One month back GoK published an advt with the photo of singer K J Yesudas. The photo was taken from wikipedia which was contributed by wikipedia
Rakesh Konni. PRD contacted Rakesh and gave the advt with proper credits.<br><br><b><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesudas">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesudas</a><br><a href="http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6783895&id=572276469">http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6783895&id=572276469</a><br>
<a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_2KcMdwlkkNc/TXSBdoGmhBI/AAAAAAAAD-c/yY4WergcqR4/s800/TP%2006%20KJY%208x6%20feet.jpg">https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_2KcMdwlkkNc/TXSBdoGmhBI/AAAAAAAAD-c/yY4WergcqR4/s800/TP%2006%20KJY%208x6%20feet.jpg</a><br>
</b><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 29 March 2011 00:19, Shiju Alex <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:shijualexonline@gmail.com">shijualexonline@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im"><blockquote style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex" class="gmail_quote"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Would you like to share some
information about your latest effort?</font><br></blockquote><div> </div></div>Naveen, Thanks for sharing this news in India list. <br><br>As Naveen mentioned below, the license of <a href="http://www.ldfkeralam.org/" target="_blank">http://www.ldfkeralam.org/</a> is changed to a free license that is compatible with the wikipedia license. LDF is the current ruling coalition of Kerala. Now it is election season in Kerala and the above site is setup as part of election campaign.<br>
<br>
The
IT sub-committee of LDF in principle has decided to use free licenses and free software in various places. Many of the people behind <a href="http://www.ldfkeralam.org/" target="_blank">http://www.ldfkeralam.org/</a> have awareness about free software. In fact the site admin is a veteran Malayalam wikipedian. When LDF had decided to start the site, the license of the site was decided as <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/in/deed.en" target="_blank">CC-BY-SA 2.5 IN</a>. But unfortunately when the site is released to public, license was pointing to a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/in/deed.en" target="_blank">NC-ND license</a>. I pointed this and they immediately corrected it. It was possible only because the people behind the site have awareness about the importance of free software licenses. <br>
<br>
Later when other district committees of LDF started website they also followed it since the mother site is using free license. There were cases of some district commitees using NC/ND license. But they corrcted it as soon as we pointed the issue in using non-free licenses. <b>Now there are many LDF sites using free license.</b><br>
<br>Wiki community could use photos (and the content also) of some of the notable LDF candidates. Since the content and images are free, people could freely use it across web for their blog, buzz, and so on. <br><br>Few days back I have shared this story with few Indian language
wikimedians. I requested some of them to see whether it is possible to
replicate this in other Indian states.<div class="im"><br><br><blockquote style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex" class="gmail_quote"><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"> For instance, how easy or
difficult was it to convince government officials? </font><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Did it involve going into a lot of details with them?</font></blockquote></div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br>
Awareness about free software and free licenses among government officials is very important. If the officials sitting at the other end doesn't have awareness about these things then nothing is possible. In the past, Malayalam wiki community and other Malayalam free software organizations (for example, SMC) have initiated various programs to create that awareness. We are happy to see that slowly that efforts are yielding. <br>
<br></font>In Kerala, this is not the first time State Government or political
parties or non government organizations are changing the license of
their website to a license that is compatible with Wikipedia license. As
mentioned <a href="http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2010-November/001260.html" target="_blank">in this mail thread, </a>way
back in 2008, Kerala Government had officially announced that it is
changing the license of govt. encyclopedic project in Malayalam
(sarvavijanakosam) to <a href="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html" target="_blank">Free documentation license</a>
so that Malayalam wiki community could reuse its content to develop
Malayalam wikipedia. This was done in 2008 December while Jimmy and Sue
were in Thiruvananthapuram to attend the free software conference. <br><br><br><br>
We expect more happy news in the near future. <br><font color="#888888"><br><br>Shiju <br></font><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 1:51 PM, Anirudh Bhati <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:anirudhsbh@gmail.com" target="_blank">anirudhsbh@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">This is amazing! Congratulations, Shiju.</font><div>
<font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif"></font><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Would you like to share some information about your latest effort? For instance, how easy or difficult was it to convince government officials? Did it involve going into a lot of details with them?<br>
</font><div><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><br clear="all"></font>Yours sincerely,<br><br>Anirudh Bhati<br><br>00 91 9328712208<br>Skype: anirudhsbh<br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div></div><div>On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 7:23 AM, Naveen Francis <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:naveenpf@gmail.com" target="_blank">naveenpf@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
</div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204);padding-left:1ex"><div><div></div><div>
Hi all,<br><br>It is election season in Kerala.<br>I have one good news to share with you all.<br>Shiju Alex has convinced LDF election web team to change there site license to creative commons license. <br><a href="http://www.ldfkeralam.org/" target="_blank">http://www.ldfkeralam.org/</a> <br>
<br>And now we are having images of candidates in commons and process is in progress.<br><a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_the_ldfkeralam.org_website" target="_blank">http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images_from_the_ldfkeralam.org_website</a><br>
<br>Before this we didn't had images for many ministers in Kerala<br><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_S_Achuthanandan_Ministry" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_S_Achuthanandan_Ministry</a><br><br>
He has also convinced <a href="http://www.ldfkannur.org/" target="_blank">http://www.ldfkannur.org/</a> web team to change there license. Now they are also creative commons.<br>
<br>Thanks a lot Shiju !!! ... Need more site creative commons <br><br>I think it is change in happening though it is slow. <br><br>-- <br><font color="#888888">Naveen Francis<br>
</font><br></div></div><div>_______________________________________________<br>
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org" target="_blank">Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org</a><br>
<a href="https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l" target="_blank">https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l</a><br>
<br></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div>
<br>_______________________________________________<br>
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org" target="_blank">Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org</a><br>
<a href="https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l" target="_blank">https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br>
</div></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org">Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org</a><br>
<a href="https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l" target="_blank">https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Naveen Francis<br>