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.
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.
I guess that was the last Bill Gates contribution to AIDS in India...
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..
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.
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
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.
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)
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
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
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!
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"
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)
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
at what point, does other OS's have sufficient market share, and then Microsoft wont be concidered a monopoly?
Normal Answer: When Microsoft is no longer the dominant player in both the OS and applications markets and they stop using their muscle to put small companies out of business.
Slashdot Answer: When Bill Gates is drawn and quartered in a town square in Finland and Redmond is a deep, smouldering crater.
Trolling is a art,
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($0)
2. Both being free, Windows is easier to use.
3. Tools(MS VStudio) is also free.
All the stories u see in slashdot are exxagerated.
95% of developers in India target MS Win.
thats it. simple.
Life is just a conviction.
Why can't the US make such a switch? I know they have a lot invested in there M$ 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.
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.
The site www.mp.nic.in is running Microsoft-IIS/4.0 on NT4/Windows 98.
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.
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
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)
CmdrTypo strikes again. It should of course read ".. convert from Lin to Win".
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
Yes, a representative of the govenment of the single largest country on Earth is of no importance or interest. That he is acting in opposition to half a billion dollars of bribes distributed by Gates in person doesn't make it news and the possibility that this will undermine the Microsoft hegemony in every developing country in the world and may even impact the EU's attitude to free software is never going to matter to the readers of /. Or perhaps you need to look outside your own window once in a while.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
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.
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
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.
Been to redmond lately? It already IS a deep, smoldering crater. Another Bellevue, alas. It used to be something more than a mall and the belly of the beast.
Then make me a foe. :P
And you've missed the point entirely. By your same arguement, I haven't seen the support issues you're describing.
Purchasing server grade hardware, server grade operating systems and server grade support, I haven't seen these BSOD's your talking about. Nor do I have any machines (or workflow issues) sitting idle because I can't access Microsoft's code.
I DO have a few machines that can't recompile a kernel to save their lives. Take the exact goddamn makefile and code tree, and it's compiling on my P4 desktop, but not the Celeron fileserver OR the PII 266 laptop.
It's all about perception, dude, don't tell me your shit don't stink.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
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.