Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we are doing, said Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, while delivering an eagerly awaited keynote address to mark the beginning of the third day of the conference. He went on to detail the global nature of Wikipedia by citing a few figures. English language has more than 2.5 million articles. German, French, Italian and Japanese have around half a million articles each. 79 languages had more than 10,000 articles. Speaking about the Malayalam language Mr. Wales felt that there was a large scope for growth and that the Government of Kerala's efforts in contributing the articles of the Malayalam Encyclopaedia to Wikipedia should fuel faster growth and excitement. Talking about the popularity of Wikipedia, Mr. Wales said that Wikipedia is the 4th most popular website in the world. An insight into wikia, wikigreen and the wiki search features were given to the audience.
The panel discussion on Malayalam Wikipedia saw presentations by Sidharthan, Shiju Alex and Pushpahasan. Shiju Alex gave an idea about the different Malayalam Wiki projects with a special mention to the superior quality of Malayalam Wikipedia in terms of content and page depth compared to other Indian Wikipedias. Commenting on the lack of community in Malayalam Wikipedia, Sidharthan went on to provide a solution to this problem by ensuring the contribution from all quarters of life including academicians and students.
Peethambaran, Radhakrishnan T and Vivekanandan talked on FOSS in Agriculture and Fisheries. Peethambaran, an e-Krishi consultant, gave an information on the various information that can be obtained from the e-Krishi website. The programme was started in Malappuram and is being jointly run by Kerala State IT Mission and the Agriculture Dept. Radhakrishnan T talked about the importance of FOSS in GIS and that the rights of fisherman must be secured. Vivekanandan talked of a map on the seashore that was created to locate fishing grounds, location of nets and lines which will be helpful for fishing and navigation. One important area where significant work needs to be done is that of an efficient warning system.
Robert Versola of Copy South spoke of Piracy of IPR from South to North and the piracy of North to South of intellectuals. Fatima Lassay spoke of Doctrines without Borders. Carolina Botero shared her thought on how technology without cultural linkages undermines the society and community. Dr. Joost Smiers felt that Copyright should be abolished.
The valedictory function was attended by Shri. Oommen Chandy, the Leader of Opposition, Kerala Legislative Assembly. He appreciated the work done by the state Government regarding the initiatives on the FOSS front and also added that the Central Govt was doing its bit. He quoted the example of NRCFOSS set up by the Central Govt and CDAC's Bharat Operating System. He also mentioned that the Central Govt. was taking strong stand regarding Open standards. Eben Moglen, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center, spoke about the future and scope of Free Software in Kerala. Dr. Ajayakumar IAS, Dr. Rathan Kelkar IAS and Shri Satish Babu also addressed the audience.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 jimbo.JPG | 471.08 KB |
