assomiya, Bangla, Devnagri, Gujarati, Oriya and Punjabi.

Smart Campus

www.iiitm.ac.in

Smart Campus is an open source project for college management. Smart Campus won first prize in Linux Campus Club competition held by IBM India.

WebBiblio Subject Gateway System

webbiblio.sourceforge.net

WebBiblio is an Open Source Software to create Subject Gateways in any subject of your choice. Today's world is confronting an information explosion and we all feel it's almost impossible to keep pace with the number of growing resources. Internet itself hosts a large number of information sources. But no person can have an idea about all the valuable resources on the internet in his subject. Moreover, the available resource vary in their quality and reliability. Of course, users can find resources using search engines and subject directories. But search engines-as most of you might have experienced-produce a lot of irrelevent results. Subject directories may be time-consuming to use as the users may have to several steps down the hirearchy to obtain the required information. Also, most of the subject directories(other than the top ones like Google, Yahoo! and the like) are static in nature-ie they don't grow in time. Once created, the people/organization find it very difficult to update the webpages.

Subject Gateways are a solution to this problem. They are dynamic databases of web information resources collected and analyzed by information professionals and subject experts. Information caontained in subject gateways are authoritative and some times value-added.

WebBiblio helps information professionals/organizations to create high quality subject gateways quite easily. It combines the power of the open source scripting language PHP and database engine MySQL. WebBiblio is highly based on the wonderful library automation software Openbiblio, which is another open source software. Hope you will try WebBiblio and give us your feedback.

YODA: Yet Onemore Distributed Architecture

yoda.sarovar.org

YODA is a distributed computing architecture similar to BOINC, but simpler in design, simpler to understand, simpler to use and obviously less flexible and powerful in terms of options. However, YODA is designed for a different purpose. YODA has been designed for changing problems, web-based problem submission, dynamic linking of classes, and much more. It's client is also designed to be more robust in terms of data transfer (it uses http), and is designed to switch thread priorities based on CPU load, thus maximizing throughput. While a screen-saver based system would remain idle if you were playing solitaire on your PC, YODA would always be active.

YubNub: a social command-line for the Web

yubnub.org

YubNub, an open source project written in Ruby on Rails by Jonathan Aquino, is a command-line for the Web. After setting it up on your browser, you simply type "gim porsche 911" to do a Google Image Search for pictures of Porsche 911 sports cars. Type "random 49" to return random numbers between 1 and 49, courtesy of random.org. And best of all, you can make a new command by giving YubNub an appropriate URL.

The beauty of YubNub is that anyone can help to extend it. If there is an existing web service with a submit form, you can add it pretty easily. But even more interesting is the adding of complex data-processing services (e.g., validating RSS feeds, converting webpages to audio using text-to-speech).