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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... "
1.3 Even if the said corporation whose software is chosen provides software free of cost, we submit that the government should not include it in the syllabus. Providing schools or other educational institutions software at little or no cost, while the same software is sold at very high prices in the open market is a marketing trick.
Its official - India is smarter then the USA.
Currently ther's been a lot of talk about things like the DMCA and other laws which restrict infomation flow in different ways
This all makes me wonder... could it be possible that countries who are more open source avare and benefit less from proprietary software would introduce laws which restrict the possibilities for proprietary software, just as some laws already restrict open source software in countries which benefit more from proprietary software.
Thoughts anyone?
.: Max Romantschuk
and whether it competes successfully against Microsoft can really only be fought in these newly technologically maturing countries such as India and China. The war against Microsoft was long ago lost to the US. 95% of all OS are Microsoft in the US. But in China and India there is still a chance that Microsoft will not gain a majority much less a monopoly. Let's work together with these countries to ensure that Microsoft doesn't become a global monopoly and eventually more powerful than the US government!
India has a huge enough population and an already established I.T sector that even if half the population of educated proffesionals support either M$ or open src they're already big winners. The obvious bonus is to get the most behind you. I don't know what RMS is going to do, Gates has already won the popularity contest.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
"Do something man. Right now."
Problem statement: .... u get the picture. :)
People are used to windows. In India, widespread piracy has ensured that Windows is avaiable with almost every grey market PC and in every school/home/office.
Linux lurks in the background as a potential replacement, but most people are just not comfortable with the idea. Including SysAdmins! I know, cause i have worked in enuf companies to see that.
The actual trick to popularize Linux is a hack of sorts... complain regularly to the local antipiracy people about illegal usage of Windows in office! IT WORKS!
A very large company (i shall keep its name to myself, considering my brother works in one of its sister concerns)once had its offices raided by the local antipiracy guys here (called NASSCOM). The same evening, their sysadmin called up the admin guy in my company to ask about the feasiblity of using StarOffice iinstead of MSO.
As a tech writer, my admin guy decided that i might be the best person to give an unbiased review. It turned out that for their purposes, SO (and OOo)was good enough, so i recommended that they go ahead.
I have no idea if they actually did, but i hope they did.
Another important factor to note is that people may be a little wary of using Linux as their OS, but replacing MSO with OOo is a less stressful option for them!
It might be a good idea for people to start asking for OOo on machines from their vendors. even if it comes with XP or 2k etc.
It takes away quite a few dollars from MS, which if u have read the reports has only 2 money making divisions with MSO being one of them. A reduced cash flow there (in addition to helping customers get great value for money - a complete office suite for free!) would cause MS to light a fire under the antipiracy guys who would raid more companies looking for illegal copies of that and piss more companies into using OOo which would further reduce the dependence of customer and deplete MSO revenues which would light another fire underthe
its certainly possible in india at least... at least 1 (Zenith) of the 2 big local PC vendors here has no deals with MS and may be open to the idea of bundling OOo. additionally there are a lot of intel authorised dealers (essentially former grey market guys) who provide a lot of the home PCs in the country! now it remains to actually implement all this...
A crank is a little thing that makes revolutions
Isn't it fascinating how virtually *every* pro-MS comment here is from "Anonymous Coward"? TCO analysis depends substantially on the intended outputs of your "engine of commerce". If your product is going to be creative, resourceful programmers, engineers, scientists, and critical thinkers, my answer is different than one might prescribe for a traditional office environment. The "expense" and "lack of interconnectivity" demons seem to be unsubstantiated FUD in this case. You know, until XP came out I usually recommended Microsoft solutions to my business clients and Unix/Mac solutions for non-profit/academic clients. With the new licensing burden and onerous EULA, it is getting much tougher to say Microsoft with a straight face... smoke that one for a while.
The result is that innovation happens elsewhere and the US remains isolated. The US is correct in believing that the free market fosters innovation and progress, but does not heed its own advice and protects its home-grown industries. It would not suprise me if we don't see non-US technology (cough Symbian) making significant inroads into the US market to a point where tarrifs are introduced on non-US tech.
The SimPuter is a great example of this. If it's afforable to Indian citizens, I'd be interested to see how appealing it is to US pockets.
Don't get your hopes up. There's still LOTS of corruption, especially with anything related to the bureacracy, regardless of the good intentions. I'm Indian, born there and raised here since I was 2. Our friends here and relatives there say that if want to help some cause, do it yourself or through a trusted NGO, but not through the government.
Things are much better now, having improved over the last 2 decades because of business reforms, but there's still a long way to go. So essentially, a company, or any multi-national, could probably still make lot of headway by buying off the right decision makers.
The primary advantage that OSS has is primarily cost and the fuzzy feel-good mission of it. But they are pragmatists, so if the world wants MSFT, then they will oblige, especially if MSFT can make concessions.
China has a much better shot of escaping the clutches of MSFT, because they benefit, ironically, from being authoritarian (or whatever they've morphed into today). The Chinese government mandate to pursue OSS is probably more effective than the advocacy or advice of some groups in India. Because in the end, Indian software developers are free to pursue their business interests, just like American ones, so many will engage MSFT because of that.
But that's just my opinion.
and as the register pointed out.. $100 million fighting aids. $423 million fighting Open Source. Thanks Bill.
When you've got as much money as Bill Gates, giving it away is about the only realistic option.. it's just more money than a person can reasonably spend!
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The problem today is that India's programmers, as a resource, are commoditized. They no longer cost 10% of what you would expect to pay in North America, as an example.
While I believe that Indians are by far the most skilled coders available, the fact that the costs have risen to match other resources, as an example, means India has lost the opportunity it had ten years ago, which was to corner the software development market.
There are new areas with similar resource avaiable today, and the cost for coders in these countries is again 10% of North America. How will India's programmers perform in tomorrow's market when other sources are ready for pennies on the dollar....all of these conversations should have been held many years ago.
Being selfish can work great for an individual. The government is not supposed to care about what is "easy" or "entertaining". The government is entrusted with a mighty responsibility, and if you take that responsibility seriously, and look at the long-term effects of beginning to suckle at Microsoft's teat... you realise fairly quickly that for a little bit of "fiddling" and "work", in 10 years India can control its own destiny, instead of being enslaved by annual Microsoft subscription fees.
MORTAR COMBAT!
This is the main failing of the OSS community. They all think that EVERYONE in the world is a coder.
WRONG.
John is an accountant. He determines how his company's money adds up. That's what he went to school for, that's why he was hired. It's not his job to tweak the FIFO function in OpenExcel. That's YOUR JOB. That's why we hired you, IT person.
Sally is a housewife. She uses a computer to do things for her family. She has no time to write a driver for the new GeForce card, Jimmy's braces are way more important than some piece of software.
Understand this. Computer users compose of greater than 99% non coders. OSS means nothing (and should not) to these people. Your freedom is non existent, as you are trapped in a prison of your own mind's making.
Among the first things he did was to put two people from his team on Linux forums.
/. I guess that they are not a few... Apart of those who clearly and sincerly believe in Windows world, there are a few posters that are too M$ prone and too enthusiastic to be sincere. Just a note to a few of them who are too fanatic to flame everything and everyone. This site was always been an OSS site. And I believe that while OSDN will fund it, it will keep that way. Before FUDding here the community, name them mindless jerks and immature adolescents, note that crying here "you slashdotters" picks you outta the crowd. As here, for 4 years I never heard that people would say "you penguins", "the solarians", "evil BSDs" or "appleworms". Remember that you entered /. so it is quite silly to put yourself outta the group and crying "you slashdotters". And what concerns the yellow journalistics of some /. admins, well we are used to it and we have enough flame for them, apart of your cheap FUD.
I wonder how many such people are now in Linux forums... By the way the flame rose up in
And sincerly to all these Windows fans. Why do you don't take the guts and ask M$ to create a similar site? It would be much better than playing this stupid psychological war inside an OSS forum. I even may suggest a name for it - "Start Button"...
The Microsoft discount is a marketing trick. They are betting on the fact a person will not look at the long term effects. Initially, the free copy of Office is enticing, but later on he will realize that he is too used to Microsoft software and resigns to start paying through his ass for licenses.
With free software, users are offered what they will always be offered: software free of charge (among other things).
I think that the target is around 10-20 computers per school. Do you think that having 15 computers running 5 significantly different sets of software is useful in grade school? How about 15 computers running 3 different sets of software? Do you not think that there should be a standard? Should different versions of textbooks be written and published to accomodate the 10 different systems?
What it boils down to is that, even if students initially get used to one particular set of free software applications, getting hooked on a free software application doesn't cause as much harm as getting hooked on proprietary application. Hmm...what exactly is the danger of getting hooked on free software? (Aside from "free software is communist and is a bad thing for all of humanity").
and as the register pointed out.. $100 million fighting aids. $423 million fighting Open Source. Thanks Bill.
In other news, the people of India today presented the editors and readers of Slashdot with absolutely nothing, in recognition of the donations they haven't made to the treatment of AIDS.
When Eric Raymond matches Bill Gates dollar for dollar (hell, dollar for thousand dollars, even), then maybe the Open Source community will have grounds to criticize the Gates Foundation, but not before.
It might be not such a bad idea. Schools should not teach the use of a particular software. They should teach ideas and concepts. Showing two computers with the same hardware but different OSes could make a great class about what an operating system _is_. Students could be encouraged to point out similarities and differnces between the design of the OSes.
The result of this would be that when these students will face for the first time Windows2020 or KDE9.4, having understood the basic concepts behind any software design, they would not be scared by the different look&feel and they will need little or no training to use the new tools.
Ciao
----
FB
What is at stake here is the quality of the education and freedom from monopolies. In my university days (Norwegian Institute of Technology, Trondheim), we did use some proprietary software (namely SunOS and Ingres), but there was no mention of these in the curriculum. The courses were named "Compiler Technology", "Programming Languages", "Operating Systems", "Algorithms & Data structures", "Database Systems" etc.; not "Using M$ Visual C++", ".Net Web Services", "Optimizing M$ SQL Server" etc. Not once were we forced to study or use software of any given brand. Seeing how some other educational institutions are tied in to specific brands and vendors, and how this affects the quality of the education, startles me. They no longer teach IT in general; they teach "Using ". Kerala; you cannot afford to fall in this trap !!
"And you are dying so slowly, you believe to be living" - Bertrand Besigye
since it gave up looking towards India as a market. The real value of India to MS is its developers. India holds 10% of the worldwide software force. That's the reason why you can still go to the streets and pick up any software for $2. If MS clamps down on that, Linux gets the boost.