Archive for August, 2006

Minutes of meeting on Kannada Software held at CIIL on May 25th 2004 in Mysore

Posted by egovindia on August 7, 2006

—————-
Forwarded Message:
Subj: Kannada Software
Date: 6/11/2004 2:33:51 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: halemane1@rediffmail.com
To: NovaMed@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)

Dear Kumarswamy,

I am here with sending the Minutes of meeting on Kannada Software which was held at Central Institute of Indina Language, Mysore on 25-04-2004.

Kindly see the attachment.

With regrds
Lingadevaru Halmane

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Minutes of the meeting on Kannada Software

A meeting was convened on 25-05-04 at Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore to discuss some of the issues related to Kannada Software. Following members had attended the meeting.

1. Sri. Purnachandra Tejaswi – Famous writer, Mudigere

2. Prof. B.N. Sreeram – Publisher, Mysore

3. Dr. Pavanaja – CEO, Vishwa Kannada.com, Bangalore

4. Dr. Sreenatha Shastry – Karnataka Ganaka Parishat, Bangalore

5. Sri. Satyanarayana – Software Engineer, Bangalore

6. Shivakumar – Editor, Aparanji

7. Dr. Sharada – CIIL, Mysore

8. Dr. Panditharadhya – Karnataka Ganaka Parishat, Mysore

9. Sri. Lingadevaru Halemane – CIIL, Mysore, Convener of the meeting

In addition to the above participants, we had invited the following persons.

1. Sri. Rajaram – Nava Karnataka Publications, Bangalore

2. Sri. Gyanesh – Software Engineer, Bangalroe

3. Sri. Prasad – Software Engineer, Bangalore.

4. Dr. B. Mallikarjun – CIIL, Mysore

However, they did not attend the meeting owing to other engagements.

Background to call the meeting.

Sri. Purnachandra Tejaswi was worried about some of the problems being faced by the users of Kannada Software. He had contacted me and invited me to his place to discuss about those problems and find out solutions for them. On his request I along with Prof. B.N. Sreeram went to his place and had a detail discussion about the problems that he had faced with. At the end of the discussion, we could delineate the problems as follows.

1. Users Interface across Existing Softwares.

Instead of creating altogether an exclusive word processor for Kannada Language, efforts should be made to bring users interface with already existing standard softwares such as page maker, win word etc.

2. Original Commands to be continued to be used.

There is a tendency to translate the computer commands into Kannada Language. Though it is called as Kannada Language, in reality these commands are replaced with much alien Sanskrit terminologies. They are difficult to understand than the existing English Commands. Whoever is using the computer is familiar with the original commands. These commands not only familiar but also frequently used. Hence it is recommended that there is no need to translate the commands into Kannada Language. They can only be transliterated into Kannada Script.

3. Introduce Unicode.

It should preferably in Unicode. At present only ‘Baraha’ and ‘Nudi’ are Unicode compatible.

4. Create filters to import files.

Provide filters to import all files created by other major softwares.

5. Key board Drivers.

Different software are used by different people. Users may not be familiar with the key board drives as they have different designs, and patterns. Hence it is recommended that each design should be provided its own key board driver to facilitate the user. It may be mentioned here that the Government of Karnataka has standardized the key boards to be used for computers. The same may be accepted by all manufacturers, vendors etc.

6. Create custom key board layout.

Create custom key board layout for the user to make any adjustment, whenever unique requirements are needed. Vendors have also introduced their own layouts along with existing key board layouts. This has resulted in many key board layouts. However, when a particular user wants any adjustment in the key board design due to any special reason, there should be provision for that.

7. Open Source Initiative.

The source code used to develop this software would be freely available on the internet on the lines of Linux Open Source Initiative.

The significance of Open Source is,

a) Due to the perpetual expansion of possibilities, the usage of Kannada software is bound to come across with new and unknown requirements. If freely available any user can upgrade with the free source code to suit their need. The user can then Introduce his changes back to the open source, so that this will aid other users as well. this will help continuously to expand the usage of Kannada to all fields.

Since it is free, common usage of Kannada software will increase.

c) There will be a collective participation in the development of the software by all users of Kannada.

A permanent Screening committee under the IT Ministry, has to be formed to administer the new upgrades to the free source code. This is very important, since various users could introduce many changes and upgrades. This committee will screen, evaluate and incorporate the changes.

Sri. Purnachandra Tejaswi suggested at the end of the discussion, whether I could convene a broader meeting at the Central Institute of Indian Languages to share these issues with other persons who are interested in the development of Kannada Software. I readily agreed to his proposal and listed out the persons to be invited for the meeting. Accordingly this meeting was convened at CIIL, Mysore, on 25th May 2004.

Resolutions of the meeting.

The issues which were already identified by me and Sri. Tejaswi were taken up for discussion one by one. Dr. Pavanaja took active role in explaining the knitty gritties involved with the issues.

Issue No. 1 (Please refer back to the issues)

Dr. Pavanaja said that, this is taken care by Microsoft. Hindi UI is already released for office and windows. Kannada and other languages are in the pipeline. He was optimistic that other software companies will follow suite. He further added that there should be a provision to change UI words for our language. This is possible in Linux. Similar facility should be given by windows also. Every one suggested sending requests to Adobe, Corel and other Software makers to give UI in Kannada. Members suggested that similar request also should go from Directorate of Information Technology (DIT), Government of Karnataka. (GOK)

Issue No. 2

Dr. Pavanaja red out some portions of his article “Writing about IT in Kannada”. Dr. Shivakumar and Sri. Tejaswi were of the opinion that on-screen command words (UI elements) such as file, save, exit etc., should be retained in English only. They have to be written in Kannada script. Dr.Panditharadhya and Sri. Satyanarayana did not agree with the above suggestions. According to them if this logic is accepted then why not use English commands in English Script itself. Pavanaja demonstrated the new tool-tip tool from Microsoft which is used with Office and Windows Hindi versions. A balloon tool-tip with English translation of the Hindi command will pop-up once the mouse is moved over any Hindi word on the menu and dialog boxes. Members appreciated this facility. There was a prolonged discussion on what to translate, what not to translate, how to translate, etc. Finally everyone agreed to follow the middle path. Everyone present agreed that there is a need to standardize the terms. They appreciated the step taken in this direction by Microsoft by launching the community glossary. There was some apprehension whether the words contributed by the community will become the property of Microsoft and people will have to pay MS for using them. Pavanaja clarified this doubt and assured that no such thing is possible. The words belong to the community and will remain so, according to Pavanaja. Members were happy with that statement.

Issue No. 3

All new generation OS, platform, Database, development tools support employing Unicode in Windows XP/2003, Office XP/2003, SQL Server, Share point, Visual Studio.NET, etc. Once can develop an application employing Unicode without the help of any other tools. There is no need of Nudi or Baraha. In fact, Nudi and Baraha have just Unicode compatible keyboard drivers. They don’t provide open type font which is required to display the Unicode text. Another fact is that their Unicode compatible keyboard driver (other name for IME) works only on Windows XP and 2003, which have Kannada built-in. That means, the Unicode of Nudi and Baraha are redundant.

Pavanaja explained the need to have more professional quality open type fonts for Kannada. He detailed the working of Unicode and open type fonts. He did some demonstrations. Pavanaja explained the reason behind why commercial font developers not developing open type fonts. According to him, during the pre-Unicode days, the font and the keyboard driver of a vendor were tied to each other. If a person buys a font from a vendor he has to buy the keyboard driver (or IME), font and data are independent of each other. People are at the liberty to use anybody’s IME with anybody’s font. This is the reason why no font vendor is coming forward with open type fonts. But Kannada needs more good professional quality open type fonts. Pavanaja gave suggestion for this problem. The publishing industry and government should pool some resources, create a fund and get some open type fonts made. These fonts should be made available to all. Members appreciated this idea and have agreed to request GoK to take appropriate action.

Issue No. 4

Participants felt it is good suggestion. Baraha has given a font converter utility between major software being used in Kannada. Office XP and 2003 can import ISCII text files and convert them into Unicode.

Pavanaja added that the converters which are in existence convert only plain text files. The need of the hour is to have converters which take RTF and HTML files as input and convert them into Unicode thereby retaining the formatting. This should be another action point for GoK.

Issue No. 5

Pavanaja explained that this keyboard driver is available for download at BhashaIndia.com web-site (http://www.bhashaindia.com/doc/IndicIME1v5.zip). One can also use Baraha and Nudi keyboard drivers which are as per GoK standard.

Members felt that Pavanaja’s reply is adequate and no discussion is needed.

Issue No. 6

There is a keyboard layout creator available for download at Microsoft’s globaldev web-site (http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/msklc.mspx).

Pavanaja showed a glimpse of the keyboard layout creator. Members felt that Pavanaja’s reply and the demo is adequate and no discussion is needed.

Issue No. 7

Members felt that GoK sponsored Nudi software must be made Open Source Software (OSS). Pavanaja mentioned that Kannada Linux enthusiasts and developers are requesting for the source code of Nudi from last three years but Kannada Ganaka Parishat (KGP) is not giving it out. They are needing the source code of Nudi for implementing the keyboard driver and the sorting algorithm. Srinatha Shastry explained that the source code of Nudi is written in Windows C++ and is of no use to Linux programmers. Pavanaja countered this argument saying that only the Windows APIs used to make Kannada menus may not be of direct use but other modules used to make keyboard driver, sorting, SDK, etc. are definitely of use. Moreover Nudi being a government funded product, tax paying people have a right on the source code. Majority members agreed on this argument except Srinatha Shastry. Tejaswi questioned why KGP has not recommended the GoK to make Nudi OSS. Shastry was evading answering this. Tejaswi also mentioned that the fonts issued along with Nudi are not of professional quality, there is not support mechanism for Nudi, Nudi has many bugs, etc. Pavanaja mentioned that if Nudi is made OSS, passionate developers can fix the bugs in Nudi. Finally it was agreed by all that this committee will recommend to GoK to make Nudi a OSS.

Issue No. 8

It was agreed by all the members. Pavanaja explained that he had written to Mr. Rajiv Chawla, Secretary, E-Governance, Government of Karnataka, about a year ago, requesting to have a permanent committee under DIT which will take care of all issues related to standardization. He also met him a number of times and reiterated this fact.

It is clear that there should be a team consisting of technical and linguistic experts who will help the DIT. With the absence of such a team, wrong recommendations will be sent, as shown in the example above.

Lingadevaru Halemane asked what kind of persons should be members of this committee. Pavanaja opinioned that three kind of people, viz., languages experts, technology experts and people who are experts in both language and technology should be the members of this committee. Everyone agreed on this suggestion.

Closing Observations

Though it was felt the meeting was successful in stirring the hornet’s nest, we could feel there was difference of opinion from the representitives of Ganaka Parishat. They felt that the enlisted issues were not at all issues and they have been taken care of already. They were also not very much responsive in their reactions. There were even mild altercations between Srinatha Shastry and Dr. Pavanaja who were once comrades in arms at Ganaka Parishat. This left the impression among other members that all is not well with Ganaka Parishat and other software companies. At the end of the meeting Srinatha Shastry and Dr. Panditharadhya requested me not to include their names under recommendation but to mention only they have attended the meeting on request.

You are requested to give your feed back regarding the minutes and also to form a technical committee, so that we can send this recommendation to Government of Karnataka.

LINGADEVARU HALEMANE

Posted in CIIL | Leave a Comment »

KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT – What is the future

Posted by egovindia on August 7, 2006

—————–
Forwarded Message:

Subj: Re: Fwd: KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT – What is the future
Date: 5/31/2004 10:51:27 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: NovaMed
To: arasan@bgl.vsnl.net.in, NovaMed
CC: pandita@eth.net, panditaradhya@sancharnet.in, gnnmurthy@yahoo.com, sastry@ead.cmmacs.ernet.in, kts_gowda@yahoo.com, pavanaja@vishvakannada.com, bhujanga@sancharnet.in

In a message dated 5/31/2004 6:53:19 AM Pacific Daylight Time, arasan@bgl.vsnl.net.in writes:
Mr. V. M. Kumaraswamy
Dear Sir,

I have received all the mails. As I look into these emails only from Office I couldn’t reply to your mails in time. I sincerely feel that I am answering to your queries. However, please revert back for any further clarifications. I affirm that all the informations provided by me are factuals based on the documents available with me.

V. M. K : You have written so clearly about GoK adopting the Standards for kannada in Karnataka State. IS this all true what you have written ?

Arasan : GoK (Kannada and Culture department) has announced a Kannada keyboard layout as a uniform keyboard layout (which is referred as standard keyboard layout or KGP layout) without any study. The uniform keyboard layout was announced on 4-2-99.

It is to note that the typing method followed in the manual typewriter is based on the graphemic approach while the Uniform keyboard announced by the GoK is based on the phonemic approach. It means that these two methods of typing are completely different and a user has to unlearn the one to use the other.

The brutality is that all the typists who are now put into operate computers have to unlearn their typing knowledge and learn the uniform method. GoK is still appointing typists and stenographers based on the qualification of typing method based on the manual typing method which is followed in the diploma courses conducted by Directorate of Technical Education and various other institutes and Universities. This is a grave mistake of GoK and wastes precious study time of thousands of students.

GoK appointed KGP as a certifying agency on 4-2-99 to certify the Kannada software intended to purchase by the departments of GOK. KGP has abused its power to promote/favour some of the Kannada software.

Kannada software users were facing problems of Non-portable Kannada data created by using various Kannada software, which is based on the proprietory encoding adopted by various Kannada software developers due to various issues of Copyright and IPR. To ensure portability of Kannada data created among various Kannada software users GoK has announced a standard vide G.O maa.tham.e 6 nee.sam.v 2000 for glyph encoding and guidelines to be adopted in the Kannada softwares. As per this G.O certification is a must for any Kannada software for its use in GoK departments. Alongwith the standard glyphs, GoK has also listed further requirements for a Kannada software, such as conversion utility to convert the data created using the existing Kannada software. Through its G.O, GoK has restricted the Kannada software developers to use only the standard glyphs as announced in the G.O. However, GoK has adopted uncertified, non standard NUDI in its e-Governance projects. Use of non-standard glyphs has nullified the very purpose of standard and has made all other Kannada software as incompatible and forcing the GoK user departments to use only Nudi. Enforcing of Nudi is also ensured because of implementation of Nudi in the Secretariat network which connects all the departments of GoK.

V. M. K : We did not know that GoK sanctioned fund of 30.55 lakhs to develop various Kannada Software. So from your letter it looks like KGP was supposed to do these? Did KGP do there job in completing the development of Kannada Software? Why KGP is delaying in completing the jobs that are approved by GoK? DO YOU HAVE ANY ANSWERS or DO YOU HAVE ANY SUGGESTIONS TO COMPLETE THE TASK OF GOK ?

Arasan : Eventhough KGP has certified some of the Kannada software, it didn’t disclose the number of certified Kannada software to GoK. On 31-1-2001 KGP got sanctioned funds to the tune of Rs2,92,000/- in the guise to develop a Kannada software to test and evaluate the Kannada software developed by other Kannada software developers. This software was released as Kalitha. GoK has started installing Kalitha in the computers of GoK’s user departments in the guise of helping the user departments to test and evaluate the Kannada software they use. Please note that as per the G.O user departments are bound to use only the certified Kannada software. As a first step to monopolise the Kannada software, KGP has twisted the requirement and acted on its self ambition to monopolise the Kannada software and guided the GoK to install Kalitha and to distribute FREE (but KGP sold Kalitha and sells Nudi for Rs.100/=. Nudi is not KGP’s property).

On the success of Kalitha, KGP approached GoK with proposals for Twenty two products. GoK accepts 16 proposals and sanctions funds to the tune of Rs.27.65 lakhs vide G.O maa.tham.e 234 a.da.v 2001 dated 27.12.2001. Following is the breakup of the cost and list of proposals for which GoK sanctioned funds.

1. To update Kalitha as per the requirements – Rs.90,000/-
2. Sorting as per Kannada alphabetic order – Rs.50,000/-
3. Indexing as per Kannada alphabetic order – Rs.1,00,000/-
4. Word check for Kannada office – Rs.50,000/-
5. Find and Replace – Rs.25,000/-
6. Additional fonts – Rs.1,00,000/-
7. Unicode version of Kalitha (Nudi) for MS Windows- Rs.2,00,000/-
8. Grammer check – Rs.6,00,000/-
9. Unicode version of Kalitha (Nudi) for Linux- Rs.3,00,000/-
10. Converter to convert from ISCII to Unicode and Unicode to ISCII and filters and converters to convert data from various software fonts – Rs.1,50,000/-
11. Kannada Office (StarOffice) – Word processor, Spreadsheet, Presentation, database – Rs, 5,00,000/-
12. LOGO software in Kannada – Rs.5,00,000/-
13. Address book – FREE
14. Kannada Kali – FREE
15. Akshara kali Ganitha kali – Rs.50,000/-
16. Accounting software – Rs.50,000/-

V. M. K : You also have written that GoK is not using the standards that they have adopted and also about the portability of Kannada Software. Do you know who is advising GoK on these matters ? It looks like reading from your letter KGP is responsible for this ? IS KGP is the entity retained by GoK ? Can you write to me who were involved from the begining in KGP to do the KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT WORK? Please list all the names you know. I know some of them and I am copying this letter to them.

Arasan : Presently GoK is promoting only KGP. All the Kannada software developers have become jobless. The present situation is very grim for Kannada on computers as all the Kannada software developers have withdrawn from Kannada software development.

A need for a society was felt during 1995, As a sequel to this urge a seminar was organized at SBI training center near National college. GoK has organized a two seminar during 1997 at MS buildings to promote Kannada on computers. This event was a turning in the field of Kannada software development. The organizers have shown favouritism to some developer and ditched others. Further, Srinatha sastry and Narasimha Murthy fooled people around and consolidated their position and formed a dubious society during 1999 and KGP was registered with registrar of societies on 17-5-99. However, KGP has not bothered to file any returns with the registrar of societies.

Eventhough I don’t have complete list, the partial list includes the following:
Somashekar – NAL
Srinatha sastri – NAL
Narasimhamurthy – SBI
Shri Ganesh – HRD consultants
Sheshadri- System Analyst KSRTC
Ethendranath-Adamya tech
Prakash – MS Ramiah school of Advanced studies
Panditharadhya – Reader Mysore University
Udaishankar puranik

As my knowledge goes, now, due to internal differences some of the initial founder members are thrwn out of KGP.
Pavanaja – Vishwakannada
Anand – Cyberscape/Acess
Rajan – Ex Chief Scretary GoK
Sathyanarayana – Employed at KIDWAI

I don’t have the contact numbers/email IDs of the above people. A programmer from Tally is involved in the development of NUDI. Pavanaja was also associated with the initial versions of NUDI.

Eventhough KGP has adopted K.P Rao’s keyboard layout, he (K.P Rao) doesn’t agree with the way the standard keyboard layout was formulated.

V. M. K : You also raised a question, WHO IS RESPONSIBLE for GoK in implementing its e-Governance projects based on the non-standard glyphs ignoring the much needed portability ? Does KGP know the answers for this ? WHO DID THIS ?

You are also asking, Why should KGP develop a non-standard Nudi? Why Nudi is not in comfirmity with the Govt guidelines? These are questions that are to be answered by KGP.

Who were involved in KGP from the begining ? Can you list the names please. GoK must have the names of people involved in KGP. Before awarding the projects and funds to KGP, GoK must have checked the background of KGP Executives and their Experience in Developmental work related to KANNADA SOFTWARE. Please write in detail about this.

Arasan : In all its reality KGP is not qualified for developing Kannada software on the following grounds:
1. KGP was not existing for three years prior to sanctioning funds.
2. KGP has not developed any software prior to sanctioning of funds.
3. KGP is a certifying agency. A certifying agency itself can’t enter into development of competitive products which they are supposed to certify as it is most illogic like a referee, umpire or an examiner himself taking the competition by himself.

V. M. K : WHY BARAHA was not adopted by GoK ? Why did they adopt NUDI ? Can you shed some information on this please.

Arasan : Way back in 1997, we have offered our software free of cost for GoK use. Srinatha sasthry is the key person who blocked our software and probably Baraha as well. We have also obtained server space during 1997 from the server of National University of Singapore to host web pages related to Kannada literature and culture. GoK through department of Kannada and culture got prepared some material for hosting. However, Srinatha sasthry influenced Directorate of Kannada and Culture not to host the pages because, as those pages were prepared with our software which was not certified. The materials prepared was got wasted.

V. M. K : Do you have list of all the development KGP was supposed to do that was given by GoK ?

How much funds for each project aloted by GoK ? What is the status of each project ?

Does KGP has capability to finish what GoK has awarded to KGP?

Do you know who are all involved in KGP ? If you have any info on Their names, email addresses, phone numbers and other information, PLEASE provide them. We really appreciate this.

Why is that KGP is not able to deliver these products ?

Arasan : KGP doesn’t have any expertise in developing software. KGP has developed Nudi in a clandestine manner. As KGP is the certifying agency, all the Kannada software developers have submitted their software. KGP gained inner details by means of demonstration and discussions etc with developers (please note that GoK has not disclosed any details on developing their Kannada software Nudi). KGP pirated the fonts submitted to it by various Kannada software developers.

V. M. K : Why KGP is getting into NEW PROJECTS without finishing these what they have taken from GoK ? Have you seen their website? They have so many things on the website.

Arasan : As per the G.O to sanction funds to the tune of Rs.27.65 lakhs KGP has been requested to develop all the required Kannada software and to maintain them from time to time.

KGP has monopolized the Kannada software field and the future of Kannada software is now waiting for the grace of KGP!

You can contact me any time regarding Kannada software. Infact I admire too much to see your anxiety and curiosity about the Kannada software development.

My residence number is 23110291 I will be available on this number except during office hours or being away from office. As I use my mobile phone rarely, I don’t keep the phone always on.

With warm regards,

N. Anbarasan

————————————————————————————-
Dear Mr. N. Anbarasan,

Thanks for reply. I am forwarding your reply email to I request all of you to read the email reply of Mr. N. Anbarasan which is at the end of this email. I personally request all of you who are getting this email letter copy to write your comments, IF you disagree on what it has been written here. Please give the reason. You are the first one who has replied for my email.

I have not received any reply from Mr. Srinatha Sahastry or Dr. Pandithardhya or Mr. G. N. N. Murthy of KGP. I forgot to send my first email to Dr. Pavanaja. This time I am sending this copy of the email to him. I hope Dr. Pavanaja can shed some information on this, SINCE he was involved with KGP from the begining.

I used to see Pavanaja’s email(pavanaja@vishvakannada.com) on KGP website.

So it shows that PAVANAJA should know more about KGP than any one else. If KANNADIGAS go and look at this URL http://www.ganakaparishat.org/contactus.htm they will know the whole story. This was the first website of ganakaparishat which was registered by Dr. U. B. Pavanaja and maintained by Pavanaja. Here it shows that all the things that were done in GANAKAPARISHAT at the advise of PAVANAJA. It also shows PAVANAJA’s email of VISHVAKANNADA.com. NOW PAVANAJA is no longer with KGP. This does not mean that I am supporting any one or two KANNADIGAS. All I am trying to get answers from different responsible, trustworthy, truthtelling kannadigas about KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT in Karnataka State. I wrote an email letter to Mr. Rajeev Chawla Secretary to Govt. (e-Governance) & Special Secretary to Gov. and it did not go. It bounced back. Also I have written an email letter to I T Secretary and I T Director. I hope I get replies from them. Once I get the reply I will copy to all of you. By reading your email it shows that there are no opportunities for other KANNADIGAS to DEVELOP KANNADA SOFTWARE. You are writing that KGP is monopolising this. If this is the case all Kannada Software Developers including you can file a complaint with Lokayuktha of GoK. You have written that KGP is a Certifying Agency for GoK. Does KGP using their close proximity to GoK, abuse the other KANNADIGAS who are Developing Kannada Software professionals? How many Kannada Software Programs were presented to KGP for certification and recomendation to GoK ? Do we have a list ? How many of them are certified by KGP and do we have a list ? Are you writing that Kannada software developers have withdrawn from Kannada software development just because of KGP being promoted by GoK ? IS this what you are telling ? IS this good for KANNADA ? Does all GoK Departments such as PWD, Education, Law, Labor, Revenue and others use the GoK Kannada Software Standards adopted by GoK for their work in their departments?

How it is being done now? IS KGP helping these Departments in anyway in doing this ?

How are these departments operating now ? Do you know how much funds KGP has received for it,s work from GoK.

Do we have an account of it? Can you let all of us know ?

Why KGP blocked your software ? Did KGP give any reasons ?

You say that Mr. Srinatha Shastry bolcked it ? Is this a fact ?

KGP did this becuase they wanted to get the contract from GoK ?

Did you work with KGP after this incidence ?

Do you have any more information that you can write to us regarding Kannada Software Development in Karnataka State?

Please write in detail.

I will write another letter in detail once I get replies from KGP and It’s Executives.

If any of you have questions on this, write to me.

Thanks

Sincerely

V. M. Kumaraswamy, MBA.,

CEO, Nova Group

Posted in N. Anbarsan of Apple Soft | Leave a Comment »

SOME INNER DETAILS ON KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Posted by egovindia on August 7, 2006

From: arasan@bgl.vsnl.net.in
Date: Tue Jun 8, 2004 7:27am
Subject: SOME INNER DETAILS ON KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Dear Colleagues,

I understand that you all are eager to know something more on the Kannada software development that has taken place in the guise of developing Kannada. I would like to share some more information on the subject. I affirm that all the informations provided by me are factuals and based on the documents available with me.

GOK AND THE STANDARDS FOR KANNADA

GoK (Kannada and Culture department) has announced a Kannada keyboard layout as a uniform keyboard layout (which is referred as standard keyboard layout or KGP layout) without any study. The uniform keyboard layout was announced on 4-2-99.

DETAILS ON GOK FUNDING KGP

Eventhough KGP has certified some of the Kannada software, it didn’t disclose the number of certified Kannada software to GoK. On 31-1-2001 KGP got sanctioned funds to the tune of Rs2,92,000/- in the guise to develop a Kannada software to test and evaluate the Kannada software developed by other Kannada software developers. This software was released as Kalitha. GoK has started installing Kalitha in the computers of GoK’s user departments in the guise of helping the user departments to test and evaluate the Kannada software they use. Please note that as per the G.O user departments are bound to use only the certified Kannada software. As a first step to monopolise the Kannada software, KGP has twisted the requirement and acted on its self ambition to monopolise the Kannada software and guided the GoK to install Kalitha and to distribute FREE (but KGP sold Kalitha and sells Nudi for Rs.100/=. Nudi is not KGP’s property).

STATE OF KGP

Presently GoK is promoting only KGP. All the Kannada software developers have become jobless. The present situation is very grim for Kannada on computers as all the Kannada software developers have withdrawn from Kannada software development.

Eventhough I don’t have complete list, the partial list includes the following:

Somashekar – NAL
Srinatha sastri – NAL
Narasimhamurthy – SBI
Shri Ganesh – HRD consultants
Sheshadri- System Analyst KSRTC
Ethendranath-Adamya tech
Prakash – MS Ramiah school of Advanced studies
Panditharadhya – Reader Mysore University
Udaishankar puranik

As my knowledge goes, now, due to internal differences some of the initial founder members are thrwn out of KGP.

Pavanaja – Vishwakannada
Anand – Cyberscape/Aces
Rajan – Ex Chief Scretary GoK
Sathyanarayana – Employed at KIDWAI

A programmer from Tally is involved in the development of NUDI. Pavanaja was also associated with the initial versions of NUDI.

Eventhough KGP has adopted K.P Rao’s keyboard layout, he (K.P Rao) doesn’t agree with the way the standard keyboard layout was formulated.

HOW DO KGP QUALIFY

In all its reality KGP is not qualified for developing Kannada software on the following grounds:

1. KGP was not existing for three years prior to sanctioning funds.
2. KGP has not developed any software prior to sanctioning of funds.
3. KGP is a certifying agency. A certifying agency itself can’t enter into development of competitive products which they are supposed to certify as it is most illogic like a referee, umpire or an examiner himself taking the competition by himself.

KGP doesn’t have any expertise in developing software. KGP has developed Nudi in a clandestine manner. As KGP is the certifying agency, all the Kannada software developers have submitted their software. KGP gained inner details by means of demonstration and discussions etc with developers (please note that GoK has not disclosed any details on developing their Kannada software Nudi). KGP pirated the fonts submitted to it by various Kannada software developers.

As per the G.O to sanction funds to the tune of Rs.27.65 lakhs KGP has been requested to develop all the required Kannada software and to maintain them from time to time.

KGP has monopolized the Kannada software field and the future of Kannada software is now waiting for the grace of KGP!

With warm regards,

N. Anbarasan

Posted in N. Anbarsan of Apple Soft | Leave a Comment »

I feel sorry for KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Posted by egovindia on August 7, 2006

—————-
Forwarded Message:
Subj: I feel sorry for KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT
Date: 6/16/2004 3:15:48 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: tsm@srg-systems.com
To: NovaMed@aol.com
CC: aplesoft@vsnl.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)

Mr. V. M. Kumaraswamy,
MBA.,CEO, Nova Group

16 June 2004

Dear Mr.Kumaraswamy,

SRG Systems Pvt. Ltd. (Software Research Group) is one of the
leading research and development oriented software company in
India. SRG was started in 1984 by T. S. Muthu krishnan who is a
B.Tech from IIT Madras. He has more than 35 years of experience.

S R G was the first Indian company to produce and export packaged
software to European countries like West Germany, Holland,
Belgium, East Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia & Taiwan
and Middle East countries.

S R G, a professionally managed company, was the first to develop
packages in Indian Languages namely Kannada, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu,
Malayalam, Marathi, Gujrati & Bengali using Indigenous Knowhow
based on extensive experience in the field of Software
development.

SRG has developed several application Software Products and
Packaged Software Packages.

First developed a Word processing Software on Apple System
in USA for a Client in 1983-84.

During 1984-85 SRG had been developing application Software
for various Customers.

Subsequently developed WORDLORD on IBM PC which was later
Exported to Europe in 1985-86 and Far Eastern Countries in
1987.

SHABDRATNA, the first Kannada Word processing Software was
launched by the then Director of Karnataka Govt. Computer
Center during January 1987. This was used extensively by
almost all Offices & Depts of the Govt. of Karnataka.

Kannada DTP Software VENUS Publisher was launched in 1989.
This was used extensively by several Publishers of Kannada
books including NAL Mr. Srinatha Sastry. Govt. of Karnataka
is still using our DTP S/W for Budget presentation.

CHITRAKALA was specially developed for Door Dharshan Kendra,
Bangalore for Kannada Titling and graphics during 1990.

Several other Language Softwares were also released.

During 1993 developed DATA BASE Software Package INEX which
is a Kannada-English Business Software using which various
applications like Financial Accounting, Inventory, Payroll,
MRP, PPC etc. were released. INEX was launched by the then
Minister for Higher Education, Govt. of Karnataka.

During 1994 developed WINKEY Kannada interface for
Windows applications. This was also used extensively by most
of the Offices & Depts of the Govt. of Karnataka.

During 1999 developed KARYALAYA 2000 Multi-lingual office
suite.

During 2001 developed BANK SCRIPT Multi-lingual interface
for Data Processing Applications.

During 2003 developed SRG BROWSER Multi-lingual Internet /
Intranet Browsing Interface.

We had struggled hard to promote Kannada usage in Computers for
more than a decade without any assistance from Govt. of Karnataka
or any other body and even ignoring the more lucrative Commercial
Software development.

In fact we had spent more money for Research & development,
Training and Support for Kannada than we had earned. It was other
Language Softwares particularly Hindi & Tamil which helped us to
make some profit.

We had even provided our Kannada Software free of cost to several
Individuals including Mr. Srinatha Sastry for personal use and
thereby encouraged Kannada usage in Computers.

It is only after Kannada usage in Computers had fully spread as a
result of our promotion, suddenly some individuals found that they
can use the slogan “Kannada promotion” as a ploy to syphon out
Govt. funds which can be shared among them. They had even used
some good persons like Dr. Pavanaja for achieving their goal.

As we were already promoting Kannada without any Govt. funds and
also these individuals had no Technical or Linguistic expertise,
they had decided to use the “Back-door approach”.

First these vested interests formed a group with a catchy name
“Kannada Ganaka Parished” and entered themselves in the books of
Karnataka Govt. claiming to promote Kannada thru’ Computers.

They had implanted the idea of “Kannada Standards” in the minds of
un-suspecting Govt. Officials. They influenced the formation of
Standards committee without including the real users like Typists
or the Kannada Software Developers.

They had wasted Govt. money and time by establishing two
“Redundant Standards” for “Keyboard” which is harmful to
KANNADIGAS, as well as “Mono Lingual font” which is totally
useless as NUDI itself is using Bi-lingual font.

Thousands of POOR UNEMPLOYED KANNADIGAS spend what little money
they have on Kannada typing diploma courses and pass typing exams
using manual typewriter where the speed & accuracy are important.
By adopting a keyboard other than typewriter keyboard would defeat
the very purpose and completely destroy their future.

One can not Promote Kannada at the expense of POOR KANNADIGAS.
It is for this reason we had adopted typewriter keyboard for the
qualified Typists and at the same time provided phonetic typing
for other users.

Further we had written to D.I.T. on 30-6-2000 that most of the
Customers use Bi-lingual fonts and demanded the Standards for
Bi-lingual font. This was totally ignored by them.

After the NUDI Software was rejected by almost all Govt. Staff,
they came out with their own “Non-Standard” Bi-lingual font
thereby making the “Font Standard” as Redundant by themselves.

This was the level of intelligence at KGP.

Then they had influenced the Govt. to appoint themselves (KGP) as
the “Certifying Agency” for these “Redundant Standards” and forced
the Govt. to part with more than Rs. 2 Lakhs for this purpose.

They had also used certain Corrupt Govt. Officials to sanction
funds to the tune of Rs.27.65 lakhs for the Kannada Software
Development, which even a well established S/W Company will find
it difficult to achieve.

No standard procedure like Tender or Multiple Quotations was
followed by D.I.T. The KGP is not a Govt. body either.

KGP without any infrastructure for Software development, not even
a proper office or a Computer, was awarded such a huge Software
Contract. This also shows the level of Corruption and the
Influence they had used.

In fact we have not earned so much money during the last 17 years
of Kannada Software development.

KGP had already Certified our Software earlier. After the
“Contract” was awarded, KGP had no Idea of “How to go about”.

Hence, the second certification “Drama” was enacted jointly by
Corrupt Officials of the D.I.T. and the vested interests in KGP
with the sole aim of pirating the Kannada Software Technology of
the Software Developers.

They had asked the un-suspecting Software Developers to
demonstrate and explain the Language Technology to the “KGP team”
which included the part-time programmer who had later “developed”
NUDI.

It is humanly impossible for a part-time programmer to do Research
& development and come out with an Original Software in such a
short time. The Truth is simple common sense, obvious and glaring.

Then the “Certifying” Agency themselves “Certified” their own
“developed” Software NUDI and “sold” it to D.I.T. at a huge cost.

Obviously the vested interests in KGP would not have spent more
than Rs. 15,000/= for the part-time programmer. But they had
managed to syphon out Lakhs of Rupees of Govt. funds which was
obviously shared by these vested interests with those Corrupt
Officials of the D.I.T.

The claim of “saving money for the Govt.” is a fraud. As there is
no support or service, which the Software Developers provide, the
NUDI Software will be dumped by the user and entire money “spent”
for NUDI will go down the drain. If the Govt. wants to provide the
support or service, the cost will be enormous and will run into
crores of Rupees.

If at all the D.I.T. Officials wanted to save money for the Govt.
they should have called for Tender or Competitive Quotations
instead of accepting the “fancy prices” quoted by KGP. Or atleast
they should have approached CDAC or NCST which are Govt. bodies.

The main aim of this Corruption and Nepotism is to destroy Kannada
Software development in Karnataka. Such a rampant Corruption and
Nepotism has never happened in any other State in India.

This has totally destroyed small and medium Software Developers.
This has also resulted in the retrenchment of staff thereby
creating unemployment.

Later the half baked NUDI Software did not find any taker as almost
all Govt.Staff had rejected it. After finding that the resistance is too
strong, they had used the Hon’ble Chief Minister himself as a
“tool” to push the NUDI Software and thrust it down the throats of
the resisting Govt. Staff.

If this is called “KANNADA PROMOTION”, then I feel sorry for
KANNADA.

In addition to the above I have come across more documentary
evidences to prove the SWINDLING OF PUBLIC FUNDS by KGP with help
of D.I.T. namely :

1. Letter from Registrar of Societies about KGP.

2. Audited Financial Statements of KGP.

3. “Donation Receipt” for Selling of Govt. Property by KGP.

From the Letter from Registrar of Societies it is obvious that the
KGP is a DEFUNCT SOCIETY and is not entitled to receive any funds
from the Govt. However the KGP has already received Rs. 12,36,040
from the Govt. as of 31-3-2002. Further, they are also Selling the
Govt. Property and earning Interest from Govt. funds.

D.I.T. had stated that “The ownership of the software vests with
the Department and KGP has no right over it”. However KGP has been
selling the software CDs and had already earned Rs. 18,800 as of
31-3-2002 and still continuing to do so. This selling is being
done in a clandestine manner by calling it a “Donation”.

It is also evident from the Financial Statements of KGP that a sum
of Rs. 6.14 Lakhs, which was in excess of actual expenditure, is
being held in Bank deposits. While the Govt. is facing paucity of
funds and borrowing at high Interest, a DEFUNCT SOCIETY is holding
excess funds from the Govt. and earning Interest on Govt. funds.

Further, the Section 3 of THE KARNATAKA TRANSPARENCY IN PUBLIC
PROCUREMENT ACT 1999 exempts only the projects funded by
International Financial Agencies, which obviously means that all
other Govt. funded projects including this “DEAL” are
automatically covered by the ACT.

D.I.T’s repeated claim that KGP is a “NON PROFIT ORGANISATION”
itself amounts to cheating as Rs.27.65 Lakhs is virtually a
ransom. Even PROFIT making commercial establishments like ours can
develop for Rs.16.00 Lakhs and still make PROFIT.

The allegation of creation of Monopoly is also proved by the G.O.
Dated 27.12.2001 in which virtually all possible Kannada Softwares
are covered leaving NOTHING for other Software Developers thereby
depriving the Software Developers their right to survive and
“physically eliminating” them so that no body will be there to
question the illegal procurement of Kannada Software from the
KGP and the misuse of public fund.

While the crooks in KGP are syphoning out the Govt. Funds as
“Honourarium” to already employed / retired persons, the “Real
Promoters” of Kannada are forced to face the unemployment. This
amounts to “making the Rich Richer, the Poor Poorer”

It is highly deplorable to “monopolize” the Kannada Software
developments by encouraging the “Middle men” as KGP can not
develop any Software themselves .

As these vested interests were not really interested in promoting
Kannada, they had also indulged in playing politics by creating
Regional bias as some of the Developers including me are not
KANNADIGAS. It is in fact a good sign to note that NON-KANNADIGAS
are promoting Kannada and one should feel happy about that.

With Kind Regards,

T. S. Muthukrishnan
Managing Director
SRG Systems Pvt. Ltd.

Posted in T. S. Muthukrishnan - SRG Systems | Leave a Comment »

K.P.Purnachandra Tejasvi on Kannada Software

Posted by egovindia on August 7, 2006

—————–
Forwarded Message:
Subj: Re: Fwd: KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT – What is the future
Date: 6/4/2004 8:38:48 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: ptejasvi@sancharnet.in
To: NovaMed@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)

Dear Kumaraswamy
I received your letter which refers to the transaction’s between you and Anabarasan. I am afraid to note that what he had written to you seemed to be true and correct. On 25th may there was a meeting at the language institute at Mysore to discus the problems of kannada software development. The meeting was called by Prof. Lingadeveru Halemane on my insistence. Sri Pavanaja and sri Srinathasastri were also there. We discussed all the problems regarding Kannada software development from morning to evening. Most of the questions which you have raised with Anabarasan were also raised there. To our utter disappointment KGP people failed to give any satisfactory explanation. On many questions they refused to comment, telling that some related cases to that subject are pending in the court of law against KGP. I am not very much worried about the misuse of public funds by KGP, but to obtain funds these people are creating a horrible mess and confusion and software development of kannada language is being ruined is a cause of great concern to all Kannadigas. I think all of us should make a unified effort to bailout our language from this sad situation.
With regards
Purnachandra Tejasvi
__________________________________________________________________

—————–
Forwarded Message:

Subj: clarifications
Date: 6/21/2004 12:27:59 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: ptejasvi@sancharnet.in
To: halemane@ciil.stpmy.soft.net, bnsrama@sancharnet.in, NovaMed@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)

Dear Halemane
After our meeting at Mysore, sensing our dissatisfaction about the
clarification’s given to us by Ganaka Parishat, Secretary sri
Narasimhamurty and member sri Panditaradhya came to mudigere to give
some more clarifications on all the subjects discussed at Mysore.
They gave some clarifications about the funds they have received
from GOK and on the projects they have utilized these funds. As you
Know, the purpose of our meeting at Mysore was to discus the future of
Kannada Software development and not about the financial activities of
KGP. I do not know why and how they got this impression! we have not
written a single word about the financial aspects in the Mysore meeting
Agenda . I told them that I am not competent to go into these matters
and our interest is only limited to the future development of Kannada
software.
1. My first complaint against KGP is, they are preventing the collective
participation in the development of Kannada software. In fact many good
software developers who were in KGP were sent out on some flimsy
grounds. On the other hand Sri Srinathasastri and Narasimhamurty are not
technically qualified s/w people, but still they are representing GOK at
Delhi IT meetings and giving technical opinion! This did not look proper
to me.
If they had entered the open market facing the competition of other
software vendors it would have helped them a lot. Instead, they
approached the government fron the backdoor and try to push their
commodity with the help of government orders. This deprived them of the
market feedback which is a very important component for the development
of any product. This is the root cause for the present crisis.
The only way now is to make nudi an open source code. we have to
reinvite all the developers who have left the stage in despair, and
request them to develop this software on the lines of Linux Open Source
initiative.
At the discussions Sri Narasimhamurty finally agreed for this
suggestion and would join us to place this request with GOK.

2. My second complaint was about the nudi Keyboard layout.They have
adopted a layout other than typewriter keyboard layout. This has
resulted in rendering all our typist who were trained at out typing
institutes useless. SRG and some other s/w developers have retained the
typewriter layout and at the same time provided phonetic typing for
other users.
I pointed out this to Sri Narasimhamurty and explained how it is
linked with the bread earning of thousands of typists. Sri
Narasimhamurty said Parishat will be able to solve this problem by
providing option to create custom Keyboard layout. I do not know whether
we can achieve this without making fundamental changes in nudi software.

3. My third complaint was Parishats hard-line attitude towards
translation of commands in user interface. They are replacing all
english words with far more alien Sanskrit terminology’s. I have heard
these hard-liners themself use english terms only when conversing with
others. But they prescribe and are forcing others to use Sanskrit terms.
They are using this as a platform to express their Kannada love are
Kannadabhimana. Words like ‘Cut,’ paste, ’save,’ ‘file’ have already in
use in our language as Kannada words and placing them in Kannada
characters is enough. Even our renowned Lexicographer and Critic Prof.
G. Venkata Subbaiah has agreed for this suggestion.
I tried very hard to convince them but they refused to listen to my
reasoning. Their attitude looks like new incarnation of untuchablity and
castsystems of our society. I demand a more extensive debate over this
issue.
They had brought their many other works such as ‘Pampa Bharata’
‘Kannada Visva Kosha’ and other things on cd. They are really Important
contributions in the cultural context of Karnataka. They must be
appreciated and encouraged. But these things have nothing to do with
Kannada s/w development and must be undertaken on some other platforms
such as Kannada and culture Ministry and not with IT..
We could have discussed all these matters at the Mysore meeting
without any hesitation. There is nothing private or personal in these
delibarations and they are almost extenssions of our Mysore meeting. I
am sending this for your information.
With regards
K.P.Purnachandra Tejasvi
—————————————————————————————-

Sri. K.P.Purnachandra Tejasvi wrote to Muttukrishan

T. S. Muthukrishnan
Managing Director
SRG Systems Pvt. Ltd.

Dear Muttukrishan
I read your letter written to Sri Kumaraswamy. It was forwarded by
him to me. I was shocked to know that you have under gone such a
treatment by GOk. We never new that Kgp has become such a great obstacle
to the software development of Kannada Language.
As you know I am Srg’s oldest customer. I have almost all versions
of your Kannada word processors from venus2 to latest Winkey. all our
publications are in your software only. We mention your software support
in all edition of our publications. Your Winkey is one of the best
software available in kannada.
I feel sad and sorry that Kannadiga’s have failed to utilize your
expertise and talent to the development of Kannada language. I wonder
why you have not brought these things to my notice. However we have
decided to correct the Blunders committed by KGP. I expect your
cooporation and support to our efforts.
With regards
K.P.Purnachandra Tejasvi
—————————————

Posted in KSD - Kannada Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Akruti Fonts Pirated by INDIVIDUAL (VASU) and CORPORATION (KGP)

Posted by egovindia on August 7, 2006

In a message dated 6/12/2004 5:29:45 AM Pacific Daylight Time, anand@cyberscapeindia.com writes:

Namaskara,

I entirely agree with Shri Janardhana regarding the need to hold a meeting of all present and former members like myself to straighten out the matters
raised by the various Kannada Computing enthusiasts.

However more important than setting records right and clearing up past injustices is to articulate very clearly, what we intend to do in the future
to see the application and growth of Kannada in all electronic and information technology devices. With the convergence of Telecom and IT, many
new challenges lie ahead for the growth of language technology, much beyond the PC.

What clearly is the need of the day is a vision statement with a roadmap of what needs to be done and what can be practically achieved the next few years and delegate the responsibilities to interested entities and also debate on how the funds and resources will be raised and distributed amongst the participants and how the milestones and disbursals would be monitored.

My personal opinion is that by involving and depending beyond a point on the Government, either at the state or the centre is a sure recipe for failure and I think we need to muster the resources and support from private sponsors and create viable self sustaining models for future development of Kannada.

I think the task of Kannada implementation in IT and convergence areas is a huge and complex task and needs co-operation from all well meaning Kannadigas and instead of wasting energies on a few wayward individuals or organizations, let us concentrate on the task ahead.

Vandanegalu,

Anand S.K.
M.D.
Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd.

P.S.: As far as specific points raised at the meeting of May 25th at CIIL, Mysore is concerned, these are my personal reactions:

While most of the points were clarified correctly by Pavanaja and others at the meeting, I have comments regarding these:

1. Open Source Initiative: I think no where is the world does an open source initiative depend on either the government or the bureaucracy, the very idea of open source is based on passionate support by individuals and autonomous groups. The moment a government or bureaucracy steps in, the idea is dead. At best outside support from them should be welcome and not a screening commitee under MIT or DIT as suggested.

2. OpenType Kannada Fonts: I think Pavanaja has put it quite rightly, that unless there is an incentive for putting quality Kannada fonts into public domain, no commercial organization like ours which has a wealth of such fonts would be willing to do so. We who have been developing such fonts (AKRUTI) well over two decades would not like a repeat of the experience, we had when our fonts were pirated off the Web and used without acknowledgement, first by an individual who went on to release a free software and then by an organization which followed suit. Unless IPR is recognized and compensated for, you can expect very little to happen. I am also happy to inform that three high quality Opentype fonts in Kannada called Sampige and Mallige and Kedage (developed commercially by us for RCILTS-Kannada, IISC, Bangalore) by us are available in public domain for general usage. More can be done provided proper mechanisms are set in place. ” Quality always comes at a price, so if you pay peanuts all you can hire are monkeys !! “

3. GOK and GOI involvement: I think while it is important to rally around the government to support the efforts to develop Kannada, it is high time we broke out of the “Mai Baap” mentality in the 21st century to refer every issue to the government or its functionaries and hope that they will solve it for us. I personally feel that if the issue of Kannada usage has to rely on government patronage or is so sick that it needs continual oxygen from the state then it is better for us to administer “Euthanasia” and solve the problem once and for all. Ultimately, it must become commercially viable and necessary to communicate in Kannada whether verbally, textually or electronically for development to happen and be self sustaining. Kannada has survived over 2000 years without any significant State patronage, so let us not be unduly worried that it will die in the electronic medium so soon, especially when the whole world seems to be recognizing that India and more specifically Karnataka and Bangalore will be playing an increasingly greater role on the world stage.

Anand S.K.
M.D.
Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd.

Posted in Akruthi Fonts | 1 Comment »

S.K. Anand of Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd. Write in detail about KGP and BARAHA

Posted by egovindia on August 7, 2006

—————-
Forwarded Message:
Subj: Re: Request to S.K. Anand of Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd. Write in detail about KGP
Date: 6/22/2004 3:26:07 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: anand@cyberscapeindia.com
To: NovaMed@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)

Dear Mr. Kumaraswamy,

As requested by you I would like to share my (bitter) experience with KGP as one of the founder member, who was later on kicked out of the organization for daring to question and expose the nefarious activities of Shri Srinath Sastry and Shri G.N. Narsimurthy, who while pretending to be doing something very noble for the cause of Kannada, were all the while plotting and politicking in the background and who mislead a lot of honourable executive members as well as the general public and Govt. bureaucrats and who in my opinion are singularly responsible for hijacking and misleading what was meant to be a good effort to make Kannada permeate all aspects of computing and therby flourish in this new medium.

First, though I find this very embarrasing since you have asked for I need to give a little background of mine for those like you who are not aware:

a. Way back in 1983, with a group of like minded professionals, I started a company called VSS Computer Engg. Pvt. Ltd. in Mumbai. As an Electronics & Communications engineer, with a burning zeal to develop technology indigenously, I designed one of the the few Z-80 based, micro-computer called “Asterix” and among other uses we developed it as an offline composing terminal to feed text ( including all Indian languages) for photo-composing machines. In those days before DTP, the publishing industry used photo-composing machines for producing bromide output and make master plates for printing. So my brush with languages including, Kannada and the technicalities like fonts, coding and composing dates from those days. I think the only other group with this kind of knowledge and experience is the Pune based Modular Systems Pvt. Ltd, who are our worthy competitors.

b. In Printek-1988 in New Delhi, we were the first to demonstrate the use of an IBM PC clone, running DOS and Ventura (GEM) version to do composing in Hindi and then subsequently in all languages like Kannada. It was called the “Asterix Publishing System”. This was the first step of establishing the DTP industry in the country and it was a real low cost alternative to the one based on Apple Macintosh and Apple Laserwriter Postscript printer. For the first time an inexpensive PC based, GUI based and a non Postscript (HP laserjet) based DTP solution for Indian languages with much superior quality than the expensive Apple Mac based system was demonstrated by us. It is with great satisfaction that today I see that this kind of system is virtually the defacto standard in the industry.

c. Along with Mr. Mohan Tambe, then at IIT Kanpur, I helped evolve the first ever GIST card, which was then taken up for further development at CDAC, Pune and we at VSS were the first to build an ISCII, GIST card ( Asterix Language Card) based DTP system with GUI support on Windows 3.0, with ATM fonts and Truetype fonts in Windows 3.11, working on Ventura 2.0 and Page Maker 2.0 (Windows version).

d. In 1990, along with a colleague Mr. M.S. Sridhar, I founded ACES Technologies and ACES Consultants and “Akruti” was born. Akruti had the concept of a DOS based ISCII editor which could edit all Indian scripts including Kannada which could be imported by PageMaker or Ventura and was the first to allow direct editing of Hindi, Kannada and other Indian scripts in the Windows GUI environment. Some of our newspaper and magazine customers use this solution even today. In fact Pavanaja was one of our earliest Kannada DTP software customers in Mumbai. I also was a technical adviser to CDAC for setting up the Fonts Development Cell, when Mr. Vijay Bhatkar was the Executive Director and Mohan Tambe was in charge of the GIST technology group.

e. In 1992, I shifted to Bangalore from Mumbai and sort of returned to my roots to further the development of “Akruti” in Kannada and all south indian languages. Slowly it dawned on us that, publishing was just one of the application areas for language software and we started exploring other areas like office productivity applications like Word, Excel, Power Point, Lotus Smart Suite etc. all on the Windows platform.

f. In 1996, we were the first in the country to recognise and launch (along with Mr. Ninad Pradhan of Mumbai) the first ever Indian language website called www.indianlanguages.com . This was the primary starting point for Indian language Web publications like “Mai Boli” in Marathi, “Daily Milap” in Hindi and “Vishwa Kannada” in Kannada, edited by Pavanaja.

g. 1996 also saw the founding of Cyberscape Multimedia Pvt. Ltd. which took over ACES Technologies and ACES Consultants and the “Akruti” line of products. We also developed some pioneering applications, like the “Grievance Monitoring System” for the Chief Minister’s Secretariat and KSRTC in Kannada. A payroll system in Kannada with Mr. Sathyanarayana of Kidwai and a Library management System in Kannada with Mr. Annamalai of NAL. It was around this time when Srinath Sastry of NAL and Narsimurthy of SBI who had no clue as to the technicalities of Kannada software started approaching me to illuminate them about these technical issues. In fact there were times when they would pick my brain for hours to-gether on Sundays and late nights to understand the nitty gritty of these issues. Of course, today they are self proclaimed experts in Kannada Computing and people like me Mr. Anbarasan of Applesoft and Mr. Muthu Krishnan of SRG with over two decades of experience in this area have to be certified by these amateurs whether our software meets standards or not.

h. Mr. Mohan Tambe subsequently started a company called Innomedia in Bangalore in which Cyberscape was an angel investor and the idea was to develop a convergent media solution called the “Chois Pad” a set-top box, which would provide infotainment services thru cable. Our contribution was to help in enabling the solution to work in all Indian languages. It was in connection with this that I facilitated Pavanaja’s shift from Mumbai where he was languishing in BARC to the more fertile and intellectually active private info-tech industry in Bangalore and helped him take up a job with Innomedia. Subsequently, due to some differences with Mr. Tambe and his style of working, Pavanaja quit and waded thru various jobs to finally start Vishwa Kannada Softech. Cyberscape too disassociated with Innomedia, but for the record today, Innomedia with Reliance having aquired 55% stake in it is one of the leading New Media solutions company and is one of the key strategic IP that Reliance is going to use to grab a major chunk of the yet to develop but potentially huge convergent telecom/infotainment/home computing market.

i. Today, Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd. of which, I am the Managing Director, is a publicly listed company since 2000, and has more than 18,000 Akruti installations all across the country. Kannada being my mother tongue does interest me academically still, but the kind of sordid politics I experienced in KGP makes me feel I would be better off keeping away from such petty politics and concentrate on the future technologies and products. We are currently pioneering in the following areas:
e-Governance: We have a product called e-Karyalaya which handles all basic office admin functions in Kannada or any Indian language.
e-Banking: We have cyBANK and cyCRED which cater to total branch automation in local languages for co-op banks and micro-credit institutions.
DM & KM: With our cyDOCS and cyKNIT products, we cater to Document management and Knowledge Management in any Indian or Global script.
Akruti WDK / SDK : We enable any software or web application developer to enable his solution in any local language including Kannada using our Software Development Kit or Web Development Kit.
We are actively looking at language enabling of embedded devices using Linux and Windows CE/XP embedded OS.
While I will have a lot to say of my experience with KGP in succeeding mails, I will currently focus on some specific questions you have raised:
Do you have any correspondences with KGP and it’s Executives? Please send these in a separate email to me. All of it. Exactly like you have sent to them or to any KGP persons that were involved at the time you were in KGP.
Yes, I do have some mails with KGP and its execs. I will be attaching them seperately.
Who developed KALITHA? Was it developed from Scaratch? Who paid for it tobe developed?
Do you know how did KGP developed the NUDI software? IS THIS done from Scaratch? Are there anything COPIED or PIRATED or REVERSE ENGINERED from some one else’s Software that was submitted to KGP? Do you know anything about this? Who did the majority of NUDI software development? How long it took to complete that ?
Kalitha was developed in a hush-hush manner, behind our back by reverse engineering the software obtained for certifying that they comply with GOK Keyboard and font standards by some part time developers in active connivance with Srinath Sastry and Narsimurthy. I think the developer named Harsha was introduced by Pavanaja to them and probably he knows more about it. I know for sure that our Akruti font “Padmini” was definitely used without our permission as the initial font for Kalitha. later when I objected to this in a KGP meeting. I was asked to prove this or take it to a court of law by them knowing very well how difficult it is for courts in India with their scant knowledge of software and IP rights and their very long decision making time frames to give any kind of speedy justice. Mr. Srinath Sastry and Narsimurthy had been for quite some time using Akruti provided by us for their correspondence and other Kannada related activity and they had also sent me drafts of the font code for approval. This I see nothing but a stab in the back to someone who gave them all the technical guidance when they were absolute ingnoramuses.

Do you know of any relationship between KGP and DIT ? Do you know any relatives of KGP worked in DIT ?
I think, the nexus and plot to retrospectively finance this NUDI developement, probably with the connivance of some elements in DIT was hatched, by the abovementioned active members of KGP without taking any of us other so called committee members into confidence. Srinath Sastry’s son was spotted on many occasions with DIT members doing some software work, and Srinath Sastry’s daughter used to hang around quite a bit in KGP office, I do not know if this work was voluntary or there was some consideration.

You told me that you have read all the emails of Mr. N. Anbarsan and Mr. Muthukrishanan. Can you write answers in detail to those emails whether they are telling the TRUTH or NOT. Please be precise in writing the facts. It helps to solve the problems of KANNADA.
I think most of the points raised by these two gentlemen seems to reflect facts. Maybe I will take it up point wise in succeeding mails. More importantly, the fact that they are not true blue Kannadigas being of Tamil origin, is being used to kind of discredit their assertions. As far as I am concerned, these two have done a lot for development of Kannada software and though they are competitors in the commercial space, I see them as equal partners in the endeavour to develop Kannada.
Do you know how much of work is completed by KGP for GoK?
I think from the long list of Kannada software development projects for which funds over Rs. 30 Lakhs were obtained from DIT, expect Nudi ( which is of doubtful origin) and the kind of software which at least 10 commercial vendors and free software developers have been giving solutions for decades, no other significant Kannada software, other than a few utilities and a so called e-book which is a replica of the work done by RCILTS has seen the light of the day. It should have been very clear to DIT that a rag-tag bunch of amateurs and part time programmers cannot deliver products, which normally is difficult for even professional companies with significant budgets to deliver. I think the whole issue of Kannada software development has been treated shabbily and very casually by DIT. Hopefully, more sense will prevail in the future.
Did you quit KGP b yourself ? Why you are not working with KGP anymore?
As mentioned by Mr. Satyanarayana earlier, using a facade of fake democracy, I along with Satyanarayana and Pavanaja, who were viewed as inconvenient were first removed from the committee memberships by some members who had never showed their face even once in KGP meetings. Subsequently, on technical grounds that we had not renewed our membership, we were kicked out of the KGP. Under these circumstances, is it even wise to associate with such people, leave alone working with them?
Did you advise KGP not to do somethings in KGP? Did they listen to you? Have you kept tarck of these things? Please include these in your email.
I have already mentioned, how we tried to object to some wrong paths KGP was taking and how we got sidelined. Yes, I do have some mails and I will send them as stated earlier for public scrutiny.

Thats all for now. More later.

Anand S.K.
Managing Director
Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd.
941, 21st main, 22nd “A” Cross,
Banashankari 2nd Stage,

Bangalore – 560070.
Ph: 91-80-26714446 Ext. 29
Fx: 91-80-26710925 Ext. 31

Mobile (GSM): +91-9844079270
Mobile (CDMA):+91-80-31845270

email: anand@cyberscapeindia.com

Posted in KGP - Kannada Ganaka Parishat | Leave a Comment »

Dr. U. B. Pavanaja on VASU and BARAHA

Posted by egovindia on August 7, 2006

Hello Kannadigas,

There is a correction in what I wrote before. This correction was pointed out by this email from Dr. U. B. Pavanaja. Please read for your self.

—————–
Forwarded Message:
Subj: Re: Fwd: Story of Birth for an Adult Man – How it happens and HOW it has HAPPENEND
Date: 7/7/2004 8:23:44 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: pavanaja@vishvakannada.com
To: NovaMed@aol.com
CC: anand@cyberscapeindia.comm, bhchandrashekara@hotmail.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)

namaskaara,

I think there is a factual error in your mail.

You wrote: VASU the MAN in USA buys the AKRUTI FONTS of Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd. after talking Dr. PAVANAJA and now VASU thinks that he owns it and the VASU puts this AKRUTI FONTS into MOTHER’s womb and conceives it. Mother gave birth to NEW FONTS.

AFAIK, Vasu did not buy fonts from Anand (Akruti fonts). He just used the fonts available for free download at my web-site (www.vishvakannada.com). The fonts were given only for reading the web-site and not for any other purpose.

sigONa,
Pavanaja
—————————————-
Dr. U.B. Pavanaja
CEO, Vishva Kannada Softech
Think Globally, Act locally
—————————————————————————————-

THIS DOES NOT CHANGE THE STORY of BIRTH WHAT I WROTE to all of you.

STILL VASU’s admission of using AKRUTI FONTS and Apolising to Mr. S. K. Anand is in writing. THIS INVOLVES MORAL ISSUES. It is not a made up by any one as some one is saying. It is not CUT and PASTE works as some one is posting in a forum. These emails are REAL PROOF.

PLEASE DO NOT SPREAD BAD THINGS UNLESS YOU KNOW THE FACTS.

Mr. Anand does not have to proove anything to kannadigas. All Kannadigas have to read are the emails.

Here is what Mr. Anand has written in short format:

Re: Ends do not justify crooked means !

In a message dated 7/7/2004 4:35:02 AM Pacific Daylight Time, anand@cyberscapeindia.com writes:

> My acknowldgements to Akruti software for providing the glyphs which
> were used in the intial releases of Baraha. I apologise for this delayed
> acknowledgement.

> Regards
>
> Vasu
—————————————————-
I think from the above excerpt of Mr. Vasu’s mail to me, it should be clear (to anyone who can understand plain simple English), whether it is an acknowledgement or an apology for a delayed acknowledgement.

Do you still have doubts? Please be objective and go by facts and do not be swayed by emotion.

A theft is a theft is a theft, no matter how noble the intended purpose maybe. Ends do not justify crooked means !

With best regards.

Anand S.K.
Managing Director
Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd.
Banaglore.
——————————————————————————-

BECAUSE BARAHA is free to kannadigas on the net that does not mean you need to support blindly.

VASU is offering it free BECAUSE he knows he has not put in time to develop those fonts when he released BARAHA 1.0.

VASU might do song and dance now. It is not going to work.

For everything there should be a begining.

VASU did not become a 25 year old man just like that.

VASU has to be baby first THEN child THEN HIGH SCHOOL BOY THEN COLLEGE BOY THEN a MAN. VASU did not become a MAN outright on first attempt. I think VASU has to check with his parents all about this.

JUST LIKE THAT there is a process for all the things. WHICH includes FONTS, SOFTWARE and other things. I hope you are getting the point now.

AKRUTI Fonts was BABY of Mr. S. K. ANAND of Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd. and it was growing. Thye were feeding water to it. They were selling that AKRUTI FONTS to General Public. Thye were not offering it free to any one. I hope you are getting the point.

There comes Dr. U. B. Pavanaja.s first KANNADA Internet Portal www.vishvakannada.com
developed using AKRUTI FONTS of Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd. to all kannadigas. Then a MAN called VASU who was in USA sees and reads this FIRST KANNADA PORTAL and writes a letter to Dr. U. B. Pavanaja asking all sorts of questions to Dr. Pavanaja about the KANNADA PORTAL and FONTS used for it. ALL THIS STORY IS REAL. IT IS RECORDED IN PAPERS. AT THAT TIME THERE WAS NO BARAHA. It was still in the MOTHER’s womb. It is not yet conceived by any one.

VASU the MAN in USA buys the AKRUTI FONTS of Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd. after talking Dr. PAVANAJA and now VASU thinks that he owns it and the VASU puts this AKRUTI FONTS into MOTHER’s womb and conceives it. Mother gave birth to NEW FONTS.

I hope you understand ENGLISH to follow all these things BECAUSE all of this is in ENGLISH not in KANNADA yet.

VASU names this BABY of AKRUTI FONTS of Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd. has BARAHA 1.0 and welcomes to the world of Kannadigas as FREE CANDIES as if VASU the MAN oqned these FONTS. He did not realise that FATHER of BARAHA was someone else at that time.

He was so excited VASU the MAN started enjoying himself BUT forgot how he CONCEIVED the BABY FONTS BARAHA 1.0 VASU does not have to check with BARAHA parents. He is the parent. He conceived this BARAHA by using AKRUTI FONTS which is lika MOTHER.

As we all say; ” DO’t FOOL MOTHER NATURE”. This is a natural act that has happened. VASU can’t FOOL Kannadigas anymore. He has given it in writing to MOTHER AKRUTI FONTS of Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd.

VASU the MAN can go on writing all the articles he wants, He can release thousands of COPYRIGHT papers and artilces, He can write I can do that and these, He has done so many things after the BABY BARAHA’s birth of conceived out of AKRUTI Fonts.

VASU started getting lots of users from Kannadigas in USA ( where BARAHA became famous first) and then spread to other Kanandigas by word of mouth. KANNADIGAS will take everything they get as long it is FREE.

That is what VASU did and Kannadigas started using BARAHA without any knowledge that was a STOLEN / THEFT/PIRATED/COPIED from AKRUTI FONTS.

The word will spread just like VASU did in the begining, THAT he has done like this when he released BARAHA 1.0.

ALL KANNADIGAS has to know now that, NUDI / KALITHA FONTS developed by KGP is also the same story.

KGP copied from BARAHA/AKRUTI. THESE FONTS have TWO MOTHERS.

Mr. Chandrashekara, do you know how much fight Dr. Panditharadhya from MYSORE did on this with VASU’s FATHER? Please ask him. He will explain. Please write to him. His email are: pandita@eth.net, panditaradhya@sancharnet.in,

The way you have written is that you do not care about kannadigas in Karnataka State.

You are not worried about “ADALITHADALLI KANNADA”. IS THIS HAPPENNING ?

Have you questioned VASU on the following things:

1. Standardisation of KANNADA.
2. Data Portability to various formats and OS of KANNADA.

ALSO VASU writes ( KANNADIGAS need to question VASU on this):
“I have focused more on standardization issues and portability of data to various formats and Operating Systems, which was ignored (deliberately for business interests?) by other software vendors.”

Do not blindly support things without knowing the facts. It is going DESTROY the GROWTH of KANNADA SOFTWARE. WE ALLREADY FACING PROBLEMS WITH KGP.

Just because VASU is giving FREE BARAHA SOFTWARE which does not belong to him to KANNADIGAS in USA, UK, AUSTRALIA, SINGAPORE, MALAYSIA, AFRICA, RUSSIA, SOUTH AMERICA and other countries, WILL NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEMS of KANNADIGAS in KARNATAKA STATE and GoK.

BARAHA and NUDI are the two things that came to PUBLIC that has made KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT to a STAND STILL. Nothing is happenning in GoK or any where else.

This email from VASU of BARAHA shows the ADMISSION and ACKNOWLEDGEMENT and GUILT.

” I honestly admit that I have used the glyphs from one of the Akruti fonts in Baraha 1.0, and I was not very serious to mention about it.”

I apologise for this delayed acknowledgement.

VASU.

AKRUTI fonts developed by Mr. S. K. Anand.

MR. S. K Anand is also making a CHARGE on KGP and it’s Executives for using his AKRUTI FONTS to develop KALITHA/NUDI Kannada Software and selling it GoK.
__________________________________________
Mr. S. K. Anand’s email to V.M.Kumaraswamy and
Mr. Sheshadri Vasu’s email to Mr. S. K. Anand

—————–
Forwarded Message:
Subj: Fw: From Sheshadrivasu Chandrasekharan
Date: 6/28/2004 11:01:59 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: anand@cyberscapeindia.com
To: novamed@aol.com
Sent from the Internet (Details)

Shri Kumarswamy,

Namaskaara,

I think largely due to your relentless efforts to ferret out the truth behind the sad state of affairs in the area of Kannada software and the domination of false icons of the so called free software like KGP Nudi and Sheshadrivasu’s Baraha, a lot of bitter truth and hidden information is coming out from various quarters, which is exposing the nasty skullduggery by which these false icons have sucked on the blood of the real workers in the Kannada software arena who have never claimed that they and they alone have done a great service to Kannada, but have been contributing silently in the background.

I am forwarding here, an admission by one such icon, the Guru of free Kannada software, who, perhaps due to the fear of getting exposed by these revelations, very belatedly realised the need for acknowledging the unabashed piracy. More than six years after his misdeed, he meekly apologises for having pirated our “Akruti” fonts. This is a charge we have also made on KGP. How many more years, do we have to wait for them to come clean?

Anyway, I hope you keep churning the murky waters of the Kannada software world for more such nuggets. I sincerely hope at the end of this great “Samudra Manthan”, finally some true gems emerge and adorn our beloved “Kannada Maate” who must be hanging her head in eternal shame at the present state of affairs. All the behind the scene workers like us should be thankful for your fearless crusade against all the wrong doers.

Hoping for a positive outcome for the sake of Kannada,

Anand S.K.
Managing Director
Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd.
———————————————————————————————————–

Mr. Sheshadri Vasu’s email to Mr. S. K. Anand

—– Original Message —–
From: Sheshadrivasu Chandrasekharan <baraha@hotmail.com>
To: <anand@cyberscapeindia.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2004 10:18 PM
Subject: From Sheshadrivasu Chandrasekharan

> Dear Mr. S.K. Anand,
>
> I recently saw a remark from you in one of the postings in an Internet
> newsgroup which goes as follows…
>
> “We who have been developing such fonts (AKRUTI) well over two decades would
> not like a repeat of the experience, we had when our fonts were pirated off
> the Web and used without acknowledgement, first by an individual who went on
> to release a free software…”
>
> I thought you may be referring to Baraha software in the above remark, and
> hence is this email.
>
> When I started developing a Kannada software, I had no knowledge of fonts at
> all. I experimented a lot with various Kannada fonts available in the
> Internet, including Akruti. This research helped me to understand the
> technology behind the Kannada fonts and I learnt a lot from these software.
> Initially, I wanted Baraha compatible with other Kannada fonts. But due to
> various limitations of such fonts, I had to come up with my own encoding.

I honestly admit that I have used the glyphs from one of the Akruti fonts in Baraha 1.0, and I was not very serious to mention about it.
When I released Baraha 1.0, I didn’t know it will become popular and used by many people. It was only an experiment which I wanted to share with my family and friends.
> But later, when Baraha became popular, for copyright reasons, I had to add
> my own fonts for Kannada and other languages. I have created many new font
> styles, which don’t exist in any other Kannada software. My intention was to
> provide the facility for basic documentation needs of Kannada. It was not my
> intention to copy or re-create various Kannada font styles that are
> available in other packages. Instead I have focussed more on portability of
> Kannada text from Baraha to other software such as Akruti, ShreeLipi, e.t.c.
>
> Through this mail I would like to express my grattitude to various other
> Kannada software for helping me to acquire the knowledge.
My acknowldgements to Akruti software for providing the glyphs which were used in the intial releases of Baraha.
I apologise for this delayed acknowledgement.
>
> Regards
> Vasu
> ***********************************************************
> Free Kannada/Devanagari software – http://www.baraha.com
> ***********************************************************

Posted in Baraha Vasu | Leave a Comment »

VASU of BARAHA shows the ADMISSION and ACKNOWLEDGEMENT and GUILT

Posted by egovindia on August 7, 2006

This email from VASU of BARAHA shows the ADMISSION and ACKNOWLEDGEMENT and GUILT.

” I honestly admit that I have used the glyphs from one of the Akruti fonts in Baraha 1.0, and I was not very serious to mention about it.” Sheshadri Vasu.

AKRUTI fonts developed by Mr. S. K. Anand.

MR. S. K Anand is also making a CHARGE on KGP and it’s Executives for using his AKRUTI FONTS to develop KALITHA/NUDI Kannada Software and selling it GoK.
_________________________________________________
Mr. S. K. Anand’s email to V.M.Kumaraswamy and
Mr. Sheshadri Vasu’s email to Mr. S. K. Anand

Shri Kumarswamy,

Namaskaara,

Hoping for a positive outcome for the sake of Kannada,

Anand S.K.
Managing Director
Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd.
———————————————————————————————

Mr. Sheshadri Vasu’s email to Mr. S. K. Anand

> But later, when Baraha became popular, for copyright reasons, I had to add
> my own fonts for Kannada and other languages. I have created many new font
> styles, which don’t exist in any other Kannada software. My intention was to
> provide the facility for basic documentation needs of Kannada. It was not my
> intention to copy or re-create various Kannada font styles that are
> available in other packages. Instead I have focussed more on portability of
> Kannada text from Baraha to other software such as Akruti, ShreeLipi, e.t.c.
>
> Through this mail I would like to express my grattitude to various other
> Kannada software for helping me to acquire the knowledge.

My acknowldgements to Akruti software for providing the glyphs which were used in the intial releases of Baraha.

I apologise for this delayed acknowledgement.

>
> Regards
> Vasu
> ***********************************************************
> Free Kannada/Devanagari software – http://www.baraha.com
> ***********************************************************

Posted in Baraha Vasu | Leave a Comment »

Kannada font issues

Posted by egovindia on August 7, 2006

Subject: font issues
Date: 7/29/2004 12:18:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: pavanaja@vishvakannada.com
Reply To:
To: novaMed@aol.com
CC:
BCC:
Sent on:
Sent from the Internet (Details)

namaskaara,

I have attached the promised document on the font issues. Hope I can
sleep peacefully now (it is 00:45 hrs in the night)

sigONa,
Pavanaja
_____________________________
Dr. U.B. Pavanaja
CEO, Vishva Kannada Softech
Think Globally, Act locally
________________________________

Font issues -Akruti, Baraha and Nudi

by U B Pavanaja

Birth of Baraha

I had put up Kannada’s first web-site called Vishva Kannada during Dec. 1996 with the support of S K Anand of Cyberscape. Dynamic font technology was not being used by Vishva Kannada at that time. Akruti fonts were given for download at the web-site. Users have to download the font, install it in their PC and then they could read the Vishva Kannada web-site in Kannada. Sometimes in the first half of 1997, I got an email from Sheshadri Vasu who was at USA. In that mail he appreciated Vishva Kannada. He added that it takes a long time to copy characters through CharMap (an utility present in Windows to copy a glyph of a font into any application) and make a Kannada sentence. I explained him how to type in Kannada using the keyboard driver which has to be bought from Cyberscape. I gave the contact details of S K Anand and the approximate price of the software also. Then there was no mail from Vasu for some time. (Recently, during his visit to India in June 2004, Vasu wrote an article for Vijaya Karnataka, wherein he mentioned the discussions he had with me about the relation between font and keyboard driver). One day I got an email from Vasu saying that he has made a software called Baraha that can be used as an editor for Kannada. He wrote that he wanted to give this software free to everyone. The version sent to me was a beta version. He had actually written an editor for the font he downloaded from the web. I asked him about the copyright of the font. He had not thought anything about that. I explained to him the he need to take the permission of S K Anand of Cyberscape to use Akruti fonts in his software. He included the Kan Ballal font which was given to read Udayavani web-site with the first release of Baraha, which was given to some select friends only. Later on he changed the ASCII values of the glyphs of Akruti font and released the Baraha package officially. His idea was that just by changing the ASCII values of the glyphs, his font becomes different from Akruti font. But morally, ethically and legally, this amounts to violation of intellectual property rights. After a long gap of six years, recently (2004), Vasu admitted that he used the glyphs from Akruti fonts, in a mail to S K Anand.

Fonts used in Nudi

Now let me discuss the about the fonts bundled with Nudi. Nudi was initially thought as a testing software. This was made into a package later on. Myself and Harsha (the programmer who did the coding for Nudi) were opposing the release of Nudi without our own professional fonts. Making a font is an elaborate process. Artists have to draw each character (glyph) on paper, they have to be scanned, digitized, hinted, etc. It takes months for each font. C V Srinatha Sasthry (CVSS), Chief Secretary, Kannada Ganaka Parishat (KGP), told me that he got the font made from someone before submitting the final package to GoK. In one of the executive committee meeting S K Anand and myself questioned CVSS about who made the fonts, how much was paid to him, etc. G N Narsimha Murthy (GNNM), Secretary, KGP, gave a reply that someone at Koppa made the fonts. I mentioned that KGP should have the complete record of making of the fonts like original drawings by the artist, first raw digitized data, the final font, etc. GNNM promised to get all these from Koppa and show to us in the next meeting. He never bothered to do that.

I came to know about the entire story about fonts much much later. Initially I used to believe the statements of CVSS about the fonts. But it took almost 2 years for me to accidentally discover the truth. While experimenting with opentype font creation, I was studying the glyphs of all Kannada fonts. When I opened Baraha, Akruti and Nudi fonts in a font editing software, I found that they all have the same glyph sets, even though their ASCII values are different. As Sathyanarayana has detailed in his write-up, the glyphs from Akruti fonts were used in the first version of Baraha, which was then used in the first version of Nudi. As per my knowledge CVSS got this conversion of font encodings done by someone here at Bangalore itself. The fonts were not made from scratch at Koppa. This is clear violation of intellectual property rights. I had a strong and heated argument with CVSS and GNNM about one or two months before the elections to the executive committee of KGP. I blasted CVSS for misleading me and telling lies to me that the fonts were developed at Koppa. CVSS and GNNM have told lies to me and cheated GoK by supplying them with pirated fonts. Definitely my position became very awkward that I being the mentor and the person in charge of Nudi in the initial stages was not informed of these backdoor activities by CVSS. I fired both CVSS and GNNM left and right. At that time GNNM even challenged me to prove these in the court along with S K Anand who had already threatened to sue KGP for violation of intellectual property rights.

Vasu’s justification and the realities

With this background let me discuss a bit of what Vasu has written in a document and widely circulated in mailing lists. This document is also present in his Baraha discussion group (groups.msn.com/baraha). Let me quote from this document-

—————– Begin ———————————

USA courts have long back decided that fonts can’t be copyrighted AT ALL! Here, the digital outline can never be protected. According to them there can’t be any original font style, because, every font is created by slightly modifying some other font, and there aren’t really “new” font designs! See the following excerpts from the law…

“The Copyright Office has decided that digitized representations of typeface designs are not registerable under the Copyright Act because they do not constitute original works of authorship. The digitized representations of typefaces are neither original computer programs (as defined in 17 U.S.C. 101), nor original databases, nor any other original work of authorship.”

So, in a font, the name, any programming code not describing the font design are all that can be copyrighted. This leaves the door open in the USA to have anyone pay for the output of each character from a typesetter and re-digitize it or extract the design from a font program (and rename it), easily duplicating the design. Most foundries have very similar fonts derived from work largely designed by others. More information about font/copyright can be found at http://ssifonts.com/Myths.htm

———————- End —————————-

Vasu is very cleverly and conveniently quoting from a web-site put up in the year 1997 and has not been updated afterwards. There is a reason for this site not being updated afterwards. This refers to the classic legal battle between Adobe and SSI. Southern Software Inc. (SSI) used to copy and rename fonts from Adobe and others. They thought they were safe from prosecution because, though they had directly copied the points that define the shapes from Adobe’s fonts, they had moved all the points just slightly so they were not technically identical. Nevertheless, in his 1998 judgment, the judge determined that the computer code had been copied:

The evidence presented shows that there is some creativity in designing the font software programs. While the glyph dictates to a certain extent what points the editor must choose, it does not dictate every point that must be chosen. Adobe has shown that font editors make creative choices as to what points to select based on the image in front of them on the computer screen. The code is determined directly from the selection of the points. Thus, any copying of the points is copying of literal expression, that is, in essence, copying of the computer code itself.

SSI lost the legal battle at the courts. Judgment was in favor of Adobe. Hence SSI did not update their web-site. Vasu is conveniently quoting from this web-site. One can read in detail about this case in the following web-sites:-

http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.ph…UNESCO_Font_Lic

http://directory.serifmagazine.com/Ethics_…/judgement.php4

http://www.ipcounselors.com/19980309.htm

When we conducted a opentype font workshop at Bangalore during March 2003, there was a talk on IPR issues related to fonts by Lawrence Liang, who is an expert on cyber laws. He had discussed this Adobe vs SSI case.

Vasu’s interview to Deccan Herald and my comments

Vasu gave an interview to Deccan Herald during his visit to Bangalore in June 2004. Here are some excerpts and my comments on them:-

> “Then, I, along with Ganaka Parishad and the State Government worked to bring Kannada software for official use”, he (Vasu) said.

I don’t remember any of such efforts by Sheshadri Vasu. In fact Vasu was very reluctant to implement the GoK standard for font and keyboard. There was a heated argument between Dr Panditharadhya and K T Chandrashekharan, father of Vasu, in this connection. All along the time Shasthry, Narasimha Murthy and Panditharadhya were advocating that Baraha killed Kannada while Nudi saved it! Vasu did implement the keyboard and font standards after repeated appeals by Shrinatha Shasthry and Narasimha Murthy.

> Baraha 4.0 was the first software that was implemented in Government offices with font styles.

I don’t think this statement of Sheshadri Vasu is true. There were many Kannada software being used in state govt much much before KGP, Nudi or Baraha came into existence.

> But the Ganaka Parishad and the State Government have introduced Nudi software as a benchmark system.

If Vasu were to introduce the GoK standards much earlier than the release of Kalitha (Nudi), Nudi would not have come into existence.

> Unfortunately for me, the government is insisting the use of Nudi software.

Why should be unfortunate to him? He is not selling Baraha.

> While Baraha has fulfilled the terms and conditions put forth by the Government, including stipulations such as keyboard and transliteration, I wonder why they are forcing departments to use only Nudi”, he said. One of Baraha’s many advantages, according to Vasu, is that it allows a person who knows Kannada to type it in English fonts. He felt preference of software (Baraha or Nudi) should be left to end user.

Why the choice should be only between Nudi and Baraha, both of them are obsolete in the current and future time where Unicode is the world standard? Actually the choice should be between Windows XP/2003, Mac, Linux, Solaris, Java Desktop, Unix, etc. all are having Unicode compliance.

Meeting with Vasu in June 2004

Vasu was felicitated by Upasana in Bangalore during his visit in June 2004. I met him during that function. I discussed many things in general like Unicode features, facility needed in Baraha to convert RTF and HTML documents into Unicode, etc. Casually I asked him where from he is getting the fonts for his Baraha package. As per his answer, there is an artist in Bangalore who draws the shapes on paper and sends them to him. He (Vasu) scans, digitizes and makes them into fonts. I did not discuss anything about the Akruti font issue.

Conclusion and request

Baraha has copied and used one font from Akruti software. This font is one of the many fonts bundled with current version of Nudi.

I have written everything that I know about the font issues pertaining to Akruti, Baraha and Nudi. My intention is to bring out the truth, however bitter it is. I have no personal animosity with anyone whose name appears in this write-up. Please read this objectively and subjectively. That is, do a vasthunistha (objective) reading rather than a vyakthinishta (subjective) reading.

Thanks for your patience and time.

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Archive for August, 2006

Minutes of meeting on Kannada Software held at CIIL on May 25th 2004 in Mysore

KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT – What is the future

SOME INNER DETAILS ON KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

I feel sorry for KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

K.P.Purnachandra Tejasvi on Kannada Software

Akruti Fonts Pirated by INDIVIDUAL (VASU) and CORPORATION (KGP)

S.K. Anand of Cyberscape Multimedia Ltd. Write in detail about KGP and BARAHA

Dr. U. B. Pavanaja on VASU and BARAHA

VASU of BARAHA shows the ADMISSION and ACKNOWLEDGEMENT and GUILT

Kannada font issues