Slashdot Mirror
Indian State Switches to Linux
pamri writes "In a pleasant and surprising move, the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, has opted to switch to Linux from Microsoft for its Gyandooth (intranet in Dhar district connecting rural cybercafes catering to the everyday needs of the masses) programme. What is more surprising is that the state's Chief Minister Digvijay Singh personally conveyed this to Bill Gates. A choice quote: 'For us it is not a question of Microsoft versus Linux. It is just a matter of choosing between a free software and a monopoly. We feel that when we are putting public information out in the open, then it should not be through a proprietary software.'"
IT is just cheaper on Linux and old hardware. Which the country of India has plenty of.
I'd like to see Bill's face in that moment ;-)
someone has balls!
someone has balls!!
india 1
gates 0
We're like rats, in some experiment! -- George Costanza
If it was McNealy would have a new tag-line:
We're the dot in.. ah.. nevermind.
owned. ;)
Think nothing is impossible? Try slamming a revolving door.
I guess that was the last Bill Gates contribution to AIDS in India...
EOM
WINE doesn't run CS, Starcraft, UT, and all the other online games that make third-world cyber cafes profitable.
Though some of the official stuff, as well as the more family-oriented shops may change to Linux, the vast majority of cyber cafes will still be running pirated games under a pirated Windows.
India will continue to pirate as long as Microsoft leads everywhere else, though having the governor officially reject capitalism is a good step for socialism.
One less country in the clutches of the evil M$ corporation! Viva la resitance!
Do you think M$ will get the obvious message being sent out from this situation...probably, but then again, they'll just take over another small 3rd world country.
"Some fight for law. Some fight for justice. What will you fight for? One day, you will see."
Makes one wonder if they really are planning to switch, or if it's yet another scheme to extort free MS-licences from Billy-boy..
Maybe their budget wasn't big enough to cover
the costs of buying and administering Windows
systems.
If Bill Gates wants to dominate the universe,
he needs to do something about this issue- perhaps
he could get the US government to pay a subsidy
for Micro$oft products in poor countries- on the
grounds that it is not made by communists from
Finland.
Slashdot.org ./'ed from its own readers reaching for the "Reply" button to express their joy ?
[begin random comment list]
Sweet!
Up yours, Bill !
Someone had balls finally !
Score one for India !
[etc...]
Gates: We'll see your refusal to switch and raise you a contribution to
Where in the article did it say he conveyed this personaly to Bill Gates. All I saw was that he conveyed it to ET.
I thought I was going to see a quote around the lines of, "Madhya walked up to Bill, spat in his face and said, 'Take that Billy Boy. You monopolistic capitlistic pig. I'm going to use something free as in getting really drunk'"
Alas I'm missing something here.
at what point, does other OS's have sufficient market share, and then Microsoft wont be concidered a monopoly? Guipo
Theonlyuse of monkeys is to testthings onthem.Some peoplemay say"Hey That'scruel!"and myresponse is"I don't like monkeys
But will this eliminate Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
"India will continue to pirate as long as Microsoft leads everywhere else, though having the governor officially reject capitalism is a good step for socialism."
He did NOT reject capitalism, it was the freedom he didnt want to give up. Thats a very big difference.
HTTP/1.1 400
Still waiting for the "-1, Dumbass" moderation to be implemented...
It's India, smuck.
MP opens windows to Linux
ANIL SHARMA
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2002 01:42:20 AM ]
BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh has shut the door on Bill Gates. The state government schemes will use Linux software. Chief minister Digvijay Singh personally conveyed this to Microsoft boss Bill Gates during an interaction last week in New Delhi.
"For us it is not a question of Microsoft versus Linux. It is just a matter of choosing between a free software and a monopoly. We feel that when we are putting public information out in the open, then it should not be through a proprietary software," Mr Singh told ET.
Nor is it merely a public vs private ideological battle. Germany and Latin American countries, particularly Peru and Brazil, have opted for Linux rather than proprietary software to bring down costs, which keep mounting with successive upgrades in the case of proprietary software.
Madhya Pradesh has two significant programmes that reach out to people in a big way: Gyandoot e-governance, which covers 26 out of 45 districts and won the Stockholm Challenge Award for 2000, and the Headstart programme for computer-enabled school education. For the Headstart programme, the state government is now committed to use Linux.
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has shown an interest in Gyandoot.
According R Gopalakrishnan, state coordinator for the Rajiv Gandhi missions, the first phase of the Headstart did use Microsoft software, but the next will use Linux.
"This should set at rest any fears that we are anti-Microsoft as such. But we have opted for Linux in this phase, because of the cost factor, and the fact that it avoids costly upgrades and improved versions that are an inseparable element of Microsoft packages," he said.
"It is a considered decision taken by us. We have noted that several governments in the west and other countries too have opted for the Linux software instead of Microsoft because of a host of considerations," Mr Singh said.
These decisions should be made based on cost and on what best serves the people, not on ideological issues like commercial vs. free software.
Unless it's really an issue of morality (which I think is a huge stretch in this case).
of one of Apu's lines on an episode of The Simpsons. I believe it was one of the many episodes in which society crumbles, leading to widespread lawless behavior... Anyway, Apu is sitting on the roof of the Quickie Mart with a shotgun. As a looter leaves the store, Apu shouts, "Thank you for coming! I'll see you in hell!"
Dammit, who let a man of principle become highly placed in government?
This would never have happened back here in the good ole U.S. of A!
"Provided by the management for your protection."
The Indian government is Karma whoring!
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
Madhya Pradesh in the background I see laughing?
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
I can see it now.. in 10 years on FOX we'll see a "Where are they now" featuring Bill Gates.. you'll have to explain to your children who this bad man was.
Maybe he'll be working for sun in the mail room..?
I can dream can't I?
But what about the growing perspective that Linux is free, and thus, is somehow "cheap"? If this and other third-world countries like South Africa continue to embrace Linux, will it lose points in the corporate boardroom?
Already we have the KDE project, which continues to make a "Windows clone" desktop. New users may be confused by this desktop, and come to think of Linux as a cheap, third-rate alternative to Windows.
Although Linux can't respectfully decline the Indian government's offer, perhaps some its senior officials (Torvalds, Cox etc) should distance themselves from this decision. Otherwise, it we may be hearing "cheap Linux crap!" as often as our racist forefathers used to say "cheap Japanese crap!"
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
So if all of India changes to Linux (which would be a much bigger step, of course) that would be like 800 billion people using Linux.
... oh, nevermind
Think of a beowulf
Most of the cybercafes in India are used primarily to send email (hotmail, yahoo, rediffmail, etc.) Some are used for chatting (simple messenger programs). For lots of online games, or "fancy pr0n", the cafes simply don't have enough bandwidth.
For simple things like getting info on web, web based email, and simple chatting, no difference between linux and windows.
S
First paragraph. Third sentence.
Chief minister Digvijay Singh personally conveyed this to Microsoft boss Bill Gates during an interaction last week in New Delhi.
I would speculate whether or not this is because of the cost or the freedom.
I know they have better things to spend money on than client licenses for MS stuff. I do think its a great push for linux worldwide BUT I would just happen to think the free as in speech part is just a plus for not having to pay (as much w/ TCO).
Either way, I wish our own government would use linux. As it would be a great push away from the monopoly that they "punished".
In related news... The U.S. government flunked a computer-security review for the third consecutive year
Get paid to code OSS
India will continue to pirate as long as Microsoft leads everywhere else, though having the governor officially reject capitalism is a good step for socialism.
Sorry? I assume that you are using your own special definitions of capitalism and socialism here, because I don't see how they've got anything to do with this Indian state deciding to use Linux for a particular project rather than Microsoft.
Obviously Microsoft cannot compete on price or flexibility. Microsoft's main advantage seems to be its pervasiveness and it ability to run Office. Even if Office is the best productivity suite available, is it so much better that it is worth the extra cost of the software and the O/S needed to run it?
I'm just glad to see it when a customer wants something that Microsoft cannot and/or will not provide that they are willing to give Linux a chance. In this particular case, it looks like the decision wasn't made based on cost, but the cost of Linux is what made the decision possible.
It guess people will generally choose freedom especiall when it is free (as in beer!).
I don't practice what I preach because I'm not the kind of person that I'm preaching to.
Since when is Linux pro-socialism and anti-capitalism? I thought the point behind capitalism is that the best product/service wins, without any help from having an illegal monopoly?
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Just to make it more amusing though is the fact that Microsoft retained a large number of Indian coders during the XP 'debugging' cycle; nice to see they're not afraid to bite the hand that occasionaly feeds.
That after yesterday's article, Microsoft freebies turn India gov. against open-source. Oh, the sweet, sweet irony!
Bush Lies Watch
Air traffic controllers are reporting a number of flying pigs, around Redmond Washington... *grin*
-You only think you saw me post this...
-- All That's Evil in the Geek Space
Is RMS going to write to the Madhya State officials and complain that they called it "Linux" and not "GNU/Linux" now?
were you expecting to see a sig here? perhaps you'd rather see the inside of an ambulance!
YHBT, HAND, AD, schmuck.
Japanese cars (etc.) now have a reputation for quality and reliability. So the cheap crap of one generation becomes the product with attractive value propositions down the road.
Do you suppose Digvijay Singh reads slashdot?
Meanwhile, deep in the bowels beneath stinking bowels beneath Redmond, a lone figure seeks comfort with his Ooky.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Ah...have you seen any Indian cybercafe...I am yet to see one in India running any of the games you mentioned.
Microsoft doesnt raid Indian software blackmarket as they do in Taiwan and Malaysia because they need the next generation of Indian techies to practice and understand its products. And this means a wide availability of all the Windows flavors in most of the towns.
Plus a computer you can get for Rs.30000 and upwards and if you are asking for Rs.10000 (around US$200) for an OS no one is going to buy that.
This is the reason cybercafes are running XP/2000, not because of games.
Tat Tvam Asi
We feel that when we are putting public information out in the open, then it should not be through a proprietary software
I find this quote quite fascinating. India is a nation-state where the top 5% of the population own all the wealth; essentially they have a monopoly on the other lower castes. All the public infrastructure is publicly owned (trains, electricity). Given all this I find it hard to believe that India has been affronted in some way by avoiding a monopoly. What I do believe is that Inida is a country where most are poor and the barriers to technology are extremely high. With Linux, or any free computer technology, that gate is lowered somewhat; though you still have to buy the hardware.
What Linux really needs, I believe, to be the real market winner is to take on Microsoft on equal terms and win-out. Not some back-door, third-world country win, but a real win in the Fortune 500 cubicles of corporate America. But it's a start, and as Gandhi said, "A journey of a thousand miles, starts with just one step."
"How do you like your shackles?"
"Oh, they are quite a nice fit!"
"Excellent, we made them with Linux."
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
> WINE doesn't run CS, Starcraft, UT, and all the other online games that make third-world cyber cafes profitable.
Wine in fact does run Starcraft. UT (and UT2003) are released natively for Linux. CS I don't know about.
New games (which aren't likely to run on Wine) require the frequently upgraded hardware, which is too expensive for India anyway.
Not that any of this matters; caffes will stop piracy when they get closed down because of it and no sooner. They also won't change the OS because it's simply a hassle.
--
I refuse to use
Nice try. I hope no-one moderates you up.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Mod parent up +1 Funny
For those who don't understand Hindu (Very, very common religion in India), one of the basic premises of the religion is that people are reincarnated over and over again after they die until they generate enough Karma in the form of good deeds, positive experiences, and general learning and understanding that they reach a state of enlightenment and can proceed on from the cycle of mortal reincarnation to Nirvana-- a state of ultimate contentment with no worries, cares, needs, or demands.
Thats why cows are sacred to Hindus... not because of some strange religious edict or a prejudice against beef, but because cattle seen as a higher, more enlightened life form than humans. While I make no pretense about my love of beef in the grilled-to-a-juicy-medium-rare sense, you have to admit that cows do more for the environment we do on an invidual basis (entire herds and livestock yards can be pretty polluting and are responsible for a lot of C02 emission, tho) and with remarkably fewer cares than a human.
Karma has been westernized to mean the total of good deeds a person has and it's used here on Slashdot to indicate a measure of thoughtful posting, but don't forget that 'real' karma is the unmeasurable enlightenment you have acheived.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I've been lurking during this debate over who will (re)colonize India -- Linux or MS -- and am perplexed by one thing, the alleged reluctance of the Indian gov't (which apparently decides some things province by province?) to adopt a scheme like Linux that might not be completely turnkey. Everything I've read suggests that India is one of the biggest producers of computer technical talent, as the Silicon Valley drive for the U.S. to grant more worker visas attests. Also, much of U.S. tech support is being outsourced to India because of cheap fiber optic lines, cheaper tech labor, and the large number of fluent English speakers. (I've read in the NYT that some customer support reps even make up little American lives for chit-chat with unaware clients on the phone.)
... doesn't India have the homegrown talents, and why do they need state visits from RMS and BG to make up their minds? Why does it seem politicians are getting in the middle of all this? (Oops, answered my own question.)
So
Well, I guess I have to support the use of Linux for any sort of serious application. No such thing as bad publicity and all that. Plus, Linux is a perfect match in this case, since they can't afford anything non-free, and at the moment Linux is the best free OS (some would say it's the best OS period, but I'm not looking for a flamewar) out there. So that's good.
One thing I've thought about a lot is the image that Linux has, in both the media and business worlds. It goes without saying that gaining a foothold in American industry is vital to the long-term success of Linux. But many corporations have been reluctant to switch to Linux due to its image as an OS used by outcasts, hippies, pirates, and hackers. We seem to be making some progress away from this, what with products like Lindows getting some press, but we have a long way to go.
Now this comes along, and it's like we're being attacked from a whole new side. If Linux takes off in India, then we risk being associated with overpopulation, disease, tainted water supplies, and nucular warfare. What American company will consider using Linux after that? I wish there was a way to have it both ways, but I feel like the best thing for the Linux community to do at this point is to try to get India to switch to FreeBSD.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Since when did people work for large corporations and governments for free? So no, Linux isn't pro-socialism, but whatever it is I still don't get it.
* I'm obviously not refering to the dev's that get paid at IBM to work on Linux. That's business. I'm talking about the vast majority of OSS developers who do not code OSS professionally.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
6. ?
7. Profit!
take off every 'zig'
for great lameness!
hurray, hurray!!! Now US citizens should drive less, focus on family and less on accumulating gobs of money. This is great news indeed since the rest of the world doesn't care about the US, so that means no terrorist will want to bomb the US for exporting its aweful consumerist culture.
Reading the quotes from the gentleman making the decision makes me think of those Indian Guru relaxation tapes...
"First of all, breathe in... then, release all the tension in your buttocks..."
Replacing M$ products with Linux is like that tension release.
WINE doesn't run CS, Starcraft, UT, and all the other online games that make third-world cyber cafes profitable.
Though some of the official stuff, as well as the more family-oriented shops may change to Linux, the vast majority of cyber cafes will still be running pirated games under a pirated Windows.
I doubt it- this is a government sponsored program - they plainly can't allow pirated software for a host of reasons. If it were for-profit shops, I'd agree with you whole heartedly. The effort here is for education of the poor, not profits.
India will continue to pirate as long as Microsoft leads everywhere else, though having the governor officially reject capitalism is a good step for socialism.
Hunh? This quote:
"For us it is not a question of Microsoft versus Linux. It is just a matter of choosing between a free software and a monopoly. We feel that when we are putting public information out in the open, then it should not be through a proprietary software."
says they reject capitaism for socialism? That sounds very much like an informed, reasoned choice to me. It also will get the poor of India used to the idea of properly licensed software - and may end up curtailing some of the piracy you speak of.
You sound as though you've pre-judged India as a country with no morals, self respect or smarts, since they have no money. I can assure you that this is definately not the case, especially in the smarts department. Educate yourself on what you speak of, please, especially before you attepmt to make such blanket statements.
As it is, IMHO you definately put the ass in assume.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
However this really is a moot point. The goal of the rural cyberecafes is to provide access to email and web browsing, not to train a generation of "uber1337" kiddies that can't do anything but cheat in CS.
And eveidently you don't understand what capitalist system is. If it was a socailist system there would be no choice, its one-service-for-all, kind of like how Microsoft wants it, that for every PC you have you have to pay the "Microsoft Tax". Linux is the one trying to break this up so there actually is competition in the x86 PC market.
~noodle
Have you read the EULA's for these games? I used to be an admin at a cybercafe where we wanted to host tournaments for these games. Our research turned up that the EULA's for these games (espescially the Blizzard titles) specifically prohibits their use in a cybercafe or other money-making venture. Just FYI and my $.02
[move
a cluster of Amigas
I made the comment. I'm an American born Indian.
the words of Nelson:
ah ha!
--
What is pirate software? Software for inventory of stolen treasure?
Dude, you believe that quote? They like it 'cause it's free, like beer.
Less money to people who have invested in Microsoft not for Joe American who couldn't care less about them.
The above URL is a redirect elsewhere. Mouse over it to see what I mean. F$cking troll!
When some mentions Linux and Socialism in a post, it is a troll.
You ignorant fucking troll. Are you upset when the Mafia gets busted too? After all, they generate lots of revenue and all their 'front' ops generate lots of taxes...
Hey thats cool...... btw how do you say "Windoze sucks, Linux rulez" in Urdu/Hinid :--D
"Im picking my brain because my nose is too easy"
The last week reading slashdot will convince u India is majorly into Linux. *Being and Indian* lemme tell you, this isnt happening here.
The main reason is
1. Piracy is rampant here. Ms Win costs Rs.0($0)
2. Both being free, Windows is easier to use.
3. Tools(MS VStudio) is also free.
All the stories u see in slashdot are exxagerated.
95% of developers in India target MS Win.
thats it. simple.
Life is just a conviction.
In the other news:
The Indian IT took receives a grant of 400 million dollars from MS and are now working on bulding a Linux Super Server and J2EE app server.
Why can't the US make such a switch? I know they have a lot invested in there M$ stuff right now but why could they not change. I think this comes down to people that run the software. We all know that politicians and a lot of people in government jobs are lazy and just there for the money or power. That is what I think is holding us back. Not to mention the lusers we have running things. They could never figure out why they can not get those .vbs files to work and not having to reboot every day.
Differences:
- BSOD's
- Viruses
- licen$e co$t$
But, yeah, I see your point. Too bad that more people in North America don't realize this.Just out of curiosity, we hear a lot about people migrating from various solutions over to Linux, but I don't hear much about people doing the reverse. Is this because this just isn't happening (doubt it) or that it's just not publicised? If it does occur, I think it would benefit the community greatly to feature them even more so than those who switch TO Linux. I think the reason is obvious, if someone is switching away, then there is something to be learned. It may be features, it may be economics, or it may even be politics, but I think that we would learn from these turncoa^h^h^h uh, people.
Mafia == Microsoft nice one. i don't think microsoft goes around shooting cops and other people. and besides the whole monopoly thing (which was handled by the courts) how else does microsoft resemble the mob? that's the most idiotic comparison i've ever seen
that's because they only want someting that is free, it's nothing to do about microsoft being a monopoly. I bet you India has one of the largest pirated microsoft software install bases in Asia (outside of china)
It's not good enought that companies are shipping over massive amounts of their workforce over to India. What will happen in 2 years time when the whole workforce is Linux savvy?
Do you think you will stand much of a chance doing linux administration when someone in Deli can do it for $5 an hour? and they work weekends / public holidays?
Like many of you, I am very pleased with this announcement - a big step forward for open source in India! Maybe others will agree - I just sent him an email thanking him for his decision. His contact info is below (remove SPAM).
Shri Digvijay Singh
Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh
Vallabh Bhavan
Madhya Pradesh
cm@SPAMmpchiefminister.com OR cs@SPAMvallabh.mp.nic.in
Wow, one little obscure region that no one's ever heard of, in a country on the other side of the world (not to mention poverty line), switched too Linux. Woot.
And in other news, another 238 states embraced Microsoft products in their civil offices today.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
MS - a large organization accused and found guilty of illegal activities
Mafia - a large organization accused and found guilty of illegal activities
Seems a pretty valid comparison to me.
thank you! please come again!
Freedom Triumphs Over Microsoft Freebies!
1 Switch to linux
2 ???
3 PROFIT!!!
See also this for a little more about Gyandoot and MS involvement.
Prakash
ha! you really are stupid. those "illegal activities" you mention. well, they aren't exactly the same thing. mafia - murder, tax evasion, liquor and tabacco smuggling, narcotics ms - monopolistic practices
Indeed! Freedom != capitalism.
You will not drink with us, but you would taste our steel? - Walter Matthau, The Pirates
The site www.mp.nic.in is running Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on NT4/Windows 98.
"India is hardly a 'small 3rd world country'."
He said nothing of the kind. He said (emphasis mine):
" but then again, they'll just take over -[another]- small 3rd world country."
I don't know about CounterStrike or Starcraft, but there is an Unreal Tournament installer which will install the Windows UT "Game Of The Year" edition onto Linux. Loki Software wrote it. And UT2003 comes as a hybrid disk with both the Linux and the Windows installs. So that crosses a couple of games off your list. BTW this also works with FreeBSD using the Linux compatibility layer.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
You looked at Goatse!
You looked at Goatse!
Neener Neener Neener!
You looked at Goatse!
Of course it was Michael that smacked you down. I didn't even have to look at what editor posted the story to know.
"Hi, I'm Michael Simms. I'm a communist idiot that likes to censor people. It gives me wood."
If I ever saw that idiot in public I would smack the shit out of him.
The world now hinges upon a global economy. In the IT industry, work is constantly outsourced to India with varying degrees of success.
..I suppose they could always team up with the **AA and attempt to legislate themselves into continued existance. :P
India is an up and coming tech juggernaut, much like China. US corporations would do well to take note of that. In the modern business, words such as 'cheap' and 'foreign' haven't the place they used to.
Cheap? How so? Are they saving money? are their productivity and profits up? Cheap? Cheap is good!
Foreign? See global economy.
Businesses must start looking ahead in this brave new world. If they don't, well..
Yes. The notion of government "rejecting capitalism" implies exactly two requirements: (1) to increase the power and expense of government, and (2) to reduce the freedom of the people. Neither one of these requirements has been met with this new proposal, as far as I can see. The individual who made that quote simply does not understand the concepts of capitalism and socialism.
Capitalism is freedom -- specifically, the freedom to engage in voluntary association. Socialism is the exact opposite of this. Socialism is essentially a prohibition of capitalism, because it requires that your freedom of voluntary association be eliminated (or reduced) by the force of government.
CS runs very well under WineX (I play regularly), and so does StarCraft. Unreal Tournament (and UT2003) has a native linux version.
Also, the thing most popular in indian cybercafes is not games, but e-mail.
Reminder: find a new sig
God forbid that we don't get at least one circle jerk a day because some nomad in Chad is switching to Linux.
Two things:
1) You're an idiot
2) You don't know what the hell you're talking about
Let me explain:
Counter-Strike and StarCraft both run just fine under WINE, and have done so for years (I personally know people who were playing CS under Wine over 2 years ago). Unreal Tournament doesn't need to run on WINE since both UT and UT2003 have native support for Linux (Although, for the record, I know people who were playing UT under WINE, again, over 2 years ago).
Since this is easily verifiable fact, it is quite clear that you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
having the governor officially reject capitalism is a good step for socialism.
While this statement is technically true, it has absolutely nothing to do with the situation at hand. The issue is not one of Capitalism v. Socialism, but rather one of government accountability and transparancy. These two issues are completely different and distinct, and only an idiot who doesn't know what the hell they're talking about would get them confused.
Though some of the official stuff, as well as the more family-oriented shops may change to Linux, the vast majority of cyber cafes will still be running pirated games under a pirated Windows.
That may be true in the large cities, which actually have economies which are able to support privately owned cybercafes, but India is a very big place, and the vast majority of it does not fit that description.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Actually, capitalism is an ownership model, not a market model. Its defining characteristic is private ownership of production. This can just as easily mean state granted monopolies, as in the fascist model, as as it can free markets. Likewise, socialism does not preclude free markets. American Individualist Anarchist Benjamin Tucker's ideology is an example of market socialism.
That said you are correct that the original poster's assertion that free software is somehow socialist and proprietary software capitalist is unfounded.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
Freedom != capitalism
Let me guess asswipe, you're still in college.
I'm just amazed at how much people are getting this wrong. It is not the WHOLE of India that decided to switch to GNU/Linux, but only the state of Madhya Pradesh. Guys, what would you have said if the headline was the American state of Arkansas, has opted to switch to Linux from Microsoft
In case you didn't know, Bhopal has been the site of the world's worst chemical disaster in 1984. A leak from the Union Carbide (an american company) nearby plant has killed and injured thousands of citizens, and the company has denied responsibility for a long time. See here for more info. Somehow, I'm not surprised that they want to avoid the presence of big american companies
Just my two maple-leaved cents
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
No, I didn't.
I'm not stupid enough to click on a URL posted by an AC with NC (no clue)
But, sure, I'll play with the ugly little AC trolls like you once in a while. Someone has to. It's fun. And your posting style makes me smile :-)
Yeah! Indian people! That's funny!
Seems to me that if Linux is a valid choice to accomplish their goal... then Microsoft doesn't exactly have a monopoly.
Are there not people who are just happy with what they have? I mean I must believe there are computer scientists out there with bigger problems to solve than which OS they want to run today...
Its cool and all that Linux exists but its still far from being the be-all of desktop computing. Until the OSS developers realize that "perdy UIs" are not just wussy-Windows stuff Linux won't be as mainstream as it should.
I mean for instance, to install a patch I shouldn't have any knowledge of the basics more than download this and double click. While RPM's are getting there I've seen quite a few that konk out due to dependency failures.
At least with windows the "Windows Update" thingy doesn't cause such problems.
In otherwords Linux distro's have to be designed for users not developers.
(/rant)
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Ok, I'll bite.
I just read the Ask Slashdot you referred to at -1 (I missed it the first time around...) and don't find any "racist" comments whatsoever.
All I see is a few posts from people griping about H1B Visa workers. While you may have assumed (incorrectly) that all H1B Visa holders come from India (I'm presuming that's why you posted the comment in this story), plenty come from countries such as England, Russia and the Asia-Pac Rim. No one specifically mentioned any race, creed, or religion in any demeaning term.
People are obviously upset about the proliferation of H1B workers in America. It wouldn't have made it to Congress and the mainstream media if there wasn't widespread sentiment about it.
There's a difference between racism and criticism, and I think you need to be a little less defensive unless you feel guilty of something yourself.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
They are taking on programming jobs from the US, and now they are switching to Linux OS. By ditching the Windows OS they are saving tons of money. Looks like they are boosting their economy with all these changes. I think it is a smart move.
When all else fails, piss on it. At least you will feel better in some kind of way.
But if the cow was Grandma, then she lost karma. Therefore, doesn't she deserve getting eaten? I mean, it's only fair justice.
CS does indeed run under Wine.
Sig is on vacation
Don't forget that a recent poll showed that 50% of /.ers run an MS OS (myself included). They really do have a target audience here.
Actually, that's a very positive thing. Consider that of the number of new readers coming in, far more than 50% would be long-time windows users. So what does the 50% figure tell you? Right. Tens of thousands of switchers.
In fact, that 50% number is just about optimum. It means we're not just preaching to the choir, we're actually doing some work. So what you see at Slashdot is not only exponential growth in readers (yes it is, check the id numbers) but exponential growth in the number of switchers as well.
Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
Yeah right, normally its just someone who might/could possibly switch one day in the future, if the weather is right and the hamster ball is spinning sweetly.
Is this supposed to be news? This obviously shows how desperate the linux community is to brag about something as useless as this. -- lets all report every time some amazon tribe uses toilet paper instead of a leaf to wipe his ass!
Microsoft's main advantage seems to be its pervasiveness and it ability to run Office. Even if Office is the best productivity suite available, is it so much better that it is worth the extra cost of the software and the O/S needed to run it?
Xandros Linux runs MS Offfice just fine. But it does cost $100 per seat too, for it's integrated Codeweavers component.
Oh, because there's no fair market. Never mind.
but don't forget that 'real' karma is the unmeasurable enlightenment you have acheived.
That's right.... It once was said:
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos", - Homer Simpson
you forgot the re-installs after customers clicked some fancy url sent by their 'friend' and erased the hd.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Six weeks tops before they are forced to switch back because of security and compatiblity issues. Eight on the outside. And that is one unemployeed Indian. Wow... how dumb do you have to be... that data network system in India will choke if they throw a sub-net of linux into an otherwise stable and effective system... lord knows it nearly bancrupted us last year.
I wonder if it can be considered racist that you feel the only people to read slash-dot are white, middle-class Americans?
or as Nelson put it:
Where's my bloody arm got to? Eeek.. my eye fell out!
I just want them to fix those wobbly wheels.
Wine in fact does run Starcraft.
Not only DOES wine run starcraft, but for the box(en) I have available, windows does NOT run starcraft where I can actually play it. Linux/wine had no problems. I found that rather funny.
I hope this gets modded up funny. If I came up with anything that funny, I wouldn't post it AC....
grep -ri 'should work'
CmdrTypo strikes again. It should of course read ".. convert from Lin to Win".
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
Runs more smoothly in WINE than the last version of Windows I had installed, NT 4.
May we never see th
Capitalism is freedom -- specifically, the freedom to engage in voluntary association.
Only to the extent that the distribution of property is voluntarily agreed to. Once you invoke force to preserve allocations of property, the voluntary part goes out the window.
A propertarian economic system requires a strong state to enforce property (read: power) relationships. Look at history: every time the poor people get uppity, the rich install an authoritarian government. In some cases (Franco, Hitler), the rich are subjected to a bit more authority than they bargained for.
That's great to hear that a rather large university such at Indiana State decided to make the move to Linux. Hurrah!
Welcome to Jesse Jackson's dream world....where everything is racist and all of life's problems can be traced to racism.
Let me guess asswipe, you're still in college.
Whereas you have a Dream Job where you dictate the terms of your labor?
There's a reason that Dilbert resonates with office drones everywhere.
And next time you go shopping at WalMart, remember those free Chinese who manufactured the goods you are purchasing.
They do more for providing me lunch, for certain, but they don't do all that much for the environment. Sure, they wander around shitting, but that really don't impress me much.
The only reason cows haven't put up an immense operation to raise and slaughter various wild grasses is that they lack opposable thumbs.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
It once was said: "Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos"
That was before Slashdot.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
And in anarchism we will finally be free.
Is it me, or does it seem that if you have a real *choice*, then there is no monopoly?
I thought the essence of a monopoly was that there was no viable choice to be made.
I came across this excellent article in an Indian business newspaper discussing the economics behind the use of free software vs proprietary software in developing countries like India. It also touches upon the adoption of Linux in Madhya Pradesh. In a nutshell, the article presents a strong argument in favour of free software mainly from the economic standpoint.
You know, that doesn't mean that the global standard of living improvements through improved efficiency won't make it worthwhile.
You don't *have* to take foo from B and give it to A. You *can* get A and B to work together and improve *both* of their stations.
May we never see th
Yeah, but that's just part of the Micro$oft tax, or a feature, or whatever... :-)
First Gyandooth and then The World!
Watch out Microsoft!!
"Oh look at India", look how third rate it is. Who cares if they switch to linux. Well im 1/2 Indian damnit and not everyone is some poor farmer it is good they switched to linux, I mean thats like several million people more prone to use linux than MS. You should be happy and not make your little sarcastic jokes. :p
1. build a nuclear arsenal
2. use all the commencial software and international patents you want without paying anything
3. if an commercial embargo sets up, adopt linux and keep the use of patents
4. if someone keeps complaining, bomb them
5. when you get rich, enter the UN security council
6. start selling amunition to every bizarre country in the world
7. when some 'allies' get pissed off and explode your nice buildings, state a war against terrorism to "recover your economy"
8. wait for the end of the world as we know it
(except for the linux detail, adapted without authorization from the united states 'business case')
a large organization accused and found guilty of illegal activities
Same as Greenpeace? (lots of borderline ecoterrorism)
How about the FBI? (Hoover's abuses in the '70s)
May we never see th
Very funny...
But to take you seriously for half a second:
you wrote:
But many corporations have been reluctant to switch to Linux due to its image as an OS used by outcasts, hippies, pirates, and hackers.
Which is totally wrong. Every managers fisrt question is usually: "hmmm, this linux thing, does it run Outlook and Office? But more importantly, does it run AOL?"
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Here in the Netherlands, the left-wing green party yesterday also proposed embracing open source. In a quite extensive report on their website (http://www.groenlinks.nl/nieuws/4001428.html, in Dutch). They motivate the proposal quite well. There are a few minor details that they got wrong (most notably, Linus' last name is misspelled and the fact that a closed source format is used for the actual report) but overall the message is that closed source is bad and open source can be beneficial for both economical reasons and other reasons such as security, reliability and openness. Considering the report is written by a non technical person for a non technical audience, the effort should be applauded.
With the upcoming election in January, I hope this will be one of the election themes.
Jilles
Haiku!!
Microsoft:
"we cure your disease!"
"then infect you with windows!"
"now you write our code!"
India:
"Thanks for the money"
"we will now run free linux"
"kegger at my house!"
One thing:
YHBT! fucking moron!
HAND
Now, the opinion of and exposure to one particular operating system by three guys in India isn't saying much, but when coupled with cyberjessy's statement, it's something.
"What does it take?"
PAIN!!
Sorry, but HINDU is not a common religion in India, Hinduism is. A hindu is one who practices hinduism.
Also, Karma is not enlightenment. In the strictest sense, karma just means destiny (also means action or deed), that's all.
Do not be holding your breath for this to actually happen. There is still plenty of JET A-1 fuel at Sea-Tac for Mr. Bill's airplane.
I hear he has a delicate stomach, I wonder how well he is tolerating Indian food?
Who, thanks to capitalism, have jobs.
1. I haven't seen a BSOD in over 2 years.
2. Viruses will come to Linux as more and more Linux boxes come online. Windows has bugs but it is 90%+ of the computers out there. If you want to do something destructive or 'hackerish', you target what will get you the most bang for the buck. In fact, Linux/Un*x boxes are more security risks because of their great support for multiple users. You may get email viruses and have the machine format it's own harddrive but you won't get box hopping as well.
3. With Windows, any user can keep it up to date (as up to date as Microsoft makes it) by clicking a button. You have to have someone who knows more than that to keep a Linux box up to date. License costs vs. having someone on staff to deal with it. Of course, 'net cafes worth anything will have someone on staff regardless of the OSs present.
nt
US IT workers are overpaid and underworked windows-dependents. I suppose it could be worse though. Tried working in australia? Ugh -- now there's !clue for you.
Facts to keep in mind :
Corruption is a way of life, especially if you are in the government. While corruption is not unknown in the US, these are usually exceptions (most law buying takes place over the table rather than under it and is thus not "corrupt" behaviour). In India, the honest politicians would be the exception. Odds are that someone in Karnataka did take a bribe.
Madhya Pradesh is not one of the technologically advanced states. Karnataka (which has Bangalore) is - hence Bill Gates would naturally spend more money on Karnataka. Even if Madhya Pradesh chose to stick to WinXX, it is doubtful that it would constitute a good market for MS.
All, in all, it does look like a bid in the poker game.
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
what the hell are you talking about?
I agree 100%. Strong property rights are an essential element of capitalism.
Ah ha! ? Isn't that Sherlock Holmes?
Perhaps you meant HAAA...HAAAA !!!
Beauty is in the eye of the beerholder.
...or do the want to use a foreigner? ;)
This is exactly the kind of thinking that is the root of the problems in the US business world today. Executives who think that since it's all just money or 'just business', breaking the law is OK. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. This is not about a matter of degree. You are still a criminal regardless of whether you pickpocketed or murdered. You are still put in cuffs and toted downtown. The punishment is the only thing that varies. Spend time in prison, and you are an ex-con. Tax evasion or murder makes no difference.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Karma is the law of cause and effect. AKA, you sow what you reap. The goal is not to have good karma or bad karma, but to not have karma. Only then can you break the cycle of birth death rebirth.
I don't really know why cows are sacred to hindus accept that they make a better renewable resource if you don't kill them. Even their feces is used for fuel. The air in India cities pongs.
The vast majority of OSS developers who do not "code OSS professionally" participate in a gift economy, a system where people compete for ethereal quantities like reputation.
It works in OSS because reputation gives people jobs, money for speeches, and fame. And we know geeks like fame.
|/usr/games/fortune
Well, they are. (Topic aside.)
Example: check their coverage of the so called "Gulf War". Blatant lies and propaganda all-day-around.
______________
OTTERS RULE.
yuck, not a pretty sight....
if (!signature) { throw std::runtime_error("No sig!"); }
Switched to Linux.
...suck it down Gates.
Negative, I am a meat popsicle.
Nice to know you haven't seen a BSOD in over 2 years. I haven't either - on my boxes - 'cause I run linux. But just this morning, I've had to 'fix' 2 BSODs on others.
Windows is a crappy design. There's no getting around it.
In fact, Linux/Un*x boxes are more security risks because of their great support for multiple users. Nice to see you acknowledge *nix boxes "great support for multiple users". Something Windows was supposed to do, and still sux at. I haven't seen a BSOD in over 2 years. Multiple user accounts on *nix boxes are less of a threat to everyone than a winhozer
With Windows, any user can keep it up to date (as up to date as Microsoft makes it) by clicking a button. </quote> That's the problem w. closed source. It stays shitty because nobody else can fix it.
Last year it started with the German Bundestag Linux initiative and the French government's open source requirements, moved on to the Chinese government's Linux move, crossed the Pacific to Peru and that intelligent senator there rebutting MS-Peru's words one by one, actually made it past Heathrow customs in the UK, shot down the Atlantic to Namibia, passing by Spain on the way, going round the Cape of good Hope to nest in Japan and now move back to India.
.NET server and co might be extremely good performers but when you can get three boxes for the price of one server licence, which one would you go for?
It truly is amazing just how well Linux is being adopted. Most of this is serverside however, but I give Microsoft's server business another year or two of profitability before no one goes for Ms servers anymore in a big way.
In addition I think the rollercoaster will only gather speed from now, where even total MS butt kissers like the good folk here in Switzerland start to realise that MS isn't doing anything for them and start getting a clue on Linux. OpenOffice will most likely also only increase in use and I can veritably see the day when MS actually starts losing money. Given their size, I think they'll burn through the 40 Billion real quick.
there you have it.
Everyone's always trying to outdo Ghandi on that nonviolent resistance stuff ...
Indians have done it again.
I am proud to be an Indian.
Indiana should be proud of this decision. Cautious but proud.
Indian ?? as in India ???
oh
nevermind
BSOD are usually caused by crappy drivers of some sort. Get your admin to install WinXP and use updated drivers.
I've run many types of boxes and have found Un*x and Un*x-alikes are very useful in certain roles, typically servers and compute engines, but still are severely lacking in UI design and usability for the masses, IMO. They make great servers but aren't friendly at all to a user, especially non-tech users.
I'll admit I haven't had much experience with a wide variety of Linux distros (I used Slackware for a long time and a year or so ago decided to go with RedHat), but I know that I wouldn't want to spend the afternoon trying to talk my mom through a software install using rpm from RedHat and I'd rather repeatedly throw salt in my eyes than try to get her to compile something.
From a developer standpoint, I don't want to have to spend time getting tools to work rather than working on my problem. Why should I have to spend significant amounts of time dorking with autoconf and makefiles instead of writing software? I've been there and done that and don't want to waste time there again. Also, I like tools like an IDE that automatically incorporates my code into what it already knows like in the intellisense of MS Dev Studio. Leaving one tool in order to go somewhere else to use another tool breaks my train of thought. In some cases, integration of tools is a good thing. Frequently, the tools on Un*x and such have zero discoverability so are frustrating and time consuming to learn. Computer tools should make things easy, not distract.
Anyway, I use RedHat at home some but it is by far my main machine because I can't get it to do many of the things I can on my Windows boxes (or as easy when there is similar functionality -- engineer afterthought GUIs for instance).
With WinXP, my stuff works, the things I need to do get done, and it is easy and efficient. I can do many of the same things on my Linux box, but it takes longer, is more work overall, and is more arduous, in my experience.
Caste is definitely still relevant in India.Whilst I would agree that the prejudice is supressed, it definitely still exists.
See my journal, I write things there
And in other news, the town council of Lynchburg, Kentucky has switched to moonshine, saying open source booze is just a win-win situation.
Glad to hear of the "coup", but is this place of any size, importance to the IT world? Just curious. }:{)||
is the collective moan of 10 million linux geeks masturbating.
Wow, thanks! I have a new favourite putdown!
HI SLASHDOT!
Please add a moderation category for "AstroTurf."
And no, OS X is NOT LINUX BASED.
It will not be easy for many to see the big picture behind this decision by a state in India.
It is not about computers or Windows, or free software or Bill's Winopoly. (Bill is merely a cute preppy boy, who was handed his monopoly, for a functional purpose, by a fascist banking apparatus within our Government. It's irrelevant to them that he "got rich.") If you are able to see an occasional finger of the military-industrial-oil cartel permeating into your home life-work schedule, then you should also be able to see the new Homeland security-Fraudulent banking mafia at work permeating the same. Welcome to the future, Americans, your government is now run by Marxist radicals, posing as neo-con conservatives, flanked by mob of brainwashed "rightwing" idiots led by the likes of Jesus-is-my-rabbi "Christians," such as Sun-Mydong-Moon and Pat "I can't wait to kill me some Mooslins" Robertson.
India was the last nation to fight a war for independence from the British Free-trade system, and it is easily shown that while America has now been completely subverted by British agents, beginning with KKK'er Woodrow Wilson and his Federal Reserve, and inch-by-inch rendered into its opposite, India has taken on the burden of continuing the American Revolution, especially in its concept of organizing progress through the principle of creating an uplifting general welfare, for everybody, and not through the principle of protecting a right-of-greed for fascist banker friends and their communist monopolists. While the U.S. dismantles its economic and scientific infrastructure, including our space program, India is organizing hers, albeit with little media coverage in the U.S., including plans for irrigation of deserts, and building nuclear power plants, as well as one to put a human being on the Moon.
If current long-range British-American plans are implemented, India will be economically and militarily sabotaged long before the latter shit will ever be allowed to hit the fan. (Do not imagine even for a minute, that Sadam and the Ayatolah, and their Henry Kissinger-Zbignew Brezensky trained Al-queda, are the real targets of current military and media apparatus. Nor is capture of oil reserves by David Rockefeller, the target, though doing so might momentarily improve the balance sheets for his collapsing banks, although they are the largest shareholder of our collapsing Federal Reserve.
Along with knocking the humanists in the Arabian world back down to 18th century technologies, as Kissinger has already done for Africa, the long range plan is the economic isolation and eventual destruction of India. Thus, in its struggle to organize internal progress, India has also chosen for itself an ideal, and an enemy of that ideal, which goes much higher than mere choice of a free OS or a mono OS. Imagine the political shockwaves and repurcussions of a Moon landing, by Indians. Can you imagine the British bankers and their Free-trade mafiosos ever organizing such a task?
Meanwhile, the British Royals are becoming apoplectic, over the scientific and industrial progress which India is making, using the principles of Lincoln and Henry Carey, both 19th-Century Americans whom Ghandi studied and loved, posthumously. This is inspite of the current isolation of India economically and politically, by a nuclear tipped rogue nation, and British-Israeli-American protectorate, Pakistan. (Yes, the Ayatolah was trained by Kissinger, as are the current Pakistani radicals trained by Kissinger's protege, Brezensky.) Look at the preferences which the recent parade of American lap dancers for British Royals, e.g. our recent presidents, have shown for a British protectorate, Communist China over India. (Yes, the Mao was trained by Bertrand Russell, and his revolution was financed by the British, with the explicit purpose of ending a prior revolution in China, organized by another student of Lincoln and Carey, Sun Yatsen.)
Does it mean that Linux docs are *literaly* going to be written in sanskrit?!?
...after he made that statement he had to crawl over a couple dozen people starving and living on the street to get to his Mercedes limo to drive back to his mansion.
A BSA representative stated "... working off a tip from an Anonymous Coward the BSA conducted a massive raid of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. All computers were seized for evidence." An RIAA representative responded "The RIAA is seeking damages from those dam injens. After all Linux is only used for stealing out copyrighted music!"
Sen. Disney (FL), stated "I plan on adding the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh to the list of terriorist states as a rider on the next homland defence bill. Windows is good for homeland defence!"
you, sir, are NOT an indian. an indian would NEVER use the term 'lemme'. simple as that. you are too undereducated to be an indian. their grasp of the language is such that they do not have or use 'slang'. they are much closer to 'proper english' than most americans, (or english(british) for that matter.)
next time do some research before you expose yourself as a moron.
as another poster pointed out...
you are thinking of the "free market" and competition within it. Capitalism is about "capital", and being able to make money from property rights.
-pyrrho
This is a tricky one, doubly obfuscated.
goatse.cx......site cannot load images
Fabulous.
W00t, already over 263 comments, and still no silly Apache jokes. Come on Slashdot - you got to have some humour to throw at me.
It wasn't India, but rather a particular state in India.
Please to RTFA.
--AC
There are two schools of thought on this. The first one is that Linux is pro-capitalist because companies are using a different "service based" business model. Adherents to this school of thought argue that the service model is a better way to distribute software and will win in the long run.
The other school of thought is that Linux is anti-capitalist because it seeks to drive other operating systems out of the market and replace them with a public monopoly. When the public monopoly fails to achieve timely development, it is likely to seek government funding (and already has in some cases). Thus, the government eventually becomes the sole provider of OS development services. Government ownership of a business is the classic definition of socialism.
Contrary to what the other guy said, posts about Linux and Socialism are *not* trolls.
As you might have guessed, I hold to the 2nd school of thought. The first school makes sense as long as the government "stays out" doesn't fund it. Proponents of the first school argue that the government already funds proprietary software by providing PD research and enforcing copyright law. The counterargument to that is that PD research is available to both camps. The cost of enforcing copyright law argument falls apart when you realize that if all software were GPL'd, the government would have to enforce "exclusive supplier" contracts which could effectively negate the GPL.
Also, Linux is under GPL, which came from RMS, who is an RED :). But seriously, if you read the GNU website you will see that it makes no secret of the fact that the movement is based in Leftist ideology.
And the debate will almost certainly go on and on from here...
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Well, don't be so hard on Windows and Billy. ;)
With OpenOffice and Mozilla it becomes fairly usable.
The first time we used Linux was in 1994.
You're right the opinion of those three guys doesn't matter a lot.
The company I worked for was www.rsys.com.
No, cow is sacred because it is associated with Krishna. Killing a cow is killing Brahmin Krishna--not a good path to increasing one's karma.
n a. htm
http://krishna.org/ctfote/cow.html
http://mathuravrindavan.com/mathura1/aboutkrish
I'd have encountered SAMBA if I had any windoze machines, but I don't.
I've got exim instead of sendmail, so I don't really know if there's anything hard about sendmail. Exim is easy to configure and comes very well documented.
Kernel panic? Well, that has happened to me once or twice. Once on an overheating machine. Once on a machine where I screwed up by not knowing how to work lilo. Never on a reasonlable machine with a normal install of Debian or Red Hat. Ever.
In any case, there is no comparing the "problems" you have cited to M$ crap. When a piece of free software does not work there IS something you can do about it. If the man or info page fails you, unlikely, and a google search does not turn up an answer right away, you can always download and read the source code itself. I've never had to do that, ever, becuse man and info generally list where all the configuration files are and those are almost always well documented. What happens when some bogus M$ code pulls up the old blue screen of death? You reboot, look at MSDN, google, and what not. But you can never ever actually fix the problem because only one company sits on the source and you are at their mercy. They get around to it when they get around to it, sometimes that's never and that's why M$ boxes fail so often, are so easy to break into and cost so much to own and run.
Poor pot and kettle, they've been sitting in the smoke of propriatory software so long they can't see the light of day.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
In Hinduism, as is my understanding, the highest form of life you can acheive is COW. So if you're good, and you tip the karma balance in the right direction, and are lucky, you might end up COW. I personally am shooting for some sort of ape or eagle. I don't know if this qualifies as worship, but it goes beyond respect. I heard an anecdote in which Da Free John ordered soup in a restaurant, ate half of it, and said, "This is very good. What is in it?" "Beef," the waiter replied. Da Free John immediately vomited, waited a moment, and said, "Bring me more soup. I must get over this silly notion that cows are holy" So you see why normal everyday people, not just jackasses, may be confused about the status of cows in India?
Please stop stalking me, bro.
> While you may have assumed (incorrectly) that all H1B Visa holders come from India
Most. Just look around.
Most of the cybercafes in India are used primarily to send email (hotmail, yahoo, rediffmail, etc.)
I'm at a university where this is the case, too. I wandered past a row af Win2k computers a little while ago: hotmail, hotmail, bsod, hotmail yahoo, hotmail...
Is it just my head or the kernel of cavity on yours .... what does a dude in a village need DirectX8.0 for. His need is simply met if on a text-ui the market rate for milk and veggies gets displayed. ..
the applications he/she needs are very much available on GNU/Linux platforms
So waht seems to be my point here? (/.)
part of the parcel !
what would you have said if the headline was the American state of Arkansas, has opted to switch to Linux from Microsoft?
I'd stand up and cheer. Just like I did when the city of Largo announced they were switching to Linux. Sure, it'd be even nicer if it were the whole country of India, but this is still a step in the right direction. The fact is that each one of these small victories adds credibility to this funky free software stuff and makes it that much more likely that the next small group pondering what I'm pondering will go ahead and make the switch to freedom.
Strong property rights are an essential element of capitalism.
Okay, so please shut up about the voluntary nonsense. It's not about voluntary relationships. If I'm cold, and there is an empty office building, I can't sleep there because the owner will call the cops (force) to enforce his property "right" for me to freeze to death on the street. Even if most people in the town disagree with that outcome.
1. Switch to Linux ...
2.
3. Hindu Prophet
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
Is that even legal sending a Redhat cd to India?
Isn't the encryption in mozilla and konqueror over the limit for exportation? I have no clue. How about
taking your laptop out of the country? Do you have to remove all your encryption ablility over 40 bits?
I don't know, that is why I'm asking.
Correctamundo.
This should be modded up. It is indeed the association with Krishna that's important wrt cows.
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
In fact, many hours were devoted just to making sure that it would run starcraft.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
While I'm glad that India is embracing open-source and Linux so heartily, it's really going to do jack shit for that country unfortunately. I'm an American businessman in the import- export business, so as you might guess, my frequent travels take me to many places around the world, on every continent.
I wanted to share my experience in the "great" country of India.
So, I was in Bangalore, India last March for about a week on business. A bit of background: Bangalore is a special technology development area that the Indian government set up to try and give foreigners the illusion that India really ISN'T a moldering third world country with its populace living in utterly squalid, filthy slums. Here, rules are relaxed and IT and other technology is encouraged. Well, let me tell you this, if this is India's best, then I'd hate to see the worst.
Anyways, when I stepped off the plane from Delhi (which was no paradise itself, as that place has gone down the shitter since the Brits left) I was shocked. The whole place smelled like a combination of vomit, death and cow dung that had been left out in the sun for a day or so. And it was probably BECAUSE there was vomit and cow dung all over, with many people seemingly near death (or are they dead already) lying in agony in the streets from God knows what. Kids were playing in filthy pools, throwing shit around. I almost retched, and I've certainly been in some sketchy places in my travels but NOTHING like this.
People spit everywhere. Trash litters the streets. I found myself looking DOWNWARD much more than looking FORWARD when I walked.
Noise pollution is endemic. It doesn't help that their infernal language consists of gibberish that is a cacophony for any human ear to bear. How do they speak and listen to that shit without going crazy all day long is beyond me.
Anyways, Indians stink -- literally. There is no concept of personal hygiene whatsoever. Meetings with even top officials were hourlong sessions of having to endure hot sweaty bodies and rancid breath eminating from mouths missing a few teeth. Geez, at least use deodorant for crying out loud. And you guys might want to re-think that cow-worship thing -- they aren't exactly the cleanest of animals to be keeping around, and sharing living spaces with humanity.
The hypocrisy, corruption, and double-standards from the highest levels of government on over are the norm at the same time India opens up to the world as a purported source for "cheap" IT and other "skilled labor". Foreigners get charged as much as five times for transportation, lodging, food, and everything else.
Traffic is horrible. Rules are non-existent except for at traffic lights: red means to go fast, green means to go REALLY REALLY fast.
The Indian people themselve are pretty apathetic and everyone just wants to get out of that hell hole, so you see smuggling rings shipping people out hidden in truck beds and ships, all too often with tragic results.
The whole country, in my assessment is a lost case. Even the cheap IT services that everyone talks about can be found in Eastern Europe or Asia, where at least the country and its people don't experience stuff like plague and cholera as a day to day way of life.
Anyways, the one redeeming quality were the girls. I was having dinner (by the way, how can anyone eat that curry shit for all their lives, is way beyond me) with a young female business associate, and afterwards, we had a few drinks. One thing lead to another and I paid 1500 rupees (about $30 US) for a great fuck, with a bright 25 year old programmer. Boy, those Indian girls sure can get it on -- almost as good as the CHinese. Much better than even the vaunted Thai whores, and worlds apart from anything in Las Vegas or in Europe.
So yeah, screw the hell hole that's India. It's a lost cause of a country suspsended by a hollow facade of so-called IT development that's just show more than anything.
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Hey - I contribute code to newsgroups, public articles, etc. But it's one thing to release a small and useful OSS utility, it's another to participate in a huge project (like an OS or Office App) and essentially INCREASE THE PROFITS OF CORPORATIONS for free. I still don't get it. ALso, name another profession that has a group of essentially "hippies" doing the same thing.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Or Islam, christianity, etc...
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"We come in peace
Shoot to kill.
Shoot to kill.
Shoot to kill.
We come in peace
Shoot to kill.
Shoot to kill, men."
--Captain James T. Kirk, Star Trekkin' song
I think Lao Tzu said that.
I've seen "server grade" stuff BSOD when it was running M$'s "server grade" OS. It was a big shiny multi processor beast from Dell and very beautiful. The extra cost did not buy the company much and, gasp, it worked just like the non "server grade" stuff we all know and use. As Beavis once said, "It's amazing how mass produced objects are nearly identical."
It's all about perception, dude, don't tell me your shit don't stink.
I don't use or recomend shit. My hardware is cheap, my software is free yet it all works great.
And you've missed the point entirely.
I don't think so. You tried to tell me that buggy M$ junk was just as good as free software. Experience indicates otherwise, regardless of the hardware. You also implied that there was little difference between free and non free documentation. Again, that's false for all the reasons outlined in my last post.
Then make me a foe. :P
You will have to be uglier than that.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Uh....
;)
Must not have, or maybe its just another case of the epidemic sweeping the country these days:
xenophobia
Yeah thats right.
Know what? I have been over there too. It sure is a shock to see the way the world is, and yeah its painful as well watching the poverty, pain and suffering that envelopes *most* of the globe.
For me it was an eyeopener, for you it was an excuse to get a cheap fuck (you cheap fuck, fuck you, you stupid ignorant imperialist fuck), and to come home and fuckin complain.
Fuck you. Oh and fuck you. Oh and, when are you idiots gonna realize its only a teeny bit of the population that gets to live in a SUV driving, Elimidate watching, non-corrupt (cough cough) paradise that is the "West".
I suggest you goto fuckin college and do a little studying before you make yer next trip. And by the way, hope you fall in a pit of shit while you wipe your ass with your hand.
Asshole.
Karma referes to the deeds that a person does. The belief in Hinduism is that these deeds (good/bad) affect your future (and future lives).
It can also be used in a another sense- duty or work. Every person has duties towards society based on his profession. As an engineer for instance, your duty is to write good code etc. The Geeta refers to this meaning a lot, especially where it says that we have authority only over our work/duty, but not on the fruit of it (Karmanye vadhikaraste ma faleshu kadachana).
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
If i had the points man. Really, BG isn't that bad a guy, i know M$ sucks, but he did build a multi-national, multi-billion company out of his garage, he deserves a little respect. The point is this one man has given nearly 6 billion *pinky to mouth* dollars to charity.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
If NTFS is not cleanly unmounted it requires cleaning, one of the MAJOR reasons to journel.
And ACL's on NTFS, they are FAR worse than on netware which really did do them right the first time.
/* FUCK - The F-word is here so that you can grep for it */
"You couldn't become either an automotive engineer or a mechanic without taking cars apart, nor can you become a decent CS grad, or admin, without disecting a few systems and seeing what makes them tick."
And you can't do it without the source.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
ACL's done _right_ on NT? Give me a break!
:-)
For those tuning in late, the UI for modifying an ACL on a directory gave the user two choices: either replace all underlying ACL's, or applying it just to the directory.
The first would run the risk of wiping out all ACL's at a deeper level (I've seen the results of a misguided sysadmin wiping out the ACL's of all user directories, and it ain't pretty). Not applying it recursively of course leaves you with inconsistent ACL's.
The beauty of Netware's ACL's was mentioned, but that solution would've been a serious deviation from the VMS heritage on which NT was built.
To do ACL's right on NT isn't impossible (and maybe the interface has improved since NT 4.0, the last Windows release I'm certified on
But to do it right would mean designing a user interface which can do the _intended_ change (e.g., downgrade write access to readonly for user BILLG) without overwriting other restrictions. This would require a dialog such as the Word dialog when changing styles on selected text with multiple styles, which would at best be a challenge in training in its own right (how many people do you know that know how to operate the Style menus in Word? Just checking).
I've dealt with ACL's on VMS, on RACF, on Netware and on NT. The only one I liked was the only one I could explain to fledgling administrators. The fact that you can't go back and undo a change on NTFS is something that goes so badly against user expectations that it just doesn't stick.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
The point he was making that in windows it's often not documented, so it often ends up with trial and error, hours of kb searches, or just reinstalling with fingers crossed. In Linux, you have the source and the configuration files are human readable, you just need to find the beginning of the yellow brick road and follow it.
/etc/inittab and follow the rail of scripts, first the script on the 'si:' line, then look at the 'default:' line, and follow the 'l?:' line with '?' the runlevel. You'll probably find most your start and stop scripts in /etc/init.d, and /etc/rcS.d with links from /etc/rc?.d
/etc, and per user ones in '.*' (hidden) files or directories of the user's home directory.
/etc/postfix... duh.
"bringing up Runlevels,"
Start at
Most other configurations are in
Sendmail problems? Try postfix, you'll love it. Easier to configure, easier to understand, and better security track record. btw, configuration is in
Got a kernel panic and it's not because youre using the 2.5.x unstable kernels? -> Most probably hardware that is breaking down.
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
Well, it seems clear that most of you don't have any idea of WHAT the Gyandoot project is...It is *NOT* some kind of cybercafe, but a govt. initiative for IT-enabling rural areas, so that all the info required by the largely farmer-populace is available and accessible electronically - land records, foodgrain prices across the world, market info, weather etc...This info is crucial to farmers and helps them to keep in touch with the world...these kiosks have custom local language software, easy to use interfaces and this effort is recognised and widely appreciated the world over and funded by the World Bank...so money is *NOT* the only question...its the FREEDOM that matters...
Please check World Bank Info on Gyandoot
pardon me, but "plain economics" has a bad side. how come nobody (here or in govt) seems to raise a stink that Dell & other american companies are farming out their tech jobs to India? sure, it makes it cheaper for Dell, etc, but that depresses wages here in the states. today my wife met a programmer with 10 years experience whose company just offered her a job for $17/hour -- becuase they can get Indians to do the work for $4/hour, the programmer's boss thought she'd be happy with his "generosity".
This is also more significant than any individual Chinese state going OSS.
If I recall correctly, India also has the largest English speaking population. Since English (or specifically 'Merican) is the base tech language, it makes developments in India immediately accessible to the rest of the world.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
You see the happy smiling person walking down the street holding the hand of his girlfriend? That will never be you, might as well get used to your parents basement and scaring females with your odour.
What nonsense? Voluntary association is the essence of capitalism. It is nothing less than the core philosophy of capitalism. The first prerequisite of capitalism is that individuals are free to interact (trade) on a voluntary basis.
Again, what is voluntary about "you have food, I do not have food"? The person without food does not voluntarily go hungry.
The core philosophy of capitalism is *not* freedom: it is property. The two are not entirely compatible. What good is freedom if it is only the freedom to choose which master I will serve?
On the PII laptop, I get various GCC coredumps, One the Celeron Fileserver, I get Errors during Make_Modules, on the PIV, it completes, but kernel panics when you use the image. It's from using the install tree that came with the distribution, and it's from getting the latest stable tree from Kernel.org This is with minimum Makefiles, full make files, 'make oldconfig' makefiles, I've yet to get one that'll work. Oh, and the distribution is RH8 All I wanted was the ability to mount (RO) an NTFS partition, which ISN'T compiled onto RedHat's kernel by default. Surfing around, I found another pre-compiled kernel that FUBU's during the RPM install. (RPM -iv blah.rpm - error - RPM -iv blah.rpm - blah.rpm already installed.) And this is all with READING THE FREE DOX and compiling the available code. And I'm sure very few other people had this problem.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
That whole gift economy thing is just ESR trying to use free software to justify his warped political views (private property is The One True Holy Principle, other people don't really exist, etc.). Since when is the land of free software one of abundance? Just about every project is crying out for more developers. The unusual thing about free software is not the lack of "significant material-scarcity problems with survival goods," but the zero-marginal-reproduction-cost and the some-programmers-are-phenomenal factors. This enables cooperation among relatively few geographically dispersed people to produce lots of good software.
Look at his analogies:
1) Potlach -- consipicuous consumption as a display of wealth
2) Super-rich people's philanthropy -- they are realizing that when they die people will say they were bastards
Neither of these situations is remotely similar to a the globally-distributed non-hierarchical cooperative project that is the free software movement.
Here, London, big bank (think big please, you may guess correctly). We are evaluating Linux. For both desktop and backoffice. Linux is credible today and most people are realizing that even in the technically illeterate board rooms.
I saw your post while I was meta-moderating, and though I don't agree that your post is a troll, you have a few well-placed stereo-types in your head about things.
;)
First off, Mac OSX is NOT a linux based OS, it's based on FreeBSD. It's like saying that MacOS and AmigaOS are the same thing because they both run on motorola processors. This may be an anal point, but it's very important.
Second, apple hardware and software is NOT significantly more expensive than a PC. It sounds to me like you're falling victim to megahertz marketing where you compare a p3-800 to a g3-800 and expect the same performance. Let's not even mention TCO with a Mac vs. Windows in terms of support and service. I used to work telephone tech support at an ISP in my region, in the Mac queue. And yes, while it is true that there are fewer Mac users, the problems we experienced were always much simpler than the PC side of the house. Invariably it was "I forgot my password" or "I can't download an email message because it's too big".
In so far as an integrated groupware suite, you are correct in that there is NOT a comprehensive solution that is ready for prime time yet. But, remember, the linux application development cycle is MUCH shorter than on a windows platform, especially when Microsoft is doing it
Finally, have you ever actually used a linux office suite? Like Star Office, or Open Office, to try and open a document? Have you done it lately? Perhaps you should sit down, install a copy of RedHat 8.0 on a decent machine, and see the functionality you have.
Aha, but property *is* freedom: the freedom to own and control property (including your own body), and the freedom to trade property with others on a voluntary basis. This is why capitalism requires limited (or non-existent) government: the level of freedom and property rights is proportional to the size of government. Taxing is the process of acquiring property by force, and this represents involuntary association, which is hostile to the philosophy of capitalism, i.e. voluntary association. The purest form of capitalism is therefore anarchy, or the total non-existence of the state.
The person without food does not voluntarily go hungry.
This is a common misconception. Capitalism does not guarantee equal outcome, only equal opportunity. Under capitalism, all individuals are equal in terms of liberty -- and hence, in terms of opportunity. Socialism is the political philosophy which was supposed to achieve equal outcome, at the expense of equal opportunity. The two concepts are essentially philosophical opposites.
The concepts of freedom and property are not only compatible, they are one and the same. You cannot achieve one without the other. Be aware that property rights do not imply property, but only the equal opportunity to acquire and control property.
(Sigh ... time to feed the off-topic troll ...) it's been me, or I wouldn't have 2 daughters, now would I?
It's just that now that they're on their own, I'm being more discriminating in what my next girlfriend is going to be like.
But, back on topic ... I can see cyber-cafes in Asia using a mix of technologies, just as we do elsewhere in the world.
And, as per your post, just like it takes all kinds to make a world.