Slashdot Mirror
Speaking Out For Free Software In India
inode_buddha writes "We all know how RMS and Bill Gates toured India recently, with mostly mixed reviews. The reviews don't seem so mixed after reading this memo
regarding the use of software in Indian schools... and it's interesting how quickly these people pick up on the business.
IMHO, this letter ranks up there with the Peruvian Congressman's letter to Microsoft in clarity and impact.
People worldwide are beginning to wake up, and this needs to be shouted from the (networked) hills... "
4.1 If our students are to really understand and learn programming and develop software skills, they should learn not only to use computers, but also understand why they function the way they do. This involves learning programing skills. To learn programing, students should have access to source code of the software they use. We trust that you have studied and understood the terms under which the corporation, whose software is currently prescribed for study, licenses its software. It should be emphasised that they do not provide access to source code, which is a a closely guarded secret. By insisting on programs from a particular company, the government is denying our students an opportunity to learn about programs and software development skills. We need not repeat that this policy would not help our community in the long run.
This is exactly why closed source software should banned from educational use. When studying literature you can see how the author strings the words together to create a novel. There is no better way to understand how something works than to examine how the various pieces come together to form the whole.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
This letter was submitted by an analogue of a LUG; although it would be nice were it otherwise, a LUG has hardly the influence of a Peruvian Senator.
Still, it's nice to see that someone is fighting the good fight in India.
Ordinarily, donations from Bill and Linda Gates come from the Gates Foundation, and are made without press releases and public fanfare. This is how it should be. And don't get me going on how generous they are, with MS giving away such small percentages compared to other corporations...
In the last few weeks, we all saw the headlines about Gates giving India millions to support AIDS groups, and how he intends to invest more to help programmers in India as well. Why was this act a headline, when others are normally done quietly?
Because Gates is trying to buy MS favor with India using the sick and dead as a pole to tie his promotional flag to. It stinks, and no one but the most stubborn is buying it for a minute.
==-==
Remember, investing in MS is asking to have your own money used against you in the market place.
A free app is worthless if it doesn't do what I need.
that is precisely the point -- even if MS would give their software to the IT@SCHOOL project for free it would not be acceptable.
in the larger view, "do what I need" is not as simple as "performance" and "superiority". it is a healthy IT industry in 10 years, a government not controlled, in essence, by a large foreign software company.
The zealots can't seem to grasp this.
at least in some cases, the zealots are not so unfortunately short-sighted.
MORTAR COMBAT!
It's also interesting how recently slashdot editors are picking up on the fact that there is significant technical awareness even in countries they've never heard of.
Build stuff. Stuff that walks, stuff that rolls, whatever.
I think it's a great letter and I agree with most all of the points made and they are made well...
/. and elsewhere touting the fact that Linux was chosen for this and other academic projects, but from reading this letter it seems now to be in doubt.
But, I don't see why it's so earthshaking. It's basically a letter written to government officials from a free software user's group - what do you expect 'em to say? Its analogous to a Linux User's group somewhere drafting a letter to send to their state officials.
So no, I don't think it ranks up there with the letter by the Peruvian representative. If it were written by a group of government officials to other government officials then it would be a big deal.
Actually reading this letter I was disappointed to find out that Gates' visit apparently had some impact on decisions that were being made by the IT@SCHOOL project in this particular Indian state. A few weeks back there were articles on
How much impact do you think this letter (however good their arguments are) will have on these government officials compared to Bill Gates spreading $millions all over India to buy off these officials?
Somebody stop that man!
No permanent wedding here. Yes there are microsoft lovers and *nix lovers in indian IT. And I dont know for what reason media coverage is goven mostly to MS lovers.... but the ratio is balanced. Companies in CRM, ERM etc are wedded to M$ as their clients in US/Europe are. However go towards IC design, Networking, embedded software the wedding is with *nix... some linux and much solaris.
As far as the upcoming generation, the top rated colleges have LAN's built on linux. I passed out in '01... and we were fed on a linux and solaris diet. The professors, lecturers.. esp the senior folks are very strong advocates of linux coz in the 80's when ernet(out sorf of college internet) came up it was entirely on unix. 8Kbps of blazing speed and mail could be sent within 24 hours. It was a miracle ;-). So I would not worry too much about it. India has been late in linux no doubt.. but we will soon catch up.
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I don't know if you know the tagline, free as in Freedom, not free as in beer.
The reason people are throwing their voices behind Linux is because of the freedom it affords the users. You are very much in control of your machine. It is yours. The software, that's yours. The data you generate, that's yours too. The documentation, that's also yours. But it's not yours alone, it's everyone else's too.
This is a very powerful idea, and it works in this case because of the negligible cost of duplicating software.
People are not involved in this fight (if a fight it truly is, to many it's not) in order to simply hate something. It is to free themselves, to gain some measure of self-control and power in some small, but substantial way. If Microsoft were to completely vanish from the face of the Earth, I think that people would find other things to rail against, and they would very likely line up along the same path. What would be the next target? Whatever restricted freedoms the most.
And should Linux "win" it would be a win for the BSD's, a win for the Hurd, a win for OpenBeOS, a win for ReactOS, and a win for every other Free OS out there, as well as Free software in general. It's not about Linux, it's about freedom and any free OS would win, it just happens that Linux is in the spotlight moreso than the others.
So if you're running Linux just to save a couple of bucks, then I can't fault you, but what you're missing out is the sensation of freedom and power. I personally love the fact that I can contribute to Debian and various programs wherever I see a need. I could never do this with Windows or my old Mac (pre-OSX). I certaintly can't add a program to Windows the way I can incorporate a program that I like in to Debian, no way no how. That's power and that's freedom and it's an amazing thing to take part in. So rather than whine about your $34, why not think about your windows system and all the ways that you're restricted from it, and then maybe you'll see why people are so excited over this whole Free thing.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Yes, but you seem to hold the misconseption that the US government shouldn't use open source since it has enough money to pay for proprietary software
I think that no matter how much money the government has it should go for the open source. Having money doesn't justify wasting it. (It's your taxes it comes from after all). Also the money saved could be put to better uses
- We are the slashdot. Resistance is futile. Prepare to be moderated -
Jimmy's orthodontist uses a closed-source OS in the office for everything. This closed-source OS has a security hole. Not only that, but it's a known security hole that the company decided wasn't worth fixing. So even though the computer is regularly auto-updated, this hole remains unpatched because the corporation decided not to. The orthodontist's computer is broken in to and Sally's credit card information is stolen, and all the billing records for the orthodontist is stolen. This causes incredible headache for Sally over the next year or more.
We don't all have to be programmers to benefit from freedoms. We don't all have to be writers to benefit from freedom of speech, because we can all read what others have written and learn from it. We don't all have to be recluses to benefit from a right to privacy. Freedoms benefit you in more ways than you can realize, and it is a sign of enslavement when you're willing to sacrifice them for nothing.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
I think the last people who will catch on will be the people of the U.S.A. I am a U.S. citizen and it just makes me crazy that people still think computers are expected to crash and "reboot" is how to fix your problems.
This is the main failing of the OSS community. They all think that EVERYONE in the world is a coder.
I don't think so.
It would be far more correct to say that the main failing of the closed source "community" is that they treat EVERYONE in the world as a consumer.
"Don't create products! That's what we're here for. You want a custom program? Here's Visual Basic, where you can draw and design your GUI and cobble it together from custom parts that we build for you. That'll be $1,079 thank-you. [cha-ching!]
"Oh, I see you've developed the next-big-thing using the tools we sold you? And you're selling it to other people? Here, allow us to
(a) Create an identical product and undercut your price
(b) Buy you out
(c) Claim patent on your idea and shut you down.
(d) Change our API to break your code"
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
I'm not US Citizen but I have some views on that.
US Goverment has no need to go free source because have the power to have 'special' agreements with MS, in relation with licensing issues and 'special features on MS software'.
The antimonopoly trial its all a lie. US Goverment is fully interested in keeping MS monopoly as its a global monopoly. If MS was for example German, the trial would have ended other way.
MS soft on computers all over the world its a very desirable situation from the point of view of US Gov. For sure.
Furthermore, US Gov can state special agreements regarding obscure features with the purpose of getting all kind of info from users or opening backdoors.
I have no probe of that but viewing how US gov agencies work... its for sure.
It's just my point, and from this, thinking about US gov promoting free software its a joke.