Details of the April 2008 Meeting
- Date : 27/04/2008
- Time : 2:30 pm
- Location : Jays Internet Club, Broadway, Kochi, Kerala
As usual the meeting started with an introduction to Free Software.
The moderator explained the difference between Open Source and Free Software.
The significance of the GNU Project was described in detail and a small discussion on the GNU GPL License.
The speaker talked about the importance of explaining freedom concepts at the begining of the meeting. There was
the customary self introduction after that.
Agenda : Free Software Compatible Hardware
The moderator initiated the discussion by talking about the significance of the agenda topic.
The sesssion started with the discussion on the hardware issues addressed by a user when he starts using Free Software
The discussion was intended on how they can be tackled.
The speaker explained some aspects regarding drivers and firmware and how a software interacts with hardware
with an example on how keyboard interacts with an application software.
Next the question was "What exactly is a free software compatible hardware?".
Free Software COmpatible hardware has open specifications and hence has a free software driver
( basically under the GNU GPL ).
The speaker talked about the non-availability of device drivers and how the problem needs to be addressed.
The moderator asked the attendees the question of what advantage free software device drivers had.
One of the member answered that the driver would be optimized for the device.
The discussion moved on to the dangers of using proprietary device driver.
The advantages of releasing device specifications by hardware manufactures was very important
as this can improve the device driver and also this can build a healthy competition in the field
resulting in the manufacture of high quality devices.
The moderator then described the hardware manufacturing process.
Some of the members shared their knowledge with regard to this.
The moderator also explained who can start developing device drivers and the basic skills required to get started.
He talked about one person who has developed a driver for his web cam in his 60s.
The basic point was that anyone with a sufficient good programming logic and hardware level knowledge
can get started with device driver programming.
The emphasis was given on the idea that people need to start writing device drivers.
The discussion moved onto a step by step analysis of howto tackle a compatibility issue.
The moderator presented a flowchart. It basically contained a roadmap for a Free Software user
to tackle the situtation.
The discussion moved on to talk what needs to be done before buying a new hardware.
The important point was to do a small research about the compatibility of the hardware
by visiting the Hardware vendor website, forums etc.
The best method would be to run a live cd of a GNU/Linux distribution and find out the hardware
compatibility status( very much useful for a laptop )
This would give a good idea of what all issues can be expected.
On this One of the attendees shared his experience in configuring a multi function device on Debian GNU/Linux.
There was a long discussion by the attendees on these aspects.
The moderator stressed the importance of preparing documentation after configuring the hardware, which would
save time for a lot of people.
The attendees agreed on the fact that they all are lazy when it comes to making documentation.
There was a short tea break after the discussion.
Technical presentation: Multimedia on GNU/Linux
The speaker introduced several audio video players for those who have
just started using GNU/Linux. Also he showed some players by playing some DRM free audio and video.
He cleared some of the doubts asked by the audience. Since multimedia was a very interesting area
many of the atteendees joined the discussion.
The session was cutshort because of the ill health of the speaker.
The Open Movie "Elephants Dream" was screened to the audience for the rest of the time.
The concluding session, talked about how people should learn more to tackle hardware compatibility issues
and how they can learn device driver programming. The moderator provided a "Device Driver Development Kit"
( containing documentation ) to those interested.
Many people told that they would try their hands at Device driver development.
The meeting concluded at 5.30pm.
Resources
References
Meeting Attendees
- R.Geetha
- Shilpa P Maskara
- Anoop Viswanath
- Arun Kumar K.C.
- Sudeep S
- Shibin K Reeny
- R.Satheesh
- Kurian Mathew Thayyil
- Vineeth T.V.
- Fr.Thomas V.V.
- Raneez
- Sanjai
- Sreenadh
- Devaraj K.P.
- Binny V.A.
- Bilal M.K.
- Sabir
- Jay Jacob
- G.Venkata Subramahmanian
- Sameer M. Thahir
Photos
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