The Hindu Business Line : More on open source software

The UNESCO Free and Open Source Software Portal at http://www.unesco-ci.org/cgi-bin/portals/foss/page.cgi?d=1 explains how we can make better use of its resources.

Intended to “provide a single interactive access point to pertinent information for users who wish to acquire an understanding of the Free Software movement, to learn why it is important and to apply the concept...”, the portal is easy to navigate and has important ideas outlined simply for even lay readers to get familiar with.

Each category is clearly defined. For example: under the header of Health is grouped all the software that is medical related or that can help medical professionals. Of special interest for individuals here is the KPumpe (http://kpumpe.sourceforge.net/).

This is designed to be a diabetes diary application with support for reading records from one’s glucometer. It supports the Onetouch Ultra and other glucometers where glucomodule plug-ins are available.

The section titled “Productivity Tools” has interesting products that can be used for small businesses.

For example, the Accountancy software has payroll, accounting, inventories, and receiving features, besides storing birthdays for employees. GnuCash is software that allows you to track bank accounts, stocks, income and expenses.

Children and young people too have something they can use. Under the “Education” category are Maths Tutors and Painting Software. GCompris is an integrated education application that introduces different activities to children aged three to eight.Tux of Math Command is a good way to introduce young people to Tux, the Linux Penguin.

There are detailed reports of the various projects that are being run around the world. Check out the SchoolTool Project that works to develop a common global school administration infrastructure, freely available under an Open Source licence. A Web-based student information and calendaring system is being worked on as well.

The SchoolTool 1.0 will be ready for deployment in fall 2009. This is of special relevance to India where schools are actively seeking to use computers more easily and intensively in daily work.

Teachers and educators interested in learning more can read the “The potential of open source approaches for education” available on the site.

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