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Indian Government Goes For Free Software

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the one-billion-plus dept.

Geekonomical writes "Economic Times has an article that says Indian Government's Department of IT is going to encourage Linux and OSS on all fronts including college education! The article has more details (eventhough it has a misleading title!) The reasoning being more of plain economics than security or other reasons."

39 of 293 comments (clear)

  1. Just one question... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I suppose they won't be downloading software from Tucows or Freshmeat, ne?

    1. Re:Just one question... by abe+ferlman · · Score: 5, Funny

      Actually I think you're going to see a shift from the "Sacred Cow" to the "Well-regarded Gnu". What this means for Indian dietary restrictions is anyone's guess.

      --
      microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
  2. One of the interesting implications.. by OmniVector · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is that India has one of the highest number of programmers in the world (i'm not going to question their education in comparison to some of the programmers in the US, because i think that is irrelevant. good coders are good coders). The fact that they made this push in colleges, where people LEARN to program in the first place, might put a spin on the number of applications being released Linux. I've browsed sites like planet-source-code and rent-a-coder, and it's amazing the number of indian programmers i see on those sites.

    --
    - tristan
    1. Re:One of the interesting implications.. by BaronVonDuvet · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Originally Unix became so popular because it was provided to colleges and students.

      Programmers that had been using it at colleges were keen to use it in the workplace. I think it's likely that Linux will follow this pattern.

      The things that have kept Micro$o£t so popular are that people tend to pirate a copy and that it is installed on just about every new PC. Arguably making their software harder to copy will damage them in the long run.

    2. Re:One of the interesting implications.. by OmniVector · · Score: 3, Insightful

      i'm a cs major, and good programmers are good designers. software engineering is more of the corporate world's attempt to produce more software in less time with fewer bugs that cram more features in. it doesn't focus on the structure of alogirthms, the effiency needed to produce realtime and embeded systems like computer science might emphasise more.

      I'm not trying to troll, i'm just saying that most my CS friends are in it for the fun, the knowledge, and getting computers to crunch bits. where most my software engineering friends are microsoft praisers who think that c# is the greatest invention since the stone age since it has delegates and get/set{} operators now (to make their design better?).

      --
      - tristan
    3. Re:One of the interesting implications.. by Ravenn · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Arguably making their software harder to copy will damage them in the long run.

      Which is why M$ cd's are able to be copied, even when the game industry has proven that copying can be made so much harder. Sure, all games can (and will) be cracked. But it is so much easier to just copy the windoze *cough* OS *cough* because they want people to be using it. They make the money not from the average user, but from businesses, governments and universities that use hundreds or thousands at a time.

      Having Joe Average use it at home means that he is less likely to want to change the work policy. Have it installed at work, and it's too much hassle for him to change his home system.

      Fortunately, this can work both ways now.

      --
      Of all the things you can accomplish by screwing up your face and swearing into a dark room, sleep is not one of them.
    4. Re:One of the interesting implications.. by smithwis · · Score: 4, Insightful
      You obviously know nothing about the difference between a "coder" and a "software engineer". Yes I'm serious - and I'm both a Mechanical Engineer and Software Engineer. The actual time "coding" is almost the smallest part of a well designed project. You need engineers to take care of the rest that if(5!=duh) doesn't really do well.
      Arguably, a majority of the time is spent in debugging and support. Both of these are helped a great bit by the quality of the code in the first place.

      BTW, you come off as really condescending, you might want to work on that;-)

      Steve
    5. Re:One of the interesting implications.. by smittyoneeach · · Score: 4, Insightful

      One potential future has the rest of the world going to open source products and ditching proprietary code.
      The good news about this, one would think, is that countries are less likely to screw around with compatibility in the name of market share.
      The bad news is that the US love affair with Redmond starts to look like a highly protectionist trade policy. OOPs.

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    6. Re:One of the interesting implications.. by ma_sivakumar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      True. Exposure is the key. I am not a programmer, but having exposed to open source through slashdot for a year or so, when I set up my business recently decided to use Linux etc.

      All the companies I talked for assistance in development work only with Microsoft solutions and were not willing to consider my project. Finally I decided to hire two fresh graduates, they are bright guys fresh out of college (no prior Linux exposure) with a little Unix usage.

      They saw my system, there were immediately hooked and installed Linux in their home computers also to play around. Initially they could not write html by hand. After a couple of days they were comfortable

      The government promoting open source will have broader implications, since the middle class in India puts a great faith in everything Government. If the government says it will be good. When a boy/girl wants to do a course on Linux, the parents will be more willing to spare the cash, if there is a government label on it.

      --
      yAthum UrE yAvarum kELir All the places are our place, everybody is our kin. (A Tamil Poet - 2000 years ago)
  3. Re:Text of the article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "The Chinese government has consistently promoted its local software based on Linux, both for cost reasons, and reportedly for 'security' concerns as well."

    Another big factor is microsofts refusal to remove Taiwan as a independent country. With the source-code they can remove it themselves. In the latest Redhat 8.0, Redhat has removed Taiwans status as a independent country (listed as part of China with their flag removed).

  4. Re:Pack your bags, Bill! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    and people all over North America using their OS and products

    So? You don't actually believe that the combined economies of two of the most populous countries on Earth is somehow smaller than that of two countries (North America is the U.S.A and Canada). Do you?

    This isn't even getting into the fact that most service industries outsource to Indian companies, nor the expected growth of the Chinese economy alone...look, the board of Microsoft should be shitting their pants right about now.

  5. Good signs in Europe as well by jukal · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I have been following closely the adoptation of open source within European Union lately. It seems they are working, studying and experimenting this in many fronts. Here is some of the European Union efforts related to open source. Openchallenge (which I am related to) has also received very positive feedback from European Union officials.

    It is interesting to see where we are in say after 10 more years.

  6. few Linux inroads in India yet by Megasphaera+Elsdenii · · Score: 5, Interesting

    When I was in India a year ago, I was surprised
    at how strong the presence of Microsoft was in
    science. Virtually none of the people
    I spoke to had had any Linux exposure, let alone
    Linux experience. This is in stark contrast with
    'the West'; Linux prospers in most of the sciences.

    This makes this movement all the more remarkable.

    1. Re:few Linux inroads in India yet by popeyethesailor · · Score: 4, Informative

      However, things are changing now. There is a lot more media coverage on "Free" software and its advantages. Computer Magazines in India have been distributing Linux CDs for a long time now, so the level of Linux knowledge is increasing. There are LUGs in a number of cities in India.

      The reason to be skeptical of this initiative is that Microsoft has traditionally invested heavily in India, and Indian politicians love to be seen with Bill. And the widespread corruption doesnt help either.

    2. Re:few Linux inroads in India yet by orcaaa · · Score: 5, Informative

      I completely agree with you. I hail from India. Almost all my friends back home in India are doing CS as a major and i am sorry to say that Linux/*NIX has hardly made any inroads. Infact, i will go one step further and say that computers themselves are not as widely used as they ought to be for obvious monetary reasons.At a college rated amongst the better engineering colleges of Mumbai(new name for Bombay), one of my friends, went through an entire semester of C programming without sitting at a computer. With such money crunches, colleges should consider Linux as a blessing at it cuts them a lot on licensing costs. However, most colleges in India dont have professors knowledgeable about *NIX to be able to conduct courses in that environment. It will be some time before Linux makes any significant inroads in India, but once it does, India does have the potential to become a very large linux user base.

      --
      -- Reality is just an extended dream.
  7. Makes perfect sense by Jeppe+Salvesen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In countries where the wages are lower, the licensing/hardware portion of the TCO will be larger. Linux runs on smaller iron, without licensing costs. It's very simple math.

    --

    Stop the brainwash

    1. Re:Makes perfect sense by sql*kitten · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In countries where the wages are lower, the licensing/hardware portion of the TCO will be larger. Linux runs on smaller iron, without licensing costs. It's very simple math.

      That's assuming that Microsoft only sell in USD and require local currencies to be converted to dollars and US prices to be paid before they'll make a sale. However, MS, like McDonalds, Sony, Pepsi and other global corporations, tailor their prices to the local markets. Products of these corporations are generally as "affordable" wherever you are.

    2. Re:Makes perfect sense by fishbowl · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So how do they stop us from converting USD to the lesser currency, purchasing in a foreign market, and shipping it to the US?

      This won't work for McDonald's, because a cheeseburger is stale if you ship it (and because the shipping is higher than the difference), but why not for software or consumer electronics? I'm surprised this hasn't become the standard way to buy stuff.

      I'd like to get some of the gadgets they get in Asian markets that never make it to the West; if you could get them at bargain prices because of currency exchanges, so much the better!

      --
      -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
    3. Re:Makes perfect sense by sql*kitten · · Score: 4, Informative

      This won't work for McDonald's, because a cheeseburger is stale if you ship it (and because the shipping is higher than the difference), but why not for software or consumer electronics? I'm surprised this hasn't become the standard way to buy stuff.

      People do do this, it's called the "grey market". The EU say it's illegal, but retailers are doing it anyway.

      I guess with software, you might only sell localized versions overseas which would be useless in domestic markets. IIRC, the licence you get with certain products only allows it to be used in the territory in which it was bought (someone told me this when we were thinking of going into the grey market to supply just-released Apple Powerbooks to Europe).

      I'd like to get some of the gadgets they get in Asian markets that never make it to the West; if you could get them at bargain prices because of currency exchanges, so much the better!

      There's no reason you can't do this, unless import tarriffs make it economically unfeasible. If there was a good economic case, I'm sure the Asian companies would be doing it already.

  8. Free software? by Bas_Wijnen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "The reasoning being more of plain economics than security or other reasons."

    Sounds like their going for open source software, not free software. A nice coincidence is of course that they will end up with free software anyway, but "going for free software" is more what the people in Peru are trying to do IMO.

  9. Local language software by codekavi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What the government needs to make those college students do is develop applications in the local languages. Just 2% of the 1 billion in India understand English. That's only 20 million if my arithmetic is correct.

    OTOH 900 million people *worldwide* (not just in India) understand Hindi. However there are very few applications and operating systems that do support Indic scripts.
    http://rohini.ncst.ernet.in/indix/ , http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Indic-Fonts-HOWTO/ , and http://www.geocities.com/hanu_man_ji are some efforts in this direction.
    Instead of making them dream about making dough in the US, the Indian college students and programmers should be encouraged if not forced to develop tools, utilities and applications in the Indian languages. Not only will it boost the demand for PC's - many Indian homes have white goods in the range of $400 or so, but no PC's - who'll use them if you don't know English? - it will give a big boost to the quality of programming; there are many smart people in India but they are limited by a lack of knowledge of English.

    --
    Can't see Hindi?
    1. Re:Local language software by codekavi · · Score: 5, Informative

      English is understood by "most" Indians who frequent slashdot.
      But there are *at least* 15 languages in India(_not_dialects_) whose speakers exceed English speakers in India.
      To name a few:
      Hindi,
      Tamil,
      Gujarati,
      Malayalam
      Telugu ,
      Bengali,
      Marathi,
      etc.

      Most Indians - (not most Indians in the US, not most Indians on slashdot, not most Indian programmers) - most Indians don't know English.

      There appear to be so many Indian programmers because despite being a miniscule percentage, 2% of 1 billion is still a huge number.

      Not having software applications in the local languages is only going to increase the digital divide in India.

      China's population is higher than India, and the Chinese use Chinese for computing.

      In order of number of speakers of languages, the highest is Chinese, followed by English, and next comes Hindi.

      Do you know how many websites there are in Hindi? Less than 500.
      And Chinese? More than 10,000 and growing.

      Now, please don't conclude that this is because the Chinese don't understand English and Indians do. That's specious reasoning.

      The Indians who don't know English are denied a lot, that includes computing tools.

      --
      Can't see Hindi?
    2. Re:Local language software by Somnus · · Score: 5, Interesting

      CAVEAT: I'm of India descent, but I don't live in India, and the last time I was there was 1996.

      I'd say most of the people who can read and write, and certainly those wealthy enough to have access to a computer, know English.

      Local language support (Hindi is one, don't forget the other major languages like Bengali, Gujarati, Telugu, etc.) seems more appropriate when Linux usage extends beyond gov't/academia to home and commercial situations.

      I skeptical that social change (i.e., adoption of computers/internet across the population) can be effected by supply-side pressure when there are such high barriers to adoption ....

    3. Re:Local language software by codekavi · · Score: 3, Informative

      Let me give an example:
      In order to get a railway reservation in India, you have to go to the Booking office, stand in a line, wait for your turn(could take anywhere from 30 to 120 min), and get your ticket. Yes, the ticket system is networked nationwide, you can buy a ticket from A to B from any booking office, that may be located in C.

      Recently the government(owns the Railways in India, and it happens to be the world's 4th largest network) started online railway ticket booking.
      The people who book online, have an advantage of 30 to 120 minutes over the ones who don't - they don't need to stand in the line and wait, while someone ahead of them can book on the same train and deny them a ticket.

      The trouble is, the website's interface is in English; whereas in the booking office, the forms can be filled in the local language - they're bilingual.

      So, the English speakers not only get the ticket without having to stand in line, they also get an (unfair) advantage because they know English, they're more likely to get the ticket, or will have a earlier position in the waiting list.

      Now, if the same interface was also there in the local languages, wouldn't people be eager to use it? You don't need to buy a computer to access the web, cyber cafe charges are ~40c an hour, so on spending 15 minutes in the cybercafe, you would spend the same amount as for when you go to the booking office.

      So, a supply side pressure, as you rightly put it, may not always increase demand, but it's things like these ...

      --
      Can't see Hindi?
    4. Re:Local language software by pamri · · Score: 3, Informative
      Indian language computing on linux(atleast on gnome) will become a reality in about 3 to 5 years, provided the below problems are ironed out.

      The problems faced are lack of free opentype fonts(preferred for handling numerous ligatures & glyphs & their substitution), support for opentype fonts at the X-level. No, indix(linked by another user) won't solve the issue atleast in the present form, since it breaks a lot of X-protocols. Pango holds promise, but it is not being adopted by QT & it will take some time for rendering engines of all indic languages for Pango to be developed.

      The plus side is serious efforts are being made to resolve the issue. OT Fonts are available for a few indic languages & existing ttf's are being converted into otf's,Gnome & KDE translation work is going on (some like my own mother tongue 'kannada' is being translated on WinXP) for some indic languages like hindi,kannada, tamil(one of the first indic languages to be translated), etc.,

      The things that we should be alarmed is Microsoft's is on the upper hand: It has OT font's for all indic languages besides input engines, OTF rendering support & BillG who is making his 3rd visit to India has already signalled the need for localisation. And if i am not wrong the fonts have been developed with the aid of the local govt. And they are not in public domain or atleast freely usable on linux.

      For more details, see: Indic computing mailing lists-search the indic_computing_devel mailing list for extensive criticism of indix & also the kde 18n mailing list. indlinux,kannada mailing list

      Btw, here's another example of MS cosying upto the karnataka govt. The bhoomi s/w(up for this year's stockholmn tech award) may cost nearly 40 lakhs per taluk. A NGO, I currently am in touch with was successful in persuading the officials to look at the possibility of developing it on linux. And projects like this need indic support urgently.

    5. Re:Local language software by sql*kitten · · Score: 3, Interesting

      So, the English speakers not only get the ticket without having to stand in line, they also get an (unfair) advantage because they know English, they're more likely to get the ticket, or will have a earlier position in the waiting list.

      Why is it unfair? There are no barriers to learning English, after all. And given that English is the de facto lingua franca (yes, I am aware of the irony of using that phrase), anything that encourages more people to learn English can only be a good thing.

      I don't know much about Hindi, but can it be represented and manipulated by a computer as easily as US7ASCII? That is a crucial advantage of English over non-ASCII (or EBCDIC) languages, Unicode or no.

  10. So, does this mean ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... the Indians are gonna use Apache?

    Oh, you mean the other Indians ...

  11. Re:Not enough GDP per capita by pubjames · · Score: 5, Informative

    I mean with no offince once or ever how many people out of that 1,000,000,000 have phone, computer, internet, 60" tvs, sattlite tv with 500 channels and what ever other junk that we all crave

    India has a large middle-class and many wealthy people (even some extremely weathly people). But for argument, let's say that 5% are as wealthy as your average American. That's 50 million people. You think that's trivial?

  12. That's one thing India and Pakistan agree on.. by heytal · · Score: 5, Informative

    Pakistan too says that it will use Linux. An article at paknews.com talks about that. This is inspite of the fact that Microsoft is offering a 90% discount to the pakistan Government.

  13. Just not depending on foreign companies??? by Anonymous+MadCoe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Maybe it's good for any country to keep in mind that depending on a foreign company for their software may be a bad idea.

    I feel any country or group of countries (EU?) would do a smart thing if they started to develop their own application software and OSes (this could go even further to running their own Certificate authorities).

    Just to make sure there is no foreign entity (no matter from which country) that can "pull the plug" on them.

  14. Its about time by abhikhurana · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I passed out two years ago from one of the best Engineering colleges in India. And only two people in my college had ever worked on linux. Sure there were many who were pro linux and anti MS, but ask them if they had ever coded on linux, or just compiled the kerenel ( I actually asked this to one of my seniors, a so called linux guru, and then he confessed to me that he had never really compiled a kernel, eventhough he was always boasting how easy it was), and all of them will be saying that, well linux isnt all that gr8, I couldnt make my X run and so on.... The fact was that out of 1000 students, only two had PCs which they really used for some development work for linux, all the rest were just boasting about it.
    The reason was that they always had other options, namely pirated MS software.When you can get Visual Studio for Rs 150 (about $3) and Windows for Rs 100(about $2), and even for getting linux you have to buy a computer mag for Rs100 (Hey, broadband in India sucks, even in Universities), do you think anyone will actually use Linux??
    So what I am really happy about is that now they are planning to introduce linux courses in the colleges... that will force them to finally get them to install linux on their PCs and I know for sure that once they get tinkering around, they can't resist the FORCE. It happened to me, and I am sure it will happen to others too.
    Besides it will also lead to they syllabi being changed abit which haven't been revised in a Decade or so.

    Alll I can say is if this actually happens( Do u think MS will saty silent and let so many potential MS technology developers just get out of their hands?? U must be kidding), it will be one of the best things to ever happen to linux.

    --
    What's under yellowstone?
    1. Re:Its about time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Hmmm ... I am from IIT Kanpur. There As far back as 1994 or before that we had plenty of PCs in the computer labs (meant for student projects) running on Linux, with all the other related free software. Around 1995/96 or so (I think) we had most of the VT100 type terminals replaced by inexpensive PCs running Linux- acting as X - terminals (Hundreds of them ). There were courses based entirely on Linux. Noone cared much about M$ OSs :-)

    2. Re:Its about time by pamri · · Score: 5, Informative

      Your worst nightmare may be coming true. And remember that karnataka(of which bangalore is it's capital) has the largest no. of engineering colleges, that's a coup. But most of the faculty in the top univ's & college's are atleast aware of linux & it is not entirely discouraging. And thanks to the LUG's it is being noticed, even if not extensively used. Heck, In my college, Me & one of my friends, both commerce graduates had more knowledge of linux than the CS guys. And in most colleges in my city, it is the vocal minority like us that has played a big role in popularising linux. Actually the crackdown on piracy will encourage the move to linux, since most of the educational institutes are using pirated stuff. I know some colleges which have started teaching Staroffice in bangalore. Maybe, if something like the dotcoms happened to linux, it would gain some attention, atleast among the 'where's the next big $ coming from?' kind of people.

  15. No wonder by vadim_t · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Now that MS had the great idea of charging for security I'm sure that poor countries would be even more likely to switch to Linux. Who wants to pay first for the licenses, then for the support and then for additional security when with Linux you can get all that for free? Of course you can get paid support for Linux too, but as somebody mentioned here, often the community provides more than enough of it for free.

  16. Don't read too much into this by toolz · · Score: 4, Informative

    Don't read too much into this. What the article does *not* tell you is that it appeared as headlines the day after Bill Gates announced his visit to India in November.

    While India is *extremely* strong on the OpenSource front, it is not unreasonable to expect that this particular news item (which isn't one - it doesn't state anything new) sets the stage for some (fairly common) government-level arm twisting. Remember Peru?

    Don't get me wrong - I know what the "DIT" (actually Ministry of Information technology, but who has time to nitpick) is doing, and it is heading in the right direction, and pushing hard for open standards and open technologies.

    It is just that this particular article does not appear to to be related to their efforts. Also note that this appears to be more of a commercial booster - the government has done nothing to interact with the astonishingly large OpenSource user base in India, which is sad.

    --
    You aren't remembered for doing what is expected of you
  17. If the World Wants to Free Itself ... by FreeUser · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I have been following closely the adoptation of open source within European Union lately. It seems they are working, studying and experimenting this in many fronts.

    This is indeed good news.

    The fact of the matter is that if the world wants to free itself from the American hegemony and economic dominance in the 21st century, one of the critical things it must do is free itself from dependence on American Proprietary software, particularly operating systems, with all of their NSA backdoors, NSA-inspired weak cryptography, deliberate incompatabilities, moving development targets, subscription pricing, and so on. Probably the smartest and best approach is to leverage software freedom by using Free Software and developing home-grown talent and expertise in customizing it for local or regional use. Not only does that allow a solid audit of existing code (and help insure against malicious code a la Microsoft's NSA_KEY), but it creates a breeding ground for local expertise and a local software industry.

    Of course, Europe is already on par with the United States in this area despite our home-grown software monopoly, but for the developing world this is a tremendous boon, and it is exciting to see countries like China and India embrace software freedom.

    China: ~1 Billion
    India: ~1 Billion

    That is already about a third of humanity. Add to that Germany, Brazil, Colombia, etc. and you have a ground swell that must boggle Bill Gate's mind. Even if Palladium and DRM were to do their worst, effectively banning Free Software in the United States, it would only be the United States that suffers ... the bulk of the rest of the world seems to already have made their choice for freedom, and are poised to sprint right past us into the information age if we are foolish enough to cripple ourselves in the way Microsoft and Hollywood are lobbying Washington to do.

    Next time we feel depressed, or run down, in hearing the latest bad news from Washington we can take heart that, at worst, it is only the United States emasculating its own information industry, not humanity as a whole. I, for one (despite being an American who will undoubtably suffer both economically and intellectually if the battles against Palladium and DRM are lost), take heart in that.

    --
    The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
  18. So.... by theLOUDroom · · Score: 4, Funny

    Who wants to bet Bill Gates is on a plane right now to go give them some "free" software?

    --
    Life is too short to proofread.
  19. Hey, my government also switched to Linux! by ites · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Okay, it's just the Brussels Regional Government.
    That's not a billion heads, just a million or two.
    Perhaps this is will be one of the positive legacies of this recession?
    Once a certain fraction of organisations use Linux seriously, it will be an unstoppable movement.
    Businesses and governments have no loyalties, only interests.

    --
    Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
  20. Changing the Hiring Pool by serutan · · Score: 3

    This could have other long-term implications for Microsoft, quite apart from sales. Microsoft employs a lot of programmers from India, and I have found them to be among the brightest people I've ever met. If Indian schools move away from turning out expert Microsoft developers, it could dry up this important pool.