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Indian Government Chooses Linux for Academia
Nilesh Chaudhari writes "Following the footsteps of various governments around the world, the Indian Government has decided to standardize on Linux and open source software for academic purposes. The Department of Information Technology says, 'As a first step we are persuading all government institutions to offer courses on Linux and programming for Linux environment. We would also set up Linux Resource Centres in academic institutes (with co-funding from government and industry).' Going by the high targets they have set for mass adoption of IT, this is a step in the absolute right direction."
What are they going to do about languages? Linux doesn't support any of the Indian dialects; only European languages.
Lots of people in India speak English; but it seems kind of unfair to lock them out of using their native language.
Germany has done this as well havent they? China is developing their own version of linux, Im assuming to ditch MS. Chile wants to, California wants to, I want to. Wait I did :D
*DrugCheese rants*
Slashdot already covered this story last week here.
Not only that, the original story was also posted by timothy. Is his memory so poor that he's incapable of remembering what he posted less than a week ago?
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
Open IT: Govt to rewrite source code in Linux
SUDHA NAGARAJ
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 09, 2002 01:29:29 AM ]
NEW DELHI: If the Chinese have IT, get it. The Indian government seems to be taking a leaf out of China's operating system, and is planning a countrywide drive to promote the open source operating system, Linux, as the 'platform of choice' instead of 'proprietary' solutions.
For proprietory, read Microsoft, which controls over 90% of the desktop software market.
The Department of Information Technology has already devised a strategy to introduce Linux and open source software as a de-facto standard in academic institutions, especially in engineering colleges through course work that encourages use of such systems.
Research establishments would be advised to use and develop re-distributable toolboxes just as Central government departments and state governments would be asked to use Linux-based offerings.
DIT is in talks with leading industry players like IBM and HCL to get a feel of their work in the area and invite proposals for joint projects. "As a first step we are persuading all government institutions to offer courses on Linux and programming for Linux environment. We would also set up Linux Resource Centres in academic institutes (with co-funding from government and industry)," said a senior government official.
Though India has made a name for itself selling solutions, software as a product is expensive within the country. And the cost will bite once India starts implementing IPR protection in earnest, as it has committed itself to.
While redistribution of proprietary software is restricted through a licence agreement, the licensing terms for Linux grants the right to obtain and redistribute copies. Many analysts believe that China's growing dominance in the IT space is fuelled by its low cost open source bias.
The Chinese government has consistently promoted its local software based on Linux, both for cost reasons, and reportedly for 'security' concerns as well.
The source code for proprietory software is not revealed, and this, it is believed, has not found favour with the Chinese, especially in defence and security related applications.
Microsoft, in what many observers and reports say is an attempt to soften the Chinese government's stand, recently committed to investing $750m in China in three years to help set up a software college and put its money into Chinese education.
In comparison, Microsoft has announced investments worth only $75m over a three-year time frame in India. Howver, the Chinese company Redflag Software, which was set up by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the country's most prestigious research institute, has often come out with low-cost software based on Linux, in direct competition to Windows-based software.
The Indian government's plan, however, is not driven by security concerns, but by the far more simple arithmetic of costing. To put it simply, India being a developing country needs low cost solutions.
Unlike the Microsoft-developed Windows operating system, Linux code is free and downloadable from the internet. With the addition of special applications, it can be personalized to meet specific needs.
An industry-government-user-developer conference on the subject would be organised to throw up ideas for specific initiatives including funding, reliable sources told ET.
The only issue here is support and services, which Indian government sources feel is not likely to be an issue in a country known for its software support and service skills.
Like China, the government is also eyeing the increasingly lucrative global support and services market for the Linux environment may prove lucrative. While proprietary support agreements govern only the systems purchased (with licences), for free software support is independent of the number of copies owned.
"With applications in security being a focus area, inputs have been sought from the Defence on their experience with Linux. Indian-language based solutions, e-governance, embedded and high performance cluster solutions are other areas. But firstly we want to concretise the position on IPR issues in the use of Linux," the source said.
DIT is planning a three-tier mechanism, with itself as the first, industry, user groups and state governments as the second and a national apex committee headed either by a government representative, an industry expert or an academician to oversee manpower and skill development, applications development and deployment and public policy support, said sources.
According to IDC's figures for '00, Microsoft still controlled 94% of the desktop software market and while Linux is expected to overtake the number two -- Apple Mac OS -- by '03, it would still control less than 4% of the market.
In server software, it fares a little better and is expected to control around 30% of the market by '03, according to IDC. Linux, which has established itself in the server space, is an open reliable OS that runs on virtually any platform and was developd by Finnish technologist Linus Torvalds.
After developing the initial source code, Linus made it available on the Internet for use, feedback and further development.
Timothy, this story was already posted. By, um, Timothy.
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
If they're so into GNU/Linux and OSS, then why is their webserver running Windows 2000? Here's the Netcraft site: http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.mit. gov.in
This is 'Best of Slashdot' week. They're rerunning all the top stories, and I think this Friday they're playing 'Voices From The Hellmouth 11: Katz Strikes Back'.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Not exactly anything to brag about, 17 days uptime. I guess we now know why they are switching from a toy to a man's operating system.
Got Code?
...Who thinks that Bill Gates will be doing a whole bunch of globetrotting in the near future? I'll bet he's at the terminal now, with a briefcase full of "Free Software" for the Indonesian Government, and a Switch Story for them to read... Oh, wait...
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
"player 4 hit player 1 with 0 stroms"
I think this could be the beginning of something great. India already has thousands of talented coders, and once they get used to hacking Linux, some awesome things will start happening. After all, people who do good work in adding to Linux really get noticed, and their code winds up in millions of machines all over the world. It seems like a perfect opportunity for an Indian programmer to "lift herself up by the bootstraps." (North American and European coders of similar talent tend to get snatched up by companies faster, so there is less need to prove oneself.) Actually, there is nothing special India except maybe that the population really is so well educated in computer science. Brazil and China are in a similar position--and we are already seeing some awesome Linux hacking coming out of Brazil. I can only imagine how much cool code will come from India and (eventually) China. This sort of news really makes you think that Linux might be unstoppable after all.
I know there are some exeptions (red flag linux comes to mind), and that there are economic barriers in place that preclude growing up with the 'hacker ethic'. But still, it's a shame that all those skilled programers are doing boring projects for multi-nationals for crap $$.
My bet is that this desicion will wind up having a huge impact on linux and related projects.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
I can see the rest of the world adopting Linux. Fine, let them. That doesn't mean America will do it; just look at that stupid metric thing the rest of the world is all gaa-gaa over...
"Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit." --Oscar Wilde
I just got back from India a month ago and had advised a guy over there who was going to start his BE to start learning Linux as by the time he graduated, it'd be pretty big. Who knew something like this was over the horizon? :)
Anyway, on a more serious note, it's a really good thing. Previously software piracy was rampant basically because of the reason that buying software legally was just working out TOO expensive to the home user. Shifting to open source and Linux will kill two birds with one stone :
1) It will drastically reduce piracy since students will now want Linux on their home machines and the majority of the home computer purchases in India are done "so my kids can use it".
2) It will produce a HUGE amount of software solutions for Linux in the long run (when these kids graduate) that will go a long way to helping the idea of open source.
India has always been known for their contributions to the software world and I have a feeling that this is finally a chance for something realy good to come out of it - why there's even talk of developing an Indian version of Linux!
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
Not only because (duh) India is the 2nd most populated country in the world, but they also can lay claim to easily one of the finest/most rigorous engineering and computer science schools in the world, if not the best. IIT grads almost invariably turn out to be big movers & shakers in the IT world, or scary-smart geniouses, and usually both. Thus, good allies to have in your camp. To the extent that their government is telling them to move towards Linux, thus weaning a whole new generation from MS dependence, that's fine news indeed.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
I come from India. All, yes all, the computers that i have come across in India are running pirated copies of Windows. Not a single license, even at one of our biggest IT companies :( . India also churns out tons of talented engineers every year, which include the likes of Sabeer Bhatia (the creator of Hotmail), Azim Premji(2nd richest man in the world, at some point last year) etc etc etc. The IITs from India, IMHO, are the *best* set of engineering colleges in the world. I am not taking anything away from MIT and company, but i firmly beleive that given MITesque resources, IITs will probably produce better graduates. Infact, just have a look at the number of people at MIT from the IITs. The main reason for this post graduate US migration, was the lack of money in India. The avg IIT grad got a starting pay Rs 4000 /- a month($80). This is certainly nowhere near what they would get abroad. Hence, there was significant brain drain. Getting back to the point, India has all the capacities of becoming a software superpower but there are a few stumbling blocks.
The first and obvious one, is the sagging economy. If the Indian economy does not improve, the brain drain will continue and India(not Indians) will get nowhere.
The second problem is the lack of people capable of teaching Linux. If one has bandwidth, one is capable of learning Linux by ones'self. But given the bandwidth in India, learning Linux online is not an option. The only solution is that people who know it already be willing to teach it to others. But even there, there is a huge ratio problem. The number of people who know linux is far too little comapred to the number of engg grads we produce. For instance, Maharashtra, the state whose capital is Mumbai(Bombay), has, according to counter.li, 521 people who know Linux.Maharashtra has roughly 100 M people. It has at least 100 engineering colleges, due to the presence of Mumbai and Pune. Even if we assume that all 500 are gurus, we still have only 5 linux gurus per engg college which has atleast 500 students, or only 1 person per 100 engg students.Bear in mind that these stats are scewed by the presence of IIT Mumbai which extensively uses linux.Add to that, the number of commercial offices in Mumbai that use linux and employ sys admins who know linux, and you will be left with very embarrasing ratio. I know this is a typical chicken and egg problem, in that the number of people who know linux wont increase if no one is ready to teach, but there are very few people capable of teaching. But something has to be done to address the issue. Without adressing such issues, the govt's decsion to move to Open Source, will sit like a white elephant in its own backyard.
I am not providing any solutions here, cause frankly, i have none.
-- Reality is just an extended dream.
...sounds like idle supposition - could you provide some references to help back up your position?
One of the issues I've come across regarding poverty is the way in which Western companies ruthlessly exploit indigenous knowledge through the patent system( Patents: Myths and Reality by Vandana Shiva Price Rs200 ISBN 014029824X )...